With My Body (21 page)
Authors: Nikki Gemmell
‘I’m learning
so
much,’ he pants his gratitude, ‘you’re like a blank slate, pure instinct, it’s glorious.’
You giggle to hear it and then suddenly, without understanding,
you are crying. He licks up your tears in one long salty sweep, one cheek, then the other.
‘What’s this?’
‘I—I don’t know.’ Struggling to find words. ‘It’s just … all of this, it feels like it’s for … I don’t know, men, in the future, you said
every man you have
but I don’t want anyone else—I—you’re shaping me for … what? Someone else. Some
thing
else. My future? Like you’re not going to be in it? You want to create the perfect lover—but for who?’ You thump his chest. ‘
Who?
’
He stares in surprise.
‘I’m doing this for you.’ Finally, matter-of-fact. ‘Don’t you get it?’
‘No.’
‘One day you will.’ He rolls off you. ‘And you’ll be grateful. That you had all this at the start. Because believe me, most women don’t have the luxury of it.’
You thump him hard in the chest with your fists.
‘Ow!’
I once asked a man—in his own house a father whose authority was unquestioned, his least word held in reverence, his smallest wish obeyed—‘How did you manage to bring up these children?’ He said: ‘By
love
.’
‘Come on,’ he soothes, ‘let’s have some fun. We both need it right now.’ He raises an eyebrow. Goes to the kitchen. Returns with a bowl of ice cubes.
‘Allow me to demonstrate.’
He parts your legs, pops in a cube, and leans down with the utmost tenderness.
Your back arched in a radiant flinch.
That afternoon, the shadow of a terrible truth. Whether you love Tol or hate him is indiscernible, not important anymore. You want him, just that. It is neither love nor hate but hunger: wolfish, rangy, focused.
Something entirely different.
Put the whole past life aside as if it had never been
Wiped clean by a new day, the anticipation over what’s next. A heading on his page, just that:
THE G SPOT
The rest of the paper blank.
‘Where’s the lesson?’
‘This one, you have to work out for yourself.’
You snort a laugh.
‘Some people think it doesn’t exist in a woman,’ he whispers, a moth to your ear. ‘But it does, oh it does.’
‘Where?’
‘You have to find it. I can’t help. Much.’
A full-length mirror from his bedroom is placed in readiness against a lounge room wall.
‘In men the G spot’s in their arse.’ He chuckles as he guides you before the mirror. ‘But with you, well, let’s just see if we can locate it. Sit. Legs wide.’
You do.
‘Wider.’
You laugh, you do.
‘Now get your finger, your ring one, yep, and kind of hook it—on the front wall, so to speak. Tender. Slow. Yes. That’s it. Forget about me, concentrate.’ He says nothing more, he sits back on the couch, he watches, leaves you to it.
It takes a while, and then, and then, oh God, it is found.
Cracked. Blazing, with light. With life.
His hand is around his cock and you both come at the same time and through the haze of your exquisiteness, your body seized up, you see his semen spurting out; its beautiful blue white as shiny as varnish and he comes to you and gathers you up and holds you and holds you, dabbing it on your forehead and cheeks and lips, thanking you for the gift of it.
Anointing you, blooding you, binding you.
‘I promise that I will never ask that vile little question, “how was it for you?”’ he says later, helping you into your clothes.
‘Don’t all boys do that? Lune says they do.’
‘Not this one.’
‘And why would that be, mister?’
‘Because I know.’
Mature age—when the passions die out or are quieted down
He is expecting guests, for three days, you’ll have to stay away. He bats off all your questions, they’re old acquaintances, too boring to talk about but they have to come—sigh—they must.
Your crestfallen face.
‘Hey,’ he soothes, ‘none of that. Just remember one thing. A woman is sexy if she thinks she is. OK? And you
are
. Don’t lose it. Neediness isn’t sexy. Hold that thought.’ His voice drops to a whisper. ‘
Believe
the power that you have. That will stay with me over the coming days, hours, minutes. Alright?’
