Chapter 40 #3
He turned to look at me. His eyes were dark in the dim gaslight, and the darkness made them deeper and more penetrating than they were in daylight, and the depth and the penetration were the qualities that had first drawn me to him, because Sebastian's eyes were the eyes of a man who sees, and the seeing was the one thing that no one else in my experience had ever done, or if they had done it, they had not survived the doing, because the seeing required a kind of courage that most people lacked and a kind of intelligence that most people did not possess, and Sebastian possessed both, and the possession was the thing that had made him dangerous and the thing that had made him fascinating and the thing that had, ultimately, made him the only person in the world whose opinion of me mattered, and the mattering was a thing that I could not explain and could not control and could not reconcile with the rest of my mental architecture, because the rest of my mental architecture was designed to ensure that no one's opinion of me mattered, and the existence of an exception was a flaw in the design, and the flaw was irreparable.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
The question was so unexpected, so utterly unlike anything I had prepared for, that it produced, in the space where other people feel surprise, a genuine flicker of something that was not surprise but which was the closest my mind could come to it, a momentary interruption in the smooth operation of my cognitive machinery, a brief, unaccustomed hesitation before the machinery re-engaged and produced the response that strategy dictated.
"No," I said, and the word was honest, because I was not afraid, because fear requires the capacity to imagine a future that is worse than the present, and my imagination, while extensive, did not extend to the contemplation of personal catastrophe in a way that produced the physical sensation of fear.
I could assess risks. I could calculate probabilities.
I could plan contingencies. But I could not feel afraid, because the feeling of afraid requires an emotional investment in one's own continued well-being, and the investment was a thing I had never made.
"I wish you were," he said, and the words were quiet, and the quietness was the quietness of a man who is not asking for a response but is simply stating a truth, and the truth was that he wanted me to be afraid, because my fear would mean that I was capable of the thing that he was capable of, which was the capacity to feel, and the feeling would mean that I was human in the way that he was human, and the humanity would mean that the thing between us was not, as he had always feared and always hoped, a transaction between a predator and her prey but a connection between two people who recognised each other, and the recognition would mean that the months he had spent pursuing me and the nights he had spent with me and the truth he had uncovered about me had not been wasted but had been, despite everything, a form of love, and the love, however damaged and however futile, was the thing he needed to believe in, and my inability to feel was the thing that made the belief impossible.
I did not respond to this. I did not have a response that was both honest and kind, and the absence of a response that was both honest and kind was, I acknowledged, one of the defining features of my condition, because the honest response was "I am not capable of fear, and your wish that I were capable of it is a wish that I become a different person, and the becoming of a different person is not possible, because the person I am is the person my mother made me, and the making was thorough and complete and cannot be undone," and the kind response was "I understand what you are feeling, and I wish I could give you what you need," and the kind response was a lie, because I did not understand what he was feeling and I did not wish I could give him what he needed, because the giving would require the possession of a thing I did not have.
He reached for me. The reaching was slow and deliberate and without urgency, and the slowness was different from the slowness of our previous encounters, because the previous encounters had been slow in the way that performances are slow, with the deliberate pacing of a person who is controlling an experience, and this slowness was the slowness of a person who is not controlling anything, who is simply moving toward another person because the moving is the only thing left to do.
I did not stop him. I did not redirect him.
I did not guide his hand or manage his pace or calculate the effect of his touch.
I sat still, and his hand touched my face, and the touch was light and warm and tentative, and the tentativeness was the tentativeness of a man who is not certain of his welcome, and the uncertainty was the thing that made it different, because in all the months of our engagement, Sebastian had never been uncertain of his welcome, because I had always welcomed him, strategically, calculatedly, with the precise calibration of a woman who was using physical intimacy as an instrument of control, and the certainty of his welcome had been a product of my manipulation, and the manipulation was, for the first time, absent, and the absence produced a sensation that I had never felt before in the context of physical contact with another person, which was the sensation of not knowing what would happen next.
He leaned toward me and kissed me, and the kiss was slow and soft and utterly without aggression, and the absence of aggression was the thing that distinguished it from every kiss that had preceded it, because every previous kiss had been, on one side or the other, an act of control, a move in a game, a gesture designed to produce a specific effect, and this kiss was none of those things, this kiss was simply a man kissing a woman because the kissing was the language he had available for the things he could not say, and the things he could not say were the things that mattered most, and the kissing said them, inadequately but honestly, and the honesty was the thing that I could not perform and could not resist and could not categorise within the framework of my strategic understanding.
I kissed him back. The kissing back was not strategic.
I did not calculate the angle of my head or the pressure of my lips or the timing of my response.
I did not perform desire or tenderness or the calculated submission that had characterised every previous physical encounter between us.
I simply kissed him, and the kissing was, I think, the first genuinely unperformed physical act of my adult life, and the genuineness of it was terrifying, because the genuineness meant that I was present in a way that I had never been present before, and the presence was the absence of the armour, and the absence of the armour was the vulnerability, and the vulnerability was the thing that Vivienne had trained me, from the age of four, never to permit.
His hands found the buttons of my dress, and the finding was unhurried, and the unhurried quality of it was something I recognised as new, because Sebastian's hands, in our previous encounters, had been either desperate or controlled, driven by the urgency of desire or the discipline of a man who was trying to regain a sense of agency, and the hands that were unbuttoning my dress now were neither desperate nor controlled but simply present, doing what they were doing because the doing was what this moment required, and the requirement was not strategic but organic, a response to the chemistry of two bodies in a dark room who have run out of words and must communicate in the only language that remains.
The dress fell away. I was not wearing anything beneath it, and the not-wearing was not a calculated seduction but a practicality, because the dress was the last of my evening gowns and I had not thought to put on a chemise, and the absence of the chemise was, in the context of what was about to happen, a thing of no consequence, because the consequence of the moment was not determined by the presence or absence of undergarments but by the quality of the attention that we were bringing to each other, and the attention was, for the first time in my experience of physical intimacy, attention that was not filtered through strategy.
He looked at me. The looking was long and thorough and entirely without the quality of assessment that had characterised his gaze in the early days of our acquaintance, when he had been a detective and I had been a suspect and the looking had been a form of investigation.
This looking was the looking of a man who is memorising, who is committing to memory the details of a thing that he knows he will never see again, and the memorising was the thing that made it different, because the memorising was not about desire or possession or the satisfaction of appetite but about preservation, the desperate, futile effort to hold onto something that was about to be lost, and the effort was so honest and so total that it produced, in the space where other people feel moved, the faint, cool sensation that I had come to recognise as the maximum emotional response of which my nature is capable.