How Not To Fall (18 page)

F
or three days we each give 100 percent of ourselves.

We're not really spending that much time together. During the days, while Charles is at the lab or the hospital, I go back to my apartment to help Margaret pack and clean, or I read more P. G. Wodehouse. And Thursday and Friday evenings I have rehearsals for the students' dance recital on Saturday.

But at night, for those two or three hours, or in quick, urgent bursts in the morning, I simply turn my body over to him. I feel safe with him. I feel challenged. When I have the orgasm he wants me to have, while he pins me by my wrists to the bed and fucks me hard, his pubic bone pushing against my clit, I feel delighted with my body. When I masturbate while he watches me, or when I'm on top of him, when his eyes are on me with a look of leashed hunger, I feel beautiful. When I can be as still as he wants me to be, my hands on the wall and my knees spread on the mattress, while he rubs his hand on my clit and presses the head of his cock little by little into my lube-slick ass and he praises me, whispers into my ear that I'm amazing, that I'm the best he's ever had, that he wants me so much that he can't breathe, I come so hard, my vision goes dark and my head spins.

And I feel him trusting me with his history, feel him trusting more and more of his weight to me. Before sex, after sex, sometimes during sex, he tells me about his life, his fantasies, his future. We talk about his research—which we've talked about before, of course; I ran at least half the subjects for his last study.

But now we talk about
why
. It's partly because the science is so cool, but partly because he witnessed the effects of trauma in his own mother. His dad, the asshole viscount, was abusive to her.

And so for three days, he lets me have him. And I let him have me.

And then Saturday afternoon: the recital. My ballet class struggles, my jazz class does great, and Amy, Paul, their mom, and I nail our piece.

Nail. It.

The tech rehearsal Thursday night was the first time I danced with the music—the kids singing and their mom on the piano—and I knew for sure we'd be a hit. While I'm dancing, these two cherubs are standing at the front of the stage, over to one side, singing this beautiful sweet good-bye song. It starts with Paul singing to his sister, “
Only me beside you, still you're not alone,
” and becomes a duet, brother and sister singing in harmony.

Like I said, we nail it. Even if my technique is sloppy, I'm so right there in the moment with them, celebrating my students, celebrating my four years with them, saying good-bye, and all the parents in the audience are totally there with me. They get it. When these two kids sing, “
Hard to see the light now, just don't let it go,
” they're right there with me. We're having this big Feelsies moment, and I love it. There're four long seconds of total silence when the song ends, then a thunder of applause, and I burst into loving tears and grab up the kids in a giant twin hug. We curtsey together—Paul bows—and then I hoist them off their feet again and carry them, giggling, off the stage.

It takes me so long to say good-bye—this is my second big good-bye, after Dr. Smith; I hug everyone, talk to every parent and student—I'm not surprised to find that Charles hasn't waited.

It has started to rain, a light, cool sunshower, and I turn my face into it as I walk back to his apartment. I grin, knowing I'll be damp by the time I walk through his door, knowing how he'll feel about that. As I walk, I imagine all the things he might do to me, all the ways he might lick the rain off my skin.

But none of that is what happens. Not even close.

I let myself in with my key, and find Charles sitting on the kitchen floor, his hands raked through his hair. There's a rose wrapped in paper on the counter, beside a padded envelope covered in stamps. He looks up at me, his face bleak, when I come into the kitchen.

“Hey,” I say. “Why are you on the floor?”

“Hey. Er. Your graduation present came,” Charles says, indicating the package.

“Aw! You didn't have to get me anything.” I pick up the package. It's obviously a book. I sit down next to him. “Is that why you're on the floor?”

“I didn't get you anything, really—it's just something I had that I thought you might like.”

“Aw!” I say again. “That's even sweeter! Can I open it? Is it a tie? Is it a toaster?”

“Sure. Here, before you open it—” He hands me a dish towel to dry myself off.

I can't figure out what's wrong, so I just wipe off my face and hands and hair and then open the package. I pull out a book wrapped in brown paper. Under the paper I find a couple of layers of tissue paper and then the book itself. It is old and green. I read the spine—and drop it instantly on the floor and cover my mouth with my hands.

