Romance: The Art of my Love: a story of betrayal, desire, love, and marriage (9 page)

I decide to give myself a break, and I head out to walk around the lake. This lake affects me in some mysterious way, like a living organism. The closer I am to it, the calmer, more confident, and more optimistic I feel. It’s as if the water soaks up all of my worries. And I’m not a superstitious person.

I walk for a while, long enough that my legs start to hurt. When I step back onto the terrace I catch sight of John standing there. He looks relaxed. There is a bottle of beer in his hands. He watches me, eyes narrowed, as I approach.

“Where were you?”

“Taking a walk,” I answer. Inside me something sinks, and I feel an unpleasant, aching emptiness. If only the earth would just swallow me up right now! I don’t know how to act with him, what to say about what. “Hi to you, too”

I can’t ask him why he’s here. This is his house, and I’m just a guest. He can come and go as he pleases. I can’t kick him out, or tell him I don’t want to see him. Well, what
can
I do?

“I was waiting for you. Let’s go get some dinner.”

“Okay. I’ll go change.” I was still in my work clothes.

I run upstairs into the bedroom, take a quick shower and root through piles of clothes mechanically, hoping to find something clean. I had meant to do laundry today because I’ve gone through almost everything I brought with me. At the very bottom of my suitcase I find a dress, one of my “school” dresses. I have no idea how it got there. I put it on quickly, almost automatically, and comb my hair. My thoughts are occupied with John. I can’t kick him out, but I can have a talk with him. After all, he knew I was here alone, and he still came. Why? I have the right to know. I feel a chill creep across my skin and I don’t really understand what’s causing it. Fear? Arousal? A hint of danger?

I lace up my sneakers and head downstairs. John is already waiting by his car. In complete silence, we drive to the town nearby. You won’t find any fancy cuisine there, but there are places to eat. We go into the closest restaurant and sit down at a table. I’m trying so hard to concentrate on our upcoming conversation, and I’m so tense, that I hardly notice anything going on around me.

“What will you have to drink?” John asks.

On the way here, I had decided to order something strong to beef up my courage.

“A margarita, please,” I tell the tired middle-aged waitress who is standing there.

John orders a beer. I’ve noticed he really is omnivorous. He can drink expensive wine or plain old beer, and he digs into takeout pizza and more exquisite dishes with the same voracious appetite. Just as Tom said, he doesn’t discriminate. True, Tom had been talking about women.

Right! That’s what I had been planning to talk to him about. Just as soon as I get my courage up.

“You’ve done some good work here,” notes John out of the blue.

“How do you know?” I ask, incredulous.

“I looked. There, on the terrace. Was it a secret?”

“No, no secret. What do you think?”

“I’m no expert, and I’m not sure that my opinion will mean anything to you, but I really like them. I’d buy those paintings myself.”

I blush at his praise. Admittedly, I hadn’t expected him to say anything like that.

“Paul is coming tomorrow.” I say that because my head is spinning with thoughts about Paul, Rachel, and how things are going to be with them now.

“I know.” John leans back in his chair. His dark eyes are looking straight at me.

“How?” I’m surprised, but I look right back at him.

“He canceled the match we were supposed to play together tomorrow. Said he wanted to come see you.”

“Is that why you decided to come today?”

“Yep.” And at that not a muscle moved in his face. Nothing at all. As if everything was just how it was supposed to be.

The waitress brings our drinks. I throw myself at my margarita like a pilgrim dying of thirst in the desert.

“Paul told me about the revisions you made to his screenplay.”

“Yes,” answers John, a smug smile spreading over his face. “I had some good ideas, didn’t I?”

Something turns over in my stomach. Is he still talking about the screenplay? 

“It was a little stale before. Needed some spice,” John explains. He unfastens one more button on his shirt, showing the hair on his chest. I recall how he looked without his clothes on, and the wild, intense expression on his face while he fucked me. At some physiological, animal level he has as strong an effect on me as ever. I burrow my face back into the margarita.

“But there’s no happy ending now. Don’t people need a happy ending?” I ask.

“What do you mean, no happy ending? I very much hope that Paul will eventually untangle this drama, and a happy ending will emerge after all. As a matter of fact, people love passion and drama even more than they love happy endings. At least, I do. I love that more than anything.”

“In real life, or in the movies?”

“In the movies. In real life, I tire of drama quickly. I’ve always wanted to make a film that was my own, you know. Really my own. Write the screenplay myself and direct it. I’d even work the cameras. But I’ve never had the chance...” John turns the bottle around in his hands, thoughtfully.

I cast a suspicious glance at him.

“Is that why you started this thing with me? Is this your film?” I finally blurt out. I feel like I’ve leaped off a towering cliff and taken flight.

“Well, in a way. You and Paul are so young, sweet, talented and inexperienced. I wanted to liven up your relationship a little.” He says it all so calmly, as if we were talking about the weather.

“What about Rachel and your relationship with her?” I feel everything inside me start to tremble slightly. The trembling travels into my hands, and I find it difficult to keep a grip on my margarita glass. I quickly put it down on the table and squeeze my hands tight between my knees. Now this successful older man would toss me out and go about his business, and I would never understand a thing.

“Rachel and I have been together a very long time.” John isn’t going anywhere. Instead, he settles himself more comfortably in his seat, his brow wrinkling in concentration. He obviously wants to explain things to me in a way that I can understand. “I alone am not enough for her. I never have been and never will be. She’s not enough for me, either. Which means that, from time to time, we simply need new partners. To relight the fire and the passion in our own relationship. We’re not getting any younger, you know. And we don’t want to get old. Sometimes you need to prove to yourself that you’re still good for someone else.”

