 candlelight flickers on Clare's hair. She reaches over and
touches my cheek. "It's so good to see you. I was getting lonely."
I draw her to me. We kiss. It's a very.. .compatible kiss, a kiss born of long
association, and I wonder just exactly what we've been doing in this meadow of
Clare's, but I push the thought away. Our lips part; usually at this point I would
be considering how to work my way past various fortresses of clothing, but
instead I lean back and stretch out on the sofa, bringing Clare along with me by
gripping her under the arms and pulling; the velvet dress makes her slippery
and she slithers into the space between my body and the back of the sofa like a
velvet eel. She is facing me and I am propped up by the arm of the sofa. I can feel
the length of her body pressing against mine through the thin fabric. Part of me is
dying to go leaping and licking and diving in, but I'm exhausted and
overwhelmed.
"Poor Henry."
"Why 'Poor Henry?' I'm overcome with happiness." And it's true.
"Oh, I've been dropping all these surprises on you like big rocks." Clare
swings a leg over me so she's sitting exactly on top of my cock. It concentrates my
attention wonderfully.
"Don't move," I say.
"Okay. I'm finding this evening highly entertaining. I mean, Knowledge is
Power, and all that. Also I've always been hugely curious to find out where you
live and what you wear and what you do for a living."
" Voila!" I slide my hands under her dress and up her thighs. She's bearing
stockings and garters. My kind of girl. "Clare?"
"Oui."
"It seems like a shame to just gobble everything up all at once. I mean, a little
anticipation wouldn't hurt anything."
Clare is abashed. "I'm sorry! But, you know, in my case, I've been anticipating
for years. And, it's not like cake.. .you eat it and it's gone."
"Have your cake and eat it too."
"That's my motto." She smiles a tiny wicked smile and thrusts her hips back
and forth a couple times. I now have an erection that is probably tall enough to
ride some of the scarier rides at Great America without a parent.
"You get your way a lot, don't you?"
"Always. I'm horrible. Except you have been mostly impervious to my
wheedling ways. I've suffered dreadfully under your regime of French verbs and
checkers."
"I guess I should take consolation in the fact that my future self will at least
have some weapons of subjugation. Do you do this to all the boys?"
Clare is offended; I can't tell how genuinely. "I wouldn't dream of doing this
with boys. What nasty ideas you have!" She is unbuttoning my shirt. "God, you're
so...young." She pinches my nipples, hard. The hell with virtue. I've figured out
the mechanics of her dress.
The next morning:
Clare: I wake up and I don't know where I am. An unfamiliar ceiling. Distant
traffic noises. Bookshelves. A blue armchair with my velvet dress slung across it
and a man's tie draped over the dress. Then I remember. I turn my head and
there's Henry. So simple, as though I've been doing it all my life. He is sleeping
with abandon, torqued into an unlikely shape as though he's washed up on some
beach, one arm over his eyes to shut out the morning, his long black hair splayed
over the pillow. So simple. Here we are. Here and now, finally now.
I get out of bed carefully. Henry's bed is also his sofa. The springs squeak as I
stand up. There's not much space between the bed and the bookshelves, so I edge
along until I make it into the hallway. The bathroom is tiny. I feel like Alice in
Wonderland, grown huge and having to stick my arm out the window just so I
can turn around. The ornate little radiator is clanking out heat. I pee and wash
my hands and my face. And then I notice that there are two toothbrushes in the
white porcelain toothbrush holder.
I open the medicine cabinet. Razors, shaving cream, Listerine, Tylenol,
aftershave, a blue marble, a toothpick, deodorant on the top shelf. Hand lotion,
tampons, a diaphragm case, deodorant, lipstick, a bottle of multivitamins, a tube
of spermicide on the bottom shelf. The lipstick is a very dark red.
I stand there, holding the lipstick. I feel a little sick. I wonder what she looks
like, what her name is. I wonder how long they've been going out. Long enough,
I guess. I put the lipstick back, close the medicine cabinet. In the mirror I see
myself, white-faced, hair flying in all directions. Well, whoever you are, I'm here
now. You may be Henry's past, but I'm his future. I smile at myself. My reflection
grimaces back at me. I borrow Henry's white terrycloth bathrobe from the back of
the bathroom door. Underneath it on the hook is a pale blue silk robe. For no
reason at all wearing his bathrobe makes me feel better.
Back in the living room, Henry is still sleeping. I retrieve my watch from the
windowsill and see that it's only 6:30. I'm too restless to get back into bed. I walk
into the kitchenette in search of coffee. All the counters and the stove are covered
with stacks of dishes, magazines, and other reading material. There's even a sock
in the sink. I realize that Henry must have simply heaved everything into the
kitchen last night, regardless. I always had this idea that Henry was very tidy.
