Topping From Below (32 page)
When I arrive home I get the mail out of the mailbox, set the garbage can on the curb for tomorrow’s trash pickup, then go inside the house. I turn on the TV and eat my burrito on the couch in the living room, watching the six o’clock news. The burrito is lukewarm, the news uninteresting, a drab retelling of this afternoon’s events. When I’m finished eating, I check my phone machine. There’s only one message, from Ian, saying he’s going out to dinner and will see me later this evening. I wonder what to do until he gets here. I’ve never had as much free time as I do now. I was always so busy working, and going out with my girlfriends, and dating different men, that I very rarely spent an evening by myself. From the other room, voices are coming from the television, making me feel less alone. This is what it must’ve been like for Franny, I think, night after night. No wonder she turned to Mrs. Deever and M. I see the mail on the counter and go through it. Several magazines, lots of junk mail, which I instantly toss, the phone bill and MasterCard bill, a letter from a friend in Los Angeles, another letter with no return address, postmarked here in Davis.
I open the last envelope and pull out a photograph. Nothing else is inside. Holding up the photo, I see that it is of me, taken several days ago. I’m unlocking the door to my Honda in front of Nugget Market, a bag of groceries in one arm, my purse strap slung over my shoulder. I check the envelope again, but it is empty. Why would anyone take a picture of me? And why send it anonymously?
The phone rings, and I jump, startled, dropping the photograph to the floor. I pick up the phone.
“Hello,” I say. No one answers. I hear deep breathing. Sharply, I say, “Don’t you kids have anything better to do?” but no one replies. I listen. The breathing is deep and regular. Cradling the phone on my shoulder, I bend down and pick up the photo, looking at it again. What is its significance? The breathing continues. In the picture, I have an odd expression on my face as I’m unlocking the car. What was I thinking at the time? I have no idea, probably something about M.
M. The breathing is louder now, but still regular, rhythmic almost. Could it be M. on the line? Another scare tactic, like the photo?
The photo, the phone call. Something nags at me in the back of my mind, but I can’t put it together. I look at the photo, at the picture of myself, while the person on the other end of the line breathes deeply into my ear. Suddenly, I’m gripped by a cold fear. I slam down the phone.
Two hours later, I hear Ian at the front door, his key jiggling in the lock. He comes inside the house and calls my name. Feeling uneasy, I don’t respond. I think of Cheryl Mansfield.
He walks into the living room and sets down the gym bag and racquet he’s carrying. Every Tuesday he plays racquetball at the athletic club, and he’s still wearing black shorts and a white T-shirt. He looks tired, his face slack and his blond hair drooping in his eyes, like a little boy who has played hard all day and comes home exhausted. I smile, thinking how outlandish it was to even consider him capable of wrongdoing. He comes over and kisses me on the cheek, his lips soft and warm.
“Did he beat you again?” I ask.
Ian lets out a long groan and falls onto the couch. “I don’t know how he does it,” he says. “The guy’s good.”
He is referring to M., whom he knows as Philip Ellis. Ian, much to my chagrin, is getting closer to him. They play racquetball together once a week, when I’m with Joe at the Paragon. I think M. does this purposefully, to punish me for talking to Joe. When I told M. I was going to continue seeing Joe, whether he liked it or not, he called Ian that very night, in my presence, and invited him to play racquetball on Tuesday. They’ve been playing ever since.
“He asked me over to his house for dinner tonight. That’s why I was late. You got my message, didn’t you?”
A jolt of anxiety lodges in my throat. I pick up the remote control and turn off the TV. “You went to his house for dinner?” I say.
Ian is leaning back on the couch, eyes closed, relaxed. Drowsily, he says, “He lives just a few blocks down the street. Down Montgomery and off to the right, where the older homes are. Nice house.”
“I think you should stay away from him. He’s kind of weird.” I hear the prickly edge to my voice.
Ian opens his eyes and gives me a strange look. “No, he isn’t. And you refuse to meet us anywhere, so how would you know what he’s like? Weird or otherwise?”
I shrug. “He just seems odd to me. Don’t forget, I spent a lot of time interviewing him. He’s dubious. You can’t trust the man.”
Ian straightens up on the couch. “That’s not true, Nora. I don’t know why you don’t like him, but he’s my friend. It’s nice to have a male friend I can talk to.”
