Yearning (18 page)

The instant she set eyes upon him she was made whole again. His gaze engulfed her and she was swallowed deep by the love that bound them. It had been written by the Gods, divined by the prophecy of fate, his hands, his breath, his heart and body belonged to her. The two of them had spent their lives as the sun and the moon, ever separated, ever seeking each other. And, as the great circling of the stars ensures that the sun and moon are destined to meet, so they too discovered each other again. Eclipsed, they lay once more in each other’s arms, awash
in the rivers of love that flowed between them. Like an angel he cleansed and renewed her. She yielded to him and once again they were one.

She submitted stories for publication in the hope he would come across one and recognise her name, see himself on the page and know she was still longing for him, waiting for him to come back into her life. But her excitement with each published story faded as her letterbox and message machine remained empty and quiet.

In honour of Solomon’s absence in her life she tried to live as he had taught her – fully alive and awake and available to her dreams. She’d applied for teacher’s college, but her final high school marks weren’t good enough. She resigned herself to an administrative job in a local school. At least she was close to other teachers and she secretly hoped the tenuous connection would somehow bring her back in touch with Solomon. But she was disappointed. He’d given her hope for a bigger future, but when she got out in the world she’d found there weren’t enough big futures to go around. You need brains or looks to get a hold of a big future, and she had neither.

In the end, city life had worked out okay. She enjoyed her job and the children who came with it, her aunt let her live with her while she saved a deposit for a flat, she socialised a little and wrote a lot. She kept a diary, writing long letters to Solomon she knew he would never read, fed her yearning for him by re-reading them over and over late into the night and wondering what he’d say if he could write back. As time passed she returned to see her parents less and less. A couple of days at Christmas listening to
them bickering was enough to send her flying back to the glass towers and her little life.

Max was the first man in years who’d bothered to really listen to her. The prospect of falling in love with someone who wasn’t Solomon was frightening. In truth, she wasn’t sure she could do it. And if she committed herself to Max, and Solomon eventually showed up, what would she do? Still, that seemed unlikely now. It had been nearly two decades and she didn’t want to end up alone, married to a non-existent dream lover. She wanted children, and her chances of that were rapidly shrinking. Max wasn’t perfect – how could he be? He wasn’t anything like Solomon – but he was gentle and generous.

When she first moved in with Max she liked to sit on a stool in his shed sipping coffee and watching him work. They spoke little. She was happy just being in his presence. He was a competent carpenter. She could see how he loved it in the way he handled timber. He marked it tenderly, sawing on exactly the right angle, wasting as little wood as possible. At times she wished she was a cabinet being built by him, his hands so nimble and confident, never forcing, always easing the pieces together, encouraging them to fit. But he had never touched her that way. That brand of tenderness was reserved solely for his craft.

At first Max was a tender and attentive lover. She was relieved to have finally found a man who was able to take things more slowly, who respected her need to be treated gently. But it didn’t last long. Six months after she moved in with him, Max became comfortable and started taking things for granted, just as the others had. The sensuality of their early days gradually lapsed into boring routine.

Confused, she wondered where his patience and the tempting erotic notes he used to leave on her pillow had gone. In spite of the disappointment she decided to stick it out, hoping it was a phase they were going through. Surely they would eventually return to the more languid sex of their early days. She missed the animal way he climbed over her, slowly pushing into her amid her grunts and groans while gazing directly into her eyes, kissing her neck and ears as he thrust against her, mumbling his love into her lips, barely able to contain his excitement. Now he stroked her aimlessly in the darkness after they’d turned out the bedroom light and was always on top of her before she was fully ready. His loving had become impatient, urgent, even a little thoughtless.

One night, as he was forcing her open with callous fingers, she took his hands in her own and moved them over her body, trying to calm him, slow him, coaxing him to touch her, but he pulled away and, gripping her buttocks hard, he plunged roughly into her. She concentrated hard on his pounding hips, but it was no good. It was all over too quickly and when he was done, she lay quietly, listening to him puffing wildly beside her.

‘You don’t need to be in such a rush,’ she murmured.