“Oh my god,” I say through my fingers, eyes on the green cover.

“I considered
Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man
and decided it was too, oh, on the nose,” he says. I look at him. He has half a sad, crooked grin on his face.

He's making a joke. I can hardly breathe, and he's cracking wise with sex puns. I look up at him, my hands still clasped over my mouth.

“This is not a reproduction,” I say. I sit there, stunned, not daring to touch the thing.

“No, it—”

I cut him off. “But it's, like, a third or fourth or fifth edition, right?” I look at him, desperate to hear him say it's not, not, not, not, not a first edition.

“It's a first edition,” he says, and a corner of his lip tugs downward, the way it does when he's apologizing for being fancy.

“Oh my god.” I'm hyperventilating now. I stand up. I can't even sit down in front of it. I press my back against the counter, my fingers pressing against my mouth, staring at the book, trying to breathe.

Charles looks a little worried. “Can I get you a glass of water or something?”

“
No!
” I yell. “God, don't put me and water in the same room with this thing, I'll just spill all over it and ruin it. I'll just ruin it!”

Are you religious? If you are, then you might have some understanding of how I feel about
On the Origin of Species
. It's a book that, like the Bible for many Christians, lays out a foundational system for understanding the nature of life itself. Unlike the Bible, it's amenable to the shibboleths of science, with elements being disproved, elaborated on, or otherwise made truer all the time. Evolution is, in my view, the most important scientific idea anyone has ever had, and this book right here, lying on the kitchen floor, is the book that first explained it.

And, like many Christians with the Bible, I have never actually read the thing.

I confess this to Charles, as I struggle for breath, my hands now on my cheeks, and he says, “Oh, you should. It's a blockbuster, a real page-turner. Though I would suggest not reading this particular one; this one's more for pretties than for smarts. Or go ahead—it's yours. Do as you like with it.”

“How”—I gasp—“can I possibly accept this? What the
hell,
Charles? Wait, you said this is something you
just had?
”

“Yes, it's . . . It's from the family library. Sort of.” After a pause, he explains in a rush, “The library was sold between the wars for tax, but the steward responsible was reluctant about it and so kept excellent records that have enabled me to track down and buy back a number of the more important . . . that is . . . And by ‘I,' really I mean the agency. So you see, it's really just a book I had that I thought might give you pleasure. Look,” he says. He takes up the book—in his bare hands! Like it's just a book!—and opens the cover. There's that large stamp, like a notarization, in the center of the blank page.

“Charles,” I scold. “Don't be obtuse. A first edition
Origin of Species
isn't ‘just a book' under any circumstances, and when it's part of your family's fucking . . . whatever . . .
ancestral
collection, that makes it an even
bigger
deal! And you're giving it to
me?
This girl you're fucking for a couple of weeks before I drive off into the sunrise?”

He scowls at me and says softly, “You are not ‘this girl I'm fucking.' You're . . .” He hesitates and smiles a little. “You're
the
girl I'm fucking.”

I give up trying to argue. I sit back down on the floor beside him, and I stare at the book. “It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life,” I say. With my arms crossed over my knees and my chin on my arms, I gaze at the green-and-gilt cover and breathe, “Oh my god.”

Charles watches my face. “I want you to remember,” he says. “When all the other blokes come along, I want you to remember our time together, remember it fondly.”

I turn my face to him. “You think I could forget? Have you forgotten
your
first person?”

“It was rather different,” he says with a downward pull of his bottom lip. “It was years, we had. And it was the first for both of us. And we were younger and . . . I don't know. I have this dread that when you go away, you'll look back on this and wonder what on Earth you were thinking.”

I don't know what to say.

“Please accept it, Annie. It would mean a great deal to me if you would accept the book and give it a good home.”

“I don't deserve this,” I say.

“Any less than I? What does it mean to deserve a beautiful thing? Annie, I don't hold on to things just for the sake of having them as my possession.

“Please,” he says. “I want you to have it.”

I shift on the floor and sit mirroring him. I say, “Ten years from now you'll be like, ‘Why the hell did I give my
Origin
to that random girl?'”

