Charles Baxter - The Feast of Love

Suspicious, I went into the living room and did a thorough search, the dog following me. Finally I turned up a slip of paper hiding under the corner of the rug. On it was some handwriting that I recognized as Chloé’s. It seemed to be in code.

Living room §

Kitchen §

Kitchen table ¤

Bedroom

Bathroom shower

Basement

It appeared to be some sort of checklist. At first I imagined that she had gone around the house checking to make sure that everything was where it should be. I tossed the paper into the wastebasket and went back to making my dinner.

After dinner I fished the list back out of the wastebasket and checked it again, peering at the arcane doodled symbols. These kids, what had they done in my house? Living room, they wrote, followed by the strange coupled § symbol. I walked into the living room and sat down, not on the sofa, but on the floor. I closed my eyes and imagined these kids, the house sitters, also in the living room, engaged with each other so that their bodies formed a §. They laughed, they came together, they were solemn, and then they rested.

I imagined them, these kids, these newcomers to love, doing what kids do, exploring a house, having sex in the rooms, then the girl making a list of where and how, and as I sat there I heard the happy cry again plain as nightfall, and I thought: this house isn’t haunted, but it does have a memory, this house remembers what people have done here, and then it plays back those sounds like a bored and absentminded African parrot. I moved through the rooms, feeling my way through the passions these kids had had, how they laid each other in bed, forming a

In the basement I felt the two of them passing by me, felt the memory of their having been physically present there as the boy, Oscar, teased the girl, Chloé, while they looked at my paintings and talked about them, the girl leaning over and the boy, behind her, reaching over to touch her — there — at the base of her neck, a delicate spot for her. Then he extended his arms around her, still standing behind her, as if grasping for her animal heart. Words were spoken. They made love quickly, standing up, I think, and Chloé’s back, when she came, got damp. Then they turned off the lights and went upstairs. They were still somewhat frightened and impressed by the size and the majesty of their attraction to each other.

I follow them up the stairs. I watch them go into the kitchen and observe them making a dinner of hamburgers and potato chips. They recover their senses by talking and listening to the radio. I watch them feed each other. This is love in the present tense, and finally I have had enough of them, and I close my eyes, and when I open my eyes again, they are gone, and the house is mine again, at least for the time being.

All the same, there is still no comfortable place for me in the house. I am not much of a king, in my present condition. Passion occupies a space that is not vacated until another passion occupies it.

SMELLING OF ONION and garlic, what we did was, we’d lie in bed together, jabbering about the future, Oscar and me. This was in his room, because I was moving out of my roommates’ palace into my own efficiency and spending more time just now in Oscar’s bedroom, except for those days we house-sat at Bradley Smith’s. Oscar’s bedroom: like I already told you: trophies with bronzed guys running in place up on the shelf, his track shoes still on their nail, and snow drifting down outside. On his bookshelf: board games like Monopoly and Clue, relay batons from his track team, and busted video cartridges, dead Super Mario circuits and dead Ninja Warriors likewise. And right over there, up above us, located on the wall, was a crucified bronze Jesus I didn’t want to ask about, what he was doing there or anything. I was lying snug under the covers one day with my hand peacefully on Oscar’s dick, you know, holding it, it being only half-awake, similar to Oscar himself, ’cause we’d already done our lovemaking a couple times, and he, Oscar, was talkin’ about the future.

“I have this image,” he said.

“What image?”

“You know how people when they’re ultra-rich, they’ve got front hallways?”

I said yeah.

“There’s a name for it.”

“For what?”

He lowered himself down in bed and kissed me, a little tongue and lip thing, on my nipple. His tongue stud gave it, I don’t know, metallic content. Next to the bed we had acquired a bowl of popcorn that we microwaved a little while ago. When he kissed me, he tasted inside his mouth of buttered popcorn. Sometimes burned popcorn. It was like he was cooking snacks in there. My nipples stood up, it was almost painful.

“They’ve got a name for that, that room inside the front door. Where they put the big grandfather clocks and shit. You know. Also those things they put the umbrellas into.”

“Like, the foyer?”

“Fucking A.” He nodded. “The foyer.” He was so pleased with himself or with me, he woke up utterly and got a boomer Woodrow immediately. It lifted my hand up. His dick is like a human barometer that way. I started to go down on him but he said, “No, no, wait.” He put his fingers on my face and drew it up back to the pillow. His woody didn’t get discouraged. It stayed nestled in my girl-grip, and I could feel his heart beat through it. “See, here I am, comin’ home. Here’s Oscar. Oscar-of-the-future.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you gotta imagine this. Okay? Here I am, Oscar, and I’m comin’ home.”

“All right. You’re comin’ home. I’m imagining it.”

“Right. From what am I coming home? From whatever shit it is that I do. From my work.”

“Okay.”

“It’s, like, the end of the day. Quitting time. Factory whistles are blowing. And I’m comin’ home. Right? And in my truck, I’ve run into a detour which takes me around that new drive-in bank and this pond where the ducks have already flown south and that mini-mall and the multiplex. I’m just drivin’, my hands on the wheel. And I’m like, I don’t care about this detour. I am not bummed. We’re thinking up the future, okay? Now? This is what we’re doin’?”

“Okay.” Outside, I heard the sound of an airplane or something taking off. The furnace in the house started up.

“I’m comin’ home.” He got distracted and kissed me on the mouth and our tongues swirled for a while. Tongue stud action again. He shook his head like he was waking up. “I’m not comin’ home, I am home, see, and I’m comin’ in the door. My truck’s in the driveway.”

“Where am I, Oscar?”

“Where are you? Oh, okay. Honey, you’re inside. You’re inside this big house, Chloé, you’re doing household shit. How the fuck should I know? You gotta decide that for yourself, right? ’Cause you’d be totally adult and feminist and everything about it. You want something done in the house, you give orders and it happens. You’re tough. You’re a take-no-prisoners woman. A real tough chick. We’re alike, that way. Tough, I mean.”

“I’m in the house? I live with you?”

“Yeah, you’re there.”

“Wow. Okay.” I moved over and slipped his cock inside me. He was ultra-hard like a broomstick, but softer, Oscar being human.

“Don’t distract me,” he said. “So I’m comin’ in the front door, and I’ve got, like, the bills, that’ve come in the mail?”

“Right.”

“And Chloé, these are fucking huge bills. You never saw bills like this! These are bills for mortgages and shit, bills for the fucking dentist, bills for — I don’t know — the eye guy, and the shrink, and bills for the phone and the electricity, these are the biggest colossal bills you ever saw, and they came in the mail, and I’ve got them. I got them in my hand.”