Max laughed. ‘Can’t help it. You’re just too sexy, babe.’

Solomon’s pet name for her rang in her ears. It made her sad. Max ran his hand over her thigh.

‘Give me ten minutes and I’ll get back to you.’

She wasn’t listening. She was thinking of Solomon and the words he used to whisper into her mouth as he kissed her: ‘Making love to you, babe, is pure joy.’

Max loved her. She was the first woman to make him laugh in years. Unlike his other lovers she wasn’t jealous or intrusive. She allowed him the joys of his woodwork and his fishing trips. She gave him room to be himself, a freedom he hadn’t known since he was a child. They messed about with poetry and drawing, encouraging each other to try what they secretly longed to do. He shared his poems with her, bravely opening himself up. She told him he had talent. She dreamed for him, created an adventure out of his life, held him up and gave him hope.

He was excited for her when she had a story published, too shy to submit anything himself. Yes, he wrote poetry, but he had no idea if it was any good. Better to not know than suffer the shame of rejection. Besides, he was convinced she was a better author than he.

He especially enjoyed her erotic love stories. He read them with his cock straining at his jeans, delighted she had a feel for the pornographic. The scenarios were always inspiring: young women, sometimes too young for his taste, submitting to older men. But her heroes were always ridiculous, more like gods than men. She portrayed them as perfect, flawless, almost psychic beings, able to anticipate their young heroines’ every need, be it emotional, sexual or spiritual. He laughingly teased her about them, telling her she needed to come on one of his fishing trips and learn what real men were like, especially when they were away from their women-folk. She never really seemed to get his joke, the hurt look on her face driving him to pull her into his arms and kiss her extravagantly to placate her.

Max thought they had an agreement about each other’s
limitations, so it annoyed him when she started badgering him about their sex life. Why wasn’t she just happy to be with him, as he was with her? Why did she place so much importance on sex? It was just a shag after all. He knew his way around a woman’s body well enough. Didn’t she usually have an orgasm? And then, when he was tired and done, she wanted to keep going. He couldn’t be bothered with hours of foreplay and kissing. It was as dull as dogshit for him.

She bought him a book, something about Tantra. Lying beside him in bed she read to him aloud, long and tedious instructions on how to create erotic intimacy. He couldn’t hide his boredom. The longer she read, the more he wished they could just get on with it. All this malarky about breathing and staring into each other’s eyes was a waste of time. Why couldn’t it be like it was in their early days? It was so easy to lie over her and push into her, to feel the tight grip and pull of her around him as she breathed hard in his ear. He liked the way she enveloped him, like a cushion around his cock, until the sensation overtook him and he fell into deep, wonderful sleep.

Patiently she tried to show him what she’d learned from Solomon, but Max was an apathetic student. He was disinterested in the potential of touch, didn’t care which parts of her wanted attention, was too tired for massage. His hands persisted in their heated pace, no matter how she tried to slow them.

‘Max, would you please stop for a minute?’

‘Why?’

‘I just want you to slow down. You’re going too fast for me.’

His movements slowed but she sensed the impatience in him as he stopped kissing her and buried his face in her shoulder.

‘Please, I just want you to touch me gently for while. Let me catch up to you.’

He remained quiet. His breath was hot on her neck, his hands stiff and mechanical between her legs.

‘Like this,’ she whispered, grabbing his fingers and stroking her body with them. In exasperation he pulled his hand away.

‘Jesus Christ.’ He lay back against the pillow and looked up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head.

A hot rush of tears flooded her eyes. ‘What?’

‘I can’t do anything fucking right, can I?’

‘Max . . . ’

He rolled over, turning his back to her.

‘Max?’ She bit her lip in an effort to control the tears.

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘But don’t you want to know what feels good for me?’

‘I’m not a fucking monkey. Do this, don’t do that. You’re obviously not happy so just forget it, okay?’

Not wanting to be discouraged, she looked for other ways to encourage him. She handed him her erotic stories to proofread, hoping he’d gain some insight. As he read, she checked his face for signs of understanding, but it remained blank. He always ended up dragging her into bed early instead. His mind only seemed to register the act itself – the tangled limbs, the rising heart beats – always missing the delicate eroticism that underpinned what she wrote.