“You have lots of friends.”
“Yes, and with most of them we talk about work, or sports, or what’s going on in the world, just about anything except our true feelings. Philip isn’t afraid to talk about sensitive issues. I like having a man I can talk to. We have a lot in common.”
This makes me wary. Other than me, Ian and M. have nothing in common. “What do you talk about?” I ask.
Ian hesitates. He scratches his leg, stalling for time. Finally he looks at me and says, “Everything. Sports, work, of course. But other things, too. We talk about the problems we’re having. We talk about women. We talk about you.”
“Me?” I say. Instantly, an alarm goes off. “You talk about me?”
“Nora,” Ian begins, then he stops and shakes his head. He looks across the room at the bookshelves, thinking. He begins again, his voice troubled. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going nuts, Nora. You don’t talk to me. We’re having problems, and you won’t discuss them. I need to talk to someone. I talk to Philip.”
I’m sitting on the edge of the couch, my breathing shallow. I am incredulous. I am angry. “You tell him about me? You tell him about the problems we have?” These sentences come out as accusations, not as questions. “How could you? You didn’t even ask my permission.”
Quietly, and with sarcasm, he says, “I didn’t realize I needed it.”
My voice rises. “You violated a trust. What goes on between us is private.”
“Not much is going on between us, is there? That’s part of the problem.”
Ian is referring to the fact that we rarely have sex anymore. All the passion I had for him, which at one time had been immense, is gone. After my sessions with M., I have nothing left to give Ian except guilt. And there is also the problem of concealment. It takes time for the welts on my buttocks to heal. When they are red and visible, I undress in the dark; I won’t let Ian see or touch me. This confuses him, and my refusal to discuss it confuses him even more. He must think I’m becoming frigid, and if so he would be correct. My sexual frigidity, toward him, is almost total.
Ian says, “You don’t want to make love anymore. You don’t respond to me at all.”
“And you told him that?” I feel my face burn with anger. “Jesus! You told him that?”
He sighs. “Who am I supposed to talk to, Nora?”
“No one!” I say, practically shouting. I get up and walk out of the room. I go into the kitchen and Ian follows.
“This is perfect,” he says, angry now himself. “Just walk away. That’s your answer lately to everything.”
“Leave me alone. Just go away and leave me alone.”
He stands in front of me, and I see his aggravation in the tight set of his jaw. “No.”
“No?
No?!
In case you’ve forgotten, this is my house. And I don’t want you in it.”
“Don’t do this, Nora. Don’t.” His words are a warning, cautioning me not to go too far. His face is flushed with anger.
I hesitate. We stare at each other. Ian takes a deep breath, calms himself down, then comes over and places his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t,” he says quietly. “You don’t mean that. You’re angry.”
He is right: I am angry. And I don’t want him to leave. I don’t want it to end like this. Ian isn’t perfect. At times he can be irrationally jealous, and I don’t like him confiding in M., but in my heart I know he’s a good man. I lean my forehead against his chest and feel the anger drain out of my body. I have come very close to losing him, I feel. I have come close to shattering something fragile of which I have desperate need. I am grateful for Ian’s maturity, grateful he’s giving me another chance.
“I’m sorry,” I say. He puts his arms around me and we are silent, holding each other.
After a while, he says, “I love you; Nora. When I talk to Philip, it’s only because I need someone to confide in. I can’t go on like this much longer. Things have to get better between us. If you talked to me, if you told me what was going on, I wouldn’t be spilling my guts out to Philip. Eventually, you’ll have to talk to me. I won’t let this go on.”
I nod. I realize, also, that it can’t go on. Fairly soon, one way or another, it will have to be resolved.
Later that night, Ian and I lie next to each other in bed, covered only with a white cotton sheet, a painful silence between us. “I’m going to get a drink of water,” he finally tells me. “Are you thirsty?”
