Yearning (7 page)

He heard the deliberate inflection on his name as it dripped from the girls’ lips. Internally he sighed. Women and girls loved to say his name. Yet the one who watched and followed him was mute as stone. The gaggle pressed in on him and he wished she were one of them. He wondered why he was bothering. He shouldn’t be encouraging her.
After all, she was only a silly kid with a crush and as her teacher he had no business with her.

‘Probably not.’

The disappointment was unanimous. Except for her. She simply turned her flushed face away, her white teeth pinching at the fullness of her full bottom lip.

‘Why not?’

‘Please, Solomon, it’s the best fun.’

‘You should come.’

Solomon brushed the girls’ pleas away with a wave of his hand. He was looking at her, at a shaft of slanting sunlight illuminating the rich auburn curls that surrounded a perfectly formed ear. Her skin had the sheen of white silk. It was almost translucent in the light. He was caught off guard as his breath hitched in his chest. Here, in this light, she looked beautiful.

‘No, girls,’ he replied, distracted. ‘Maybe next time.’

He smiled at them absently and wandered away. A few steps on he glanced helplessly back over his shoulder. She sat on the concrete with her back against the school wall, staring at the ground and chewing furiously at her nails. She was just a schoolgirl again, plain and ordinary. There was no golden light, no lustrous face. Nothing to her. But the moment left him unanchored. It made him want to pry her open, like an oyster, and find the pearl of a woman that lay beneath all that unrefined yet perfect youth.

He ambled into the office he shared with the history and geography teachers, grateful they were elsewhere. He sat and drummed his fingers against the desktop before pulling out her file from his drawer. The work she’d submitted over the last three terms fluttered lightly under
his fingers. Each piece was emblazoned with a large red A. He was a generous marker, he knew, but he saw no point in bringing kids down with bad marks unless they really were hopeless. And none of his students were hopeless, even the lazy ones. They wanted his approval, so he gave it. It was his way of winning their confidence and respect.

He read through one of her essays. It was an intelligent and well-constructed piece on feminism. She showed promise as a writer. He wondered if he could mentor her, help her explore her potential. He stood up to browse his bookshelf. He extracted a tome on essay writing and put it with the things he was taking to their next class. He’d lend it to her, offer her encouragement, win her over with a favour or two.

As he closed her file his eye caught the glittering edge of her self-portrait. He pulled it out and glitter twinkled over his desk. Pictures and poetry were framed by a mass of childishly glued silver sparkles. At the centre a quote from Emily Dickenson floated above a wild beauty riding a stallion bareback: ‘Wild nights – wild nights! Were I with thee, wild nights should be our luxury!’ He sat considering the sensual image for a long time, then hid it behind her other work and replaced the file in his drawer.

When he arrived home from work that day the first thing he did was check his letterbox. As he shuffled through the bland train of envelopes he was secretly disappointed to find none that were pink.

*

It was wonderful to sit at her window again to watch Solomon. She wished she still had the binoculars – he
seemed too far away now and she desperately wanted to see his face. She felt sorry for him. Tracey was such a cruel slut. It was mean to dump him like that and Solomon didn’t deserve it. Thank goodness it was over. She couldn’t have stood it if Tracey had ended up being his girlfriend. He’d be hurt and sad now. How she longed to brush the silky strand of hair from his forehead and console him with her kisses.

She’d tried to talk to him at school, to let him know she cared. But she couldn’t compete with the other girls. They crowded around him and she was always pushed to the the outer edge. The others were confident with him, showing off their smooth bronzed legs in their short uniforms, chattering and giggling. She stood back, blushing like an idiot, feeling young and dumb, her knees weak while she waited for her chance to speak. But within minutes the chat was over and she had to watch him walking away, his buttocks lifting and falling with each step. She desperately wanted to talk to him. She wanted him to notice her.

If only she was more sure of herself. But every time he approached, her stomach filled with flickering butterfly wings. Words dried up in her throat and blood rushed to her head, making her dizzy. When he spoke to her she listened to the earthy beat of his voice, the tone of it humming in her bones so that she couldn’t hear what he said, only the timbre of his sound.

