Then why aren’t you divorced yet, she wanted to ask, but couldn’t bring herself to, for this would imply that she cared—though, of course, why would he have told her all this, if he didn’t want her to care. But then, he hadn’t. He’d said nothing until there was no way for him not to say something.
“Listen,” he was saying now, “let’s stop talking about this. Why don’t you take off your blouse?”
Beth laughed. “What?”
He looked at her intently for a moment, then glanced down at the jewel case in his hands. “Take your blouse off.”
“Um, Will…” She laughed again.
“Beth.” His back was to her once again. She heard the tray of the CD player slide out and watched him slot in a CD, the silver disc shooting bits of light at her.
A quivery heat, pulsating and uncomfortable, was developing between her legs. He turned and looked at her, crossing his arms across his chest. Unsure exactly of what she planned to do, she rose from the futon. There was no reason to obey him. But was there a reason not to? For a moment she looked at him, then—almost to escape the glare of his eyes—she slowly began to untuck the tails of her shirt, which was black and made of a thin, shiny cotton, in the style of a men’s dress shirt. It, too, was new. She unbuttoned the cuffs, the sleeves falling over her hands, then, gaining speed, unbuttoned the mother-of-pearl discs on the front placket. Will held out his hand and, after a minute, Beth—realizing his meaning—handed over the shirt, which he laid over the almost feminine chair, gingerly, taking care not to crease it. She stood in front of him, her freckled breasts propped up by a plain black cotton bra, a demi cup. He hadn’t pressed play on the CD player, she realized, and the apartment felt strangely silent, no street noise creeping in, no sounds from the apartments above or below. He gestured toward her skirt—her favorite, a velveteen A-line, in brownish maroon, that fell just below her knees—with an open palm. But this seemed too much. Her breasts, she knew, were her best feature. Until recently, she’d liked her thighs, which were long and smooth and white, and her narrow knees and flat calves. But at Sadie’s, as the girls dressed before the wedding, she’d become acutely conscious of their flaccidness. Her friends—who had once scorned exercise and, moreover, the conscious pursuit of thinness; who had taken the Women and Body Image ExCo class—had become sleek, muscled creatures. Emily, in particular, once pleasantly curvy, now had the solid, ridged legs of a chorus girl, though, Beth supposed, she was a chorus girl, of sorts.
Will finished off his drink, with a low rattle of ice, and placed the glass on the shelf behind him, next to a wild-haired troll doll and a worn-looking Raggedy Ann. “Take off your skirt,” he said, gesturing again. What could she say? What reason could she give him? She had started this and she couldn’t stop. She should have said no in the first place. She should have left in a flurry of moral outrage. She should have kissed him and shut him up.
“I,” she started to say, but the sound didn’t really come out. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He nodded at her, as if to say Go on, now, silly girl. Before she could think better of it, she unhooked the fastenings on her skirt and stepped out of it, bending carefully at the waist and knee. He took that from her as well, folding it neatly, and smirking slightly at the label. “BCBG. That’s hilarious.” She smiled at him blankly. “Do you know what it means?” She shook her head. “Bon chic bon genre. It’s a term for a certain sort of Parisian young person. Kind of like calling someone a hipster or a yuppie or a Sloane Ranger. But there’s no real equivalent in English.” She nodded. The throbbing between her legs continued, and her heart thunked loudly below her breasts, but a certain calm was settling over her. “Take off your bra,” he said, as she’d known he would. This time, she didn’t hesitate. She reached behind her and undid the hooks and eyes, slid the straps off her shoulders, and handed him the bra. Her breasts hung heavily, loosely on her chest. In junior high she’d wanted to have them reduced—the horror of gym class. Without waiting for him to tell her to do so, she stepped out of her underwear—plain, black cotton—and found herself standing naked but for her high boots, like a girl in Playboy, in front of a man she barely knew, a man who, she had an inkling, was not interested in the sort of relationship she was accustomed to, would not even tell her that he loved her, as a manner of courtesy, as had Glyn, the Welshman she’d dated on and off in Milwaukee, who was, honestly, an asshole, as were, she’d found, all men with an overhealthy interest in Star Trek. “Why don’t you come here,” he said now, gesturing toward himself. He’d placed the rest of her clothing over the back of one of the wooden chairs at the table, a small action that she found stupidly reassuring as she crossed the room—taking care not to move too fast and cause her body to ripple unduly—and sat down next to him, a bit too stiffly, unsure of what to do with her arms or her breasts or the small pouch of her stomach, until she busied herself with—at last, thankfully—unzipping her punishing boots and stripping off her thin black socks. As she did so, he stroked her hair—paternally, she couldn’t help thinking now, knowing about Sam—and said, “You’re lovely.”
“Oh,” she said foolishly, pressing her face into his chest, which smelled of tobacco and laundry detergent and sweat and something else she knew but couldn’t name, all of which was too much for her, and so she turned herself from him and pressed her back against his side, her legs curled on the couch. His feet were still stubbornly set on the wood floor, legs uncrossed now. “Oh,” he said, too, his breath close in her ear, ragged and short, his hands now running lightly over her body, reaching down and unbending her legs, stretching them long on the couch, stroking up the bone of her shin, over her knee, along her thigh, a brief visit between her legs, then up over her stomach, her ribs, and onto her breasts. As his hand—large, alarmingly masculine, a father’s hand, with gold hairs sprouting off its edges—cupped her nipple, she realized, with alarm, that his other hand (Left? Right? She’d lost all sense of orientation) had moved from her hair to her mouth, smelling more strongly of the elusive scent she’d detected earlier, peppermint, a bit antiseptic, vaguely loamy—it came on her slowly—Dr. Bronner’s, the all-purpose liquid soap that she’d used in college. They’d bought it in large bottles at the health food co-op in Harkness. Supposedly, you could dilute it and use it as mouthwash, but she never had—could never figure out the ratio of soap to water—and as this thought slipped and faded into the hills of her mind, she felt her body come unnervingly alive. Her mouth opened and released a moan that seemed to come from someone else, or from somewhere behind her, and released moist particles into the palm of his hand. His other hand still circled her one breast, then, without warning, slipped away from it and scrambled behind him on the futon for something.
She shifted, stretched one hip down, then the other, and felt her spine release with a small, ladylike pop, along with a decidedly more animalistic throbbing between her legs. Oh God, she thought senselessly. Her head now rested in his lap. Then his hand was leaving her mouth—she’d closed her eyes at some point—and something soft and cushy was being tied around it. She wasn’t sure she wanted this—scarf? gag?—and moved her head from side to side to indicate her ambiguous feelings about the device. But she was unable—or unwilling—to speak and break the spell, for she didn’t want things to end, didn’t want him to stop touching her. It was all fine so long as she kept her eyes closed. As though from a distance—from behind the lens of a camera, perhaps—she saw herself lying naked on the couch, him fully dressed, his slightly scratchy wool trousers against her cheek, and again thought of Playboy. Was that her only pornographic reference model? Yes, she thought, yes it was. As a kid, she’d stolen a copy from her father’s nightstand and hid it under her bed. Her pose now reminded her of the black-and-white comics scattered, New Yorker–style, throughout the magazine, in which large-bosomed girls lay naked, just as she was, their heads lolling in men’s laps.