I say no, and he gets out of bed. He puts on his underwear and leaves the room. I hear him in the kitchen, the click of the light switch, the cabinet door opening, the water running. Rolling over, I hug the sheet to my body. We tried to make love, but it didn’t work, not very well; for me, not at all. When Ian kisses me, I feel nothing. No, that’s not true. There is the guilt. But I don’t feel desire for him anymore. When we got into bed this evening, Ian slid next to me and kissed me slowly, then ran his hand along the length of my body, the curve of my breasts, the flat terrain of my stomach, the warm flesh of my inner thighs. I lay there, allowing him to touch me, feeling as though I was tolerating him. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I’d put him off for three weeks already, using one excuse or another—I had a headache, I was on my period and had cramps, I was tired. It had been so long since I allowed him to touch me, I felt I couldn’t say no. It was not a pleasant experience. I tried to generate some enthusiasm, but it just wasn’t in me. I felt like the proverbial wife who is told she must occasionally give in to her husband’s lusty demands. Ian knew I wasn’t interested, and he tried his best to arouse me, he did everything that would normally awaken every hormone-driven impulse, but this time nothing inside me stirred. I lay there, not moving, my hands at my sides. Finally, he gave up trying; he just got on top of me and fucked me, angrily, forcing his way inside me, although I didn’t resist. Not at all. I just lay there, letting him continue, wondering why his rough treatment did not excite me as did M.’s, wondering when he would be through. Even in anger, Ian did not have a commanding presence.
I get out of bed and slip on a long blue T-shirt, then go into the kitchen. Ian is sitting at the table, and he looks up when I come in.
“I’m sorry,” he says simply.
Sighing, I sit down across from him. “What for? It was my fault.”
Looking down, he shakes his head. He pulls on his bottom lip, then reaches across the table and takes my hand, holds it in his. He doesn’t say anything, just strokes the back of my hand. This is difficult for him. He is such a gentle person, I know he feels as though he raped me, but it wasn’t like that at all. I hear a car round the corner and drive down the street.
Finally, he says, “I’m sorry. I knew you didn’t want to make love, but I did it anyway and I shouldn’t have.” The words come out slowly, haltingly, and I can hear the ache in his voice. “I just don’t know what to do, Nora. I get so frustrated. You won’t tell me what’s going on. You won’t let me help you.” He pauses, then says, “I don’t want that to happen again. I don’t like seeing myself behave that way.” There is another pause. “Maybe it would be better if we didn’t see each other.”
I hear Ian speaking, I feel him touching my hand, yet he seems so far away. He is receding in my life. Not his physical presence, that is still here, but I no longer feel a connection to him. My guilt is pushing him away. I am consumed with remorse: for neglecting Franny, for responding sexually to M., for being unfaithful to Ian. My life is filled with guilt, and it’s controlling every action I take. I have two men and two lives, both so different yet as bound together as a mirror image is to the object it beholds. M. is my fantasy life; Ian, reality. But the distinction is blurring. I look from the mirror to the object and have difficulty separating the two. M. is becoming my reality. Ian is still here, but in my thoughts he is fading. I don’t want this to be so. I’m living a dual life, and the one I want to prevail, my life with Ian, is dissipating. M. is taking me over.
I kneel on the floor beside Ian. I rest my head on his knee. “Don’t leave me,” I say, my voice barely audible. He leans down so he can hear me.
“I need you,” I tell him. “It won’t always be like this. Give me time.”
But, to myself, I do not think time will be the answer. M.’s hold on me is tightening, his grasp becoming firmer with the passage of time. I can’t seem to pull away. I go along with him as Franny had, waiting for the outcome.
We go back to bed, and both of us sleep fitfully. At three A.M. I wake up, sensing a change has taken place. In the darkness, I listen. It is the wind. I can hear it moaning, phantomlike, as it presses against the windows, straining to be let in. Tree branches brush against the side of the house, and a metal trash can tips over, making a scraping sound as the wind rolls it back and forth. I snuggle closer to Ian’s sleeping body, put my arm across his chest, and hold on.
The days get longer, the summer hotter. I have received more photos in the mail, one of me as I was leaving the athletic club, my gym bag in hand, another as I entered the doctor’s office for my yearly physical. I’ve shown Joe the photos. He checked them for fingerprints, but other than mine, there were none. He says they could be a prank, but still he warns me to stay away from M. It is an eerie feeling to know someone is watching and following me around town. M. denies all knowledge of the pictures. I’ve tried to ferret him out with his camera, but with no success. The August heat affects my vigilance, slowing me down.