“I want to know more about your dad,” I said, a few months after we reconnected, walking eyes-open into a fault line, willing to risk the earthquake.
“Not much to tell,” you answered, shifting so my head rested on your chest instead of your arm. Your voice was still light, but I could feel your muscles tense. “He’s an asshole.”
“An asshole how?” I asked, turning so I could wrap an arm around your stomach, holding you closer. Sometimes I got this feeling that we’d never be close enough. I wanted to climb inside your skin, inside your mind, so I could know all there was to know about you.
“My dad was . . . unpredictable,” you said slowly, as if choosing that word with the utmost care. “Once I was big enough, I protected my mom.”
I picked my head up off your chest and looked at you. I wasn’t sure what to say, how much I should ask. I wanted to know what your definition was of “big enough.” Four? Ten? Thirteen?
“Oh, Gabe,” was all I could think of. I’m sorry it wasn’t more.
“He and my mom met at art school. She said he was a beautiful sculptor, but I never saw any of his work.” You swallowed hard. “He smashed it all—every single piece—right after I was born. He wanted to design monuments, huge installations. But no one was commissioning anything from him, no one was buying his art.”
You turned to look at me. “I know it must’ve been hard for him. I can’t imagine . . .” Then you shook your head. “He gave up,” you said. “He tried to run a gallery. But he wasn’t much of a businessman. Or a salesman. He was angry all the time, volatile. I . . . I didn’t understand what giving up did to him. The power it had. One time, he took a knife to my mother’s canvas—a painting she’d been working on for months—because he said she needed to spend her time painting sunsets instead. She cried like it was her body he’d stabbed, not just her art. That’s when he left.”
I slipped my hand into yours and held it tight. “How old were you?”
“Nine,” you said, your voice soft. “I called the cops.”
My childhood had been so different from yours, so idyllically Connecticut suburban. I wasn’t sure how to respond. If we were having that conversation now, I would acknowledge the pain—both his and yours. Say that your father clearly had a hard time, that he was fighting demons, and that I’m sorry his demons became yours. Because they did, didn’t they? You’ve lived so much of your life in response to his, trying not to become him, that you ended up battling both his demons and your own.
But that day, I couldn’t process what you were saying quickly enough and I just wanted to comfort you. After a breath, what I said was, “You did the right thing.”
“I know,” you answered. Your eyes were hard. “I’ll never be like him. I’ll never hurt you like that. I’ll never act like your dreams are disposable.”
“Me neither. I’ll never act like your dreams are disposable either, Gabe,” I told you, resting my head back on your chest, kissing you through your T-shirt, trying to convey the depth of my admiration and sympathy.
“I know you won’t.” You stroked my hair. “It’s one of the many, many things I love about you.”
I sat up so I was looking at you again.
“I love you, Luce,” you said.
It was the first time you said that to me. The first time any man had. “I love you too,” I answered.
I hope you remember that day. It’s something I’ll never forget.
ix
A few weeks after we said I love you for the first time, you and I had my place to ourselves. We’d decided to celebrate that fact by walking around in our underwear. It was sweltering out, the kind of muggy July heat that makes me wish I could spend the whole day submerged in a swimming pool, and even though the air conditioner was on full blast, the apartment was still warm. It was so big that we probably needed more than one.
“Kate’s grandparents were real estate geniuses,” you said, as we scrambled eggs half naked. “When did they buy this place?”
“No idea,” I said, sticking some English muffins in the toaster. “Before her dad was born. So . . . 1940s?”
You whistled.
I know we didn’t stay there often, but I bet you remember that apartment. It was hard to forget. The two huge bedrooms and bathrooms, that breakfast nook we used as a library. And the ceilings that were about twelve feet high. I didn’t appreciate those details then, but I did appreciate the apartment. Kate was in law school, and her dad said it was cheaper for her to live there than for him to pay for housing down by NYU. It worked well for me, too.
“We visited Kate’s grandma here when we were in middle school,” I told you, as we sat on the couch with our breakfast plates on our bare knees. “She was a docent at the Met until she got sick. She’d studied art history at Smith back before most women even thought about college.”
“I wish I’d met her,” you said, after a sip of coffee.
“You would’ve loved her.”
We chewed quietly, our thighs against each other as we ate, my shoulder grazing your arm. It was impossible for us to be in a room together without touching.
“When does Kate come back?” you asked, after you’d finished swallowing.
I shrugged. She’d met Tom about a month before, and that night was maybe the second time she’d stayed at his place. “We should probably get dressed soon.”
I felt your eyes on my breasts.
You put your plate down, done with breakfast.
“You have no idea what you do to me, Lucy,” you said, as you watched me rest my fork on my plate. “All morning, you without any clothes on. It’s like being dropped into one of my fantasies.” Your hand strayed to your lap and then you were touching yourself slowly through cotton.
I’d never watched you touch yourself, never seen what you did when you were alone. I couldn’t stop looking.
“Now you,” you said, tugging yourself free of your boxers.
I put my plate down and reached for you, already turned on.
You shook your head and smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”
I raised my eyebrows, and then I understood what you wanted. I slid my fingers down my stomach. You’d never watched me touch myself either. But the idea of it thrilled me. I closed my eyes, thinking about you, thinking about you looking at me, thinking about sharing this personal moment with you, and I felt my body shudder.
“Lucy,” you whispered.
My eyes fluttered open and I saw you stroking yourself faster.
It felt more intimate than sex, the two of us performing this act for each other, an act that was usually private. The lines that separated “you” and “me” were blurring even more into an “us.”
While I kept touching myself, you leaned against the couch, taking your boxers off completely, your eyes on me the whole time. Our hands sped up. So did our breathing. You bit your lip. Then I watched your grip tighten. I watched your muscles clench. I watched you come.
“Oh, God,” you said. “Oh, Lucy.”
I moved my fingers more insistently, to join you, but you clasped your hand around my wrist.
“May I?” you asked.
I shivered at the sound of your voice.
Then I nodded and you shifted so I could lie down along the length of the couch, so you could slide off my underwear. You moved closer and the anticipation made me squirm.
As you slipped your fingers inside me you said, “I have a secret.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, arching to meet your hand.
“Oh, yeah,” you said, stretching out next to me, your mouth against mine. “Whenever I touch myself, I think about you.”
A shudder rippled through my body. “Me too,” I whispered between breaths.
I came thirty seconds later.
x
In those first six months, I was always learning new things about you—things I found sexy, surprising, endearing.
Like that day I came over to your place after work, and you were sitting cross-legged on the floor, piles of paper squares around you, each the size of a small Post-it note.