What I Did for Love (22 page)

So I wanted my timing to be perfect, and I arrived to meet Rand, few cars passing, few people and only at a distance, exactly at one o’clock. He was already there, in the shadow of the building, stepping forward quickly, his arm coming around me, moving us rapidly to an all-but-unseen alley behind the building, and then down the narrow walkway, two people barely able to stand next to each other, to a high solid fence. It was electronically controlled, the way the front gate was, and Rand clicked the fence open so that the panel swung ajar just enough to let us slip in, our entry quick, and the gate closed behind us.

From the alley it had looked like a wooden gate painted black, but on this side I could see it was a steel door. Rand evidently shared Bredon’s concern that there always be a back way out. I vaguely wondered if there were yet another way in and out, but that was a fleeting thought as Rand’s body had pressed against me in the alley and now on the loop to the stone path. It was exciting to be near him again, and without the tension of being on public display, as we had been at the wedding.

The sitting room had a table set up at one end, food already there. Everything was fresh, as usual, the special shades arranged to let in light without heating the room. There were roses in vases on the mantel, on the side tables, on the dining table, not like the ones Rand had sent from India, but beautiful, giving a light perfume.

“Do you want to wash up before we eat?” Rand asked me, as though no time had passed, as though we had not experienced nights of wild sex and wilder orgasms.

I looked at Rand doubtfully. “Sure,” I said. There was another hallway which I assumed led to the kitchen. “Is there a powder room down that hall?”

“Use the big bathroom,” he said, pointing to the doorway.

I moved toward it warily, and looking in, saw only a guest bedroom, all the sex furniture gone except for the high table against the wall. My stomach was all butterflies, excited, relieved, wondering how he had managed to change this room so completely. I said nothing, but quickly made my way to the bathroom, closed the door, and leaned against it, taking deep breaths. Sexual longing for him filled me, and I splashed cold water on my face, washing my hands with the gorgeous, creamy soap, the towels so thick and soft, memories and desire floating about me.

When I came out I could see Rand waiting for me in the sitting room, and quickly went to join him. “Do you have the picture?” I asked.

“It’s here.” He took my hand, leading me to the dining table. The photograph had been framed with non-reflective glass and narrow silver edging. It sat on a padded envelope that would protect it until I got home. Rand held the chair for me and I sat, looking hungrily at the photograph, at my parents so young, so happy and proud of their son, Bredon at fifteen, standing in front of them, Rand beside him, only seven years old. All this, five years before I was born.

I was transfixed by the photograph, lost in it, studying my parents’ images with an aching sense of love and loss. My fingertips caressed their figures through the glass of the frame. My eyes felt hot with the tears that brimmed, that I willed not to fall. Finally I came back to myself, took a deep breath, and the feeling of being overwhelmed began to ebb.

“I’m glad I could give you this,” Rand said quietly, sitting beside me, putting his hand over mine.

I nodded, unable to speak, not knowing how to deal with all my confusion over Rand.

“Dray, may I kiss you?” Rand pulled me up out of my chair, taking my other hand. “I’ve missed you. I’m so sorry for the way things went between us.”

An apology. Of a sort. At last. Turning our bargain into something vague.

“You’re seeing someone,” I told him. “Carlotta. She was jealous that you danced with me.”

“I
was
seeing Carlotta,” he said, an edge in his voice.

I ignored his tone, and anyway did not believe he was finished with her. “She’s very beautiful,” I said insistently, wanting him to tell the truth. “She’s a model, the new super-model in fact…”

“Yes, and I was one way for her to become famous,” he said, that same hard tone in his voice. “When I discovered how she stayed so thin, not just all the workouts at the gym, or living on coffee…”

“Models don’t eat,” I laughed, “and neither do ballerinas…”

“Whatever,” Rand said dismissively. “Only, she had some extra help. When I caught her doing a line of coke, that was it.”

Oh God, I thought. Rand saw how startled I was, and made a sound between laughter and sarcasm. “Coke will keep you thin, for sure,” he said, his face disgusted, or maybe just disappointed and hurt.

“I’m sorry for her…” I began, but Rand waved my words away.

