God and Sex

Chapter 7 #4

“In any case, he’s really upset about it,” I said. “He’s suffering a lot. He cried about it. I saw him this morning.”

Sarah moaned, hating this news. The reality we’d entered was already bleak and unforgiving.

We’d fallen into the oldest story in the book, three well-intentioned people trapped in a triangle.

At least she and I were in the pit together now, suffering alongside each other.

We sat in the hot dome letting it all penetrate.

“So what are we going to do?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I don’t think I can deal with lying to him much longer,” she said. “It isn’t fair. It’s awful.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I agree with that.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

We sat in silence, wondering. Hot wind blew through the trees, shaking the boughs, sending needles and cones falling onto the yurt’s roof.

The trunks were groaning up and down their lengths, creaking in their grain.

In the darkness, I could hear Sarah breathing.

I could sense her turning inward, away from me, having her own private thoughts about all that was happening.

“What are you thinking?” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said distantly.

“Tell me,” I said.

“I’m just thinking…” She sighed. “I guess I’m wondering what’s going on here, that’s all.”

“It’s a good question,” I said.

“I mean, what is this, Arthur?” she said. “We’ve been doing this for a while now. But we’ve never really talked about it. Not in a real way.”

“No, I guess we haven’t,” I said.

“Maybe it’s time we did,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

I waited, hoping she’d go first. I wanted her to tell me what I was supposed to feel. But I could tell she was waiting, too, hoping I’d inform her of the same thing. There was no outwaiting her, I could sense. I was the one who had to begin.

“Well,” I said, trying to proceed delicately. I knew we were in a fragile spot, and I didn’t want to break anything by going too fast or being imprecise. “I think we have something very special between us. Something that I never expected. Something I value a lot.”

“Okay,” she said, not impressed.

“And it’s also something that hurts Phil,” I said, “which is really unfortunate.”

“Yep,” she said.

“But even though I know it’s wrong,” I said, “I don’t want it to end. I can’t really imagine that happening.”

“Me, neither,” she said. “I’m glad you said that.”

“So where does that leave us?” I said. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know, either,” she said. And again, we waited in silence. The branches of the trees were going crazy outside, roaring in wild gusts. A big pine cone dropped on the roof and rolled off the edge, plopping on the wooden deck.

Quietly, as if the words could barely make it out of her lips, she said, “I could leave him.”

We let that thought expand in the darkness. In our hot bubble, it felt like we could hear the world’s heart beating. She was taking the final path, the deepest path, the one that led into pitch blackness.

“It would be a big step,” I said.

“It would,” she said.

“It would mean some really big changes,” I said.

“That’s for sure,” she said. “But what do you think? As an idea?”

I didn’t know what to say. At the same time, I knew I wasn’t allowed to wait long to answer.

The more time that elapsed, the weaker my answer would become.

My answer would become deformed by misgivings, even if the misgivings were well hidden or later denied.

If my answer was going to give her any dignity, it had to come fast.

“I think,” I said, “that that sounds good.” And it was true, even as I heard the words exiting my mouth.

Already, I could feel the rightness of the idea as it came into being.

I could feel the rightness of our worlds melding and becoming one.

It was almost like the idea had been there all along, waiting for us to voice it.

My misgivings vanished for the moment. I could almost see the whole shape of the future resolving and making room for us.

I could see that we’d been building it that way from the start.

“That’s nice,” she said.

And then we rested. It seemed like we’d already climbed a mountain.

We’d clambered over a high, rocky escarpment, and the view of the country now spread before us in all its dazzling, sun-spotted hugeness.

The idea of a life together was capacious and warm.

There were landscapes of mystery and sweetness ahead.

I saw a house in California with peeling paint on the windowsills and dripping nasturtiums in the front yard.

I could see Sarah and me cooking a stir-fry in our humble kitchen.

I could tell the images had been growing between us for months now, but we hadn’t allowed ourselves to look at them.

We hadn’t realized how far up the mountain we’d already come.

It turned out, however, we weren’t done climbing. There was still a major length to go.

“There’s something else,” she said.

“What?” I said gently. I was still enjoying the view into our future. I could feel Sarah’s ribs breathing against me. In a gleam of wayward moonlight, I saw the finest grain of her hair, the curve of her cheek.

“I don’t know if I want to say it,” she said.

“We’re here now,” I said. “We should say it all.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “If we’re really talking about this…”

And before she could say any more, she started to cry.

