Rapture (11 page)

When he first went out with Donald Deitch, it was a challenge to keep up. He couldn't believe a guy could live this way. Donald Deitch hit the town every night. Donald was an actor who'd starred in a surprise low-budget hit five years before and was still best known for that. He'd been in
The Last Journalist
as a favor to Benjamin and they had gotten to be friends. Donald had a girlfriend, Sheryl, who sometimes came out, looking foxy and bored in satin halters, and when she didn't appear, Benjamin wondered what he told her on those nights. Because there were girls everywhere.

He marveled that these girls had been out here all the time. All those years of puzzling over video choices with Vanessa, or reading a book in bed beside her, these girls were all out here. So, O.K., maybe they weren't the women of his life, still, they were nice girls and fun and had a lot of heart. Their lives had been a little rougher, some of them, than those of the daughters of Washington bigwigs or girls who went to private schools in Connecticut, though to be honest he didn't hear that much about the lives of these girls. He didn't hear much about that as they shook back their hair after bending over a mirror and handing along the rolled bill to the next person. They were mischievous and game. Their eyebrows went up, they smiled shyly, they straightened their spines, aware they were being watched. Eventually their glitter-painted fingernails would creep over and rest on his sleeve. They were willing. He didn't need to profess his eternal devotion. Often the girls were trying to seduce
him
.

Maybe this was where he belonged, with these girls. He'd proven himself unsuccessful in being faithful—maybe these girls were the right thing for him. Sure, he missed being attached to Vanessa, but staying with her meant he'd miss out on this whole other aspect of himself. And, sure, he'd like to have a family. One day. If he ever got it together. Though it would probably have to be with a smart but more simple girl. A simple girl, by his description, was one who adored him and would be a good mother to his children and would busy herself with that. She wouldn't care if, now and then, he went off the beaten track. She could live with it because she knew how men were. She wouldn't want to know about it. She would only ask that it not be thrown in her face, that he not be baldly disrespectful. She'd look the other way. She was smart. She accepted how men were and didn't take it personally. She knew it wasn't anything against her. But most importantly, she loved him. That was the sort of woman he would probably have to find.

But in the meantime these other girls suited him. They recognized his true nature and weren't asking for fidelity and didn't have expectations. Fact is, they hardly asked for anything, just to have a good time. They sometimes came up to him at the bar breathlessly asking him if he was partying, or as they walked together out of some club would ask him to drop them off on his way home or even to borrow some cash and if it cost him a little, then, in a way, all the better. When it came down to it, if money changed hands then the exchange was understood and everyone was happy. You got a little action and the girl got some free fun. They were happy, they were sweet girls. They genuinely seemed to like him. He figured it was probably because he was a little different from the types they were used to putting up with. He wasn't really
in
this scene, he was just passing through it. He knew better than to end up like the fifty-year-old geezers chatting up the permed women in tight skirts at the end of the bar at Mary Lou's at
3
a.m. He would never fall that low.

AS KAY
grew older, it only became more perplexing, the enormous influence boys had. Kissing, for instance. A girl had to be careful whom she kissed. Just kissing did something. It actually had a chemical effect. It was possible to kiss a person you had a neutral attitude to and a chemical seemed to be released, or something, because the boy whom moments before was not someone you had been regarding longingly could suddenly turn into an object of intense interest or distraction and possible obsession and very likely pain. One of Kay's friends called it boy poison—a boy's kisses were like a poison which infected you and after exposure you craved more, like an addict.

This did not, however, seem to be the case with a boy after he got kissed, or more particularly, after he'd slept with a girl. It was one of the differences between the sexes, that sex, for the most part and very generally speaking, often had the opposite effect. That is, once a boy felt he'd made a conquest, then his energy was
released
and he was free to move on and put the girl out of his mind. For a girl, that conquest left its hook in.

Of course, this didn't always happen. Women were sometimes not susceptible to the boy poison, and mysterious influences were known to make men want to stay. But Kay did not see a lot of that happening close around her. She only saw it from afar. For her, in New York City at the end of the twentieth century, she did not see a lot of roots between men and women fixing themselves in the ground.

Sure, this man had driven her crazy. He was a minefield. Hidden dangers lay in him everywhere. But right now, above the pulled-back bedspread, she'd pushed past the worry of those smaller considerations. If she was adrift, then adrift was the thing she would embrace. She would find the value in adrift. She was taking herself to a higher plain. What could be dangerous in this expansive benevolence? For that's what she felt full of: benevolence and acceptance. Mixed in with physical desire, the moment was only more rich and sweet. It was serene. She was savoring every bit of it. Such a small portion of their history had been serene or benevolent or sweet.

HE WAS DAMNED.
He was sure of it.

ANOTHER LITTLE
pang of worry swam up through her languid thoughts. It was a small pang. It grew out of the fact that she was lavishing all this adoration on a man who had, frankly, put her through the wringer. He'd lied after he'd vowed not to lie. He gave her little hopes, then yanked them away. Perhaps it would have been better if he'd not given her anything in the first place. But the small disturbance was swallowed up with the softening of her body. She wasn't asking for anything now, and wasn't that the real sign of loving, to give everything out and not ask for anything back?

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a wedge of light reaching the front of the bureau. The sun didn't make it into the room this way in the winter. It lay low on the windowsill. Now, if the curtain was pulled back, sunlight would be flooding one whole side of the room.

