Lara Vapnyar - The Scent of Pine

“I ran to my room, splashed my face with water, changed my shirt, and rushed out, hoping that I didn’t smell of roasted chicken, smoked fish, or vomit. On the way out I heard Sasha calling for me again. I pretended not to hear him and ran down the stairs to meet Danya.”

Lena was so engrossed in her story that she didn’t notice the rain had started.

Raindrops, prickly and hard like grain, fell on the tree branches around them.

“Is it raining?”

“It’s not that bad yet,” Ben said, “but we better hurry.”

But a few minutes later, the raindrops turned big and wet, and there were more and more of them, until they merged into strings, then columns, then a whole solid wall of rain. Ben grabbed her hand and they started to run along the path, jumping over tree roots and branches.

The path veered away from the lake, deeper into the woods, where everything had turned dark, sleek, and slippery. The boulders seemed to grow bigger, crowding the sides of the path, covered with soggy dripping moss. Behind the boulders ran the stream, filled with gurgling water the color of very strong tea.

“That’s the little bridge,” Ben said.

“ That’s the bridge?” Lena asked. The bridge was thin and delicate, half-broken, like a toy from a long-abandoned toy box. Most of the railing was missing, and the planks were broken in the middle, some hanging down, touching the water.

She stopped and looked at Ben. His hair was thin and dark and stuck to his head.

He stepped onto the bridge, turned to her and gave her his hand. She took his hand and followed him, trying to keep her feet wide apart so as not to step into the missing middle. She had almost made it, but then Ben lost his balance and pulled her after him, and they both fell into the greenish-black muck.

Afterward, the whole cabin was filled with the sweet, sickly smell of burning wood and the moldy stench of wet clothes, which they had draped over every chair to dry. It covered the smell of sex.

They were sitting on the bed, naked, with a half-empty bottle of tequila on the bed between them.

“Did you?” Ben asked.

Lena nodded.

“You did? Really?”

She said, “Yes.”

“But back there, at the Holiday Inn, you didn’t come, right?”

“No.”

“I feared as much. I have this problem that you might have noticed.”

“What problem? I haven’t noticed!”

“I mean, it used to be much worse. I used to come in seconds. Now I’ve learned how to dodge it.”

Lena sat up tipsily and stroked his hair.

“Poor Ben. So what do you do to dodge it?”

“I try to hide from it.”

“Hide? Where?”

“I imagine that I’m this tiny animal. Like a mouse. And I imagine that something big is chasing me. And since it’s bigger and faster than me, and I can’t run very far from it, I have to fool it, I have to hide in places, and confuse it. So I hide under a rock. In the bushes. Between the fences. But you know, more often than not, it fools me. I would dodge it, and get away, and leave it far behind, and think now I can relax a little, but there it would be waiting for me just around the corner.”

“Ben! Really? Seriously? It’s just the other way around for me! I feel like I’m chasing it the whole time, and it runs away from me, and hides from me, and it does exactly what you do—it dodges me!”

Now Ben turned to face her, his eyes giddy.

“Oh, I get it now!”

“What do you get?”

“Well, that first time, you had this really grave, really focused expression. I was worried that I was hurting you. Turns out you were just chasing orgasm.”

“Stop laughing at me! I didn’t laugh at you!”

“Yes you did!”

They drank some more tequila.

Ben shook his head: “Still, I don’t get it.”

“You don’t get what?”

“Why female orgasm should be so challenging.”

“It’s not! Actually, I have a whole theory about orgasm,” Lena said.

“Do you?”

“I do. The key is in continuity. It’s like music.”

“Really? How is it like music?”

“You don’t remember what you felt before, but somehow your sensation at any given moment is partly formed or partly influenced by all the different sensations you experienced earlier.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious. Okay, so I’ve never thought about it like this before, but think about it! Maybe ‘influenced’ was the wrong word. Enriched? Enhanced? No, not enhanced. What I am trying to say is that a sensation at any given moment wouldn’t be what it is without all the previous sensations.”

“I used to think that solving the mystery of female orgasm was as futile as trying to invent a perpetuum mobile. But you seem to be on the verge of discovery.”

Lena laughed and drank some more tequila. “I’ll show it to you. I have this thing on my iPod.”

She rummaged in her bag for a long time and finally pulled out an iPod covered in something that looked like cookie crumbs. She wiped the crumbs off and started going through the dial.

“Uh-huh, here it is. Chopin’s Fantaisie. It’s light and sweet. There is a timer on the iPod, so I’ll tell you exactly when the most wonderful part comes.”

She put on her headphones and took a pencil and a piece of paper.

“I think I got it!” she said, handing him the headphones and the piece of paper. “See, the wonderful part comes between thirty and forty seconds, then it goes away to return exactly at 3:35. Listen, so you can see what I mean. I’ll tell you when it’s time.”

Ben put the headphones on. She pushed the play button and peered at the timer: 32 seconds. She tapped him on the shoulder: “Now!”

She peered at the dial again and said: “Okay, there the music kind of changed direction, went higher, got a little more intense, then calmed down again.”

She tapped him on the shoulder: “It’s coming again! Exactly three minutes later.”

She pushed the stop button and took the headphones from Ben: “Did you get what I meant?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Now, if people could only record and replay what they do. Record not just the actions but the sensations. Like this, with the timer. So we could return to a particular sensation and replay it at any time. The mystery of female orgasm would have been solved.”

And she snapped the fingers on both of her hands.

“Just like that!” Ben said.

Lena reached for the blanket, but Ben stopped her: “No, don’t cover yourself. I know what we have to do now!”

“What?”

“I want to draw you.”

“Draw me?”

“Well, not exactly you—”

“Hey!”

Ben reached for the pencil and the piece of paper.

“I might be out of practice. I haven’t done a picture of a pussy in ages. Not since working on that comic book with Gerry.”

Lena laughed and moved away.

“No, no, don’t close your legs.”

Lena put her glass down and opened her legs a little.

“Great, remarkably beautiful.”

“Really? Is it really?”

“Yep. It’s fucking mind-blowing!”

She laughed.

“Lie down and spread your legs more.”

She did.

“Okay. Here goes.”

He made some bold, self-assured strokes.

“It’s very challenging to show it on paper. It’s all about the light. How do you show the curves? All about the light. Light, light, light.”

He grabbed the bottle from the table and took several gulps.

She raised her head to look at his face. He looked completely serious.

“You know what, I’m not sure if my drawing is very good, but I think I caught the essence of your cunt. Its personality.”