She wandered among clouds of pretty lace and satin in a lingerie store, lifting out naughty black corsets and
holding them against her body, checking them for size and appeal. She picked out a sheer, pale blue baby-doll negligee with a matching G-string. With it tucked neatly into a box filled with pink tissue paper she raced home to bathe in rose oil and shave off her pubic hair. As she pulled on lace-top stockings she felt a rush of desire as the light material brushed against her skin. She whispered secretly to herself the words that Solomon once panted in her ear. ‘You’re so sexy, babe. So beautiful.’

When she came into the bedroom Max was lying on their bed, dumb with anticipation and already inspired by her dress-up. He grabbed at her, tore at the material to get at her skin. They wrestled passionately for half an hour or so, but it was too vigorous, too fast-paced to satisfy her. Max fell into a deep, snoring sleep and she lay awake beside him, baby-doll dress and G-string tangled on the floor beside her, wondering what she’d done wrong. She’d tried, really tried, to show him what she needed from him, tried to show him what he was missing out on, but he just wasn’t interested. After all the effort she made for him she couldn’t understand why he never asked what she wanted the way Solomon always had.

Perhaps it was time to give up. She’d had enough lovers to know that her affair with Solomon had left her with high expectations. She was getting older, wanted children and Solomon was ancient history. Maybe she should stop worrying about what went on in the bedroom and focus on other things. Max was good to her. He was stable and reliable. He worked hard, was humble and stuck by her. Perhaps that was all she could expect in life. Perhaps, for women like her, that’s all there was.

Even if that were true, she still had the privacy of her own thoughts to retreat to, and the diary she kept hidden in the bottom of her wardrobe under a shoebox. She couldn’t stop believing destiny would bring Solomon back to her eventually, because a relationship, a connection, that powerful was surely meant to be. The hope that she’d meet him again hovered constantly at the edges of her mind, and she was guilty for not trying harder to put it to rest.

But recalling Solomon, picturing the magic between them when they met again, kept her going in the moments when Max disappointed her. In the last moments of sex, as a stunted orgasm pulsed in her groin, she spoiled herself by vividly recalling the scent of Solomon’s skin, the feel of his muscular body, the generosity of his lips, all the while knowing that Max would be none the wiser.

Max couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of routine. It was comfortable, and she understood he used it to refuse her the closeness she longed for. The seven o’clock news, followed by a sitcom, then a police drama. She gave up on his blank stares and grunts and retreated to their bed with a romance novel and her diary, leaving him to his television and beer. At 10.30 he’d groan loudly as he pushed himself off the couch and lumber to the bathroom. She turned off the light and pretended she was sleeping. He climbed into bed, patted her rump and asked, ‘Are you awake? How about it?’

The blunt question always annoyed her. He had ignored her all night. Now he wanted to get close to her on his terms. She wanted to be seduced. She wished he would woo her a little, the way he used to, wished he would take his time, explore her body the way Solomon
once had in her youth, the way Solomon still did in her diary. But Max made it clear he would do none of those things. His lovemaking, like everything else in his life, fell into a lustless habit – two circles of the breasts, a quick rub between her legs and he was at it like a prize bull.

At least she had an excuse when she was menstruating. She could push him away, turn her back on him, just fall asleep. Once or twice she was woken by the sound of him rustling the sheets as he masturbated beside her. Motionless, she’d shut her eyes tight and wait for Max to finish and fall into a disgruntled sleep.

In that dark secret time afterwards, when Max snored softly beside her, she couldn’t help but long for Solomon. She wished one day, somehow, she might have what they’d shared again, if not with Solomon, at least with Max. But it seemed hopeless. Bound by predictability, Max seemed incapable. He needed to know what was coming next. He wasn’t the sort of man who explored and discovered. He simply kept things ticking over, doing what needed to be done. Solomon, on the other hand, had known everything there was to know about intimacy. The closeness she felt toward him, even now, was enough to make her wonder if, even if Max changed, she’d be willing enter that realm with him.