There was no need to setup anything, to make arrangements. It was just natural. I suppose all affairs are like that: unplanned, natural. Things just settle into a routine. We met for lunch, we went to the hotel—another one, which was less conspicuous and had a less strict check in. At first it was a little awkward; our emails continued with no mention whatsoever to what was happening in real life. They were, I guess, safe harbors, keeping a little of order in all that was happening. The first few encounters, however, were just the opposite. The words were few and we barely mentioned the stories or what we had been talking about on the emails, often leaving the restaurant after nothing but a drink, sometimes meeting in the hotel. There was no schedule, sometimes we just met online and combined to meet for lunch, often not even entering the restaurant. It was confusing until it became a routine. I wish I could remember more of those days; memory is so funny. I can remember somethings perfectly, as if they were happening right now: the settings, the tone of her voice, the way her hair was combed. Some of the things I remember are contradicted by the emails I kept; sometimes they are so different from my recollections that it almost seems one of them was fabricated. One of the was fabricated: my memories, changing as time passed. Telling this story has been a constant questioning of reality. I've re-read the emails, reading forgotten discussions, pleasant compliments, things that once mattered and that have completely disappeared from my mind. Sometimes they come back, I read a phrase and it's like a switch has been activated, it all comes back in a sudden jolt. Sometimes, however, I read words that I myself have written and they feel stranger than that of a classic writer dead two hundred years before I was born.
What I remember the most is the routine, the weekly meetings at the same room, first at the hotel, then at The Place, the small apartment that I rented only for our meetings. It was different than any other relationship I had. There was no jealousy—I had always been jealous—no questions of who we were, what we had done the day before. We didn't know each other names, where the other lived, anything. All the questions that people ask to know each other were uninteresting. We didn't ask them not because they were forbidden, but because we had no interest whatsoever. Our relationship did not belong to the world, it only existed in the words of computer screens and in these occasional meetings we had, beneath the masks of ourselves.
I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't for the sex that we met. If it weren't, why meeting every week? And doing it every week? We could have just sat at a nice cafe and talked until life called us both back to reality. We didn't have to get naked as soon as we entered the room, jumping into bed as soon as our clothes were gone. But it also was not for the sex alone. The sex was part of it; there was the sex, there were the talks, and they seemed to be two different things, but they weren't. The sex was exercise and pleasure, but more than that, I now believe, it was to break the ice; the sex was what made us talk about anything we wanted, unabashed. There was a huge comfort in being naked, post-orgasmic, in the arms of someone who knew so many things about you that nobody else knew, that nobody else would ever know. We trusted each other completely.
No, it was for the sex as well, only... in a unique way. It wasn't for getting rid of our body fluids and calming down our hormones, and it wasn't love.
Sometimes there was little or no sex—not caused by her periods, that didn't stop either of us. Sometimes we did it in the shower, even then, or in bed, depending on her flux, or we just didn't have intercourse. Erotic writers can be quite imaginative in bed. I didn't mind, she seemed to find it naughty and forbidden. That was what mattered: how we were free to be ourselves, to say and do whatever we wanted. I never held back a thought or a question, never lied to her, never gave her only half of an answer. There was only one time when this complete freedom led to an argument.
“Did you know wedding rings leave marks?” I asked her one day, not long after that first time—it must have been on our third meeting—while playing with her hand. She had not even brushed anything related to her husband, her life, but her hand was always like that, empty but with the mark of a wedding ring. She hid her hand immediately, as if she had suddenly touched something very hot.
“How long have you known?”
“The first time we met.”
“Shit.” She sat up, facing back from me. It is not difficult to recall exactly how much time passed since the first time we met and the day I asked this. Though we couldn't have gone to bed more than three or four times, I also felt that we already had settled into a routine.
“I thought there was a possibility that you had just divorced,” I said. It was not a lie; I had entertained that possibility, but I knew it was very unlikely.
“And yet, you didn't mind.”
“I did. That's why it took a while for me to ask you out again. That's why I hesitated. That's why I... And today... You didn't seem to...”
“What man cares what a good lay wears on her fingers, right?”
“That's mean,” I said, hurt.
“Shit.” She started to stand up, to go away, but I held her.
“Why are you mad?”
“Do you think I fuck around all the time?” She was mad.
“No.”
“You do. Fuck you.”
“Athena...”
