Romance: The Art of my Love: a story of betrayal, desire, love, and marriage (8 page)

“Is it about your screenplay?” I continue to question him.

“No, Emmy, it’s about us.”

I’m panicking again. I can’t keep still and start moving around the kitchen.

“Do we really need to talk right now? Maybe we can talk at home after I get back with my paintings? Otherwise I’m going to get all upset – looking at your face I’m sure I’ll get upset – I won’t be able to work, I’ll cry, I won’t make any money, and we’ll die in poverty.”

“Fine,” agrees Paul, reluctantly. “We’ll talk when you get back. Just so we can die rich. But don’t forget.”

“And you don’t pressure me too much.” I feel a little lighter, as if a weight has been lifted from my soul, and I carefully try to find the clean, clear tone that always used to define our relationship. “You know I don’t like it when people put pressure on me. I’m a creative person.”

“Okay, creative person, go and create.”

And I do. I paint for several hours. Quickly, diligently, in some sort of frenzy. Finding ways to capture the weightless, transparent sunlight over the lake, and its reflection in the water, takes my full concentration. I manage to turn off my thoughts and forget about the guilt I feel towards Paul and Rachel, and about John and the sex we had. I think only about that minute and that lake. And the sunlight.

Something has changed, in the last few days, in my perception of the world. It no longer appears dull to me. Instead, colors have broken through, and I notice so many small details that it feels like I’m wearing special glasses that can zoom in on the things around me. I also catch more and more new smells. Something seems to have switched on inside of me, some sort of new mechanism for sensing the world around me.

By lunchtime, I need to take a break. Paul and I go into the little town nearby to eat and to buy me groceries for the coming week. I am loading the food into the refrigerator when I feel Paul’s hand on my waist. He is holding me tightly, pulling me toward him. I close the refrigerator door and stand up straight. I can feel Paul’s arousal at my back. I realize unexpectedly that I’m as aroused as he is. All day long, I had wanted to touch him, to feel my skin against his body. Sex with John hasn’t quenched my desire. Instead, it has stirred it up.

Paul bends down and kisses my neck. Then he buries his face in my hair. I try to turn around to face him, but he is holding me tight and doesn’t let me go.

“I want you, Emmy. Right now. Can I have you?” whispers Paul into my hair. A shiver runs across my body.

Silently, in some sort of trance, I walk upstairs. I take off my shirt. I start removing my shorts, but Paul interrupts me. Quickly, impatiently, he strips them off of me himself, along with my underwear, and pushes me toward the bed. I’m lying on my back, but Paul turns me over onto my stomach.

“Get up on your knees, okay?” He’s not whispering anymore. His voice is stronger now, and in the silence it sounds startlingly loud and authoritative. I obediently do what he says. I am so impatient it hurts. He is behind me. He puts his hands on my breasts, and he kisses my neck, then lightly bites it. Suddenly all my sensitivity is concentrated in my nipples. Paul rubs them with his fingertips, and the feeling of arousal overwhelms me. Paul moves his hands to my stomach, and he strokes, kneads, rubs it, still kissing my neck. I start to moan and rub my ass against his chest. Finally his hand moves lower, to where I need him most. He strokes me there with one hand, while his other hand is back on my breast. I’m already so close to my peak.

“Oh, Emmy. What are you doing to me?” Paul breathes out.

He leaves me on the bed, alone. I feel abandoned, wretched. The sound of rustling clothing tells me he is undressing. Then he returns to me, and his hand again comes between my legs. What he’s doing with his other hand I can only guess, because when I try to turn to look at him, he turns my head back to where it was. He doesn’t want me to see him, and he’s not letting me look. This is all very strange, and not like him at all. We’ve never had sex this way, my back to him, not looking. I can’t see him, only feel him. Paul slowly enters me from behind. The sensations I experience surprise me. I remember John, and the expression on his face when he was making love to me on the couch, and immediately, I come. Paul climaxes at almost the same time as I do. I hear him groan out loud.

I collapse onto the bed, on my back now. My ears are ringing, and I have a hard time catching my breath. Paul is breathing hard, too. He lies next to me and again turns me over so my back is to him. He holds me tight and kisses me behind the ear. Neither of us speaks. After a little time, our breathing evens out, and I feel Paul moving his finger across my back, as if he’s drawing something.

I can’t help asking. “What are you drawing?”

“I’m not drawing, I’m writing.”

“What are you writing?”

“My name. I want to imprint you with my name. So you’ll be all mine and everyone will know it.” He says the words slowly, pensively.

Inside me, again, everything clenches tight. I’m already not all his. I have been with John, and I liked it. It’s wrong, but I can’t change it now.

That evening, Paul leaves. I can’t sleep. All night I toss and turn and think about Paul and John. Paul was so unlike himself. What had he wanted to talk to me about? Why had everything changed so much between us? Because I had let John fuck me, and I had offered not the slightest resistance. How am I going to get along with John now? What about Rachel? She had been so nice to me, and she found me a buyer, and planned to use my paintings in her exhibition, and even this house in the mountains had been her idea. And what had I done to repay her?

I’m so worked up I am shaking all over. Yes, my grandmother was right. This is what my good luck has brought me.

Bright and early I am already at work, and I paint all day, almost forgetting to stop to eat. Usually I work slowly. I think things through carefully, erase a lot, and paint them over again. Now it’s as if a dam has burst inside me. I know what I want. I need to correct almost nothing. I’m incredibly happy that I can create right now, and forget, for a while, about everything that has happened. The joy I get from working, from the process itself, is the best medicine for the feeling of guilt that is gnawing away at me.