He shakes his head, his eyes on mine. “Ten years from now I'll see you at a conference where you're accepting some award or giving the keynote and I'll think, ‘That woman is a gift to the world. She is my friend, and for a very short time she was the most exciting and joyful lover I've ever had. How on Earth did I get this lucky?' And then you'll introduce me to your partner, and I'll think, ‘Crikey, no wonder she tossed me over. Look at this chap!'”

He's teasing me now, but I can't smile. I scoot over to him and curl myself into his arms, hugging him around the waist. I put my head against his heart.

“Thank you,” I say.

He wraps his arms around me and says into my hair, “This book is the scale of my appreciation and gratitude for what you've shared with me. It's . . . Well, it's rather selfish, in the end. I want it to be a thread that ties us together, even if it's just in memory.”

“I'll keep it safe,” I tell him. “I'll always keep it safe.”

I
look up at him. “Is the book why you were on the floor?”

“No,” he says. “It was just in my mailbox when I got home.”

“So why?”

He sighs and kisses my forehead, then disentangles himself from me and stands up. “Let's get off the floor.”

I follow him to the living room with the book, which I place reverently on the coffee table, and sit at my end of the couch.

He sinks into his end of the couch with a vocalized sigh, and runs both hands through his hair. Then he takes off his glasses to rub his hands over his face. He puts his glasses back on and looks at me, smiling a lopsided, halfway version of that smile that melts me inside.

“You created a beautiful thing this afternoon,” he begins.

“Thanks!” I smile. “My technique was pretty wobbly, but I feel like the kids and I really nailed the performance side.”

He nods. “And that's why I was on the floor.”

I nod, understanding. “Feels? All the Feels, right in the Feels?” I bump my fist against my chest.

“If that means moved beyond language, yes.”

“Yay,” I say. I clap my hands a few times and fold them over my heart. I snuggle into my end of the couch and tangle my legs with his.

“Nothing about it was an act,” he says. “It was ... really you, really saying good-bye, and those two siblings, really singing to each other.”

I bite my lips between my teeth and smile. He got it, 100 percent. I knew he would.

He continues, and I listen. “ ‘Really you' is an extraordinary thing by itself. I think you're not aware of your transparency, of your ... hm. The clarity and openness of your heart. That on its own was lovely and moving. But it was the mother at the piano, accompanying her children, that struck me particularly. The warmth and tenderness of her having arranged this music, practiced with her son and daughter, and then playing with them as they sang. It was an act of such obvious affection, such love.”

He's silent for a long moment, so I say, “Yeah, their mom is totally great,” to fill the silence, but it's a pretty banal comment in contrast with what he seems to be experiencing over there on his end of the couch.

“It—look, this is difficult for me to ... I don't talk about these things, not with anyone, and I'm only saying it now because ...”

“Because you're letting me have you,” I say.

He meets my eyes. “Yes. So if you're not interested or don't particularly care, just say so and I'll shut up, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, then add, “but I'm interested.”

Haltingly, he says, “I found myself thinking about my mum and what it was like for her when I was that boy's age. I was off at school by then, of course. I left her with two young children and my father. You've probably put it together that my father was ...” He stops and clears his throat against a constriction.

“You said he was an abusive asshole.”

“Mh. He's quite cruel, in fact. And I left my mother alone with him, pretty much from the time I was nine or ten. I wanted my own escape more than I wanted to protect my mother. And so I abandoned her.”

I tilt my head. “You feel like you should've protected her from him?”

He nods, his face tense against his grief.

“When you were, like, ten?”

“It's not rational, I know that. But the fact is, I left her there and forgot about home as much as I could for the next”—he pauses to clear his throat—“decade or so.”

“Have you told her this?”

He shakes his head. “No point. She'd only feel guilty.”

“Have you told
anyone?
”

He takes a deep breath before he says, “I've told you.” He smiles at me fully then, the warm, open smile that melts me.

And this is the moment. This is when I recognize that this warm feeling of being at home, of being humble and proud at the same time, of opening my heart wide and letting this man in, of wanting to wrap him up inside me, of wanting to be wrapped up in him, this feeling has a name: love.