He runs a fingertip down your belly and stops, shutting his eyes for a moment. Your fingers hover at the buckles of your overalls, he catches them up.
‘Not yet. Wait. Imagine us as two dogs on heat, kept apart in their cages and then … released. This is good, reviving. We need it. Constraint, and release—remember?’
Of course you return. The next day. You have your bush skills, can be as quiet as a tracker when you want.
The gate is locked.
You bang your fist into it. It rings with your fury.
Right.
Crazed, now, with suspicion.
Because of that comment about how sex with the same partner always becomes routine, no matter what; we all need variety he said and you still aren’t quite sure what he meant; your heart pounds.
Who’s in there?
You are his plaything, his construct; he is moulding you for something—someone—else. Who? What?
Love to hate, such a little step, and you can feel, even now, a whiff of its fetid breath. If he stops craving you then by God you will stop craving him; you feed off each other, it’s the only way this can exist.
Thumping your fists into the fence. Again, and again, and again.
Man and woman were made for, and not like, one another
Three days later.
The gate is unlocked, of course, and you are rushing through it knowing it’s pathetic but you can’t not do this. Be this. He runs out to you, encircling you in his arms and mumbling something about how vile it all was, the guests, it didn’t work, crashing into his life and his writing and his space; but he won’t say who, what; claims he has no idea about a gate that was locked and you seize it and are assuaged, you have to be for this to work. Have to trust, yes. And you note as he speaks, as if for the first time, the something that’s always so sad about his eyes. When he sees you, when he smiles, they detonate with warmth but when he’s not aware you’re looking—it’s like a peek through a curtain at a secret you know nothing of and you wouldn’t want to, no, you shouldn’t delve, you won’t like it, you sense that.
Who is he?
Written, more than once, in your notebook.
He laughs that afternoon in puzzlement. ‘I’m a failed writer. I’m far too old for you. I’m not great with kids. So never ask me that.’
He is the one.
Written, more than once, in your notebook.
‘Love has no right to be all knotty and tangled, does it?’ he muses that afternoon, more to himself than to you. ‘It should be the easiest, cleanest, clearest thing in the world. Don’t you think? It can often be so fearful; but you know, with you, I don’t feel afraid at all.’ He speaks as if he can’t quite believe it; the miraculous simplicity, at last.
You breathe shallow; fear he is someone who will always feel strongest when he’s by himself, that he will never enfold anyone with the great calm of ownership—so while anyone is with him they’ll be obsessed, always thinking, ‘when’s this going to end?’ and never knowing and tormented by it.
This is impossible, you must pull out.
I will change him.
Written, more than once, in your notebook.
‘But you are strong,’ he is murmuring, more to himself than to you. ‘Much stronger than me. And a better writer. A ruthless observer. I know it already.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. It’s in your eyes. You’ll write something one day, I just know it. You’ve got the chip of ice.’
Tom, Dick and Harry, their brothers, has each had it knocked into him from schooldays that he is to do something, to be somebody
Languid in the stillness of his dam. Floating on your back, naked, your arms outstretched.
‘Are you ready for my cheongsam?’ He teases from the dam bank, holding out the flat black box. You laugh him off in the sparkling light. Take your time coming out. Let the sun be your towel; it leaves you brushed with the finest, silkiest ochre.
You finally smile, yes.
Slip on the dress in the open air.
‘Oh my,’ he whispers, as he closes up each silken bud of a button across your breast, and sanctifies each knot with a kiss. He takes out a camera from a worn leather satchel.
You step back. Hang on. You weren’t expecting this.
‘Please?’
You shake your head, not sure you like this; don’t know why but you’re suddenly thinking of those lost three days and the guests he won’t talk about—others, watching; some kind of auditioning shot. For someone, something, else.
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘So I always have you.’