When dusk falls and I can no longer work, I head out for a walk to the lake. Like an ancient pagan, I feel thankful to the sun, the sky and the lake for just existing, for letting me paint them and, with their help, forget my problems, even if only for a short time. I walk down the slope to the edge of the lake and carefully make my way along the shore.

Suddenly I feel raindrops. Where is that coming from? The sun had been out all day, no clouds at all. I know, because I have been watching the sky nonstop. It starts to rain harder. I strip off my clothes. They’re all wet, anyway, and I’m all alone here. I wade into the lake. The water is warm and gentle. I lie down on my back, spread out my arms, and just float there. Above me the rain pours down. Below me is more water. It seems to me that maybe this is the route to the purification I need, to be born again as Emmy the good girl, who always does what she is supposed to. The lake and the rain accept me, bathe me, as I am: sinful and dirty, with all my filthy thoughts and twisted desires. And unexpectedly, a feeling of peace descends upon me. Maybe the worst is already behind me. Life goes on, as if nothing had happened. I can not change the past, and I can not forget what I had with John. Still, things with Paul had been pretty great last time. Even though he had acted strange, and hadn’t let me look at him, and had taken me from behind. It was a different Paul from the one I knew, more authoritative, more masculine, maybe, a Paul who knew better what he wanted. And this new Paul turns me on
much
more. Maybe all was not lost for us.

After I went back to the house, took a shower, and got changed, I texted Paul. He has a crazy schedule I can never remember, and he works on his screenplay every free minute, so I don’t usually call him.

Me: Where are you?

Paul: At home, writing. How are you?

Me: I’m thinking about what it was like last time.

I can’t stop thinking about how intense the sensations were, the ones I experienced with both John and Paul. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. I am starting to understand why some people are so obsessed with sex.

Paul: So? Did you like it?

He knows what I’m talking about right away.

Me: Yeah, I thought it was great. But why wouldn’t you let me look at you? I love to look at you. It turns me on.

Paul: I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you ever tell me?

Me: You never asked.

I look at the phone. We really have never talked about this stuff before. Never. And even now we’re not talking, just texting, even though it would be so easy to hit the button to make a call and hear each other’s voices.

Me: Why don’t we ever talk about it? Why aren’t we talking now?

Paul doesn’t answer for a long time. I wait, staring at the screen. I so much want to have an honest conversation with him, to break down that wall that I sensed between us last time he was here.

Paul: I love you.

Now I freeze. We’ve never talked about our feelings before, either. My first response was to write, “Me too,” but I stop. We’ve lived together for years, he has been my one true friend and lover, and still, I have never told him I love him. And now that I’ve cheated on him with another man, I’m going to declare my love? It seems low and vile. Can what I feel for him even be called love?

For a long time I stay lost in my thoughts. For some reason, it used to be crystal clear to me: I love Paul, he’s the closest person in the world to me, and I could never live without him. There’s still nobody closer to me than him. He knows everything about me. Almost everything, anyway, and I know everything about him, too. We are so good together. We’re the same. Is that love? Is this what Cinderella and Snow White felt when they married their princes? Or were their heads only full of the anticipation of physical intimacy? There had never really been sparks between Paul and me; I had felt so comfortable with him from the very start, and I had never either felt shy with him or craved him. He was an amazing friend, handsome, charming and smart. My grandmother would have approved of him. But
here
, at a basic, animal level, I had never wanted Paul like I wanted John. So do I love him, or what?

Me: When are you coming to see me?

Paul: Saturday.

Me: I’ll be waiting.

For the next few days, I work like a madwoman. I sleep here and there, and not much, but at least I
can
sleep now. I dream first of John, then of Paul. In my dreams they both want me, and I can’t refuse either one of them. Every time I wake up in a sweat, and my panties are soaking. 

Paul and I never do talk. Instead, we text back and forth regularly.

Me: Long day. I’m beat. How are you?

Paul: Tired. I was thinking about your grandmother today.

Me: ????

Paul: I told my students the story about good luck and bad luck.

Me: What did they think?

Paul: Got a serious discussion out of it. Some of them even accused me of depriving them of all hope. We talked about fate, predetermination and free will.

Me: Keep it simple. Don’t tell them dumb Chinese fairy tales.

Paul: It’s not dumb. Seems like wisdom to me. It’s just that a lot of my students didn’t agree.

Me: Why not?

Paul: For me the point is that we can recognize and understand only a small part of what happens in the world. We can’t see the big picture.

Me: That bad, huh? So now what, lie down and do nothing, because we can’t understand everything???

Paul: No. Just need to remember that we can’t ever know it all.

Me: My eyes are closing.

Paul: See what a positive effect I have on you? Sweet dreams.

We don’t mention love again. Or what he wants to talk about when I return. For some reason, though, it feels very important to me to write to him every evening, even if it’s only short texts, and to get his responses. Those text messages are the thread connecting us, one that we’re holding onto tightly to make sure we don’t lose each other.

Me: How’s the screenplay? Who’s staying together?

Paul: The athlete and the coach.

Me: What about the nasty girl?

Paul: To hell with her. 

Me: Huh?

Paul: The athlete kills her and dumps her body in the park.

Me: No way!!!

Paul: No, not really. They realize she’s sleeping with both of them and they both dump her. Seems logical to me.

Me: And the two of them stay friends and get back to work and cheer each other up?

Paul: No, they can’t stand each other. Too hard for them.

Me: Got it.

On Friday, I finish work early. I feel worn out and totally drained. Two landscapes are done now, and one more is underway. Who would have thought that I could work so quickly!