David Szalay - Spring

When he had finished yawning, he smiled at her. She looked desolate. There were dark indents under her eyes. ‘What is it?’

‘We’re just not having fun,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, we’re not having fun.’

‘Aren’t we?’

‘We’re like them,’ she said. He turned and saw a man and a woman just sitting at a table, looking off in different directions. ‘They haven’t said a word to each other since they got here.’

‘Then we’re not like them.’

However, they started to walk home in silence.

‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’

And she said the same thing—‘We’re just not having fun! You yawned. That’s not fun.’

‘I yawned…?’

‘When we were waiting for the bill. How fun is that?’ she said, upset. ‘That’s not exciting.’

‘So what if I yawned? I’m tired.’

‘You’re tired. Oh,’ she said sarcastically, ‘that’s good.’ She laughed in dismay.

‘Yes, I’m tired.’

‘Well…’ She shrugged. ‘Okay. You’re tired.’ They had slowed to a dawdle. Now they stopped. ‘What do you want me to say to that?’

‘You don’t have to say anything.’

‘Well…’ She seemed at a loss.

‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘Why is that such a problem?’

She sighed.

She was stiff and aloof in his arms.

She said, ‘It’s a problem because… we’re not having fun.’

‘No, we’re not. Not now.’ Their foreheads touching, they were looking down at her shoes. ‘Don’t put so much pressure on things. You put so much pressure on things,’ he said. She seemed to nod and they started to walk again, slowly. ‘We’re tired. That’s all.’

Leaving her shoes in the hall, she went into the living room while he unpacked the dessert.

When he joined her, she was looking at something on the Internet. Whatever it was, she seemed very interested in it. ‘You have some first,’ she said, without taking her eyes off the screen. He did, and then passed it to her. ‘What are you doing?’ he said.

‘Just…’

‘What?’

He looked at the screen—it was nothing in particular, just news. He started to massage her shoulders. She moused a link and he unzipped her dress, first having to lift her hair to find the zipper’s little tug. Then, while she muttered something about the news story she was perusing, he fiddled with the fasteners of her bra. Seemingly oblivious to this, she leaned forward to scroll down as he tried to pull the dress off her shoulder. That was physically impossible—it was supposed to go over her head. She still had her eyes on the screen when he swivelled her away from it, lifted her up—she squealed—and staggered next door, where they toppled onto the bed. For a few minutes they snogged and tussled in the mess of sheets.

He had just peeled off her tights when she sat up and smoothed her hair. ‘I was looking at something on the Internet,’ she said. Weltering there, half undressed, with a hard-on, he made a token effort to hold on to her. When that failed, he lay there for a minute or two staring into space and thoughtfully stroking himself through his trousers.

‘I’m just taking Hugo for a walk,’ he said. She was still on the Internet.

‘M-hm.’

‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

‘Okay.’

He did a slow lap of Mecklenburgh Square and found her at work with a toothbrush. (She was always fiercely energetic with a toothbrush in her hand, the head of her own was terrifyingly splayed and flattened.) She had tied her hair up. Her dress was still unzipped and the exposed skin, a wide tapering swathe the length of her spine, looked like old ivory in the forty-watt light. He kissed it while she washed her mouth out.

Her mouth was wet and minty. They were standing next to the bed, trying to kiss and undress at the same time, his jeans and shorts fettering his ankles. It turned out she wasn’t wearing any knickers. Then he was supine on the bed with her astraddle him. She still had the dress on, though he was already inside her. From where his head lay he was able to peer in a haze of pleasure over the hairless plain of his torso, over the low hillock of his stomach with its one winding path of hair, to the site of that impossibly exquisite prehension. ‘Is this nice? Is this nice?’ she said. In a single movement she pulled the dress over her head and was naked. At the sight of her whole skin the pleasure intensified terminally. He put his hands on her working hips and swung her off him. And then he was over her, looking down at her, at her streaming tears, her oscillating midriff, the square prow into which he was…

His weight on her seemed to double from one second to the next. She felt the slippery warmth on her stomach and lower down. She smelled its white, polleny scent. His head sagged.

‘I’m sorry.’ The words emerged as a single exhalation.

‘It’s okay.’ She stroked his hair. ‘I’m sure you’ll… have a second wind.’

He nodded, and kissed her soft nipple—which happened to be next to his mouth—though he was fairly sure he would not. He felt unimaginably tired. He felt as if he would be able to fall asleep instantly and sleep for twelve hours. However, she was waiting for him to do something, and the longer he just lay there, slobbering on her tit, the more utterly exhausted he would feel. He struggled to sit up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

‘That’s okay.’ She was still lying there, her legs parallel to each other. Heatless semen slid down from the smooth shadow of her navel and matted the russet stubble of her pubic hair.

‘Have you got something to wipe that up?’ she said.

Leaning over the edge of the bed, he picked up his shorts.

His lack of desire, as he wiped her—wiped her stomach and the seam of her pussy like an exhausted waiter wiping a table—was extraordinary. He felt like he would never want to fuck another woman in his life. In the last minute, the way he saw her had undergone a profound metamorphosis. He noticed the sanded soreness around her mouth, the zones of irritation—little livid spots—where she had shaved part of her pubic hair, the twofold meatiness of her sex… When he had finished wiping her he threw the smeared shorts onto the floor. Then he stepped into the bathroom and, holding his shrivelled prick, made water in the dark. When he had done that, he filled a glass from the kitchen tap.

She had pulled the duvet over her and was lying on her side with her face away from the light. It was with a sort of sad, shameful relief that he saw she had put on his pyjamas while he was away. ‘Do you want some water?’ he said quietly, and she sat up and took the glass.

*

The sound of rain splashing and trickling in the area. It was lovely to lie there in the warmth, still half asleep, holding her small body and listening to the rain. He would have liked to lie there for hours. For years. He listened to it intermittently pinging on the metal steps—sometimes it pinged several times in quick succession, sometimes there were long intervals—and whingeing quietly in the drain. She was wearing his pyjamas. He squeezed her and she whispered something. He stroked her instep with his foot.

She said, ‘What time is it?’

He did not want to move but he leaned over and looked at his watch. He had to stare at it for a few seconds in the semi-darkness. It was surprisingly late. It was nearly ten.

‘Will you make some coffee?’ she said.

He mumbled something and a minute later swung his long white legs out from under the duvet. He was pulling on his shorts when he said, ‘Oh.’

‘What?’ she said.

‘They’re…’ He stopped.

‘… stiff with spunk.’

‘Yeah.’