“This happens often?” My trembling has finally abated, and I finish my drink in one gulp.

“Fairly often. But that’s not the point. We almost never do this with married couples. Everything just came together this time – Rachel liked Paul, and I liked you.”

It takes a moment for me to realize what he is saying. Paul has been with Rachel! I cheated on Paul with John, but Paul also cheated on me, with Rachel! That was why he was such a wreck last time. That was what he had wanted to talk to me about. When had it happened? Where? How? A picture arises before my eyes: Rachel, naked, like in the video, and Paul naked too. His head thrown back, his lips ravaged, eyes closed.

John is looking at me carefully.

“What’s wrong? Are you imagining it? See how much it turns you on? As soon as I first saw Paul, I knew that he was perfect for Rachel. She loves that type – tall, thin blond men, especially creative types. She just loves leading them astray while teaching them a thing or two in the process. And then you showed up, and I decided that we had hit the jackpot. Because people like you are extremely rare.” Our waitress walks up, and John orders me another margarita.

“What do you mean?” I ask him. I am so overwhelmed by everything he has just unloaded on me that there is a roaring inside my head. I am confused and upset.

“I mean your obvious air of chastity. You’re young, but not an adolescent, even though you might be mistaken for a schoolgirl from behind. You’ve been married for a few years, and happily. At the same time you still look like an untouched young maiden in some old painting – pure, innocent, peaceful. I immediately wanted to stir something up within you, to shake you up, to make you wake up from your daydreams and have you tormented by desire.”

I swallow bile and the margarita I just drank, which had come up in my throat. “Well,” I think, “congratulations on your success. Desire
has
begun to torment me. Every night.” Out loud, however, I say something completely different:

“Are you always the one to find partners for Rachel? To see if they pass your test?”

“Yes,” he says, without even a wince. “I want to know whose dick is going to be inside my wife. I need to like the guy, in order to share the woman I love with him.”

“Is that love?” My head is spinning from the drinks. I am stunned, and no longer holding back from saying whatever comes into my head.

“Well, think about it. Why else would we have done all this, and stayed together so many years? We just know each other exceptionally well, and we know that we will never have it better than we do with each other. Sex is just sex. And it doesn’t just bring us some fleeting pleasure. The trick is sharing that pleasure with your partner. Then things really heat up.”

As John is saying all of this, he neatly cuts up whatever he has on his plate and puts a piece in his mouth. His face wears a thoughtful expression. Clearly, he has already spent a good deal of time pondering this, and he knows what he’s talking about. I start to realize what it is he’s trying to tell me. No, he has no need to shock me, to impress me with the debauchery of his views, or to prove to me that his position is the correct one. He and Rachel accept each other for what they are. And they see nothing wrong with that. They need a regular change in partners, they need ecstasy and a little bit of drama, they need to add spice to their relationship. Why not? The fact that Paul and I have crossed their path, and now have no idea where our marriage will go, is really of no interest to them. What was it that Paul had written? That we couldn’t see the big picture? How big
is
John’s picture, I wonder?

“And you just tell me all of this? Aren’t you worried that I’ll go to the tabloids? Give them a headline like ‘Seduced and Dumped by Famous Producer’?”

“That’s not your style. What worries you most is what will happen next. Right?”

I just nod, and start in on my new margarita.

“Well, Rachel really does like you, and she’ll sell your paintings and take care of you, as she promised, so don’t worry.” Honestly, that is the last thing I’m worried about at the moment, but I am still glad to hear that at least on that front things remain the same.

“With me, as you can see, things are also very simple. I didn’t rape you, and I didn’t impose myself on you. I just put you into a situation you had never been in before. The way you behaved in that situation was your own decision, completely.”

“I know that it’s all my fault!” I can’t help exclaiming. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to look Paul in the eye when I talk to him. Everything was going so well for us, before you and your disgusting games. I didn’t need anyone but him. He was closer to me than anyone. And now everything is ruined.”

“Well, maybe not everything,” John objected. “You said yourself that we need a happy ending. You said nobody is closer to you than he is. So why, then, have you never had anything with him like you had with me?” he asked.

“How would you know what I haven’t had?”

“Sweetheart, I wasn’t born yesterday. You have no idea how much you changed after the last time we met. You were so delicate and ethereal, half-woman, half-child, and now you are a woman who needs a man.”

I hate John. He sees right through me, and there is no way I can offer any resistance. He looks at me, at the empty glass from my second margarita, and at my untouched food.

“Are you going to eat anything, or should I take you home?” He has finished everything on his plate. A rat like that can handle anything. The thought of food in my mouth makes me sick. My head is spinning. I get up from the table and suddenly realize that standing up straight is going to be difficult. Immediately, John wraps an arm around my waist and holds on tight. With his help, I make my way to the car, and plop down into the seat.

“So what’s next in your script? Are you finished with my sexual awakening now?” My tongue stumbles over the words. We are already almost at the house.

“I hope not. But that’s up to you. I wouldn’t want to force you. Right now, if I’m not mistaken,” and he glanced at his watch, “Paul is continuing his training with Rachel.”

His last statement nearly finishes me off. They’re together
right now
? I don’t ask how he knows; he and Rachel share all their intimate secrets with each other, to make their lives more exciting. I know that now. But Paul?.. “I love you,” he wrote to me. And then he goes and fucks Rachel?

I wonder
how
he fucks her? Again, I imagine Paul and Rachel in the throes of passion, and I don’t notice that the car has come to a stop. John opens my door and offers me a hand to help me climb out.

“What, are you visualizing it? I love imagining Rachel with her lovers, too. It’s my favorite aphrodisiac.”