Dana Spiotta - Lightning Field

“You can begin speaking at any time, Lorene. Just speak without editing. Just let the words flow out of you.” Christ. She closed her eyes. His hands were on her lower back. They felt good. She wouldn’t mind showing Beryl her breasts. Forget Beryl, call the old man himself, St. John. He could put his hands on her breasts. If the warm, large healer hands moved from back to front, if they started to rub and pull at her nipples very gently — Lorene felt the dampness between her legs, the way it was so easy to distinguish from the steamy dampness over the rest of her body. It was a darker wetness, a deeper kind of heat. She moved slightly on the cotton towel on the bench and let her vaginal muscles contract stealthily. The discretion of female sexuality, its secret demureness, its endless interiority— in her case, particularly so. Yes, it was secret — solitary and contained at all times.

“Speak,” he said. “Breathe and empty yourself.” How could she? She could say she was thinking of his hands on her breasts — or how she hadn’t been touched in that way in so long. (Was it truly years? Why was everything in her life suddenlymeasurable in years? Years seemed like months, months like weeks.) How long had it been? Since she saw Michael in the hospital. No, but that would be a nice fantasy to stick with, something she could almost make true by sheer will. Why not, if that’s better than the truth. More truthful than the truth. No, the last one was Dean, of course. His name gave her an inward wince. Lorene told herself there was nothing to be ashamed of — she should regret nothing. But Dean was as far from Michael as possible, as uncomplicated and unmindful as they come. But that was a fantasy, too. She hadn’t wanted Dean because he was the opposite of Michael. She had wanted Dean because he was great-looking and edgy and aloof and a bit nasty. It was her vanity. She found him very sexy.

Mina took only forty-five minutes to finish the walk to the hotel on Wilshire. She was, of course, late to meet Scott. She had never gone from Max to Scott on the same day. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t like it, but she had to walk somewhere — she didn’t want to be home or at work. And she felt needed by Scott. Max hardly touched her anymore anyway. She wanted Scott’s devotion. He was there at the bar, waiting, obviously relieved to see her. It was touching, almost, his ordering a drink for her, clutching her hand, acting as if his good luck would be snatched from him at any moment, or if he might be arrested for desire or pleasure. It was endlessly appealing, but then she felt sorry for him, and removed and suddenly bored. Here’s the drink, now what to say? Drink it fast, get it in your head.

Lorene had slept with Dean and then feigned indifference. Dean flirted with her friends and seemed to hardly notice. Then they would collide through all the rooms in Lorene’s apartment, having frenzied, intense movie sex. SometimesDean would leave before dawn. It went on for several months. But the sex wasn’t really good. It was department-store-lingerie, Cosmo -quiz tacky sex: it satisfied briefly and then bored her completely. And when she no longer wanted Dean, it wasn’t gradual. It went all at once, with no warning. She just felt irritation and a vague revulsion in his presence. He didn’t read that right, he thought it was part of their game. It worried her — that he didn’t realize things had come to an end. He pursued her anyway. He began to hang around her restaurants. She ignored him and was utterly unresponsive. He began to sleep with her waitresses. Lorene wondered if he spoke about her, about the sex they had had. She started to feel the price of things, of the way he was still in her life even if she didn’t want him to be. The low-grade menace of it — because surely by now he saw it was no game and he just lingered out of spite. She felt the weight of not being able to make ex-lovers disappear. It amazed her that Mina managed so well. Without all this bulimic self-reproach.

The last time she saw Dean he had wandered into Dead Animals and Single Malts at around eleven o’clock. He was already obviously drunk. He stood by the bar and watched her, in his black expensive suit, his dumb overly fashionable shoes and vapid smile. She couldn’t bear men who wore fashionable shoes, unless, of course, they were gay men. He gave her heavy looks that irritated her completely — she almost felt bad for him. Almost. He had a drink and then grabbed her arm as she walked by. He pulled her over. That was it. She yanked her arm away.

“Look, Dean, I’ve had it. I don’t want you touching me, or hanging out in my restaurants. I am not enjoying this and I want you to leave, now.”

He smiled at her. “Lorene, Lorene, why are you such a little bitch?” When he spoke she realized he was more drunk than she had first guessed — there was an underslur to his speech, just the way the ch of such in a slushy, ugly, sloppy sound ran through the barely detectable a and became the li of little. Sushalille. This gave her some alarm. She hated drunk people, they became so narrow-focused and insatiable.Relentless. But to her surprise he let go of her arm and asked the bartender for his check. He put a bill of large denomination on the table and waved at the bartender to keep the rest. Lorene supposed Dean thought this gesture indicated class of some kind. She watched him leave. Dean had good, snaky hips, a nice long, graceful body. But as soon as he spoke or even gestured, all that dumb-boy vanity poured out. She felt something hard and cold inside her that she hadn’t felt before. Dean was the last lover she’d had. It was such a shame. But she wasn’t built for it, the combustible, vaguely menacing qualities. She felt nauseous thinking about it.

Mina straddled Scott’s lap with all her clothes on. She felt his wanting her. She wanted him to slowly pull her skirt up, for them to kiss and feel each other up like schoolkids, not taking off their clothes until the last minute. But he just kissed her the way he always did, sort of perfunctorily and already wanting to be on to the next part, moving to the bed and taking off all his clothes.

“If you just want to wait until you’re ready, that’s fine. Just remember that until you speak, the healing cannot begin.” Beryl applied pressure to her back, a steady touch that seemed to melt the aching in her shoulders. Lorene found herself talking aloud.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. Beryl pressed her neck.

“I feel fear in your body, Lorene. Some deep fear. Tell me about that. Tell me what you fear. Be specific, and just go on, don’t think too much.”

Scott wanted to have dinner. He wanted to keep it going. She realized as she dressed that things had kept accruing for him. She had stayed in the same place all these months while he kept going deeper and deeper in. She felt a wind of panic. He said they had some things to discuss. She insisted no on dinner, she had to leave, was already late. She finally agreed to meet him the next afternoon. She agreed just to escape. She walked home, thinking tomorrow had to be the last time with Scott. She would have to tell him it was over.

“When I was walking from my car to this building, I passed a group of four guys huddled by their car. I think they were about eighteen years old. I readied myself for their staring. I readied the glassy gaze I have used my entire life. I saw peripherally a glance in my direction, and then I looked at one of them, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze traveled right past me. He was completely indifferent to me. No look back. He gave me no look back. And I can’t believe it. I am only thirty-two, and I am invisible to this guy. And then suddenly I saw the rest of my life stretched out before me. In a flash. The slow, excruciating dismantling of me as an object of desire. I would no longer command desire. And I felt so upset by this future, I wanted to run home and hide under my covers and cry. I really don’t think I can bear it, you know, getting older.” Lorene started to sob a bit, and Beryl held her shoulders.