Дуглас Кеннеди - Five Days

‘We’ll take the suite,’ he told the clerk, slapping his credit card down on the countertop.

Two minutes later we were in an elevator, heading to the top floor. My hand was still in his, our gazes firmly locked. But we had both fallen silent. Desire and fear: that’s what was so engulfing me. But the longing, the immense carnal need, was shoving whatever dread I was feeling away. I wanted him. I wanted him now.

The elevator arrived on the top floor. We followed a hallway down to a large set of double doors. Richard used the key card. There was a telltale click. He pulled me towards him. We fell into the room.

I took in very little of my immediate surroundings, except for the fact that the suite was capacious, the bed was in an adjoining room, the lights were preset low. From the moment the door shut behind us we were locked in an unrestrained embrace, and falling backwards into the bedroom, and pulling each other’s clothes off, and kissing wildly, and tumbling together headlong into the sort of unbridled passion that, if you are lucky, you have experienced once or twice in your life — and which might just be the closest thing to raw love imaginable.

Time meant nothing now. All that mattered was the two of us together on this bed, submerged in each other, silently overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all.

And then, in a moment of quietude afterwards, he took my face in my hands and whispered:

‘Everything has changed. Everything.’

Sometimes the truth is a wondrous thing.

Sunday

One

LOVE.

I woke with the dawn. The room was dark, festooned with shadow. Early-morning light creased in from the drawn curtains. Though I had only been asleep for a few incidental hours — sleep finally overtaking us in the wee small hours of the morning after hours of making extraordinary love — I felt wildly, profoundly awake. And wildly, profoundly in love.

Is this what’s meant by a coup de foudre? That huge overwhelming realization that you have finally met the man of your life, that individual for whom you were destined? Years ago, I thought that man was Eric. But one thing had struck me so forcibly over the past twenty-four hours: the Eric I so cherished and adored was, like me, such a kid when we came together. What did we really know about ourselves or each other? Everyone is, I suppose, a work in progress up until the day they are no longer part of the world. But when you’re nineteen you are still so unformed. Still so deeply naive (even though you do your absolute best to convince yourself otherwise). But you really know very little about life’s larger profundities. And even if you have — as I did — experienced the worst sort of loss at such an early stage of adulthood, your deeper existential understanding of loss won’t gain purchase until you have reached the halfway point of your temporal existence. It is then that you start to reflect on everything still not achieved, everything that underwhelms, everything that gives your life the undercurrent of an ongoing letdown. And it all congeals to remind you that time is now a diminishing commodity, that standing still (though the easier option) had rendered you static. And you quietly tell yourself: Life must be grabbed.

But then you throw up manifold excuses for staying put, accepting the cards dealt, telling yourself: Things could be far worse.

Until, out of nowhere — at a moment for which you are not prepared, in a situation which is so not designed to be conducive to such things — you meet a man who changes everything for you. And within twenty-four hours.

Love.

And the man in question.

I think it was the moment we started trading synonyms that I began to fall for him. And the way he told the story of his son without an ounce of self-pity. Then showing me the place he wanted to buy on Commonwealth Avenue. That’s when I knew. Standing in front of his future place, his new life, I understood the subtext behind this side trip. And just a few hours ago — when we were finally thinking about getting up after the evening in bed, entwined with each other, sharing the sort of intimacy that I never considered possible in my life — he took my face in his hands and said those extraordinary words:

‘Everything has changed. Everything.’

After I remarked that the truth was occasionally rather extraordinary he then said:

‘When I showed you the apartment today this crazy idea was rattling around my head: Laura and I will move here together. Of course I didn’t dare articulate such a thought at the time. Because I had no idea then if you were feeling what I was feeling. And because—’

‘I’ll move to Boston with you tomorrow,’ I heard myself saying. As soon as that statement was out of my mouth I didn’t have a stab of regret. Or a moment thereafter when I thought: Are you insane, uttering such a drastic, life-altering comment like that. especially as you have only known this man a little more than twenty-four hours?

But the truth was, I now possessed the sort of certainty that I had never thought possible. This certainty was as bemusing as it was absolute. Just as the rational side of my brain was telling me: You are convincing yourself of a future after just a day together. But this ultra-cautious voice was trumped by an equally logical voice, reminding me: What Richard said is veracity itself — everything has changed.

I’ll move to Boston with you tomorrow.

That wasn’t wishful thinking. That was a declaration.

Love.

We were both so apprehensive at first. Once in bed, desire was initially checkmated by fear. Richard was so apologetic, clearly mortified. I didn’t mouth all the usual clichйs — It happens to all men at some juncture. the less you think about it the more likely it will happen. I just kissed him deeply and told him I loved him. And he told me he loved me. And we talked, in hushed voices, lying face to face, about how lonely life had been for both of us and how what we both wanted was a chance. A chance at love. Real love. It might not be the answer to all of life’s complexities, all the struggles within. But it would be. a chance. And what I have so longed for, what Richard said he has so yearned to find. That prospect of possibility. Of a happier life.

Then we began to kiss even more deeply and passionately. Within moments he was inside me, fear having been banished. The sense of completeness was so immense. I had only slept with two men prior to Richard. I so remember the initial virginal awkwardness with Eric, and the way Dan and myself were, at first, clumsy — and how our sex life settled into a pleasant routine, but largely devoid of anything approaching real passion, real intimacy. But once Richard had entered me, once we began to move together — our bodies immediately, instinctively, attuned to what became, at once, a shared rhythm — the delirious sensuality of it all was heightened by an even more overwhelming sense of fusion.

Love.

I buried my face in his shoulder the first time I climaxed. And was astounded when I climaxed again just a few minutes later. Richard was determined not to rush things (this too was new for me) — and held off for such a long time. And when he came the shudder that ran through him, through us, was accompanied by another declaration of love.

Love.

When we finally got out of bed, slipping into the hotel bathrobes, it was late. Dinner was needed. We ordered room service. Richard also asked for a bottle of champagne. Part of me wanted to say, ‘Isn’t this all costing a small fortune?’ Almost reading my mind, Richard tempered this with the comment:

‘You have to toast a new life with champagne.’

Over dinner we couldn’t stop talking. About how we had both thought such happiness was beyond our reach, outside of the lives we were living.