Heather Lewis: Notice

I stayed game for this, volunteered what I could about windows, and storage, and methods of leaf removal. Things I didn’t know much about but that had occupied my parents at times, my mother, and so I could at least talk some of it, knew the words to use.

We went inside after a little more of this. She fed me in the kitchen. I sat at the counter eating eggs while she made some phone calls and then a shopping list. And then we were on our way to the supermarket, and then home again, and I was carrying the grocery bags for her.

By early afternoon we’d finished with these things. She made us large drinks and we sat by the pool in two big wooden lounge chairs, the only furniture still left out there.

We covered ourselves with afghans and just sat there drinking until she gauged it was time to go inside again. This was about two drinks later and so I followed her lead on wobbly legs. Had to hold the bannister all the way up the stairs.

We separated at her bedroom door – her going in, me going back to the daughter’s room. There I put on my own clothes, did my hair, did the rest of it.

I was downstairs when he came home, sitting in the living room, sitting on that couch, which still had no table before it. As he opened the front door, I hitched up my skirt and opened my legs a little, lit a cigarette.

He stood in the hallway. Put his briefcase on the marble in a way that made a scraping sound. He fixed two drinks and I nearly reached for one but he took them upstairs. I heard voices, then other sounds. I waited while their noises grew louder, loud enough to send me back out to the pool.

Quiet out there. Wind and rustling, nothing human. I sat in one of the lounge chairs, cold without an afghan, cold anyway. Smoking, I pretended not to notice the shake in my hands, though before long I needed to go and get my own drink to stop it.

His briefcase still sat there in the hall. I watched it on my way to the bar. And I watched it when I walked to the little sitting room I’d pretended belonged to Ingrid. By now I could pretty much see nothing here belonged to her.

The sounds had stopped and so I listened hard to try and get my bearings. I heard nothing. I waited a long time and still heard nothing. I’d finished my drink some time ago and so poured another one before going upstairs.

I took the back route. Made my way down the hall, turned the door handle silently when I came to my room. I didn’t turn on the light, not even in the bathroom. I lay my clothes on a chair and slipped into the bed.

First I heard the ice in his glass. The sound came from a corner by a bookshelf. It startled me even though I’d known he was there. I’d known while I roamed around downstairs. Known as soon as the sounds stopped. And so now I had the sense of having kept him waiting, of having done something wrong.

It’d been a while since I’d had a cigarette and so I took the pack from the bedside table. There wasn’t a light anywhere nearby so I waited for him. He came across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Lit my cigarette with a match and then kept the match burning, held it close to my cheek.

I tried just to smoke as if he wasn’t doing this. It didn’t hurt. It more felt awkward – the heat from it and him so close and still. And him staying that way until the match snuffed itself out between his fingers.

He put the shriveled remnant on the nightstand. I wanted to look at the pool but couldn’t see it from this room and then, too, moving at all seemed like a very bad idea.

He didn’t do anything but sit there and I didn’t either. My cigarette had burned down and there was nowhere to put the ashes. I let them fall in the bed like I didn’t notice. He finally took the still-lit nub from me and this scared me, but he just put it on the table next to what was left of the match. Not laying it on its side but upending it.

After this he got up, took his drink from the bedside table and left. I felt someway cheated. Like now I’d have to spend the night sleeping badly, wondering whether he’d be back, what else he’d want.

I searched for my drink, finally finding it on the bathroom sink. I drained it without thinking how I’d get more, what that would involve or invite. I wasn’t up to foraging downstairs and so I tried to convince myself that this one would be enough to put me to sleep.

He didn’t come back, and the next morning Ingrid came in with the same tray. I drank the coffee she fixed me, knowing I couldn’t spend another day with her running errands and talking about the screens and the pool, another day with her expecting me to play her daughter.

She looked like maybe she couldn’t either. This morning she sat a little apart from me, concentrated on drinking her coffee and had trouble looking my way.

I put down my cup when I’d finished. Then I took her hand, the one next to me, which was empty. Her other hand was still holding her cup. It shook a little, sort of trembled and so did her lips. The next sip she took, she spilled some coffee on to her nightgown.

I pretended not to see this and I think she really didn’t notice. I began to worry what he’d done to her, but at the same time I knew it wasn’t anything so very different. What it was, was her running out of ways to let herself take it. Running out of ways to make it her own, make it something she wanted.

Maybe. Or maybe this was only happening inside me and I wished it on her because together we might make something from feeling these things.

When she put down her cup, I kept hold of her hand. I kissed the crook of her elbow, licked the hollow there. She tensed, not just her arm, but her whole body. And because of this I got on top of her.

I pulled her down under me. Held her face in my hands and looked at her until I couldn’t anymore. I began kissing her for an excuse to close my eyes.

From there it got easier. I pulled her nightgown up a little and then took it off her entirely. Once I’d done that I felt her sink into the bed more. She opened her legs and then put her hand between my legs, began to play me in such a way I rolled off her, lay on my back and just let her.

She kissed my stomach and worked her hand and that was all of it. All she did, and when I came it seemed like something I hadn’t done in a very long time. She kept at me afterwards, kept teasing me until I took her wrist, pressed it into the bed and then rolled back on to her, leaned all my weight into her.

I caught where I was headed and turned gentler. She liked this at first. Wanted me kissing her neck, wanted me stroking her the way she’d stroked me. So I kept at this. Slow and soft. Ignored the way she began moving her hips, the way she’d opened her legs. Ignored it until she wouldn’t let me anymore and was asking.

When I fucked her, I started out that same kind of slow and easy but she was asking for it hard. And then it wasn’t so long before she pulled away from me.

I let my hand come out, let her turn over. I knew what she wanted me to do. And knew I’d be no good to her if I couldn’t manage it. I started playing with her ass. I could tell she was impatient. I tried to pretend, at least to myself, that I had a reason for this. Did it to up the ante. But the change in pace made this unconvincing, and made her anxious.

I could feel the roughness of the burn where it’d healed over, felt her tense as I touched it. I couldn’t be so cruel as to make her ask and so I just did it. Did it as bluntly as she wanted. Did it until she was crying and pulling my other hand under her, but insisting I keep fucking her.

Finally when she’d had enough, when she’d come, she pulled away from me. She drew herself up into the corner of the bed, curled up and unapproachable. So much so I wondered whether I should leave the room. And then I nearly did, but felt too guilty to, until she demanded it.