Dana Spiotta - Lightning Field

“They let you—” and she stopped.

“Yeah, I’m allowed to lock my door. They have a key, of course, but I do get to lock the door. It’s funny; one is supposed to recover from irrational paranoia in a place of limitless intrusion. Maybe it’s to give you a sane context — he’s not crazy if we supply a reason for his paranoia by keeping him under constant surveillance,” Michael said, laughing. He stood by the door, then took a few steps toward her. She sat frozen, not looking at him.

“It’s OK to laugh about it, Lorene,” he said.

“But, God, no—” she said, and looked at him.

“What?”

“I’m confused,” she said.

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” and he laughed again. She laughed and then resumed crying.

“I’ve made you cry already,” he said. He stood in front of her and then knelt on the floor by her legs. He put his hand behind one of her feet and started to remove her shoe. He placed it to one side, and then he gently removed the other, placing it neatly by the first one. She put her hand on his head and softly rubbed his hair. He closed his eyes at her touch and then rested his head on her peach crepe-covered knee. He had one hand on her ankle, and as he rested his head against her, he held her ankle lightly with his circled fingers. She stroked his hair, and his ear, and felt a minute release of a subaudible sigh. A body sigh. She was unsure if it was Michael’s sigh or her own. She opened her legs a little. Michael lifted his head and stared up at her. Lorene looked at him, slowly pulling her skirt up, over the tops of her knees. He knelt between her thighs, still encircling her ankle with his hand. He looked at her legs and slid his hand up from her ankle, moving both hands now slowly along her thighs until his thumbs rested on the bare flesh above her stockings. She sat very still. He closed his eyes, and she felt the tiny touch of his thumbs on her skin. He inched forward and she edged toward him on the hard wood chair until her hips were at his waist and their faces were inches from each other. He lifted his hands and put them on either side of her face, holding her for a moment. It was all so slow and silent. She wanted to kiss him, but she waited until he leaned close and kissed her. It wasn’t what she expected, a tentative, initiating kiss, but a deep, hard kiss, a sudden long, intimate kiss, and she opened her mouth as he pressed into her. He tasted metallic, foreign. Then the foreignness faded away. She closed her eyesand felt the room slip away in this opened-mouth intimacy. They were somewhere else, some world of bodies and touch, of thought-effacing pleasure. She only had one conscious thought, lasting a second — when he moved his hand from her face to under her skirt and between her legs — just that thank God she was completely wet and longing for him, and then the thought was gone. His mouth was hungry and unrelenting, but his hand was gentle and coaxing, and when he stopped kissing her and got up, pulling her to her feet and over to his bed, she stopped him and stood apart from him for a moment. She looked at him as she unzipped her dress. He stood by the bed, watching her. She pulled the slip off, over her head, losing sight of him for a moment, but still feeling his gaze on her belly and breasts as she made herself naked. He stood waiting as she bent and removed each stocking. Her gestures weren’t slow or urgent, just plain and necessary. When she finished she approached him and lifted his T-shirt. He undid his drawstring pants and sat on the bed pulling them off until he too was naked. She felt suddenly fearful as he put his hands on her waist and then moved them up to the sides of her breasts.

“Michael,” she said, pulling back, embarrassed. Her breasts were bigger than the last time he saw her, an unremovable costume, surgically altered in the now old-fashioned way, with tiny visible scars under each. She leaned back from him, tearing again, ashamed.

“Lorene, scars don’t scare me,” he said, and that must have been true because he had many, many tiny crescent scars on his arms and chest. He reached for her again, and leaned to kiss her nipples and her tiny belly. She was then back, falling under his touch, and kissing his body. Their touching became more urgent and heated. She was finding familiar places in hisbody — the way his shoulders felt, the muscles in his arm as he stroked her between her thighs. He had not forgotten how she was to be got at, gently but firmly and steadily, sideways almost, until she felt her body reach an almost impossible edge, and he slowed his touch even more, elongating the moment until she felt a sheet of horizontal pleasure slide out to the farthest points of her body and then resolve in a deep shudder. She lingered in it, shaking through her climax, and he kept pressing her gently, even more minutely, more tiny-ly until from somewhere far off another wave of shudders came, until she was crying from it. Her tears flowed and he kissed her longer and harder.

After they had stopped, as they lay entwined, she still cried softly.

“It’s OK, Lori,” he said, and he let her cry on his chest. She didn’t resist, and she couldn’t stop, it was a long-coming release.

“I remember when I used to be able to make you laugh,” he said. She started to smile then, but still she was crying.

“You do make me laugh. I remember that, too.”

“Lorene—” he said, and she took some breaths and calmed down.

“Lorene.”

“What, Michael?” and she looked up at him, his face in profile. He just closed his eyes, smiling slightly, shaking his head.

“What, what are you going to tell me now? That you’re crazy? That you can’t function? That your obsessions overwhelm reality, that you can’t bear the world, or me, or anything but your own four walls in this hospital?”

He opened his eyes and turned his face toward her.

“Uh, no. I was going to tell you that my arm is falling asleep and it’s going to go numb if I don’t move it out from underwhere you are resting your head and shoulders. Not right away, mind you, but soon.” She laughed and lifted her head from his chest and looked at him.

“See, I’ve got you laughing now.”

“Yeah.”

He closed his eyes again, back on the pillow.

“It’s very good right now, but it’s not always so easy.”

She closed her eyes to listen to him.

“Right now, yes, is great. But I have so much trouble.”

“What do they say is wrong?”

“I am. . I find comfort in small, orderly, controllable things.”

“Do they give it a name?”

“There is an anxiety that overwhelms me, and concentration is the only—” Michael stopped and shook his head.

“What do your doctors say it is?”

“C’mon, Lorene. What do you want to hear — Neotraumatic Stress Disorder. Nonspecific Anxiety Dysthymia. Bilateral Well-Being Deficiency Disorder. Pseudoautistic Hypermimetic Compulsion. Disassociative Dystopia Anticipation Paranoia.” Michael looked at the wall and drummed his fingers. He nearly smiled as he spoke. “Malicious Malingering Syndrome.” He glanced at Lorene, then looked away.

“Metallic, endless, vacant thoughts drained of everything but static—” Michael stopped abruptly and stared at his hand.

Lorene opened her eyes and looked at the stacks of papers in the room.

“But here, in this protected place, even with me here, in this place, you’re OK.”

“It’s fleeting. I can already feel things edging in. And this is on a really good day.”

“You don’t feel good?” she asked.

“It will take me weeks to recover. I can’t do this with you.”

“But we already did.”

“We can’t do this again. You have to understand, Lorene.” He was no longer looking at her, but staring at his hand. His fingers drummed the wall. Lorene sat up, leaned against the wall. She wanted to edge into his sight.