THERE WERE ASPECTS
of this indulgent life which were not
altogether
detrimental. He was seeing a different side of life. He was learning things—for instance, that he didn't always want to live this way. He'd get back to the projects that he wanted to do, meanwhile he was learning a little more about the business from hanging out with Donald. He and Donald both agreed what a joke Hollywood was. The only reason to deal with Hollywood was for the money and Donald did that, he admitted it, but he wasn't taken in by the game. He lived in New York. He wouldn't
want
the life of one of those Hollywood guys. Benjamin heard the spiel many late nights. For his part, Benjamin felt he'd proven himself, to some degree, with his movie, it had gotten some attention. He'd had an eleven-year relationship, he'd made that effort. So who could begrudge him a little cutting loose? Though even he had to admit, lately it was getting out of hand.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd gone to bed before three. Usually it was more like six. He'd seen the sky lightening into day far more than he'd seen it darkening into night. But living this counterlife bent his thoughts in new directions; it opened up his perspective. Not that he ever saw a sunset in New York anyway. Unless you were high up in a building or happened to glimpse it at the end of one of the big avenues going east-west, all you knew of the sunset was a darkening in the air. No wonder people in New York were so unbalanced. They were totally untouched by the rhythms of nature. You were only aware of nature when something extreme happened, like a snowstorm or a heat wave.

What he really probably ought to do was get out of the city. That's what he needed. Seeing Kay made him realize that. He was nearing the end of a long bender and when it was over he would get out. Away from Donald and temptation. He'd rent some place up near Jeffrey and Andre's house upstate. They'd look after him. They were a good domestic influence with their tag sales and homemade soup, and he could start working on the new script. The only reason he was staying in the city was to hear about whether that music video was going to come through, and then there was the possibility of that low-budget thing if those guys could raise the money, which reminded him, he better give them a call. Before the end of the week, he really should. Shit, was it Thursday already? He definitely better do that tomorrow    wait, was Kay saying something? She must be getting tired. At least, a little. But he shouldn't think of that, of her getting tired. When he thought of her, it made him lose, in a weird way, some of his enjoyment. Which was ironic, this being sex. You'd think that if you were having sex with someone, thinking of them would intensify it, but sometimes it was the opposite. Sometimes, if you were concerned, it was best not to think of them at all. Concern wasn't part of the drive. The drive was, ultimately, to
invade
her, overpower her, not protect her. The protective feeling appeared at other times, but not during sex. So much missing was the protective feeling that Benjamin marveled that women actually liked it, which they definitely appeared to at times. They
liked
being penetrated that way. It was when they didn't seem to be enjoying themselves that it made more sense to him. It never ceased to surprise him when they did.

He'd better empty his mind. Everything always moved along more smoothly when there was no real thought going on.

THE INEXPLICABLE
thing was, the thing you weren't supposed to like in a person, she liked in him. She was drawn to how wayward he was. She was embarrassed to admit that it had a sexy aspect to it, the shiftlessness with the soulfulness. She was fascinated by the oblivion with which he tilted into women and tried to get under their clothes. Sometimes he seemed unaware of the world around him, then suddenly very keen. She couldn't figure it out. She wasn't scared off by the fact that he wasn't a
smart choice,
she preferred it. His waywardness seemed directly tied to his interest in sex. He wasn't just interested in it, he liked it. Not all men did, contrary to popular lore, not in her experience. Many men purported to be interested in sex, to be
after only one thing
and all that, and then when it came right down to actual contact they didn't really
delight
in it, they could easily be oddly unmoved. It was as if it involved too much interaction. Their attentions were often aloof and rather cool, as if they couldn't quite inhabit them. She'd encountered that a few times. So she appreciated it when a man seemed genuinely interested in women, even if that interest ended up being directed at whatever girl happened to be crossing his path, or sitting beside him at dinner, or bringing him his cup of coffee. Along with Benjamin's disorganization and democratic taste in women was a lack of having formulated strong ideas about how a woman ought to be or about trying to get her to act in a certain way. He had a lack of expectation that a woman be demure or obedient or fun or whatever it was a man supposedly wanted a woman to be. Benjamin just seemed to like how women
were
. She liked that open, lax attitude. It allowed her to be how she was. It allowed her to be free.

Of course, those wayward qualities which in the beginning were appreciated and inspiring soon became the very things which made her suffer.

THEY NEVER REALLY
did have a chance, he thought. He and Kay had started out on the wrong foot and how can it ever be right if you start out with so many things out of order. They didn't have a prayer.

It was hard to look at her now. He didn't want to look at her with pity. Suddenly he thought of that time in Mexico when she climbed over the cement wall with the jagged top. He'd held her bare foot in his clasped hands. She'd thrown her sandals over the wall and he was giving her a leg up and she placed her foot in his hands. Her leg was braced against his shoulder after she stepped up and he tried to hold her steady. Mesmerized, he watched her swing the other leg firmly up. He wobbled a little, keeping ahold of her foot, then she stepped out of his hand, relieving him of her weight, and even then he knew they didn't have a prayer.

BUBBLES OF DOUBT
popped to the surface of her certainty. But wasn't it more real, to have doubt? Shouldn't you expect a little doubt in everything?

The last night in Mexico, after the last day of filming, they sat in the far corner of the hotel bar. They were returning the next day to New York. He looked miserable which she had appreciated. His face was fixed in a stricken, doglike expression. He stared at her, unable to speak. They ordered a late dinner and hardly ate the food and took the elevator up to his floor. They walked solemnly close to each other down the hallway to his door. Inside, a muffled phone was ringing. He slipped the white card into the key slot and the door clicked open to blackness and a loud ringing. He winced, half facing her. ‘Go on,' she said. He checked her face to see if she meant it, and went forward hunched into the gloom. She waited at the doorway. He glanced back over his shoulder, a pale mournful face giving her one last look out of the shadows, then he picked up the receiver.

‘Honey!' he said.

He threw back his head and jauntily shot out his leg, locking the knee. His posture lifted up. His voice was breezy and happy and genuine. Kay's blood ran cold. She felt as if she were watching the first few sparks spit from a cracked pipe in an unattended corner of a factory just before the whole plant explodes.