“I'm not Athena!” She screamed, trying to get away from me. “Let me go!” I released her. She started to dress. I went to her, but she didn't look at me. I knew she was ready to break into tears, but she would wait until I was far away. I held her again, forcing her to look at me.
“What? Are you going to rape me now?”
I did something else. I caressed her face lightly and hugged her, my arms protecting her from the world. It was all it took. I heard her cry, loudly, feeling the hot tears on my chest, her sobs against me. She hugged me with all her strength, her hands pulling my flesh, scraping my skin. When she was feeling better I moved to the bed, sitting on its side and making her sit on my lap and hug me like a child.
“You'll be late,” she muttered.
“I don't mind.”
“I'm sorry.”
“It's all right. Do you want to talk?”
“I don't know.”
“I can stay here this afternoon, if you want.”
“No...”
“Really. I wouldn't like to leave you now.”
“I'm feeling better.”
She let me go, and dried her eyes with the back of her hands. I was naked, so it was hard to offer a handkerchief. “What a show,” she mocked herself. “I think I'll go now. It's better.” She stood up and started to dress again.
“Do you want to go get a cup of coffee?”
“No,” she said, sniffing. “I have some thinking to do.”
I dressed too. She was ready before I did, though. “I'm going now.” I came closer to her, and she looked down again. “Don't.”
“Just promise we'll meet again, if not only for a cup of coffee. And that we'll continue to email each other.”
“I can't promise anything right now, Marquis.”
I kissed her, before she could move away. A light kiss.
“I know. But...”
She turned around and left, leaving behind the sound of the closing door and the unknown future. Perhaps the weight of the affair would be too much. I walked out of the hotel wondering if I would ever see her again. If I'd ever hear of her again, her stories or emails. She could disappear easily, and the prospect of losing her was painful. What we had was strange: she was my friend, my psychiatrist and my client, my courtesan. Did I love her?
I have asked this question to myself many times since that day. Have I ever loved her?
I was never in love with her, that passionate love that sweeps us away. I've loved like that before. No, the sight of Athena didn't make my heart beat faster, nor did it take my breath away or made me stutter. Yes, I often thought of her—or so I recall. Yet it was not masturbating at night, in my empty apartment—not often, at least—and I never pictured Athena when I was fucking somebody else.
It is all so complicated, this life of ours.
I think I loved her in a light, pure way. The circumstances of our love gave us what we usually hid beneath our masks. It also, somehow, removed the seduction that makes love blossom. We were shielded from the world—both the good and bad.
The emails disappeared for two days. Then they came back, with no reference to what had happened. She did come back, next week. We didn't mention the incident; a glance was enough. If that single word was what set everything in this direction, if that invitation to Antonio's was the beginning, this glance was what settled everything.
Every Tuesday, at noon.
There was good sex, too. I hope I didn't give the impression that I didn't care for it at all. I will ramble a lot in telling this story, as a real storyteller does. Linear, straight stories are boring. “So nineteenth century”, Athena could have said, leading us to a long discussion of the nineteenth century stories.
In a way, my whole relationship with Athena was a fantasy. The cheating, the secrecy. Fetishes were never as important to me as they seem to be to some people—people who have fetishes that rule their lives. Perhaps they're happier; to feel aroused just from seeing a pretty foot, leather clothes—anything that to me has no sexual connotation in itself—can be hell or heaven. Fantasies, well, they come and go.
Fantasies. Aren't they a mystery? Fetishes and fantasies. Why do details excite us so much?
I played a fantasy with Athena once, one that marked me. It rapes any other thoughts I'm having when it comes to my mind.
I had been seeing in my mind the same image, for days. Athena, with her back to me, her arms extended above her head and pressed against the wall for equilibrium, her legs slightly open, her body completely naked, almost trembling. Her light hair falling on her back, sometimes to be pushed by my hands, delicately but with resolve, while I sought her mouth with mine; sometimes thrown to the side as I caressed and kissed her back.
I was waiting for her when she opened the apartment door. I grinned when she saw me, leaning against the wall, my arms crossed. She was wearing a long skirt, a dark one with white pattern that fell just below her knees. I don't remember her shirt anymore; but I remember her face. The smile of recognition and hello—we already had been seeing each other for long—, the questioning eyes wondering what was different.
“What's going on?” she asked me.
I don't know where that fantasy came from. Fantasies rarely come from anywhere, do they? Sometimes from a movie or a story, I guess. It was such a strong image, the idea of her body all mine, pinned against the wall, ready to be mine, my hands grabbing her flesh, following her contours like a sculptor checking the smoothness of his marble masterpiece.
