Lily Hoang - Unfinished - stories finished by Lily Hoang

The one says: Look! The table is set perfectly. The cake is precisely in the middle of the table.

From the other room, Samson is ready to piss himself.

In the other room, the other notes: There is one single fork, one single napkin, and one single plate. This is cake is not for us.

From the other room, Samson is yelling in his head: Moron!!

In the other room, the one argues: We’ve already fucked here. There’s semen sprayed everywhere. We may as well eat the cake.

From the other room, Samson’s heartbeat regains a comfortable speed.

In the other room, the knife enters the cake.

From the other room, Samson is blind to it all.

Ruth props herself on her elbows, her body a diagonal platform. Just as quickly, she collapses.

Above her, there is exactly half a moon, a penny cut in two on railroad tracks. Even though she knows it won’t look anything like it does now, she takes a photograph anyway. Caption, she mumbles, so cold and far away .

Ruth has an entire collection of photographs captioned so cold and far away, but she doesn’t let anyone see them. She puts them in plastic frames with engraved placards taped to their backs. She stows them in a locked drawer, lest Naomi comes snooping around — as she inevitably does — and finds them.

Ruth first began this collection of photographs the night she slept at the feet of Boaz. After she’d removed his shoes, just as Naomi had instructed her to do, she examined his toes. She said to herself, So cold and far away, which she’d intended more as a desire than a description, and snapped a quick shot before he woke.

This is not to say Ruth did not like Boaz. She liked him as much as any widow could like her dead husband’s next of kin. Which is to say that she loved him enough to marry him.

It was unbearably bright the day of their wedding, despite the heaps of snow. They couldn’t dig their way out to get to the church, but they married each other anyway. That night, Ruth fled her bedchamber to steal a glimpse of the stars. Instead, she saw Naomi’s silhouette slinking slowly towards Boaz.

Ruth doesn’t blame Naomi, but at times, she is resentful.

Ruth doesn’t blame Naomi because as long as she is married to Boaz, she is free to do as she wishes, as long as she maintains the guise of marriage. To Ruth, this is the best part of married life: the parties, the dinners, the reasons to don pearls and sapphires. They are simple people, but that does not mean they never indulge in small decadences.

And Boaz is a kind husband. He gives her private quarters. Although hers is a small house, more befitting servants or mothers-in-law, Ruth does not complain. It is an attempt at privacy, but she is unsure whose privacy Boaz is trying to protect more.

Theirs is a complicated love, one that is entirely unfair to judge from exterior walls, and they are a private family, one whose walls extend deep into the night sky.

Ruth doesn’t blame Naomi because this was, after all, Naomi’s clever scheme. Although Naomi is a woman at the height of middle age, her body and beauty have not waned. In fact, Naomi is perhaps more radiant now than when she was Ruth’s age. Her skin is buoyant, her breasts resilient. Her eyes are magnets. But it would not look right, a woman of Naomi’s age — much less one burdened with her dead son’s wife — to be on the market, unless of course her dead son’s wife were to be married off. And so it was Naomi who suggested that Ruth go out dancing, take some French lessons, start working out, and it was Naomi who first knew Boaz, who first guided his hand towards Ruth’s thigh. It was misleading, certainly, because Naomi wanted Boaz for herself. By then, surely, Ruth was devastatingly in love, but she was indebted to Naomi.

The day Boaz proposed, he indulged Ruth in unquantifiable ways: a quick trip to Paris for the most lavish dress, brunch with the Queen of England, a private concert by the Berlin Philharmonic, and of course, a spa treatment. Even then, she was surprised when she found a diamond ring at the bottom of her champagne glass. He thought it was original. Ruth used her hands to cover her smile. It was not that long ago that Naomi’s son had used the very same tactic on her. She had found it cliché then, as she does now, but Naomi’s son is dead and Ruth is a widow and, by any measure, Boaz is a fine man with fair wealth, and Ruth is not such a fool as to ignore any of these truths.

The night Boaz proposed, he demanded sex, but Ruth, being cunning, demanded that he again indulge her in unquantifiable ways and, once sated, she would give him sex. And so for hours, Boaz pleasured Ruth. For hours, Ruth sighed and hummed, until finally, exhausted from anticipation, she screamed. Then, she used the browned skin of her belly to clean off his face and called in Naomi to return his favor.

That night, Ruth went into the night and looked at the moon. It was large and distorted, more oval than round, a penny smashed by a train. She had never felt so invigorated and disgusted. She wanted to call Naomi a whore. She pursed her lips to squeeze out the sound but could not. Of course, she’d known Naomi was lingering outside their door all night. She knew Naomi was waiting for Boaz. She knew Naomi had been fucking him for months, and so only out of spite, she would not give Boaz what he was already getting from her mother-in-law.

There were lines, Ruth thought, between a wife and a mistress, and if a mistress provides a husband with a certain service, the wife should feel no obligation to provide that same service. Otherwise, there would be no necessity for the mistress.

No, Boaz would not get the same goods from both women, and for that reason alone, Ruth would be her husband’s greatest conquest.

And so it was for years and years. Boaz would enter Ruth’s quarters early in the evening, when the moon was close enough to touch, and he would pleasure her for hours. Some nights, the enticement of her body would be so keen that he would climax without being touched. Because she would not allow traditional penetration, Boaz would attempt to impregnate his wife by aiming his ejaculate as close to her as possible.

What Boaz did not know was that despite Ruth’s shields and pride, it was out of fear that she would not allow penetration. Her first husband — Naomi’s son — had died before they had consummated their marriage. Ruth was, in fact, a virgin.

The nights Boaz came and went from Ruth’s quarters, she would lie in bed and listen for Naomi. Every time, Boaz would call out not Naomi but Ruth’s name. Every time, as her mother-in-law fucked her husband, she would take a photograph when he called her name. On their backs, she inscribed, So cold and far away . They are a random assortment of photographs, most of them blurred and dark.

But Ruth loved those photographs as she loved Boaz.

During the day, Ruth had no obligations. She wandered around town, buying this and that. Then, she would return home and read or nap. All that was expected of her was that she dine exclusively with Boaz. It was not too much — he said — to ask of his own wife. And so for breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner, Ruth would trek to the main house, where Boaz and Naomi lived, to eat with her husband. During those meals, Boaz would tell her about his day, his business ventures, his unconditional love. During those meals, Boaz would explain to Ruth how Naomi was not his wife. Surely, he could recognize his luck in having two beautiful women but what he wanted most was Ruth.

Ruth would listen and occasionally clarify her plans for the day if they conflicted with his.

Naomi was never invited to dine with them. Instead, her meals were brought up to her room, which although it was in the main house, was in a separate wing. Boaz insisted that his room should be shared by no one but his own wife.