Sasha turned his head away. He lifted her hairbrush and ran his thumb along the bristles, put it down and examined a lampshade—a book—he grunted when he saw the title, The Good Earth—approval or disapproval?—the cheap fountain pen on her desk. When he set the pen down again, it rolled right to the edge, and he caught it just in time, though his head had already turned in the opposite direction, toward the mirror above the dresser. Iris could just see the reflection of the left side of his face, and it startled her. He looked so old! Not like an old man, of course, but a man of experience. Worldly. A dozen years older than she was.
But—he was nervous! He was more nervous than he was in the hospital, when he all but admitted that he was in love with her—yes, she was sure of it, he was in love with her!—all because he was in her bedroom now, not a hospital room, and there was no nurse hovering by the door and no sister in the other room—nobody at all but the two of them.
His eyes met hers in the mirror and looked swiftly away.
A burst of joy rushed all the way to Iris’s fingertips. Joy and—what’s the word?—not so much confidence as sureness, the knowledge that she was absolutely right, that their meeting here in Rome, two American misfits who belonged to nobody else, bore the fingerprint of fate. She could say this to herself—fingerprint of fate—because she was a romantic and so was he.
It wasn’t easy to stand up when you had a broken ankle, and your arm was already sore from propping yourself on crutches all morning and all yesterday afternoon, but Iris figured this was the most important thing she’d ever do in her life. And maybe it was. She made enough noise that Sasha turned around, a little alarmed. The room was small, remember, and it took only a step or two to reach him. She ran her fingertips along the line of that pugnacious, determined brow. She continued along the side of his face and the rim of his ear until her palm settled on the warm skin at the back of his neck. They kissed each other at exactly the same instant.
Iris didn’t tell him she’d never been to bed with a man before, and he didn’t ask. Only afterward, when he lay shuddering on top of her, and she gripped his wet shoulders for dear life, did he whisper—humbly, wonderingly—into her hair, Was I the first?
She nodded.
He lifted himself on his elbows and stared down at her. His skin gleamed, his cheekbones were as bright as raspberries. His eyes were so blue, it was unearthly. Her damp stomach stuck to his damp stomach, how extraordinary. Inside her, he was perfectly still. She wondered vaguely if she would have a baby. Wasn’t that what happened when you went to bed with a man? But the thought didn’t frighten her. Nothing frightened her anymore.
Well? she whispered.
He dipped his head and kissed her lips. You’re very brave, he told her.
Brave how? she wondered. Brave for not telling him she was a virgin? Or brave for going to bed with him at all, in the middle of the day, in the middle of Rome, when she was an innocent and they’d only just met?
She slid her hands southward until she reached the curve of his bottom, which felt to her as if it had spent its whole life just waiting for her palms.
Well, I’m glad, she said.
After a few more drowsy moments, Sasha lifted himself away, opened the shutters, and walked to the bathroom. He returned a moment later with a damp cloth, which he handed diffidently to Iris, and picked up his clothes from the floor. She rolled laboriously on her side and watched him. Through the window came a draft of warm spring air, smelling of sunshine and metropolitan grime. She offered to knot his necktie, so he knelt on the floor next to the bed. When she was done, he picked up her clothes, folded them, and put them on the nightstand. Then he kissed her.
“I’d stay all afternoon if I could,” he said.
“No, you’d better go.”
“When will I see you again?”
“Whenever you want. But not here. I don’t want Ruth to know. Not yet. She’ll have kittens.”
He winced. “No, of course not. How do I find you? Telephone?”
“Yes, telephone. I’ll make sure to answer first.”
Iris marveled at herself, so composed and assured, making arrangements with her lover. What a difference from an hour ago! Now she’d seduced a man. There was no question who had seduced whom—she was the one who unbuttoned his shirt—she was the one who drew his hands to the zipper of her dress. Objectively, she knew she was bruised all over, that she had a plaster cast on her left leg plus stitches on her forehead near her hairline. Still she felt utterly beautiful, absolutely irresistible. She idled her hand on his cheek.