There was another way, though. The things she couldn’t bring herself to speak she could write. He loved words. She would write to him again. Another anonymous love letter. She’d tell him how she really felt, and as long as he never knew it was her, it wouldn’t matter.

*

Solomon pulled his Monaro into his driveway with a sigh of relief. Third term had been long and tiring and he was looking forward to the two-week break. He needed to clear his head and shake off the obsessive young girl next door. He looked forward to long lazy mornings with a newspaper, coffee, and hopefully a new lover, if he could find one this weekend.

His previous lover, Janice, had reluctantly given him up when her fiancé became suspicious of her frequent visits to a girlfriend she claimed was recovering from a break-up. At the same time he was being pestered by one of the town councillor’s wives, who’d made a habit of stopping by his place on her way to prepare the church flowers on Saturday afternoons. The lonely woman had fallen for him quickly – they’d only made love twice – so he’d had to sever ties with her as well. He needed something less complicated to see him through the next few weeks.

He cleared the letterbox and flicked through the mail as he made his way to the quiet of his study. At the bottom of the usual collection of bills was a small pink envelope smelling of rose. No stamp, no postmark, no address. On the front his name printed in bold, round capitals.

He frowned. Perhaps he should just throw it out, unread. He wondered if it might be a reprimand for his dalliance with Tracey. A threat perhaps? Had his misjudged liaison with her finally caught up with him? After some deliberation he decided he couldn’t risk not reading it. He settled at his desk and hesitated for a moment. It was only a letter. She meant him no harm. She’s just a kid, he reminded
himself, a kid, a kid, a kid. He lifted the back flap and pulled out a neatly folded sheet of paper.

If you could touch me, where would you reach for first? Would your fingers explore my neck and gently stroke my hair? Would they caress my face or find my nipples rising to your touch?

You are my temptation, my desire, my inspiration, my passion. You are my pulse racing, my breath quickening, my heart bursting to be met, touched, satisfied and inspired again.

No matter how others might judge this, I know it is sacred. I have never felt this way about anyone before. This passion for you rises in me and fills me until I am bursting with love.

My skin prickles at the thought of your hands exploring the flesh of my thighs or the skin of my wrist. My heart races as I imagine your lips pressed against mine.

I imagine your tongue, strong and hard in my mouth. ‘Is this how it would be?’ I wonder. ‘Like this?’

The ecstasy that rises in me feels like God. It’s magical. It seeps through my bones, through my innermost being, until every part of my soul aches for your touch. Yet you are unreachable, hidden from me. I wonder if you sense the willpower I need to contain these waves of desire?

How can I live with this? How can I live without it? God, how I wish I could touch you and make you mine.

As he read, his indulgent smile faded. It was hard to believe such passionate words could come from someone so silent and young, but there it was, her love dangling between
his hands like a blessing. It was her for sure. There was no need to look up, he knew she’d be there.

He folded the note and considered for a moment.

In a flash of resolve he lifted his waste basket to the top of the desk and dropped the note in. He had to send her a message. Stop this, and stop it now. He cleared his desk, filling the basket to brimming, drowning the note under a pile of old paperwork. He knew she’d be upset, crying even, but he couldn’t risk the effect the words had upon him. He carried the basket outside and tossed the lot into the bin.

As he sat at his desk again later that evening, her blank window yawned above him. He felt lonely. He was so used to her unobtrusive company. It was strange, but he missed her when she wasn’t there. He turned his attention to his work and opened a folder to read a few paragraphs of a badly-written essay. He couldn’t concentrate. The words of her letter kept hovering in his mind’s eye. Nothing could shift the memory of them. In the end he gave up trying. He ambled into the stony cool of night and rolled a cigarette.

The streets were empty, abandoned for the warmth of beds. Falling into an easy gait he drew deeply on the cigarette, its smouldering trail leaving a grey smudge in the air behind him. Above arched an oceanic sky marbled with cloud. As he walked he allowed the icy air to do its work, combing through the tangled thoughts in his mind.