Now it becomes clear that he's one of those people who is fastidious about his
personal appearance but secretly slovenly about everything else. I find coffee in
the fridge, and find the coffee maker, and start the coffee. While I wait for it to
brew, I peruse Henry's bookshelves.
Here is the Henry I know. Donne's Elegies and Songs and Sonnets. Doctor Faustus,
by Christopher Marlowe. Naked Lunch. Anne Bradstreet, Immanuel Kant. Barthes,
Foucault, Derrida. Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. Winnie the Pooh. The
Annotated Alice. Heidegger. Rilke. Tristram Shandy. Wisconsin Death Trip. Aristotle.
Bishop Berkeley. Andrew Marvell. Hypothermia, Frostbite and Other Cold Injuries.
The bed squeaks and I jump. Henry is sitting up, squinting at me in the
morning light. He's so young, so before-. He doesn't know me, yet. I have a
sudden fear that he's forgotten who I am.
"You look cold" he says. "Come back to bed, Clare."
"I made coffee," I offer.
"Mmm, I can smell it. But first come and say good morning."
I climb into bed still wearing his bathrobe. As he slides his hand under it he
stops for just a moment, and I see that he has made the connection, and is
mentally reviewing his bathroom vis-a-vis me.
"Does it bother you?" he asks.
I hesitate.
"Yes, it does. It does bother you. Of course." Henry sits up, and I do, too. He
turns his head toward me, looks at me. "It was almost over, anyway."
"Almost?"
"I was about to break up with her. It's just bad timing. Or good timing, I don't
know." He's trying to read my face, for what? Forgiveness? It's not his fault. How
could he know? "We've sort of been torturing each other for a long time-" He's
talking faster and faster and then he stops. "Do you want to know?" No.
"Thank you." Henry passes his hands over his face. "I'm sorry. I didn't know
you were coming or I'd have cleaned up a little more. My life, I mean, not just the
apartment." There's a lipstick smear under Henry's ear, and I reach up and rub it
out. He takes my hand, and holds it. "Am I very different? Than you expected?"
he asks apprehensively.
"Yes...you're more..." selfish, I think, but I say, "...younger."
He considers it. "Is that good or bad?"
"Different." I run both hands over Henry's shoulders and across his back,
massaging muscles, exploring indentations. "Have you seen yourself, in your
forties?"
"Yes. I look like I've been spindled and mutilated."
"Yeah. But you're less-I mean you are sort of-more. I mean, you know me,
so...."
"So right now you're telling me that I'm somewhat gauche."
I shake my head, although that is exactly what I mean. "It's just that I've had all
these experiences, and you...I'm not used to being with you when you don't
remember anything that happened."
Henry is somber. "I'm sorry. But the person you know doesn't exist yet. Stick
with me, and sooner or later, he's bound to appear. That's the best I can do,
though."
"That's fair," I say. "But in the meantime..."
He turns to meet my gaze. "In the meantime?"
"I want..."
"You want?"
I'm blushing. Henry smiles, and pushes me backward gently onto the pillows.
"You know."
"I don't know much, but I can guess a thing or two."
Later, we're dozing warm covered with midmorning October pale sun, skin to
skin and Henry says something into the back of my neck that I don't catch.
"What?"
"I was thinking; it's very peaceful, here with you. It's nice to just lie here and
know that the future is sort of taken care of."
"Henry?"
"Hmm?"
"How come you never told yourself about me?"
"Oh. I don't do that."
"Do what?"
"I don't usually tell myself stuff ahead of time unless it's huge,
life-threatening, you know? I'm trying to live like a normal person. I don't even
like having myself around, so I try not to drop in on myself unless there's no
choice."
I ponder this for a while. "I would tell myself everything."
"No, you wouldn't. It makes a lot of trouble."
"I was always trying to get you to tell me things." I roll over onto my back and
Henry props his head on his hand and looks down at me. Our faces are about six
inches apart. It's so strange to be talking, almost like we always did, but the
physical proximity makes it hard for me to concentrate.
"Did I tell you things?" he asks.
"Sometimes. When you felt like it, or had to."
"Like what?"
"See? You do want to know. But I'm not telling."
Henry laughs. "Serves me right. Hey, I'm hungry. Let's go get breakfast."
Outside it's chilly. Cars and cyclists cruise along Dearborn while couples stroll
down the sidewalks and there we are with them, in the morning sunlight, hand in
hand, finally together for anyone to see. I feel a tiny pang of regret, as though I've
lost a secret