Chapter 9
MAX
Istand in the kitchen with a spatula in my hand.
I crack three eggs into the cast-iron pan.
I lay two slices of bread on the rack of the woodstove to toast. I pour two cups of coffee.
I do all of this while my pulse is doing things it did not used to do, while my hands are doing the normal steady things my hands do and the rest of me is not normal and not steady.
I watched her come.
I watched her come once through the doorway and once in a chair six feet from her bed.
I sat in that chair with my hands flat on the arms of it, which was the only thing I had left, because if my hands had gone anywhere else they would have been on her.
I sat and I looked at her and I said yes once and I said keep going and I said stay looking and I watched a woman I have known for four days come on her own hand with her eyes on mine.
Her eyes on mine.
That is the part I can't put down.
I break the yolks with the corner of the spatula. I don't mean to. I always fry them over easy. I break them this morning because my hand is not where my head is. I let them break. I let them set flat in the pan. I salt them. I pepper them.
Her footsteps in the hallway.
I hear her come before I see her. Bare feet on the boards. Then slower, on the transition strip at the door of the kitchen. She has put something on. I hear a shirt move. I do not turn yet.
"Sit," I say.
"Okay."
She crosses behind me. I hear her pull out the chair across the table from where I'll sit. I hear her settle.
I turn.
She is in the gray henley. Mine. She has not put anything else on.
The hem falls to her thigh. Her hair is loose.
Her face is pink at the cheek. Her mouth still has the shape a mouth has just after.
Her hands are folded on the table in front of her.
She has put her hands on the table on purpose, I see, because her hands would be doing other things without a job to do.
I cross to the table. I set the plate down in front of her. Eggs, toast, butter in a small crock. I set her coffee to the right of the plate. I set my plate and my coffee across from her. I sit.
She looks at me.
"Thank you," she says.
"You're welcome."
"For the eggs."
"The eggs."
"And the sitting."
"The sitting."
"Yes."
I pick up my fork. I watch her pick up her fork. Her hand shakes a very small amount. I don't say anything about it. She butters her toast. She takes a bite of toast first and then a bite of egg. Her eyes close a half second on the first bite.
"Good," she says.
"Good."
We eat.
I watch her eat the way I watched her eat last night, but differently.
Last night I watched her and the watching was a thing I was doing with a wall around it.
This morning the wall is gone. I watch her jaw work.
I watch her throat swallow. I watch the pulse in the side of her neck.
I watch her lift the mug. I watch the small pink mark in the white of her teeth where she must have bitten her lower lip during.
"Stop watching me," she says.
"No."
"Max."
"No."
She looks up. She looks across the table at me.
"Okay."
She keeps eating. She eats slower. I keep watching her. I am doing it on purpose because she is letting me. We have a new arrangement in this room this morning that is eight minutes old, and I am practicing being in it.
---
After breakfast I wash the plates. She tries to stand to help and I tell her no. She sits in the henley at the table and she drinks a second cup of coffee. She is so very beautiful. All long legs and lazy morning hair.
"Evangeline."
"Yes."
"I'd like to do something for you."
"Okay."
"I'd like to run a bath."
Her hand stops on the mug.
"I can run a bath by myself, Max."
"I know."
"You don't have to."
"I'd like to."
"Why."
"Because I want to care for you in the way that you deserve to be cared for.”
She looks at me.
She looks at me a long count. Her throat moves. The pink at her cheek comes up a half step.
"All right," she says.
"I'd like to wash you. Every part of you, I want to be clear about what I'm asking."
"What are you asking?”
"I'm asking if I can bathe you. My hands washing your body tenderly giving you the care that you deserve.”
"Will you touch me sexually?”
“No, I will just worship you.”
“Max, you can wash me." She is beautiful and seductive as hell and I can’t take my eyes off her.
I let a breath out of my nose.
"Thank you."
"Stop thanking me," she says.
"No."
She huffs. It is the first time I have heard her huff. The sound is small and a little tired and she smiles at the table after she makes it.
"Bath," I say.
"Bath."
---
I run the bath hot.
I kneel by the tub with my elbow in the water until the mix is right.
The water is deep. I add a measure of the eucalyptus salt from the shelf over the sink, the small blue jar a friend gave me that I have not opened in a year.
Fresh. I pull two candles down from the shelf, pillar candles, cream, unscented.