I didn’t say anything, but only held her tightly, waiting for the squall to pass.

I was starting to comprehend where this was going.

I could already see that to live together, to leave a marriage, was something she didn’t take lightly.

It implied certain expectations, certain bargains.

I could tell that the mountain we’d just climbed was not the real mountain after all, but only the base of the mountain.

The view I’d glimpsed was suddenly overgrown with vegetation.

We were entering a much denser territory than I’d imagined.

“I’m thirty-seven years old,” she said, gasping. “I don’t have a lot of time to mess around. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I think I do,” I said.

“You think so?” she said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Are you going to make me say it out loud?” she said.

“Uh, yeah, maybe so,” I said. “Just to be sure.”

She whimpered a few times, trying to collect herself, but she couldn’t seem to get her breathing under control. Finally, she went ahead, breaking into ragged sobs as she spoke.

“When I was little,” she said, “I never wanted any kind of family. You know? I looked around at all the people in the neighborhood and I thought, no, no, that’s not me.

I saw all those stupid dads in their backyards.

Those stupid moms in their pantries full of Doritos and Pepsi.

All those huge, stupid cars. I hated it, Arthur.

The waste of it all. It was all so fucking obvious.

It was a fable that people were living in, and I hated it.

“And then I left home and met Phil,” she said, “and it was great, because he saw it all the same way. Not in an angry way. Just in a smart, deep way. He didn’t even wear shoes back then.

He lived in his fucking van and slept in a hammock on campus.

I don’t know what we were thinking. I was so young when we got together. He was my TA, you know that, right?”

“I think I did,” I said.

“But now, I’m having different feelings,” she said. “My body is wanting things that I didn’t want before. Do you know what I’m saying, Arthur? Do I have to spell it out to you? A bomb is going off in me.”

“I think I understand,” I said.

“I want a baby,” she said, and gasped like she’d been punched.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud.

But I think about it all the time, Arthur.

I do. I was thinking about it before I met you.

I don’t know if I knew I was thinking about it, but I was.

I want a fucking baby. I want to see a baby grow up and learn to talk.

I want to see it learn to walk. I want to see it grow up and leave me.

I want to be abandoned by a baby, Arthur, is that so wrong?

I feel like my life might be wasted if I don’t do it. Oh, God…”

She wept harder, burying her face in my shoulder.

“It isn’t wrong,” I said quietly, kissing her hair, even as the earth seemed to dissolve underneath me.

We were floating into a completely new dimension now, without features in any direction.

I didn’t know what kind of place it was.

But in the moment, more than anything else, I only wanted to console Sarah. I wanted to make her feel safe.

“And you’re saying I’m the one you want to do this with, right?” I said, buying a little time.

“I wouldn’t be telling you this if you weren’t, you dumbshit,” she said.

“This really isn’t what I thought we were going to be talking about tonight,” I said. “Wow.”

“Yeah, me, neither,” she said, recovering a bit and wiping her eyes. “But now it’s out there. You don’t have to say anything right now. I just need to know if it’s a definite no or not. Is it? You can tell me.”

“No,” I said, “it’s not a no.”

We sat in the darkness holding each other, sweating.

At last, the real secret was out, and it was far beyond the meager secret of infidelity.

The fable Sarah had rejected her entire life was suddenly the one she wanted to live.

And for whatever reason, she’d deemed me good enough to live it with her.

Why was Phil not good enough? Who could say? I was the one.

I kissed her wet forehead, her eyes. Her tears were salty and viscous.

We were both covered in sweat but we didn’t care; the sweat was clean and fresh.

We began kissing each other with more ardor, feeling a new solemnity gathering between us.

No matter what happened now, there was no going back. Her marriage was shattered.

I peeled off Sarah’s shirt and she peeled off mine.

We took off our own shorts and found each other again, our bodies gliding against each other, slipping and sliding almost like they were turned inside out.

I ran my hands over her hips, over her nipples, over her beautiful, rounded ass.

The sweat in the crevice was maddeningly arousing.

She took me in her mouth until I made her stop and we lay down on the soft floor, the backward wind blowing in the trees overhead.

She’d never been so open to me before. I’d never been so strong.

As I thrust inside her, she held on to my back like I might float away, both of us wondering if we were conceiving new life that very night, in the very first, raw moments of our brand-new life.