‘Huh?’
‘I’m a collector, you know that. Plates, shells, paintings, pencils, ravishingly beautiful photographs … ’
‘So how many times have you done this bit? With how many other girls, mister?’
He laughs in bewilderment. He doesn’t say; ignoring enrages you, it always has.
‘Tol?’ Serious.
‘What do you think?’
You, standing there, stilled by suspicion; he, still fiddling with the lens of a heavy Nikon FM. You’ve never seen such a camera up close, your family are instamatic people. He, clicking tentatively, once, into your scowl and then again, smiling, moving around; you, now, leering at the lens, crinkling up your nose and poking out your tongue—cheekying up—not giving him what he wants, anything but that.
‘Lift up your skirt a little,’ he cajoles. ‘Just for me. Come on.’
‘No.’
His hand drops the camera.
You fold your arms. ‘Not until you say you love me, mister.’
A vibrating silence.
Your hands gather the cloth at your hips. Inch it up, teasing. Stop, just. ‘I’m waiting.’
He says it.
He
says
it. He says it.
Shy. As if the words are not used to his mouth.
You grin, on that dam bank, in chuff, and lift up your skirt in triumph. Nothing underneath, of course. Freshly bare, raw—your choice. The cheongsam is now bunched around your waist. You spin around, laughing in the light. He closes
his eyes for a second then lifts up his camera half playful, half hopeful but your hand snaps to attention and covers his lens, strong.
Blazing. ‘Put it down. Say you love me again. Just that. No more photographs. I don’t get why you’re doing this.’
He looks straight at you. ‘There is nothing to “get”. From the first moment I saw you I was caught.’ Speaking sincerely, it is in his face. You are quiet. ‘My whole body resisted … but it didn’t work.’ A pause. ‘And so here we are.’ He places his camera back in his satchel. ‘I wanted to have you forever, by my desk. That’s all. Somehow. However I could. In case you … disappear … somehow, from my life.’
You look at him doubtfully; it will never come to that, how could it possibly? He sighs and picks up your book in the pocket of your abandoned overalls. You let him, you trust. He takes out his nub of a flat architect’s pencil and writes in his allotted space at the back, only there.
You must look in it tonight, not before; you must resist.
That is the request as he walks up the steep bank of the dam, without looking back. That you obey, of course.
Because he said he loved you. He said it.
At
last
.
To ‘grow old gracefully’ is a good and beautiful thing; to grow old worthily, better
That night you open his words from under your pillow like a favourite chocolate you’ve hidden in a box, for this exact moment, your midnight treat.
I feel there is some obligation I have to fulfil with you, in the way of a gift.
Something spiritual and rare. We ‘ fit’, so to speak, and I feel an enormous calm because of it.
Believe that.
The golden thrum washes through you like liquid sun under your skin. Does he attract you because of his certainty? You feel he knows exactly who he is in life and will not change and there is something so solid, so settled about that; whereas you are anything but.
Another gift, you have been tardy of late: a battered, rectangular tobacco tin, words barely upon it.
CAPSTAN
Navy Cut Cigarettes.
W.D. & H.O. Wills, Sydney.
Perfectly the length of his architect’s pencils; the entire collection of them.
How mysteriously soul and body act and react upon one another
The lessons gather pace. He tauntingly resets your experience of sex, obliterating every touch, every thought that has gone before him; wiping you clean, saturating your memory with his caress and his alone. He slips inside with a groan, as if it’s all, almost, too much. He roams your body, discovering new nooks, crevices, valleys, new plains of torment.
‘I like exploring,’ he smiles.
He’s meticulously careful never to come inside you; he ejaculates on your stomach, neck, through your hair, dabs it tenderly on your lips and kisses it off, spurts it in triumph. He’s always careful, so careful, to never rub away at the skin around your lips—the moth’s kiss, first, always—so as not to draw attention to any of this. Your father must never know, no one must.