The recognition bubbles through me like champagne fizz, makes me buoyant with joy.

I'm in love!

I've never been in love before!

This is what being in love is like!

As I think this, he's saying, “Maybe the transparency I'm practicing with you left me vulnerable to this sort of, well, let's face it: self-indulgent self-pity. I'll be over it soon; I just need an hour or so to move through it. What do you want to do about dinner?”

I climb over to his side of the couch and straddle him, my hands on his shoulders. “Charles?”

“Mh.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.” He puts his hands on my wrists.

“You know this Thing we have? The Thing I wasn't wrong about?”

“Yes, I am quite familiar with The Thing.” He's looking at me with a lazy half smile and hooded eyes still clouded with pain.

“Well, I've had an
amazing
insight regarding the nature of The Thing.”

“Oh yes?”

“Oh yes! It turns out: it's not just A Sex Thing; it's actually A Love Thing. Somewhere in the middle of all this sex, I've fallen in love with you.” I say it joyfully, with a wide grin.

But the grin doesn't last long.

I don't know what word would describe the expression on Charles's face. Shock? Sure. Appalled? Maybe. Horrified? Definitely nothing along the lines of joyful or loving. He takes his hands away from mine and looks from the door to the window, like he's looking for an escape route. Then he takes off his glasses and rubs his hand over his face again.

There's something cold doing somersaults in my stomach.

I climb off his lap and say, “Okay, wow, now it's awkward. I thought this was good news.”

“Oh god, Annie.”

“ ‘Oh god' what? What did I do? Did I screw up? What's wrong?”

“We agreed—no broken hearts.”

“My heart isn't broken.”

He just looks at me blankly.

But I'm not wrong: my heart isn't broken. It doesn't even hurt. It feels happier and healthier than ever before in my entire life.

I curl up at my end of the couch and say, “So I . . . I mean, no pressure or anything, I'm just asking for a clarification, but it's sounding like you definitely don't love me. Is that . . . Is that right? I mean, it's cool if it is. I just want to know.”

“Jesus Christ, Annie,” he groans.

“Because I have to say it does actually
seem
like you kind of love me. I'm not sure I'd feel like I loved you if I didn't also feel like you loved me.”

“Are you going to stay in Indiana?” he asks, clearly trying to be patient. “Not go to Boston?”

“No,” I say, crossing my arms.

“Do you expect
me
to leave and follow you?”

“No.”

“Then what is it you have in mind, exactly, as a nonheartbreak ending to our little liaison, if it's ‘A Love Thing'?”

“I don't know. I didn't think about that.”

“You didn't think at all,” he mumbles. Then he adds, “Sorry. Rude. Sorry.”

“No, I
didn't
think—I felt. I said it because I felt it. Because it's true. Because I wanted to share it with you. I just . . . felt it and wanted to say it.” I pause and frown at him. “Did I ruin everything?”

He sighs hugely. “No, you didn't ruin anything, Annie. It's my fault. I should have known this was . . . I should have been more . . . Ah, fuck.” He wipes his hands down his face and up again, then grips his fists in his hair.

Well, fuck me. What did I think was going to happen? Did I expect him to say, “I love you too” and throw his arms around me and love me passionately for two weeks and then wave good-bye to me as I drove away? Did I think he'd decide he wanted the long-distance relationship with me that he didn't want with Melissa, whom he was with for more than a year?

I didn't think anything. I just felt it, so I put it on the fucking table.

Like bread.

Fuck.

“Everything
is
ruined, though. Is that what you're saying?”

“I don't know. It can't be just sex now, can it.” A statement. Not a question. A shield.

“It was never just sex,” I say, stung. “You said it yourself. We're friends, too.”

Charles sighs again, and I watch him deflate. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, Annie, we are friends. I hope we can stay friends after all this is over.”

“Well, then what else is there?” I insist, leaning forward. “Friendship, great sex . . . What else is there to love?” I'm still arguing with him, even though I can feel he has given up arguing with me. It feels like punching a half-inflated Bobo doll.

