Well, I think that’s a bad idea, he said. It would involve a lot of other people also not telling her. That guy Philip who you hang around with, people like that. My wife. But you’re the boss, obviously.
I made a ‘hm’ noise, because I thought he was right but I didn’t want to think so. I liked when he called me the boss. He tapped his hands on the steering wheel cheerfully. What is it with me and writers? he said.
You just like women who can wreck you intellectually, I said. I bet you had crushes on your teachers at school.
I was actually notorious for that kind of thing. I slept with one of my college lecturers, have I told you about that?
I asked him to, and he told me. The woman was not just a teaching assistant, she was a real professor. I asked what age she was and Nick smiled coyly and said: like forty-five? Maybe fifty. Anyway she could have lost her job, it was insane.
I see it from her perspective, I said. Didn’t I kiss you at your wife’s birthday party?
He said he struggled to understand why he made people feel that way, that it had happened rarely in his life but always with a violent intensity and no real sense of agency on his part. A friend of his elder brother had developed a similar thing for him when he was fifteen. And this girl was nearly twenty, Nick said. Obsessed with me. That’s how I lost my virginity.
Were you obsessed with her? I said.
No, I was just frightened of saying no to her. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
I told him that sounded bleak and it made me sad. Quickly he said: oh, I wasn’t going for sympathy points. I did say yes to her, it wasn’t … Well, it probably was illegal, but I consented to it.
Because you were too frightened to say no, I said. Would you call it consent if it happened to me?
Well, no. But it wasn’t like I felt physically threatened. I mean, it was weird behaviour from her, but we were both teenagers. I don’t think she was an evil person.
We were still in town, sitting in traffic on the north quays. It was early evening, but dark already. I looked out the window at passers-by and at the veil of rain that moved around under the streetlights. I told him I thought he was such an appealing love object partly because he was so curiously passive. I knew I would have to be the one to kiss you, I said. And that you would never kiss me, which made me feel vulnerable. But I also felt this terrible power, like, you’re going to let me kiss you, what else will you let me do? It was sort of intoxicating. I couldn’t decide if I had complete control over you or no control at all.
And now what do you feel? he said.
More like complete control. Is that bad?
He said he didn’t mind. He thought it was healthy for us to try and correct the power disparity, though he added that he didn’t think we would ever be able to do it completely. I told him that Melissa thought he was ‘pathologically submissive’ and he said it would be a mistake to assume that meant he was powerless in relationships with women. He told me he thought helplessness was often a way of exercising power. I told him he sounded like Bobbi and he laughed. The highest compliment a man can ever get from you, Frances, he said.
That night in bed we talked about his sister’s baby, how much he loved her, how sometimes when he was depressed he would go over to Laura’s house just to be closer to the baby and see her face. I didn’t know if he and Melissa planned to have children, or why they didn’t have them already if he loved children so much. I didn’t want to ask, because I was afraid of finding out that they did plan to, so instead I affected an ironic tone and said: maybe you and I could have children together. We could raise them in a polyamorous commune and let them choose their own first names. Nick told me he already had sinister ambitions to that effect.
Would you still find me attractive if I was pregnant? I said.
Sure, yeah.
In a fetishistic way?
Well, I don’t know, he said. I do feel like I’m more aware of pregnant women than I was ten years ago. I tend to imagine myself doing nice things for them.
That sounds fetishistic.
Everything is a fetish with you. I meant more like cooking them meals. But would I still want to fuck you if you were pregnant, yes. Rest assured.
I turned around then and put my mouth up next to his ear. My eyes were closed so I felt like I was just playing a game and not being completely real. Hey, I said, I really want you. And I could feel Nick nodding his head, this sweet eager nod. Thanks, he said. He said that. We kissed. I pressed my back against the mattress and he touched me cautiously like a deer touches things with its face. Nick, you’re such a gift, I said. I left my wallet in my coat, he replied. One second. And I said: just do it like this, I’m on the pill anyway. He had his hand laid flat on the pillow beside my head, and for a second he did nothing and his breath felt very hot. Yeah, do you want to? he said. I told him that I did and he kept breathing and then said: you make me feel so good about myself.