Lucky Night

Do you hear something?

Hmm?

Nick.

Hmm.

There. She turns her head toward the door. What is that?

He turns too, buries his nose in her hair and inhales.

Not too deeply. He doesn’t want to be weird about it.

It’s an alarm, she says.

What’s that scent, grapefruit? Verbena? It’s delicious.

Nick?

What is verbena, anyway? An herb. No. A flower.

Something to do with tea?

Do you hear it? she says. Sort of a faraway ringing?

Away. Far, far away. Like her voice, drifting toward him, loop­ing and weaving through the glow, the fuzzy-edged haze of animal contentment that descends on him in these moments, sprawled on this bed, any bed, various beds at various times, always with her, breathing hard, limbs splayed, the glow hovering over him like a . . . like a what?

Never mind. This isn’t the time to strain for comparisons. A question has been posed, his attention sought on a vital point of acoustic interpretation. He rouses his wits. Come on, boys! Look alive! Letsgoletsgoletsgoletsgolets—

He raises his head. Listens.

The alarm stops.

He drops back on the pillow.

It’s nothing, he says. And now it’s over.

Stand down, men. The troops trudge back to their barracks, their card games, buffing their boots. His hand comes to life—just one, the rest of him still flattened, demolished by that astonishing, that really unbelievable—

He searches the folds of the duvet.

But what was it, do you think?

He finds her hand, lifts it to his line of sight. Nice hand. Lovely hand. My roving hands.

One of this joint’s exclusive amenities, he says. An orgasm gong.

An orgasm gong, she says.

He feels the joints of her fingers. The rounded edges of her nails. It’s the newest thing, he says. The staff ring it whenever two guests come simultaneously.

She laughs, her low, throaty chuckle, and the glow, which had thinned perilously as he was called upon to react, to think and speak, rolls over him again, thick and orangey-pink. Why orangey-pink? He doesn’t know. He’s just reporting here, okay? Just telling it like it is. Like how she’s turning to him now, resting on her side so that her beautiful breasts stack vertically, decline beautifully, breastily bedward—thank you, oh thank you gravity, all hail the Earth’s rotations!—and her face hoves into view, smiling at him. Jenny. It’s been too long.

Now all he needs is her touch, the lightest, the least—

She drapes a leg over his.

Oh hail!

He can’t bear it. Steady on, men! What a relief his thoughts in these moments are private, not broadcast to the world, or to her. Whole joys. He’s an island, blissed out but well-fortified. Because happiness like this is asinine.

Who rings it?

Hmm?

Who rings the gong?

She’s resting a hand on his hip. Tapping her fingers lightly. To taste whole joys. He feels each tiny tap. The weight of her hand. Full nakedness, something something.

The gong, he says. Right. Well, as you might expect, they don’t assign this crucial task to any yahoo rolling in off the street. It’s the responsibility of a special employee. Carefully recruited, meticulously trained. They call him Gong Boy.

She laughs again. That husky chuckle!

He is purely, stupidly content.

The online reviews rave about him, he says. You’re going to start seeing copycat services in all the major hotels, but for now, this is the only gong in town. Hey, would you mind . . . ?

She knows what he wants, and no, she would not mind. She slips a hand under him to scratch the nape of his neck. He shud­ders the length of his body, down and up, and down.

Whole joys right here.

A whole shitload of whole glowing joys.

It didn’t sound like a gong, she says.

True, but that’s Gong Boy’s genius. He shoves the pillow up to give her easier access to his neck. Always trying to be helpful. He interprets the intensity and essence of any given synchronous cli­max and translates it into sound compositions that accurately reflect the specific event.

Where does he come up with this shit? Honestly, it just flows out of him. Like his copious come into her glorious oh the scratch­ing, the scratching, her nails on his skin!

It’s heaven. He shudders here in heaven.

So ours was fiery, she says. Alarming. Sounds about right.

Opening the door to her an hour ago—what was it she’d said? And everything that came after. Now, their rituals. The scratching. The idle conversation, grandiose because he knows she loves it.

Has Gong Boy ever screwed up?

He cranes his neck, a fresh wave of goosebumps coursing down his arms. It’s rare, he says, but he does occasionally misjudge the emanations.

What happens?

Well, it’s a serious problem. This place only opened last week. They have a brand to build. When he botches one, management has no choice but to administer correctives.

Oh no! What do they do to Gong Boy?

They beat him with a giant dildo.

She laughs. Jenny laughs! He makes her laugh, not to mention come, fierily, alarmingly. He kisses her. Souls unbodied, or some­thing about bodies, clothes, where the fuck are these lines coming from? It’s on the tip of his . . .

Wait.

Something terrible is happening.

She’s going away.

The weight of her leg across his legs, her fingers in his hair, her boob stack nudging his arm—all withdrawn. Why?

He opens his eyes. She’s sitting up, feet on the floor.

No! No no no!

