James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“Course, I should talk,” Callie said. “I can’t pronounce half the words I come across.”

“You did alright on. . what was it again? The one you asked me about.”

“You know.”

“Yeah, but I want to hear you say it.”

Callie put down her fork and gave Paul a very engaging look. “Synecdoche.”

“I love it when a woman talks literary.”

“Antagonist.” Callie batted her eyelashes at him. “Protagonist.”

“Careful, Callie, you’re getting me hot.”

She dropped her voice and said, in a slow, sultry moan, “Iambic pentameter.”

Paul clutched her hand across the table. “Marry me,” he said. “Have my children.”

Callie stiffened and tugged her hand away. “They got real good desserts here, too.” She picked up her fork and worked at her pot roast. They ate in silence for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “Did I say something I shouldn’t?”

“It’s okay.” Hit’s okay . She put down her fork and glanced over the rail. “Mr. X left me when I got pregnant. I got rid of it, thought he might come back.” She looked at Paul. “But he didn’t.”

Paul met her gaze. Don’t screw this up, he told himself. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Callie sighed. “Is this too much information? Am I break-in’ the first date regulations?”

“I’ll have to check, but I don’t think so.”

“Twenty questions, right?” She smiled wryly. “I’m a regular Patsy Cline song.”

After dinner, in the car, he asked her if she wanted to get a drink someplace, and she said, “I got some beer back home. If you don’t mind sitting on the floor.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant until she let them into her apartment. Her air-conditioning was on full blast, thank God, but the living room, a whitewashed box with a glaring overhead light, was empty from wall to wall. Callie steadied herself with one hand against the wall and kicked off her shoes.

“I had to sell the furniture when X moved out.” She stooped to pick up her shoes and started barefoot across the carpet. “Sumbitch wouldn’t even help pay for, you know, the abortion. So I sold his Fender Stratocaster, too.” With this last she gave her hips a fetching little dip. “Serves him right.” She tossed the shoes through a dark doorway. “It’s easier to keep clean anyhow.” She switched on the kitchen light and grinned back at him. “Sit anywhere you like.”

Paul kicked off his sandals and sat against the wall under the living room window, the only place in the room where he figured they couldn’t be seen from the parking lot. The kitchen light winked out, and Callie came into the living room dangling two bottles of beer. He watched her cross the room to switch off the overhead light. Then she padded across the carpet in the gathering dusk and held out a Cuervo to him by its neck. She knelt beside him, then tucked her legs under her, tugging her skirt towards her knees, and leaned on one long arm.

“Here’s to meteorologists.” Callie lifted her bottle.

“And singer/songwriters,” Paul said, as they clinked bottles. They each took a long pull.

“To anchorwomen,” said Callie.

“And beauty queens.”

“Here’s to Oral Roberts,” she said, lifting the bottle to her lips.

They sat silently in the dusk for a moment, watching each other, then Callie lowered her gaze and dug her fingernails into the carpet. Paul set his bottle against the wall and tilted her chin and kissed her. She retreated a fraction of an inch, just for a moment, then kissed him back, curling her hand over his shoulder. Then she lifted her eyes to the window above them and said, “We have to be careful. I sold the drapes, too.”

“Well, I won’t swing from the ceiling,” he said. “Not tonight, anyway.”

She hooked her arm around his neck and kissed him again, then she pulled away and held his face between her palms. He could feel the blush of warmth from her face in the dark.

“You’re not a son of a bitch, are you, Paul?” Her eyes peered into his. “I done had my lifetime quota.”

Paul was glad it was dark; who knew what she could see in his face? That question had a lot of possible answers: Yes. Maybe. Used to be. Not so’s you’d notice. But she was waiting, and he said, “Are you still in love with Mr. X?”

She gasped, and her eyes widened, but she didn’t let him go. Different shades passed quickly over her eyes like cloud shadow. He could feel her trembling. Her palms were hot against his cheeks, and he laid a hand on top of one of hers. “Are you?” he whispered.

“Not anymore,” she breathed.

He put his lips to her ear. “That’s what I was going to say.”

After a while one of them knocked over a beer. Callie tugged him by the wrist and said, “Come on, I’m getting carpet burn anyway.” Keeping out of sight of the window, they crawled on all fours, naked and giggling, across the empty expanse of carpet and into the doorway where Callie had tossed her shoes. The swaying moon of her ass vanished into the dark, and Paul rose to his feet and felt along the wall.

“You’re headin’ for the closet, hon,” she said, from the other side of the room, and he stepped towards the sound of her voice, stubbing his toe against something hard and heavy, like a cinder block.

“Ack!” Paul hopped on one foot as Callie laughed in the dark. “The hell was that?”

She turned on a little lamp set on an overturned milk crate, and in the dim yellow light Paul saw a couple of boxes overflowing with clothes, a plastic patio chair against the wall, her shoes in a heap near the closet door. Callie stretched out naked amid the rumpled sheets of a mattress on the floor, as shameless as a cat; she was propped up on her elbow, her other hand stretched along her freckled thigh. Paul looked at his feet and saw that he had stubbed his toe on the Norton Anthology of English Literature .

“What is it with you and this book?” He swooped towards the bed, and Callie pivoted suddenly on her hip and stuck out her long leg and kicked the book with her heel, sending it spinning across the carpet. Paul snatched her ankle and tugged her, squealing, halfway off the mattress.

“Stop it!” She pushed against his shoulders, but she wrapped her legs around him. “You’ll laugh at me if I tell you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Paul, and he slid inside her, closing his eyes at the exquisite shock of entry. Neither of them moved for a moment, enjoying the sweet tension. Paul opened his eyes and found Callie searching his face.

“I got it at a yard sale.” She tightened her calves around the backs of his knees, drawing him deeper. “From a box of free books.”

“Did you.” Paul dug his toes into the carpet and began to move inside her.

“It was the biggest book.” Callie rocked with him on the edge of the mattress. “I figured it’d last the longest.”

“You like that?” Paul said, breathing hard. “Things that last a long time?”

“Uh huh.” She bit her lip in concentration and fixed him with her blue eyes. “How long you gonna last?”

“Not as long as the Norton Anthology,” he gasped.

She hooked her arms around his shoulders and pulled his ear down to her lips. “Try,” she whispered.

Much later, long after they had fallen into a tangled sleep, Paul started wide awake in the darkness. He was alone on the mattress, but he knew instantly that someone else was in the room. He heard a sigh and a swallow, then he felt a pressure on the side of the mattress, and he sat up sharply and pushed himself against the wall, his chest heaving. What if it’s Boy G and the other homeless guy from the library? he thought. He was afraid he was going to see their ferocious teeth glowing in the dark. Or what if it’s worse? What if it’s Charlotte? Dear God, Paul thought, don’t let that cat follow me here. It’s not fair. It’s breaking the rules.