She got into bed under the comforter. I dug in there to find one of her feet.
Lorraine squirmed, but I pulled her down toward me. I touched the back of my hand against the top of her wide foot.
I took her clothes off without getting to see her naked. Pulling the socks, jeans, shirt, panties even, while the covers stayed up to her neck. It was nice. Like she was stripping, but I only got to see the layers once they were removed. Her body, under there, became more real the harder I imagined.
In the bathroom I ran a washcloth under hot water and motel soap then sat near her again and pulled the covers away from her thighs. I massaged the cloth into her leg until one was slick with bubbles. Under the knees. On her shins. Until the cloth was dry.
Wet the hand towel again. Soap again.
Lifted her other short thick leg onto my shoulder, pressed the red cloth against the back of her thigh. Wrapped the cloth over my pointed finger and touched it to where leg greets pelvis, where her skin shifted from one shade to one darker.
Did this steadily until her hips matched the rhythm of the wet cloth and my hand. As she pushed against me lather wept down her leg.
I squeezed the little towel until the soapy water uttered into a puddle in my hand then I rested my palm against her pussy. When she rubbed against me the slight tickle of her hair played up my forearm into my elbow. Moved my hand until the foam spread across us then I touched my hand to my own neck, to my mouth.
The look on Lorraine’s face might have been mine. With her eyes shut she seemed far away. I wondered where. I doubt she was even focusing on Ahmed Abdel or that guy she lived with. She had reclined into that calm state people only find when alone.
I rubbed the top of my head on the lips of her pussy just to spread her scent on me.
I thumped her knees lightly with my fingertips.
What sounds? If the curtain hadn’t been so thin there would have been that kind of total quiet when there’s no light. We had a sackcloth warmth in the room.
I wanted to ask her everything.
If she genuinely cared about Ahmed Abdel’s cause. Why she had started college late. If she had children. If she’d ever been out of the country. If she was in love with me.
— Why won’t you give me your phone number?
She answered sluggishly. — A woman keeps power however she can.
— Why does that prisoner mean so much to you?
— Because his mind is such a powerful tool.
— Could you imagine feeling that way about me?
I asked, but she didn’t answer. Only breathed.
— What are you that I don’t know you are?
Without hesitation Lorraine replied, — The hero.
Two hours later Lorraine could sleep, but not me. I was pretty naked except for my T-shirt and boxers that I wore the whole evening because even in the dark I was self-conscious. I took them off since she was tuned out, then ran naked around the motel, three times.
Okay I felt like doing that, but if I really had it would have been an act of joy, not madness, though it might have appeared otherwise to the average person.
I did have trouble sleeping though, so I spent time in the bathroom wishing there was a television above the tub. I hadn’t even brought a book because I’d had this fantasy of Lorraine and I sexing each other for eleven hours, which is the kind of thing one comes to believe in when years pass between layovers. I forgot that people and parts get exhausted.
Eventually I was so bored that I tried to wake Lorraine again, but her eyes were soldered shut. This led me to that paper she wrote. Just to do something. The one on the nightstand, the one that I took. I shut myself inside the bathroom and corrected the work.
I didn’t mean to be snotty when I wrote questions in the margins like, Are you sure Ford was a ‘toad of a man’? and, Should you really describe Lee Iacocca as having ‘the business sense of a god’? and, Do gods really have business sense? Which one? Mammon? Ayizan?
My suggestions left a terrible smell. Instead of running off tonight I wanted to have sex with her in the morning. I wanted to wake her by gliding my tongue up the crack of her ass. I wanted to do that many times in the coming weeks, but that wouldn’t happen if she found this cutjob. So I rewrote the paper, making the corrections I could, but without rearranging her ideas entirely. It was so much fun. I would have made a good English teacher, except that I hate kids.
After I was done I wrote a note on another sheet of paper apologizing for having spilled water on her notebook, so that was why I had to do it over by hand. Then I tore her version, the one with my critiques, and flushed the scraps away.
Fingers of my left hand were cramped from writing awkwardly; sitting on the toilet using my crossed leg as a desktop. After I put the notebook back on the nightstand I ran warm water over my hand, but I heard Lorraine mutter around so I thought she was waking up and I turned off the light in the bathroom. This was the first moment in an hour when I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I wanted to feel good alone.
I shut the bathroom door then locked it. The water was running into the sink, but the faucet made another sound, too. Like a gas oven burner when the dial’s been turned halfway, but the flame hasn’t yet been lit. A — hisss— that was soothing not sinister. I couldn’t see myself in the mirror, only the outline of me since the light came faint through a small window near the ceiling. I couldn’t go outside and do it, but in here I took off my clothes to prance around the little room; I shook my naked ass celebrating an end to one long dry season.
4
Lorraine and I parted the next morning. Sunday, October 22nd. I never saw her again. She stopped calling. Her number had come up as ‘Unavailable’ on the caller i.d. box every time.
But I wasn’t sad then. We didn’t talk about getting together again, but yes I’d expected it. Now it’s like there are two versions of me. The one who knows that she left and the one who doesn’t. My longing clouds the portrait of him, but his delight remains with me.
I was overjoyed that day. So much I skipped in the parking lot then down the block to the bus stop. I just about popped.
If I’d wanted I could have taken an express train rush through the Bronx and upper Manhattan, but back in Rosedale, this being Sunday, my sister was undoubtedly strapping on her church shoes.
Nabisase’d been so angry two Sundays earlier when I first ran off and met Lorraine on the 6 that she made me promise to come the next weekend, but that was the first time the movers had work for me, overtime pay, so I swore to go this weekend, but then Lorraine again.
I made the two-hour commute home last three. Passed four magazine stalls on various subway platforms; bought a Watchamacallit at each one. When I opened the kitchen door Grandma nearly pounced on my shoulders. — Where were you! she demanded. He’s here, she called.
— Where did you go, Mom asked, coming up from the basement. Where did you get to?
— I met a friend.
— You must call, Grandma told me. She was using a bucket and mop on the kitchen floor. Though she was ninety-three, Grandma still sewed, did the laundry, walked to the supermarket and carried groceries on her own.
— Or else we wonder, Mom said. Tell us you won’t do this again.
— An oath, Grandma whispered.
— I promise, I swear, I pledge and I vow. Am I going to have to go to church, too?
— You missed Nabisase, Grandma said.
Am I crazy then, for expecting I’d avoided lecturing, hectoring? Mom even agreed.
— You don’t need church, she said from the kitchen table where she was preparing a breakfast of asparagus spears and weak tea.
Mom took my hand. — I know what can help you.