What—where are you going?

To the minibar. She’s standing, stretching. I want to grab a drink.

He reaches out, but just misses her. She can’t leave his side, not now. He needs her close, right after. He is lonely by himself in a still-warm bed. It’s always been that way. He’s never told anyone.

I brought champagne. He points to the ice bucket on the night­stand, the glasses, all within easy reach.

I’d love some sparkling water. She moves toward the lacquered cabinets lining one wall.

Would you? Funny thing. He scrambles up, propping himself against the headboard. Champagne is sparkling water. With bonus champagne flavor.

She pauses in the center of the room, taking it in. She moves to the window, which is huge, a wall of glass. They’re on the forty-second floor. Manhattan blazes all around them. Between above below. Snow is falling. Beyond the river and New Jersey there’s the faintest smudge of light in the February sky. The world’s glow. Also disappearing.

God, she says. In her faint midwestern accent it comes out Gad. Can you believe this view?

He can’t. Especially when she bends to scratch an ankle. Com­pensation for the loss of her proximity. One hand on the back of a chair for balance, one foot off the floor, hair spilling over her shoul­der. Her ass, pale, rounded, slightly too large for her slender frame, and therefore perfect.

Gad, he thinks. Help me, Gad.

However many times you see it, she says, it never gets old.

Right you are, my lady. The shadowy cleft, the two deep dim­ples hovering above. The astonishing substantiality of it, its exqui­site assness, which he gets to behold, to fondle, to (occasionally, if only superficially) probe.

Look at her. So at ease when she’s naked. At home in herself, able to wander a room unashamed, baring her remarkable every­thing. No self-consciousness, no restraint.

He pulls the duvet over himself. It’s chilly in here.

Jenny. Come back to bed.

Just a sec. She drifts to the wall of cabinets, opening one and poking around. Closing it and opening another. He’s a patient man—well, no—but this is too much. She’s wasting their precious time, frittering it away on views and beverages, when he needs her near him.

Which is why he sits up and announces:

We’re not using the minibar.

She turns to him, puzzled. We always use the minibar.

Fuck, that’s true.

Not anymore, he says. Twelve dollars for M&M’s? Fifteen dol­lars for water? It’s an outrage. It’s extortionate.

She looks amused. You’re only realizing this now?

Why won’t she come back? It’s a scam, Jenny. A convenience penalty. I’m not paying it.

She rolls her eyes. Relax, El Cheapo. I’ll pay.

El Cheapo! The glow surges. He swoons. Internally. Exter­nally he frowns and drops back onto the pillows. Nothing to see here.

But to feel. To feel! That’s, well, that’s all he needs.

It’s going to be fine. Yes, she’s still standing, her naked body still an unconscionable twelve to fifteen feet away from his. But she’ll be back.

Relax, El Cheapo.

She opens the fridge and pulls out a small green bottle. Crack of the cap, a hiss. The sound of his hopes deflating. Don’t be so dramatic, for Gad’s sake. She’s got her damn water, now she’ll come back. She’ll see how badly you want her, and she’ll . . .

Trail a hand along the television console. Meander to the sofa, examine the bland art on the wall above it. Sip her water. Ask:

What time’s your flight tomorrow?

Eight fifteen, he says. They just got here. Why is she already thinking about the end?

She gazes down at the tasteful magazines fanned across the coffee table. Where are you going again?

Houston.

She looks around the room, which is long, low-lit, cream and gold. This place is crazy, Nick.

It opened Friday. We’re some of the first guests, he says. Prob­ably the first people to use this bed.

Hint.

Fucking.

Hint.

Which she doesn’t take. Instead, she roams back to the cabi­nets, picks up the minibar menu, a long, slim volume, bound no doubt in the skin of some sustainably slaughtered animal. What is she jonesing for now, Pringles? One of those triangular chocolate bars in the yellow wrapper? What are those called?

Oh hell, it doesn’t matter! What matters is that the glow is shredding, it’s in danger of disappearing completely.

Something that’s not in danger of disappearing? The water she so desperately needed. She’s taken a single sip.

This aggravates him. Intensely.

Not that he’ll say so.

No. He won’t say a thing.

How’s that water? he says.

She takes another dainty taste, another siplet. It’s delicious.

Oh good. Is it quenching your thirst adequately?

It is. She smiles at him from behind the lip of the bottle. She’s on to him. Thank you for asking.

Well, I was worried. You’ve barely tasted it, after your great hue and cry for refreshment.

Hue and cry, she says. My great hue and cry.

I just mean you seemed really intent on hydration, blasting out of bed the way you did.

She holds the bottle out. Would you like some?

Oh no! He waves the very thought away. I wouldn’t deprive you. You’re obviously saving it for some emergency.

She beams at him now, her big, toothy grin. It’s so good to see you, Nick.

