A tubby little raccoon waddled onto the porch. Its black doll-eyes stared at me. I held its gaze, wishing I could dissolve into a mammalian consciousness, abandon my thinking brain. The porch light clicked on and Vladimir appeared, holding my cigarettes. The raccoon, unhurried, toddled off the porch toward the forest. Vlad lit a cigarette, then tossed me the pack.
“Hey,” he said, with a soft pleading to his voice. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
I wanted to say that it was completely fine, that he had nothing to apologize for, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“I misread the situation, I think,” he continued. He seemed actively concerned, and for a moment I considered what would happen if I decided to bring some departmental charges against him—suggesting he took advantage of me in a compromised state. Wouldn’t that be a funny twist to the story. He was so modern and trained he would probably bow his head, apologize, resign, and run away.
But also people would laugh at how ridiculous it was that this specimen of man with his conventionally attractive wife would make a pass at a postmenopausal creature such as myself. I would be a joke. I remember how cruel we were about Monica Lewinsky, who we mocked as unworthy of an affair with Bill Clinton, though when I look back at old photographs I realize she was voluptuous and strong-featured and beautiful. Still, he was the most powerful man in the world at that time, and we shook our heads at him for not at least giving his attention to a nineties-style model or a film star. It made him seem soft and desperate.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and I realized I hadn’t responded to him. I reassured him I was fine.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said. “I didn’t expect to react that way.”
“I thought it was something you wanted,” he said, contrite, and I understood that as a handsome man of his ilk, he knew his body as something he could give that might make someone else happy. A gift. And when I chained him, hadn’t I wrapped him up and then opened him like a present?
“Have you,” I searched for the right word, “transgressed, before?”
“No. Once, very early on. An old girlfriend from out of town.”
“So why would you do it now?”
His voice lowered. “I have my reasons.” I could feel him looking at me with half-lidded eyes.
“Oh, stop,” I said. “Don’t be stagey. Name one.”
“I’m not—” he started, but then paused, arranging his phrasing. “I guess because I’m not doing it, am I. You are. I’m only acting out a part in some situation that I was placed in. You brought me here, you cast me in this role—I’m just playing it out for you.”
“You don’t have to. You can go, I’ll drive you home.” His words hurt me, like he was a marionette and I was an evil puppeteer. I felt the need to apologize. “I’m sorry about last night—everything got out of control.”
“No, I like it, I’m glad you cast me. It’s interesting.”
Ah, I thought, so he had rationalized the situation so that he was in control of it—in control of the experience, of the part he was playing. Well, naturally he had that ability, it was the ability of the successful: to reseat themselves, no matter where they were, in a place of power. “Please don’t patronize me,” I said.
“No, no,” he said. “I’m not. I like how we talk. I’ve thought about you. There have been a few moments in the past when the thought of kissing you has jumped into my mind.”
“In a repulsive way?” I remembered a fellow cohort in my graduate program all those years ago—male and tall and reasonably attractive—who told me he pursued ugly women because he was fascinated by the grateful way they made love.
“Not at all,” he said, then laughed a little and sucked in on his cigarette. The wildlife was quiet for a moment, I could hear the singeing of the paper as he inhaled.
A dry breeze blew against us, causing sparks from Vlad’s ashes to fly in my direction like a small firework. The moment of quiet was enough for me to recognize how extremely tired I was, and the recognition of that tiredness released me, finally, to a place of matter-of-fact honesty.
“I’m writing a book,” I told him. “It’s almost done. I want to finish a draft while I’m up here.”
“I can’t wait to read it,” he said.
“You don’t have to say that. I want to get up early and work on it. You should write too, if you want to. We’ll both write. We’ll work in silence.”
“Yes,” he said. “I approve.”
“So I’m going to go to bed.”
I stood, then hesitated for a moment. I waited for him to say one more thing: to bless, condemn, or entice me, perhaps, or to wish me sweet dreams and a good night.
“Should I come with you?” he asked, staring at his hands, scowling.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” I said, in an affected tone, I admit, and yanked the stubborn screen door open, then closed it behind me, leaving Vlad and his cigarette alone on the porch to smolder.
* * *
He came into my bed around midnight. He crawled in beside me and wrapped his arms around me. He first rubbed my arm up and down, then my back, then my backside. I moved my hips in response and reached my hand back for his flank but did not turn toward him. He pulled my nightgown up and my underwear down and I kicked them off with my feet. He did not kiss me, but rested the top of his head against my shoulders. He pulled down his pajama pants and entered me. To my surprise, relief, and pleasure, I was not the least bit dry. His cock was long, slightly less than average thickness, and very hard. I thought of the word lancing. We moved together like that, not switching positions or adjusting limbs, as if to do so—to shift from our initial point of connection—would break a spell. Toward the end he reached a hand around to my front and I orgasmed immediately and silently. He kept it there and I orgasmed again, without effort or will or concentration. As he approached his own finish his intensity increased and he grabbed on to the backs of my shoulders and I orgasmed once more at the same time as him.
He kissed me on one shoulder and I patted him. He hung on for a while, breathing, but I could tell he was not sleeping. I told him he didn’t have to stay and once he realized I meant it he thanked me and left, leaving a man-shaped imprint of sweat beside me.
XIX.
For the second night in a row I woke, this time from the sound of furniture—specifically the rickety mudroom table that nearly everyone knocked into—crashing to the ground, followed by the cursing of a low, rumbling voice I could tell was not Vladimir’s and hands patting the wall to find the light switch.
Any rural area in the USA has its own River Styx of addicts, meth or opioids, half-souls floating amid the currents of daily life. They sit skinny on the stoops of general stores looking spent and expectant. They take their grandmother food shopping, or to the beach. They are sweet and thieving and skittering and fearful. We’d never had a break-in, but I had heard about several incidents of burglary happening in nearby lake houses. The vacation homes were assumed to belong to people who had money, and who left their properties unattended for months at a time. If my computer hadn’t been in the living room I might have lain in my bed and let the thief take what he wanted. He needed it more than I did.