14

Then it hit me that I could have killed myself instead, or hurt myself

badly enough and let him know why I’d done it. If I hurt my face, I’d want

him to look at me and wonder why, why might anyone do this to himself,

until, years and years later—yes, Later!—he’d finally piece the puzzle

together and beat his head against the wall.

Sometimes it was Chiara who had to be eliminated. I knew what she

was up to. At my age, her body was more than ready for him. More than

mine? I wondered. She was after him, that much was clear, while all I really

wanted was one night with him, just one night—one hour, even—if only to

determine whether I wanted him for another night after that. What I didn’t

realize was that wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get

what we want without admitting that we want it. I dreaded to think how

experienced he himself was. If he could make friends so easily within

weeks of arriving here, you had only to think of what life at home was like.

Just imagine letting him loose on an urban campus like Columbia’s, where

he taught.

The thing with Chiara happened so easily it was past reckoning. With

Chiara he loved heading out into the deep on our twin-hulled rowboat for a

gita, with him rowing while she lounged in the sun on one of the hulls eventually removing her bra once they had stopped and were far from

shore.

I was watching. I dreaded losing him to her. Dreaded losing her to him

too. Yet thinking of them together did not dismay me. It made me hard,

even though I didn’t know if what aroused me was her ***** body lying in

the sun, his next to hers, or both of theirs together. From where I stood

against the balustrade along the garden overlooking the bluff, I would strain

my eyes and finally catch sight of them lying in the sun next to one another,

probably necking, she occasionally dropping a thigh on top of his, until

minutes later he did the same. They hadn’t removed their suits. I took

comfort in that, but when later one night I saw them dancing, something

told me that these were not the moves of people who’d stopped at heavy

petting.

Actually, I liked watching them dance together. Perhaps seeing him

dance this way with someone made me realize that he was taken now, that

there was no reason to hope. And this was a good thing. It would help my

recovery. Perhaps thinking this way was already a sign that recovery was

well under way. I had grazed the forbidden zone and been let off easily

enough.

But when my heart jolted the next morning when I saw him at our usual

spot in the garden, I knew that wishing them my best and longing for

recovery had nothing to do with what I still wanted from him.

Did his heart jolt when he saw me walk into a room?

I doubted it.

Did he ignore me the way I ignored him that morning: on purpose, to

draw me out, to protect himself, to show I was nothing to him? Or was he

oblivious, the way sometimes the most perceptive individuals fail to pick up

the most obvious cues because they’re simply not paying attention, not

tempted, not interested?

When he and Chiara danced I saw her slip her thigh between his legs.

And I’d seen them mock-wrestle on the sand. When had it started? And

how was it that I hadn’t been there when it started? And why wasn’t I told?

Why wasn’t I able to reconstruct the moment when they progressed from x

to y? Surely the signs were all around me. Why didn’t I see them?

I began thinking of nothing but what they might do together. I would

have done anything to ruin every opportunity they had to be alone. I would have slandered one to the other, then used the reaction of one to report it

back to the other. But I also wanted to see them do it, I wanted to be in on

it, have them owe me and make me their necessary accomplice, their go￾between, the pawn that has become so vital to king and queen that it is now

master of the board.

I began to say nice things about each, pretending I had no inkling where

things stood between them. He thought I was being coy. She said she could

take care of herself.

“Are you trying to fix us up?” she asked, derision crackling in her voice.

“What’s it to you anyway?” he asked.

I described her ***** body, which I’d seen two years before. I wanted

him aroused. It didn’t matter what he desired so long as he was aroused. I

described him to her too, because I wanted to see if her arousal took the

same turns as mine, so that I might trace mine on hers and see which of the

two was the genuine article.

“Are you trying to make me like her?”

“What would the harm be in that?”

“No harm. Except I like to go it alone, if you don’t mind.”

It took me a while to understand what I was really after. Not just to get

him aroused in my presence, or to make him need me, but in urging him to

speak about her behind her back, I’d turn Chiara into the object of man-to￾man gossip. It would allow us to warm up to one another through her, to

bridge the gap between us by admitting we were drawn to the same woman.

Perhaps I just wanted him to know I liked girls.

“Look, it’s very nice of you—and I appreciate it. But don’t.”

His rebuke told me he wasn’t going to play my game. It put me in my

place.

No, he’s the noble sort, I thought. Not like me, insidious, sinister, and

base. Which pushed my agony and shame up a few notches.

to be continued

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