“It’s just as well. She wanted to get very serious, and I didn’t have those feelings for her.” He looked at me, holding my hands more tightly. “She was right to be jealous. I want you, not her, not anyone else.”

I could not bear the thought of his kisses while her face was before me in my mind. I pulled away from him slightly, and his eyes showed hurt and questioning.

“I only took her to the wedding because I wasn’t involved with anyone else,” he said. “She thought we would make up after the wedding, but I told her we were finished.”

He took one of my hands, raised it to his lips, kissed it.

“Rand, you don’t know what you’ve picked up from her…”

“I’ve had every test there is,” he said. “I did that before you and I had sex. I know you were afraid of unprotected sex. I’m sorry, Dray, truly.” The look in his eyes began to fade to despair.

“You could have made me pregnant,” I said angrily.

“I think I hoped that would happen,” he said, his voice now edged with misery. “But it didn’t happen.” He looked at me hopefully.

“No, it didn’t.” I felt my anger rising.

“Make love with me,” he pleaded, drawing me to him. I felt the heat of my body rising, the impossible attraction between us as strong as ever.

His hands were stroking my body, my breasts, sending little tremors through me as only his touch could seem to do.

My knees were trembling, he was reaching under my skirt, his fingers finding me, feeling me wet. “Your fur grew back, it feels so soft,” he whispered.

He was drawing me toward the bedroom, kissing my neck, planting kisses behind my neck, under my hair; he breathed in my perfumes and his tongue traced my earlobe. I was all but having an orgasm just from these kisses.

Still, I hesitated, and he reached down into the drawer on the table next to the bed. He drew out a foil packet. “Safe sex,” he whispered with a laugh. I recognized the packet, not latex but the thin condom that was a fine, soft covering. Not true safe sex, but no pregnancy either.

Rand lifted my skirt, pulling down my panties, bending to lick my wetness, making me crazy with desire. He quickly tore open the packet, undid his trousers and got them off. No underwear. Just his beautiful naked penis, over which he quickly rolled the condom. It glistened, so transparent. He sank down onto the bed, his penis finding me, his hands caressing my breasts under my shirt, under my bra. He was inside me in an instant, bringing my buttocks upward, pressing against me so that each thrust hit into my clitoris, rocking me with pleasure, and in the haze of orgasm I heard him groan, felt the pressure of his coming, felt him grow smaller as he quickly withdrew from me, holding the condom in place, wiping himself down with a towel he must have had on the bed. I heard him getting up, going into the bathroom for another towel, using it to towel off my wetness, and he sank down beside me again, spent.

“Oh, I’ve dreamed of your body,” he murmured.

I finally had the strength to get up, to straighten my clothes and make myself presentable again. Rand had gone to wash, and then came out and got his trousers on again.

“You’re wonderful, Dray,” he said, kissing me through my hair. “And I invited you for lunch. Are you starving?” He was in high humor now, pleased with himself, with me.

I was hungry, and we went to the dining table where deli sandwiches sat in plastic wrapping on a cooling platter, glass carafes with ice inserts holding iced tea and milk and one other liquid. “Iced coffee,” Rand smiled, seeing me studying it.

I wished I could only have sex with him and not have to worry about any other part of our relationship. I felt completely amoral, and could not get myself to care.

We ate hungrily, tuna salads and greens and sherbet, delicious. The photograph had been encased in its protective envelope, slipped into my tote bag to bring home.

He chatted to me happily as we ate, telling me about the first meeting of the museum trustees, of the kinds of future exhibits that had been proposed, the logistics of setting up a big show, the difficulties involved in arranging loans and transporting works of art from other museums. He spoke as though we had not been through the cruel bargain we had made, the fears that had rocked me as much as the sexual pleasure I had derived from it. He spoke with me as though our past times together had happened to other people.

My feelings and confusion were sorting themselves out as we sat there. When we had finished, and shared a sink in the big bathroom, washing our hands and faces, Rand producing tooth-brushes for us, happy, as though we were a couple who were living together, lovers who had no bitterness in their past.