“There's . . . Annie, there's how you feel about a person, and then there's the kind of relationship you can have with them. You don't know me very well, and you don't know anything at all about relationships—you've never had one. I have, and what I've learned is that I can't. It's not that I don't want to, and it's not that I wouldn't prefer it if I could. It's that I'm not built that way. Surely, that's been—no, I suppose not.”

I feel arguments rise up inside me: I think you
are
built that way! How do you know if you don't try? What hasn't worked with other people could work with me, because I'm . . . But I stop. What am I? Am I magical? Am I the girl who opens men's hearts? No. I'm smart and I work hard, but are those the attributes of a woman men fall in love with? Hardly. I'm not pretty or alluring. I'm not a girl guys feel that way about.

I don't say any of this out loud, but I give up too. I stop arguing. He said no, and that's that. So I sink back on the sofa and say, “Okay.”

“Fuck, Annie,” he says, and he rakes his hands into his hair yet again, his eyes closed.

I bunch up my lips against the sting of tears, swallow, and when I get control of my voice, I say, “It's okay. I get it. It's no big deal.”

“You will insist that these things are no big deal, these enormous gifts you give me that I can't possibly deserve. My inability to accept them graciously is proof only of my unworthiness, not of yours.”

“It would help . . .” I begin. I battle the stinging in my nose and eyes, and then try again. “It might help if I understood
why
. Like, if it's about my lack of pretty or—”

“Sweetheart, it has nothing to do with you—”

I roll my eyes. “Oh god, seriously, you're going to say, ‘It's not you, it's me'?”

“Annie,” he spits. And then he seems to talk to himself more than to me: “Right. Let you have me.” He sits, knees crossed, one elbow on the back of the couch and his palm over his eyes, as he says, “So, look. When I was six, I watched my father beat my mother with the butt of a rifle, while explaining to her why it was her fault he had to do it. And then later I listened to my mother repeat those reasons to me, explaining to me that it wasn't
my
fault; it was her fault. For a while I thought she was trying to protect me from the reality of it, but now I know she believed him. She
believes
him.” He stops and looks out the window at the rain. “It's taken me rather a long time to forgive her for that—and to forgive myself for blaming her, when it was no one's fault but his.

“My father is a monster, as bad as men come,” he says, looking directly at me now. “And I have that monster inside me. And part—”

“What? No, you don't. You would never do something like that.”

“When I was eight, I beat the shit out of another boy—he was smaller than me and he had no friends and I decided I could make myself feel bigger if I picked on him. I had all this rage and I just . . . I split his lip and broke his nose. After I knocked him down, I told him—” Charles stops and grimaces. “I've never told anyone this. It's the worst thing I've ever done. Worse, maybe, than beating on him is what I said to him. I told him he wasn't allowed to tell anyone it was me because I was a peer of the realm. Oh god, what a horrible, entitled little shit I was.” He rubs his palm against his forehead and adds, “Am.”

And then he continues, “Of course he did tell, and when my mother heard about it, the way she looked at me . . . It was how I saw her look at my father. Cowed. Afraid.”

“Afraid of a little boy?”

Charles nods. “So, in my eight-year-old wisdom, I shoved the monster into a deep well and locked him in, but I notice him quite regularly—he's beating on the door right now as a matter of fact.” He stops, his jaw tight, and swallows twice. He says mildly, “I hate talking about it. I sound schizophrenic.”

“Duh, it's a metaphor. I know you don't think there's a literal monster inside you.”

He gives a tiny, embarrassed laugh, his face splotchy with emotion. “Thanks,” he says.

“Well, I'm not afraid of your monster,” I say.

“You should be,” he says in a choked voice.

“Why? The monster is eight years old!”

And Charles laughs, surprise easing his tension. “I hadn't thought of it that way,” he says. “That might be true.”

“Only one way to find out,” I declare.

I'm pretty sure what's going to happen next is he's going to free the monster, and therefore free himself from his fear of the monster, and it'll be like in
Frozen,
where the answer—spoiler—is love, and everything spontaneously turns into springtime.