Calvin Baker - Grace

When I came out of the bathroom she was standing near the door, waiting.

“I’m sorry.” Her pretty face looked up at me. “I hope I didn’t upset you.”

“Everything is fine,” I told her. “It’s late.”

“You’re a real gentleman,” she said, “I like that.” She pressed her sweaty body against me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “I like you.”

Upstairs we could hear the thump of feet on the terrace, dancing to Biggie Smalls. Downstairs our mouths had closed upon each other’s, and she trembled in my arms, letting loose a yelp of startling, primal ferocity, as the kiss grew in intensity.

We were both drunk by then and rode back to my place together, making out in the cab, where her cries of passion intensified, her entire body purring beneath me, like a crouching predator. She freed her breasts, which were full in the warm air, stoking the hunger that had throbbed between us all night.

“Take me,” she commanded, when we reached my apartment. “Do whatever you want.”

Seeing her in the context of my apartment made me realize what a mistake I had made. She was bland, with nothing special about her I could discern, because there was nothing special about her that she had discovered. She was simply part of a certain group at a certain moment, a way of speaking and dressing and looking at the world that was expensively purchased, but less than it wished to seem. Brands and references instead of personality. I did not want to be the kind of person who used other people for their bodies. Her skin crawled with sex, though, and the dull desire I’d felt when I first saw her renewed itself. I was not entirely reconciled to the idea of taking her to bed, and was even vaguely ashamed of knowing what I did and wanting to fuck her anyway. As I tried to decide what to do she coiled herself around me, and I smelled her truffled perfume and salted sweetness, my mind revving until I was sober again with the sudden thought that I did not want her. It was the bone of her hips that when I touched them flooded me with the overwhelming sense she was not my woman. My lust fled.

Her presence in my apartment began to fill me with sadness, and I could not adequately explain to myself how she had come to be there, as I searched for a decent way to bring the matter to a close.

“Take me,” she commanded again.

“We should not.”

“I thought you wanted me.”

“I did. I do.”

“Fuck me in the ass,” she breathed.

I had no rational objection to what any two consenting adults did with one another, and believed firmly in the universal right to introduce any direct object in any prepositional relation to whatever indirect object so desired. I simply did not want her, and cringed at myself for trying to steal a handful of passion with someone I did not love. Take me. Do what you want. I do not care who you are, I just want to get off. Not: Take me. I am yours. Do what you want. Just be careful what you do to me. I am yours.

As she reached for me in the billowing darkness we started making out again, the booze and loneliness telling me to be satisfied with the woman in my bed. The voice inside telling me there is no broken blessing like when who is in your arms is not in your heart, and the better part of disgrace too.

“Let’s stop.” I pulled away.

“Why not just enjoy ourselves?” she asked.

I did not know what to tell her without sounding like a prude. It felt foolish and awkward already, and I issued a limp apology. The bridge of want between us had drawn back completely, as I traced her hips and derrière wistfully beneath the thin fabric of her shorts, knowing what desire there was between us was only the pettiest of lusts; and not the self revealing its true hunger and true generosity that I craved. Not that I was above lust. It was only that if I was to have lust alone I wanted it at least to be the ungovernable lust that would plunge me to the bottom of all wanting.

“You’re not going to give me your black cock, baby?” I thought I heard her say. I chose to hear, You’re not going to call me a black car, baby?

“You’ll have to get a yellow cab on the street.”

“What?” she asked sharply.

“I thought you asked me to call you a car.” Some people belong to you, and you to them — as relatives, lovers, friends, or only kindred passengers enjoying a romp below decks when the ship is in the middle of the ocean and land infinitely far away. You realize how unnatural it is to be there adrift, but the crossing, the defying of what is natural, is what people do, and the holding each other is what delivers you back to the harmony of yourself.

There are people who do not belong to you as well, but sometimes your inborn sense of orientation is dampened, or you think to ignore it. I handed her the rest of her clothes.

“I’ll take the subway,” she said.

“It is too late.”

“Then I’ll go down, and wait on the street.” She stormed angrily out of the apartment into the hall, looking thwarted and humiliated.

I followed her to the elevator, and rode down with her to the lobby. I had brought her home through some fault in my instinct I was nonetheless responsible to. She refused to meet my eye, and when we reached the street she began walking away in the pale morning light. I went after her, wondering how I found myself in such a situation, until she stopped at last, and a taxi pulled up to the curb.

“Goodnight,” I told her, as she ducked in. “Get home safely.”

She glowered a moment, refusing to speak, and radiating a look of utter contempt as she closed the door.

I went to the deli for breakfast, hoping Mr. Lee might be there to make light of my troubles. He had not arrived yet, no doubt he was home with his family. I took my egg sandwich and ate as I walked the deserted morning streets back to my apartment, empty but for the pigeons in their nooks, seagulls fishing over the river, and, high above them, a pair of red-tailed hawks, arcing and diving together upon their prey.

I was surprised when she tried to reach me the next day, and did not answer her call. I did not know what to say to her, and preferred to forget the entire encounter. I was nagged only by the question of what we owe those with whom we have shared intimate space, even if it’s haphazard or ill-advised. Minutes later, she sent a text saying she wished to apologize, and I told her it was not necessary. When she called again I relented, thinking she deserved the opportunity to be heard and unburden herself. The feeling of closure and possibility of atonement.

I had an appointment near Union Square that afternoon, and offered to meet for an early evening drink, thinking it better to handle the matter face to face. She agreed, and asked to meet at the Boathouse in Central Park, at six thirty.

It was eleven o’clock already, and my head pulsed with a self-reproaching hangover, making it impossible to concentrate and get any work done. I browbeat myself to the gym, and afterward went to meet my former editor, Bea, for coffee.

Bea was seated in a booth near the window when I arrived. Her white hair fashionably cut, her dark eyes awake and focused as ever. She looked older than I last remembered, but radiated the same keen presence that struck me each time I saw her. It was an alertness that inspired confidence in whomever she gave her attention to, not merely in her but in a world that could produce such a magnificent person. It was reassuring just to be near her.

She saw me enter, and waved me over to the same table we had sat at when we first met, where she had appraised each new arrival, weighing their merits and defects without seeming judgment, like some wise, ancient elder who had seen all the spectrum of experience. The conversation that first evening went on into the small hours, as we discussed the best of what had been written and said, thought and acted upon. I was twenty-eight at the time, working as a stringer for the Associated Press, and more than a career opportunity it seemed to me the chance to learn from someone I respected.