Chapter 22 At Cyndi’s #2
“I put myself through grad school as a reflexologist,” I say.
I have no idea where this came from, but it could be true.
I am good at foot rubs. I work the knots in Cyndi’s arches.
“Relax,” I order. I contemplate Cyndi as her head lolls back, eyes closing, throat so trustingly exposed.
She looks so peaceful. My whole life I’ve pictured exactly this, coming up from my basement study to find a woman like Cyndi on the couch, reading, lights on and soup on the stove.
Taking the book from her hand and asking How was your day?
; telling her about mine, massaging her feet as snow falls outside, or autumn leaves or dogwood blossoms. Then perchance the
hot tub, then bed. This is all I’ve ever wanted—this, and to keep writing bestselling books. How has this commonplace goal,
a partnership, eluded me? Dolts, madmen, the stupid rich, the street-sharp poor, the drug-addled, pious, wicked, confused—even
homely women: Most everyone has someone. I’d hoped it would be Simone, I think with a lance of pain. But maybe it’s Cyndi.
Cyndi could be the one.
“Do you always write in this room, kitten?” I ask, cracking her toes one by one.
“Mmmhmm. That feels so good,” she moans, as I massage her paper-thin Achilles tendons.
“I always have a fear while I’m mid-book that something will happen to me, and it’ll be irrevocably lost. Do you have that?”
She tips her head, squints. “Not really.”
“Do you back up your work? Photocopy it”—I laugh—“or scan it? Send it to anyone?”
Cyndi screws up her face. “I don’t. I know I should. But every time I think about bringing it to, like, Staples or something, I feel like that’d let all the magic out. Is that
stupid?”
“On the contrary,” I say. “Margaret would approve.” I ease her skirt up to rub her calves, then inch it higher. Her legs are
white and spindly, with silver lines on the thighs that I think at first are stretch marks. This would be a turn-off. Then
I realize what they really are: a skein of scars like a spider’s web. Poor girl. I skate my fingers over them, barely a whisper
of a touch.
“Where is your magnum opus, kitten?” I murmur.
Cyndi looks around, frowning. “That’s funny. It has to be in here somewhere.”
“We’ll find it,” I say. I lower myself carefully on top of her. “What if,” I whisper in her ear, tonguing it, “what if you
come to my house in Maine? See where I write?”
“I’d love to,” she sighs, as I slide my hand to the scant meat of her breast. “But the cats.”
“Obviously, they’d come with you.” I almost laugh, trying to imagine how big that cage would have to be. “What if they stay
in my barn?”
Cyndi’s eyes pop open in alarm. “Oh no. They’re indoor cats.”
“A barn is indoors,” I say reasonably. Unless somebody were to leave the barn doors open and they got out, to fend for themselves
in my woods with the coyotes and eagles and foxes.
“I don’t think they would like that,” Cyndi says stubbornly.
“Then what if we build them their own house? The cathouse. With nineteen rooms. A birdcage in each one.” I trail my fingers
up Cyndi’s marred thighs.
“That sounds perfect,” she says, sucking in breath as I pull her underwear aside and test her warmth and wetness.
“It’s settled, then,” I murmur. I sit up, leaving her exposed, and smile.
“Kitten,” I say, “would you please find Margaret and read to me?”
Cyndi shoves herself up on her elbows. “Now?”
“I’d love nothing more,” I say truthfully—although the prospect of further exploring what’s beneath her flowered briefs is
also appealing. Later. Priorities. “I want to help you. I want to hear your work. I want to know everything. About Margaret, about your book, about you—”
I must have uttered some magic incantation of my own, for Cyndi launches herself at me, mewling. Before I know what’s happening,
I’m on my back with her straddling me, little hands scrabbling to undo my belt and zipper, yanking me out of my briefs—“Careful,
sweetie, it’s not a gearshift,” I warn—and impaling herself on me. The next thing I know, she’s started to ride.
Well! I think. That was unexpected. I hadn’t planned for this to happen until our next meeting.
But if she wants to accelerate things, who am I to argue?
I reach for her hips to guide her along, faster deeper more, and she slaps my hands away.
Apparently Kitten has her own ideas of how this should go.
Fine. It’s a bit like being in a churn, but it’s not unpleasant.
Thank God I took my own medication before getting out of the car.
As Cyndi’s bouncing away, head thrown back and eyes closed, I have an unwilling flash of Simone doing the same but facing
the other direction, reverse cowgirl, her beautiful back flexing. How I’d said Yeehaw! and felt her internal muscles clenching on me when she laughed. Stop it. For God’s sake. Focus. I look around for the legal pad. As Cyndi said, it must be here somewhere—
Then I spot it. Of course, it has been a foot away all along. On the floor under the couch. Tucked beneath a giant Maine coon,
who stares balefully at me and switches its tail.
I’d like nothing more than to extend my leg and shove the cat away, then kick the legal pad fully beneath the couch, from
which I’d retrieve it once Cyndi is finished and I send her into the kitchen for more tea. As it is, I’ll have to wait. At
least her handwriting is large and legible. She’s speeding up now, moaning toward her conclusion, and as I begin my narrative,
That’s it, kitten, do you know how beautiful you are right now, aglow, luminescent, I look toward the window and my freedom, the cat-hair-less air I’ll be inhaling an hour from now, when I’ll be jogging down
the front steps having set up our next meeting, at which, I’ll suggest, we read to each other from our WIPs, our works-in-progress,
perhaps in the bath. So I can hear the whole story.
And help her. Come for me, kitten . . . you feel it building!
. . . inescapable . . . delicious . . ., and as I say You’re on the edge!
I wonder if that yellow Jeep will still be out there when I depart, and as I say .
. . Now! Do it now! and Cyndi yowls and scratches my chest hard enough to draw blood, I have two thoughts simultaneously: Why must all women be
crazy? and Dear God, the things I do for my art.