Then the way she moved – shuddering first, then going rigid. I could smell the burn. I could almost hear it. The worst was she didn’t make a sound. Just whimpered close to my ear.
He let her off me. And it left me with him. With him fucking my ass and her curled up into herself right beside us. I turned my head away from her because he let me.
I thought, I’ll be leaving here soon.
Four
Afterwards, he left us alone. We both watched the door, listened as he walked down the stairs. I don’t think I wanted to look but I couldn’t stop myself. It seemed necessary. That otherwise I’d make it up worse than it was. I held her nearly the way he’d held me and looked at her asshole.
The burn had already blistered but it looked almost tame. That’s the thing with burns – they look best when they’re new and then they get ugly.
I could tell she didn’t like me looking and so I covered her with the bedspread. “Ingrid,” I said a couple of times because she either wasn’t listening or couldn’t hear me. I said it again. Said, “Ingrid, can I do something for you?”
She didn’t answer me and I sure didn’t know what she’d need. I needed a cigarette. I even picked one up and started to light it. But this seemed in bad taste so instead I paced around. Wound up back looking at the pool.
It was a while before I started putting my clothes on. I even put on my shirt, though it felt clammy, still damp with his come. After I dressed, I left her. Closed the door quietly behind me and lit a cigarette as soon as I hit the staircase.
I found him on the living-room couch. He lifted his glass toward another on the end table beside him. I picked up the drink, but stayed standing because I didn’t want to be next to him and the only other place to sit was the floor.
This meant he got up. He took my cigarette, explaining he’d left his pack upstairs.
My bag was on the floor by the couch and I thought very hard about picking it up, finding a phone, calling a cab. These were things I knew I should do but wouldn’t. And it didn’t have to do with him or his wife but rather with where I’d be telling a cab driver to take me. Here with them was still somehow better than there in my parents’ house by myself.
“You must be tired,” he said. “I’ll show you your room.”
And so I picked up my bag and followed him back up the stairs. Their door was still closed. I kept staring at it as we turned down the hall, which was lit dimly with sconces, some of them bent and missing bulbs.
The second door on the right was the one he opened. His daughter’s room. Big surprise. I hoped he wasn’t planning a visit in the night. I didn’t know what I should be charging, and if that were thrown in? Always with him I’d had trouble, but as soon as I’d stepped into his house, running the game wasn’t even imaginable.
He flicked on the light in the bathroom, made sure there were towels, practically turned down the bed before he went out again. As soon as he had, I ducked out and went the rest of the way down the hall. I found a back stairway and then walked through the downstairs to the liquor cabinet.
I considered taking a whole bottle, but settled on pouring a tall glass of vodka. If this were to go on too much longer I knew I’d need more than liquor. But then, too, I knew he’d get it for me. Do it without my even having to ask.
I managed to drink myself to sleep on that one glass. Woke up the next morning when Ingrid brought coffee. I didn’t inquire about her husband. I could tell by her hands, her steady grip on the tray, that he wasn’t home.
She handed me the tray and climbed in beside me. I handed it back, and she fixed my coffee.
Daylight came in through a window behind us and I could see she was older than I’d thought, closer to his age and I wondered how many years they’d been at this. Whether I was the beginning of something, or the end of it. I always come at one end or the other for people, never in the middle.
She’d curled up beside me and I put my arm around her and she put hers around me but on top of the sheet. She was wearing that negligee from the other night but with nothing else underneath it. I didn’t have anything on and so when she held on to me I found I had to put down my cup.
This simple thing of her holding on suddenly frightened me because I couldn’t get up from it. I couldn’t walk away from it, not at first.
And I didn’t know where it took Ingrid. I only knew she didn’t try to move. She stayed quietly wrapped around me while I petted her. Finally what got me up and walking was my wanting to change this, my need to turn it into something it wasn’t, and getting away from her was the only way to keep myself from doing this.
She didn’t stop me or even say anything. I went into the bathroom, closed the door behind me and locked it just to prove I could. I washed my face, searched out a toothbrush and brushed my teeth. These were things I hadn’t even attempted last night and so I was thorough about all of it. I considered taking a shower and realized my hesitation was fearing Ingrid wouldn’t wait for me. Needing to feel clean won out.
I emerged wrapped in towels. She still lounged on the bed, watched me cross the room and get my bag, watched me take out the clothes I’d packed. I looked at them, but didn’t want to put them on – a blouse and a skirt, garters and stockings. Another version of last night.
Ingrid said, “Over in the bureau there – my daughter’s things. Go on.”
I did what she suggested, and began rummaging through their girl’s things. I found jeans in her bottom drawer, an old soft button-down in her closet, probably her father’s castoff. Even her shoes fit. I tried not to think about how many ways we might resemble each other or what it might mean.
Ingrid watched me dress before she got up to leave. At the door, she told me she’d be downstairs in a little while and would I wait for her there?
I nodded and then listened to her footsteps, listened until I heard a door open and close and then listened some more to be sure before I sneaked down the back way. I took this route because I wanted to stay away from the living room. I wandered everywhere else you could go and still stay indoors. Covered the kitchen, the dining room, the little bar where I’d gotten last night’s vodka.
At last I found a quiet room off the marble hall. If I left the door open, I could see the stairway and so I picked this place to wait. I opened the double doors to a terrace and then settled into a love seat – a comfortable one, not one for show.
I decided this was Ingrid’s room, one her husband never bothered with. I was lost in this thought when I heard her on the stairs and then saw her.
She looked happier dressed this way – pants and a turtleneck sweater, her hair gathered loosely, her face a little easier without makeup.
I guess she probably thought the same things about me because she sort of smiled and held out her hand. I took it and floated to my feet, became caught up in her motion as she swept us out the door, took us outside.
We meandered over to the pool. “It’s getting late in the year for this,” she said, kneeling to scoop out some leaves. “I should call the man and have it drained.”
I agreed with her but was wondering what I’d watch from the bedroom window if this was done.
We walked the rest of the grounds, through a withered garden and a little orchard of some kind. She talked about things she needed to do, about getting screens taken off and storm windows put on. She talked about where in the cellar to store things.
I stayed game for this, volunteered what I could about windows, and storage, and methods of leaf removal. Things I didn’t know much about but that had occupied my parents at times, my mother, and so I could at least talk some of it, knew the words to use.