“Please, Dray, I want to see you naked,” he said after we were all fresh and clean. “I want to undress you,” he said, his tone one of courtship, persuasion. His hand traveled lightly over my body, lingering to give a light pinch to my nipple, my arousal obvious to him as I grew warmer and felt the familiar throbbing between my legs.

I did not say anything as he pulled me back into the bedroom, pulling back the coverlet to reveal soft clean sheets and fresh pillows, beautifully white, the fragrance of lavender rising from them. He undressed me slowly, kissing my breasts after he
removed my blouse and bra, kissing my breasts and nipping at my nipples as he did so, carefully setting my clothes on the small loveseat, undoing my skirt, pulling down my panties, kissing me and sucking me as he knelt before me to take them off completely, his own trousers and shirt already undone and off, and then lifting me to the high table, spreading my legs, entering me slowly, taking my breath away.

He stopped and went to get another condom, rolling it on quickly, entering me again, pressing his hand down to pleasure me as he moved inward and out again.

Stopping, he brought me down from the table, over to the bed, placing my hips on a pillow, holding my buttocks in his hands, holding me up at an angle so that his thrusting sent more intense shivers of pleasure through me. I felt his fingers exploring me, first one finger, then two, entering between my buttocks, making me gasp as he continued his rhythm, holding his fingers firmly inside me, his thrusting more rapid, and I could not see through the blur of sensation, drifting away while he came with a long moaning sound, collapsing beside me, drawing out of me, wiping himself off as he pulled the condom free.

My heartbeat finally slowed to normal, I could finally see again, and I must have dozed, because I came awake with a start, the mantel clock chiming five times.

“What a wonderful lunchtime,” he said with a low laugh. He had been resting on one elbow, gazing down at me, studying me. “See me every day like this,” he said, courtship and persuasion in his tone.

I pretended he was just joking, smiling, rising to get dressed. The days were already growing shorter, and I wanted to be home before dark. He saw my look, and helped me up, admiring my body, caressing me as I went to wash, leaving me to use the bathroom. I had carried my clothes in with me, and put them on, grateful for their expensive resistance to wrinkling. I went out to
get my sandals, and put them on.

“Rand, are we going to go out through the alley?” I was hoping he would say yes, and was relieved when he nodded. “I’ll get a cab.”

“Tom can drive you home.”

“No, it’s better if I use a taxi,” I said. I was so clear now on what I felt and what I wanted to do.

“Dray, will you be with me? Can we take up where we really started that day we met?”

“I don’t know, Rand.” I was lying. “You live the kind of life Bredon lives, and it’s fascinating, but I want to live in my own generation.”

“You don’t have to live with me. Just say we can be lovers, that we can have this for each other.”

But I was thinking of Andrew and Robin and Dina, of our newness to the world, our chance to live apart from the scramble and sophistication of the financial world. I wanted to live free, to trek around this city and other places in the world with my friends, and not be tied to a lover who had already lived the years I had yet to experience.

“I don’t intend to go sleeping with other people,” I said, laughing, meaning it. Where would I find such sex, such passion? But the cost was too high, I was not willing to trade my young years even for the lusty hours with Rand. This much I owed to my parents: to live the life they had given me, to live for them, who had been robbed of their lives, of their children’s years and marriages.

“All right, Dray, think about it.” He looked down for a moment and seemed to gather himself. “I don’t want to scare you or overwhelm you. But I do love you.”

In my way, in spite of everything, I knew exactly how he felt, but it still took my breath away to hear him say it. And it still made me angry that his love had so much cruelty and hatred in it. I shivered to think of the world I would be living in if Bredon’s
gamble had failed.

“Your thoughts are so far away,” he said, watching me. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“All right, Rand. I will.” That was no lie. How could I
not
think about these times with him, this passion and heat and desire? But I could not bring myself to kiss him, the thought of his having kissed Carlotta, the thought of that dreadful world he had seen from the margins, drugs and starvation and highly-paid modeling, youth at a premium, all appearance, no depth, no substance.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said as we made for the back gate.

I just nodded. Tomorrow morning I would meet Andrew at church. The following week I would be at college, introducing new freshmen to the traditions of our school, and showing them the different places on the university campus.