Chapter 10 #2
“So,” Rob elongates the word. “I was saying I’ve been happier recently.
And I guess I was wondering how you’re feeling.
I know things are messed up, but lately you seem better.
Even happy. To start with, you were understandably freaked out, but no .
. .” He swirls the wine in his glass, watching me.
I nod, wondering how much to say. A huge part of me wants to tell him he makes me feel safe and happy, and lean forward into his arms. To kiss him again, like I did on Valentine’s Day. But those floodgates, once opened, cannot be closed. And is that right?
“I guess I have been happier. It was all too weird at first. Living with you, our home, the new job, everything. But this is my new normal. And it’s a wonderful life.
We have so much. An incredible place to live.
And I’ve met fantastic people, I have a fun job .
. . Yeah.” I shrug, more nonchalant than I feel.
Rob’s gentle smile wavers. He presses his lips together. “That’s good.”
And you, I want to say. Now I have you, and you love me, and you’re the most incredible, kind, beautiful man I have ever met. I’m so lucky to have you. I don’t deserve you.
Why can’t I say it? I want to, and it’s what he wants to hear.
“It seems to be going really well for you at H&F,” he continues, and I’m relieved for the break in tension. We spend another hour chatting about my work and B+B’s new Tribeca project. But something is missing — a gaping hole of unfinished business.
After finishing my wine, I go to the bathroom and realize the room is tilting. “I’m cutting myself off,” I tell Rob when I return, leaning on the wall for support. “I’ve been matching you drink for drink, and you’ve got a hundred pounds on me.”
“Probably for the best.” Rob’s tone is carefree. “You’re enough of a lush as it is. I might stay up a while. It’s only 10. Hope you’re comfortable in there.”
“Thanks, I’m fine. See you in the morning.”
“Good night, Josie.” He pours himself another glass of wine, then turns and raises it to me. “Sleep tight.”
In the bedroom, I change into the silk pajamas and crawl between the sheets.
I expect the wine and food to knock me out, but sleep doesn’t come.
The light from the living room creeps in under the door, and I find myself listening for tiny sounds.
Quiet strains of music, Rob occasionally putting down his glass, sometimes changing position.
I listen intently, as if his mundane movements will provide me with clues to . . . something.
To what? What am I listening for? To hear heavy, lovesick sighs? Or . . . a quiet knock at my door?
After almost an hour, I give up, turning on my side to sleep. But I’m not comfortable, as it’s a firmer bed than I prefer. I’m considering taking one of my sleep-inducing painkillers when a switch clicks, the living room light vanishes, and Rob thuds up the spiral staircase to the loft.
I’m overwhelmed with acute disappointment, as though an opportunity has been lost. To do what? But I know the answer.
To be with him. Tonight. Completely. I blew it.
I continue to lie still, eyes wide open in the dark, listening to Rob’s footsteps on the ceiling above, more alert than I’ve ever been in my life.
He’s still awake. I haven’t blown it yet. I could still go upstairs.
Refusing to think about it further, I climb out of bed and open my door. Every hair on my body is on end as I walk into the living room, which is lit by the glow of the loft light. I pad to the foot of the staircase, my stomach in knots, not daring to breathe.
Am I doing this? Don’t think, don’t think.
I take a silent first step up the curved staircase, then realize it would be creepier to be quiet.
I blow out a stream of breath, ignore the screaming in my head, and walk as confidently as I can muster up the stairs.
“Hey,” I say as I climb up, my head appearing above the loft floor. “You still up?”
Rob is sitting on the bed in a white T-shirt and black boxer briefs, bathed in the light of the bedside lamp. He stares at me, clearly shocked. “Err . . . hey. Everything good?” He unfreezes, picking up his phone, pretending to set an alarm.
I’m suddenly ashamed, verging on humiliated.
What am I doing? What if he doesn’t want me?
“I’m fine,” I reply. “It’s the bed. It’s firm for me, I can’t get comfy. I wondered if it’s a softer mattress up here. Sorry.”
“Oh. Sure. You’ll like this one, it’s squishy. You wanna try?”
“Thanks.” I sit on the other side of the bed. The mattress gives beneath me, inviting me to lie down. I sigh. “This is much more like it.”
Rob turns to me. “You should have it, then. I’ll go downstairs.”
“Oh, no. I mean, you don’t have to. I don’t want to throw you out. There’s plenty of room.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.” He hesitates, then gets under the covers, not looking at me. I do the same and lie down. We’re both rigid, awkward. Then Rob reaches to the nightstand and switches off the light.
I lie there for a moment, my sight adjusting to the darkness, my heart racing.
I move my pillows, stalling for time, then turn toward Rob.
He is facing upwards, his profile illuminated by the bright glow of the moon from the skylight in the sloped ceiling.
The line of his forehead is flat, his nose strong, his profile fuzzing as it reaches his beard, with a deep crevice where it parts for his mouth.
Every few moments, his long eyelashes blink.
He is waiting, in the dark, beside me. Waiting for me to say, or do, something.
And in that moment, I am no longer afraid. Still, I let him wait a beat longer.
“I didn’t come up just because of the bed.”
He turns his head to me but says nothing, still waiting. I wish I could see his expression, but his features are now in total darkness.
“I came up here to be with you. Completely. As your wife.”
That’s it. That’s all the invitation Rob needs.
He rolls toward me and, in one fluid motion, slips one arm beneath my waist, the other across me, under the sheet, pulling me firmly into his body.
He pauses for a moment, before kissing me more deeply than I’ve ever known.
And then kissing me more. And more. And more, pulling off his T-shirt and unbuttoning my pajamas with fervor.
What happens next is beyond any physical, emotional, or sexual encounter I’ve ever experienced before — a spiraling, dizzying, all-consuming blur of desire, urgency, passion and joy.
Here, in this little loft, I lose all sense of time and place, of where I am, of who I am, of where one of us ends and the other begins.
The bed, the headboard, the chair, the dresser, the floor, pushing against the sloped ceiling, leaning over the railing and even clinging onto the hard, spiral staircase .
. . There is no surface in this self-created paradise that doesn’t bear witness to this joining of bodies and souls.
And no inch of my body he doesn’t explore and devour, nor me his, from the nape of the neck to the navel to the inside of the thigh.
The tiny universe we create between us is neither his world, nor mine, but a third place, a transcendent place, where only he and I exist in space and time.
* * *
I awake, still half inside a dream of the two of us alone on a distant planet made up entirely of pale blue ocean and gray shingle beaches.
We were walking, no destination in mind, the journey along the beach an end in itself.
Rob would stop to help me over a rocky outcrop and lift me into him, kissing me each time, before continuing on.
For a moment, I’m not sure where I am. What’s a dream and what’s reality. There’s a bright light dazzling me, preventing me from fully opening my eyes. The bed is unfamiliar yet soft, and my head is aching. There is a beeping in the distance. For a moment, I am struck with terror.
Am I back in the hospital? Or waking up again, for real this time?
Tilting my head away from the light, I see the loft, the bed I’m lying on, the sheets and pillows in disarray, my pajamas and lace panties on the floor, the chair in an improbable position. Evidence of last night.
Thank God.
It was real.
I’m lying in a pool of sunshine beaming down through the skylight. There’s a sheen of perspiration on my bare skin. No sign of Rob, though.
Rob. I recall snatches of moments from last night, some making me smile, blush, or shake my head in disbelief. And his absence makes me ache. Where’d he go?