He had to admit, her note had stirred him. He put it down to a physical response. All that talk about touching and rising passion would affect any red-blooded man. They were only words, he reminded himself, that’s all.
They had no power over him. He did the right thing, throwing it out, letting her know where she stood.

Still, it was a shame. He couldn’t help but wonder. These delicious little gifts she dropped in his letterbox made him think about her more and more. There was something deep in her words, something larger than just sugary romance. Was it possible she knew something of love he had yet to learn? But she was only fifteen, for Christ’s sake. And a scrap of a kid at that. What could she possibly know about love and lovemaking that he didn’t?

It was ridiculous letting himself be seduced by those silly, saccharine offerings. She was like a cat, dropping mice at his doorstep. They probably just triggered an old desire in him, one that he rarely paid attention to anymore. He had no need for her indulgent notions of love. He could have almost any woman he wanted in his bed, and that was all he needed. And he couldn’t afford to add her name to the long list of forgotten lovers who had drifted through his sheets.

It was just lust. It had always been lust, hadn’t it? He breathed the question out to hang in the air with his smoke. The urge had been with him so long he’d almost forgotten how it came to be. The urgent tension of it sometimes drove him mad. He was damned and driven by it, compelled into union with one woman after another while his heart lay in his chest, untouched and apathetic. What was it he craved? Release? Resolution? Redemption, perhaps? A longing to feel satisfied? Complete?

Whatever it was no lover had yet been able to satisfy it. He wandered faithlessly from one to the next, often juggling two at a time, and never wished for any of them
to stay. The mistake was in the staying, he knew it. Hanging around for the long term was the passion killer. He’d watched many of his friends, men and women, fall into the trap of staying. Love them well and leave them quickly, before the heat of desire died out.

Even then, when he was the one doing the leaving, he felt disappointed. There was always something missing, something more. He longed to be moved beyond the lonely spasms of orgasm to something he could feel in his entire body. He knew it was possible to feel connected, even united, with a lover. He wanted to experience that kind of pleasure. To make love and be left feeling inspired, cleansed, joined. Like a baptism. He didn’t think much of religion, but it was the only thing he could only liken it to – an experience that renewed him and his lover, made him pure again. He shook his head, perplexed.

There was something of these longings in those damned love notes. Her words rang with a purity that came close to the kind of spiritual watershed he longed for. Maybe, in some intuitive way, she understood these possibilities and longed for them too. Maybe she, in all her innocence, wanted the same thing as he did. Anything was possible. People viewed teenagers as limited, sullen creatures, without sense or intelligence. His experience told him the exact opposite. He knew them to be far more sophisticated than they were given credit for. They thought deeply, and were more honest and hopeful than most adults he met. That’s why he like working with them. Their clean hope inspired him.

As he returned home he felt the knot of yearning within him tighten and take hold. His steps were soft
on the paved driveway as he passed the bin. He stopped. The cool of night bit into his skin and his breath misted white in the air as he contemplated a sliver of moon hanging in a star dusted sky. Presence. That was it. Her words made him feel present, more aware of himself. A moment coalesced around him. All it took was a twist of his feet and he was back at the bin. He dug deep in the scatter of papers, his fingers recognising the note by its shape and folding reverently around it. Pulling it free, he plunged it safely into the depths of his pocket and went back inside.

*

The next evening Solomon sought distraction in a new lover. He drove to his favourite bar and discovered Alison, a cynical wedding photographer, sitting alone drinking red wine and smoking menthols. He sidled up beside her and asked if she’d like to share a bottle with him. Alison looked him up and down and by the time her gaze had reached his face again he knew she‘d go to bed with him that night.

Alison hated bras and wore her rings on a chain around her neck like an army dog tag. She drank fast and complained about the dreamy aspirations of her clients. ‘Marriage,’ she said with disgust, ‘should be a bloody sin.’