T. Boyle - Riven Rock

She slipped into the bedroom on naked feet, the warm sheath of silk gathering at her breasts and hips and flowing gently across her abdomen. Two candles were burning ceremonially on either side of the bed — her mother’s idea — and there were flowers everywhere, a whole jungle of them, the air thick as wax with their scent. She could hardly breathe for excitement, and was that Stanley? There, beneath the covers — that shadow on the bed? No, it wasn‘t, and her fingers told her what her eyes hadn’t been able to: the bed was empty. The room was empty. And Stanley’s door was shut. “Stanley?” she called, and when she got no answer she tried again, a little louder this time, and she realized she could scream at the top of her lungs if she wanted to and there was nobody to hear her, not even the servants. That made her feel strange. It made her feel bold, randy, made her feel like a wife. “Stanley?

Not a sound.

She tried the handle of his door: it was locked. She tapped at the door and called again. “Stanley?”

This time, from deep in the room beyond, there came a muffled reply, a grunt of acknowledgment so strained and distant it might have been coming from Bonaparte’s secret tunnel in the bowels of the house. “I’m ready,” she said, her lips pressed to the door. “I’m ready foryou.”

Another grunt, nearer this time, and the sounds of movement, followed by a profound and brooding silence. And what was the matter? It took her a moment, and then a smile came to her lips. He was shy, that was all, shy as a maiden, and wasn’t that sweet? She didn’t want a Butler Ames or a Casaubon to initiate her into the pleasures of married life, she wanted this, she wanted Stanley, a neophyte like herself who would go slowly and allow her to discover the delights of Eros in mutual exploration, in partnership, in marriage, and no cast of lovers and whores and lusty widows looking over her shoulder. All right. She would give him time. “I’ll be waiting for you in bed,” she whispered. “Should I put out the candles‘?”

And now his voice, right there, on the other side of the door: “No, it‘s — yes, yes, do that and I’ll be — I’ll be just a minute, some things I have to, yes, of course—”

She drifted back to the bed, her respiration easing from a gallop to a canter, and leaned forward to cup her hand behind first one candle and then the other, puffing darkness into the room. The sheets welcomed her, the night gentle, stars framed in the window that looked out over the lake, and she’d pulled open the curtains for that at least, sidereal light, compass points to steer by. She fanned out her hair on the pillow and lay there on her back, waiting. What did she think of? Everything. Everything that had happened to her in her entire life, and she saw every face, every incident, heard every word replayed, and the stars shifted, and still Stanley’s door remained closed. How much time had passed? Had she fallen asleep? She got out of bed, the carpet a continent beneath her feet and now the cold stone sea of the floor, and she was at the door again and no whisper from her lips this time, nothing, not a word. The handle turned with a click under the pressure of her fingers and she swung open the door.

Stanley’s face, pale as the moon, stared up at her in alarm from the secretary in the far corner of the room. He was seated before it in a stiff-backed chair, hunched over the leaf on his elbows amid a confusion of papers, envelopes, pens and pencils. He didn’t attempt a smile.

“Stanley, what in the world are you doing?” she said in a kind of amazement that verged on stupefaction, and why did she feel so naked and vulnerable suddenly, the negligee clinging to her in all the wrong places and her husband’s startled eyes just beginning to grapple with the image of her? She noticed the clock then, up on the mantelpiece, an ancient block of carved wood and Swiss works that marked the hour with a dull rasp instead of a chime. She was further amazed. “It’s nearly four in the morning,” she said, and there was exasperation in her tone, wifely impatience, disbelief, shock even.

“I, well,” he began, and she saw that he was still in his tuxedo and tails, the top hat sprawled casually on the desk beside him, “—you know, work, correspondence, that sort of thing. I am still, well, comptroller of the Harvester Company, though you’d never think it, and I — well, and there’re the thank-you notes, because so many people have — and Harold, I needed to write Harold and tell him about the day, about us, I mean.”

She was dumbstruck. “But Stanley, darling, this is our wedding night….”

The light of the lamp, which he’d propped up on the near corner of the desk, split his face in two. He turned away from her to scribble something on the sheet of paper before him and he was stiff and bristling, the pen gouging at the paper till the nib gave way and he reached irritably for another. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t going to respond.

“Darling, Stanley,” she said, “can’t it wait? At least till morning?” And she crossed the room to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He made no movement, not even a twitch, but kept on writing till he thought to shield the paper with his hand. “Stanley, come on now, be reasonable,” she said, her voice soft and murmurous, and she ruffled the hair at the back of his neck.

He turned his face to her now, both hands nested over the paper on the desk so that she couldn’t see what he was writing, and what was this — secrets? Secrets on their wedding night? “I, I—” he began and trailed off. He seemed half asleep, drugged, mesmerized.

She let her hand roam over his shoulders. “Come on,” she murmured, “it’s time to come to bed. With me. With me, Stanley.”

“Yes,” he said, staring up at her out of a fixed and wary eye, “yes — I–I know that, and I want to, I do, but you see, if you just give me a minute, that’s all I need, a minute more, just to finish up, I‘ll, well, that is—”

What could she say? She was stunned and hurt. This was her wedding night, this was what she’d been looking forward to all her life, wasn’t it? What was wrong? Was it her? Was he rejecting her? Having second thoughts? She’d known he was shy, certainly, and that was one of the traits that endeared him to her, but this went beyond the bounds of any modesty or reticence she could possibly conceive of — he hadn’t even undressed yet. It was as if he had no intention of it, as if this night, of all nights in their lives, wasn’t consecrated, as if she hadn’t been waiting for him in the next room through all the lingering unfathomable hours. And then it came to her in a slow seep of understanding as she stood there rubbing his clenched shoulders and he averted his face and screened the letter from her: he was afraid of her. Afraid of his own wife. Afraid of the sheets, the bed, the complicated mechanics of love. He was suffering, she could see that, suffering for love of her, and it softened her.

“All right,” she said finally, bending forward to brush the crown of his head with a kiss, wondering what to say, how to phrase it, how far she dared go, “but I don’t see how you can be thinking of business and correspondence at a time like this.”

He wouldn’t look at her. She felt him stiffen under the touch of her hand where it lingered on his shoulder.

“All right,” she sighed, “if you must, if your business means that much to you, but promise me you’ll come to bed in a minute, won’t you? Just a minute?” She brought her face close to his, the light of the lamp harsh and radiant, but he turned his head away and delivered his extorted promise to the tabletop.

“Yes,” he said. “I promise.”