or how he ever makes a buck. He doesn’t open up to any of us. It’s all just a bit strange.
You rub the line between your brow, trying to knead it out, and Martha laughs that everything’s speculation, of course, and there’s even vague talk of a girlfriend, once, who broke his heart but there’s been no sighting of anyone since.
You know nothing of him. You’ve never even been to his flat. There’s so much you’ve never asked. Deliberately, because you don’t want to hear about a girlfriend in the wings, or a wife. It’s better if you don’t know, so that the spell is never broken; you’re not ready for that.
But you feel a fatigue, now, at living within the web of your own tightly woven imaginings. Since a real man stumbled into it and began plucking at the silk.
some use pillows stuffed with hops, but the best preparation for sleep is honest hard work and a good conscience
Cole’s bags and coat crowd the hallway on your return from a late morning trip to Tesco. He’s home from Athens a day early, without warning. Another letter’s arrived but he hasn’t had a chance to sort through the mail and you push the envelope deep into a pocket, listening but not listening to his travel chat.
The bathroom, as soon as you can. You sit on the toilet seat, tear at the flap.
Some days apart from you I’m in pain, my yearning is so strong. At times you settle over me like a great warmth. I catch myself smiling into space. I dream of us running away, getting out.
The fierce pull as you read, like a hand inside your stomach. The words so close you feel you could almost put out a hand. You touch the letter against your belly, feeling the smooth, cold paper against your skin. You get up, you’ve been too long, you kiss Cole absently on the crown of his head as he unpacks his bag and it plunges you back to a time when the love glowed, for a moment, and then it’s gone. You sit at the kitchen table with the day’s paper unread before you, your hands cradling your forehead.
Perhaps Gabriel is like Ruskin who, it’s rumoured, idolised women so much he was incapable of consummating his marriage when he discovered to his horror that his wife had pubic hair. Perhaps he’s happily married in Spain, has seven kids; perhaps Martha’s made it all up to throw you off the scent. Perhaps he’s having an affair, is gay, caught by fear, can’t bear to let anyone see who he really is. Perhaps he’s one of those men who fell through the cracks – you know several, brothers and uncles of friends, lost men who’ve never found a sure footing with life, who are crushed by the challenge of living in this world and opt out and become loners or drunks. And put their parents, and lovers, through hell.
And then it hits.
What if he’s never been with a woman.
What if he doesn’t know how. A virgin, perhaps, and it all makes sense. The shyness. The pulling back at your touch. The ear tips blushing at a farewell kiss. Is it so implausible? You have an ex-colleague who’s a virgin at thirty-two and you’ve never been sure about Rupert, your cousin. And he, like Gabriel, is a tall, virile, masculine-looking man, and he, like Gabriel, never seems to be attached.
Would Gabriel be diminished in your eyes, if that were it?
No. It’s oddly endearing. And exciting.
An idea, beautiful in its simplicity. To initiate Gabriel, to teach him exactly what you want. To create a pleasure man, purely that, the lover every woman dreams of. You’ll be in control, for the very first time, you’ll be able to dictate exactly what you want. And there’ll be no expectation of how you should act.
That night Cole slips into your bed and curves his body in a question mark around your back.
An idea beautiful in its simplicity. And impossible.
For you don’t do that type of thing. It’s in the quietness of your clothes, your wholesome face, your ready blush. It’s in your horror at hearing of affairs, your stock response: but I could never do that to another woman.
Or Cole. You don’t think.
some people are terribly afraid of draughts and would rather be poisoned slowly than feel the breath of fresh air. this is grossly unwise and leads to many diseases
A gift box is delivered. It’s beautifully wrapped.
A vibrator.
You gasp. There’s no note. It’s obscene, fascinating, ridiculous, you’ve never seen one up close. You don’t touch it for a long time and then you turn it round, sink back on the bed, turn it on. You can control it,
It’s small enough to keep in your handbag and your fingers brush it often, imagining exotic trips and Customs officers searching your luggage, having to explain it, stammering. You’ve never been searched, you’ve always been too innocent-looking and respectable for that.
There’s no note with the package but the address label is typed. Your fingertips run over the letters, the heavy imprint of them.
Anonymous, of course. How long has he been back? Did he ever go? Is this another game? You ring, leave messages on his machine, he will not return your calls.
Another letter.
I want to be the hand in the small of your back pushing you forward.
Trembling, wet, slumping back against the wall.
Snared.
it is mostly easier to do wrong than right
Another letter, until there are four. All typed, all short, and their words are etched like acid upon you.
Just to hold you, I ache for it, just to put my lips to the valley of your neck and slide down your body. I don’t like being apart from you, not hearing your voice, not having you close.
The phone rings, five minutes after you’ve opened the last.
Heeeey. He draws out the word, he’s always so playful with his greeting, as if it’s such a lovely surprise to hear your voice.
Hey stranger, you respond.
I’m back, he says in a gleeful sing-song.
Since when?
Since right this second. When can we meet? Are you free?
Yes, yes, hang on, give me an hour, no two.