Not romantic. Not staged. Light. Something to read her face by when the sun is the wrong angle for this room, which it will be in an hour.
I set them on the floor by the tub, one at the head, one at the foot.
I light them with the box of matches in the drawer.
I lay a thick towel on the tile by the tub for me to sit on. I lay a thick towel on the bench under the window for her, folded. I lay a small cloth on the lip of the tub.
I walk out to the kitchen.
She is standing at the window in the gray henley. She turns when I come in. She reads my face.
"Ready?” she says.
"Ready."
"Okay."
I don't take her hand to lead her. I don't need to.
She walks with me. She takes off the henley in the hallway, not in the bathroom, which is a thing she is doing on purpose.
She folds the henley and she lays it on the arm of the armchair in the bedroom as we pass the open door.
She walks naked to the bathroom. I follow her.
I look at the back of her head, at the loose fall of her hair down to her shoulder blades, and at the slope of her shoulders, the lovely round curve of her ass, and at the pale band on her finger, which is not a band anymore, just a memory of one.
She steps into the tub.
She goes down in slow. Her knees come up. Her breath goes out. She leans her head back against the curled top of the tub and she closes her eyes.
"Oh," she says.
"Too hot?” I ask, concerned.
“Perfect amount of hot."
“Good.”
I sit on the towel on the tile, my knees up, one arm along the rim of the tub. I take the cloth. I dip it in the water. I wring it out lightly. I bring it to her collarbone.
I lay it against her skin.
She makes a sound. It is not a sexual sound.
It is a sound a person makes who has not been touched gently at the collarbone since they were a child.
And maybe not even then. I have heard this sound out of other women.
I like to care for women who are mine. I keep the cloth at her collarbone a count of three before I move.
I move the cloth.
I move it along the slope of her shoulder and down the outside of her arm and over the wrist and back up the inside.
I move it slow. I watch her face. Her eyes stay closed.
Her mouth is soft. I move the cloth across her chest in an even pass, collarbone to collarbone, not lingering at her breasts.
I let the cloth trail over the water and rewet it.
I come back to her other shoulder. I do the other arm.
"How's your hand," I say.
"Still cut."
"Want me to rewrap it?”
"After."
"All right."
I turn the cloth and I bring it to the place below her ear.
She tilts her head for me without opening her eyes.
I wash behind her ear, the line of her jaw, down to the hollow of her throat.
I skim the hollow. I feel her pulse against the cloth.
Her pulse is fast. Her eyes stay closed. Her mouth is open a very small amount.
I wash her breasts.
I do it the way I like. Slow and tender so I can watch her at every point.
So she feels worshipped, because she is.
The cloth, across the top of the breast, under, around.
I pass over each nipple once. I feel each nipple come up.
I do not pinch. I do not linger. I watch her face and her mouth opens a little more and a small sound comes out and I pass the cloth over again, the same way, slow, and her back arches against the porcelain just a quarter inch, and I bring the cloth back to her sternum.
"Okay," she says. Breath.
"Okay."
"Keep going."
"I'm keeping going."
I wash down her ribs. I come to her hip. I wash the hip. I wash the inside of her thigh, top third only, cloth, slow. I do not go further up yet. I feel the heat come off her skin the nearer I come. I take the cloth back to the water. I rewet it.
"Turn for me," I say.
"Okay."
She sits up in the tub. The water runs off her shoulders. I take the cloth to her back. I go from the nape of her neck down the line of her spine to the dimple at the base. I do this slow. I do it twice.
"I have a scar on my back," she says. "Between the shoulder blades. Not big. I fell when I was nine."
"I feel it. I'm on it."
"Okay."
I trace the shape of it with the cloth. It is a small raised star, an inch across. I feel it under the cotton. I wash it. I go past it.
"Thank you for telling me where it was."
"I didn't want you to come on it by accident."
"I wouldn't have come on it by accident."
"I know. But still."
"Still."
I wash down to the small of her back. I come back up. I bring the cloth over the front of her shoulder and I trace her collarbone again. She leans back.
I wash her leg.
I lift her foot out of the water. I rest the heel in my palm. I wash the instep. I wash the ankle. I wash the calf. I wash the back of the knee. I wash up the outside of the thigh. I do not go to the inside.
I set the foot back in the water.