“You're my toy today, Tina.” I pulled her to me, kissing her. Then I pushed her against the wall. “Raise your arms.” I took her shirt off. She was wearing black underwear. I unsnapped her bra and held her hands against the wall. “I've got something on my mind,” I whispered to her ear.
Athena and I occasionally spoke of fantasies, but we played few with each other. I remember the way she commented on her husband's occasional desires, with the tone of a grown-up talking about the immature desires of a child. She indulged sometimes, when they weren't too much of a bother to do. She once laughed of the handcuff he brought home. “He was pissed off when I laughed,” she said. I laughed. “It was not the handcuff itself,” she added. “It's the way he did it. Kinda like a fifteen-year-old showing a condom to his girlfriend for the first time, like a condom would turn the girl on and convince her to take her clothes off at once to fuck him.”
That afternoon, she didn't laugh. She didn't try to escape. She breathed, while my hands—very warm, that was part of my fantasy; I had them in my pockets until I heard her key in the door—traced her flesh with desire and lust, squeezed her breasts, the thumbs seeking the tips of her nipples. I took my shirt off, quickly, and knelt behind her. “Close your eyes,” I ordered, when she looked back to see what I was doing; she complied.
Her legs. Strong legs, young and shaped by her daily jogging. I caressed them, jousting them, going slowly towards her waist. I didn't try to take her skirt off. My hands felt her thighs, pleasant to the touch, warm, until they reached her panties. I took them off in one quick pull, feeling her surprise. It turned me on immensely. Even recalling that image is enough to turn me on instantly; her body partially hidden only by the thin skirt; her arms holding her weight, the feet still wearing the ankle strap shoes that were so suited for the occasion.
I stood up. Her body was tense, waiting.
“You're mine now,” I whispered to her ear, our bodies touching slightly. I pulled her skirt down.
It may have been the best fuck of my life. No other time spent inside a woman overwhelmed me so much. I remember how I started to penetrate her slowly, then I quickly moved myself up, reaching as far as I could, feeling her tight butt give as her body wasn't prepared for that much strength, and her brain absorbed the shock of surprise, pleasure, perhaps pain. She moaned, loudly, so loudly that it probably crossed walls. I kept the steady, fast rhythm, my hands playing with her body, pulling her hair. We hardly kissed, the position and the quickness of the movements didn't allow for it. I came strongly, I don't know how long afterwards—not so little, not so much, that's what I remember—but so strongly that everything else disappeared, everything except the powerful feeling overcoming my senses.
Athena was still holding to the wall, her breathing even more ragged than mine. I watched her for a few seconds, then I stood up and held my arm around her. She slowly turned around, her head hiding on my shoulder. My next memory is of lying over the bed, getting my breath back, my arm over my forehead, my body limp and sweaty, the muscles pleasantly tired. We fucked each other's brains until we could barely move.
She wrote a story, a few days later, about how far people can go for those few minutes of absolute bliss, and the main sex scene resembles ours enough to hardly be a coincidence, albeit being somewhat harder—a contrast to Athena's usual scenes, more romantic and sugary. That is one of my favorite stories, to this very day.
We never fucked like that again.
It was weird to have put down that afternoon into words.
Writing a sex scene that actually happened is very odd, more than an imagined one. I already think that writing a sex scene is odd, when you're looking for that pornographic appeal. I always make a comparison in my mind: it's like describing a banquet in immense detail, counting the number of times you chewed the food, if you ate the potatoes before the beef. It's not surprising that most descriptions are so boring and many authors find these scenes so difficult to write.
Our brains forgive it, of course, having entered the aroused state that seems like madness. Have you noticed that? How, when we're aroused, things that ordinarily would be unattractive, not titillating, or even slightly repulsive are cast into a different light and arouse us.
“No, I don't find it difficult, I just find it unsettling,” Athena said once about writing sex scenes. “You see, Marquis, I'm imagining something that is arousing. It's a good situation, often one in which I would gladly be the main character, and yet I have to think what both characters are doing, how they are doing it, in which order, and type all that into coherent phrases. It's like, I don't know, juggling and having sex at the same time. You can't enjoy either, and your mind keeps moving from one to the other and is more confused than anything else.”
We had many discussions like that.
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Copyright Antheros (c) 2008. All rights to this story are reserved.