Then get your ass back here, woman! He flips open the duvet. She moves toward him. The glow is gone, alas. It heaved its last while she traipsed around the room and he sniped and pouted. Doesn’t matter. She’s coming now, she’s three steps away, two, set­ting down her precious water. It’s been way too long. Sick kids, work trips, one obstacle after another. So many obstacles, he won­dered . . . but no. They’re here, he’s got her, they have the whole night, and—

I have to pee, she says.

What? No. She can’t—

He sits up, lunges. Wait!

But in a dozen quick steps she skirts the bed and rounds the corner. He hears the bathroom door slide on its track, the latch snap shut.

He falls back onto the pillows.

Well, hell.

The smoke detector blinks at him from the ceiling. The only ugly thing in this place, which, incidentally and for the record, is not cheap, because El Cheapo is not actually cheap, okay, does she have any idea how much this room cost? The room she just fled.

He’d been so close! But he’d lost her, lost the scent. All he can do now is paw the ground, circle the tree. Whine softly and wait.

Because what, you’re a hunting dog, and she’s your prey? Not entitled to leave your presence, even to perform necessary bodily functions, required instead to dance attendance as you recline on this bed, upon its many pillows, like a pasha?

No, not a pasha, not a hound. Just a man, thwarted despite so much privilege. Pillowed by privilege. There really are a ridiculous number of pillows on this bed. He replays her escape to the bath­room. He’d missed the finer points, intent as he’d been on fina­gling her back into a horizontal position. Now he recalls the high-stepping way she walked, on the balls of her feet. Her legs. Her lovely long back. Her ass.

Oh Gad, her ass.

He’s not supposed to do this. Parcel her out, reduce her to her component parts. But what’s the harm? Here, secretly, in his head and nowhere else, what’s the harm? He’d love to take her in the ass someday. He dreams about it. How he would enter her slowly, con­sumed by her intense grip. He’s never done it with anyone. He’s proposed it to her once or twice, just casually suggested it. She’s not enthusiastic.

Which is fine. Obviously.

A memory surfaces, floating up from out of nowhere. A yellow room, Jenny walking across it. An old room, high-ceilinged. Walls the color of butter. Where was that? Doesn’t matter. Be here. Be content. Tall windows. She was walking away there, too, naked. And he was . . . they’ve never stayed in a room like that, have they? Six years now—Jesus, six years—meeting once or twice a month, in places like this, blandly luxurious. In the apartments of out-of-town friends. Once, memorably, in the Alonzo F. Bonsal Wildlife Preserve. Never in an old yellow room. Where my hand is set.

Toblerone. That’s the name of the triangular chocolate in the yellow wrapper. Great. Glad we got that straightened out.

How could she bolt out of the room like that? Couldn’t she tell he needed her? Did he have to spell it out? This is the problem with Jenny. She can be a little oblivious. A little obtuse. He lifts the sheet. His cock slouches against his thigh, squat and truculent. He reaches down and wiggles it loose it from its sticky moorings. A few leg hairs cling, protesting. Noooo! Don’t go!

Obtuse? Because she can’t read your mind? It’s not her job to minister to your moods. To guess at your unspoken needs. If only you weren’t so reluctant to flat-out ask for what you want—stay close, keep touching me, I don’t know why but I’m always sad after I come—if only you didn’t choose to connive and harangue rather than—oh, horror!—express vulnerability, you’d be content right now, not sprawled here bitching about what you don’t have. When you have so much. Gifts. Achievements. Virtues? Let’s say quali­ties. Success, as it’s conventionally understood. Gobs of it.

Was it a dream, the yellow room? Dark polished floors. Jenny padding away from the bed, toward—whoa, hey, hang on. Not padding. Walking. Don’t get fancy. She’s the writer, okay? You’re the boring one. The one who gave up his shining dreams.

He’s going dark. He doesn’t want to go dark.

Jenny! he shouts.

Just a sec! she shouts back.

He doesn’t get why she won’t even entertain the notion. She likes his finger up there just fine. Still, he doesn’t nag. He’s not a Neanderthal. Although he thinks she’d love it. It could be their thing, the sex they have with each other and no one else. The idea captivates him. The shamefulness of it, the basic physical wrongness. Not that anyone else seems to see it that way, sodomy being all the rage nowadays, to the point that it feels like at any given time half the world is penetrating the other half anally. And all parties are perfectly content about it.

You wouldn’t be. Not even if you got it. Listen to you now. Carping and complaining, when you have so much. He plucks at the crisp sheet, rubbing it between his fingers. How blessed am I in something something. He’s going to kill himself if he doesn’t figure out where these lines are coming from. Happens all the time now, fragments of poetry, skittering in from the old life. Erased and cor­rupted, recorded over, but not lost entirely. Golden boy. So much promise. Don’t go dark. Remember the blessings, the gifts. He has the whole world. Just not Jenny, who prefers dithering in the john to diddling him in this wide, white, brand-new bed.

He hears the distant alarm again. A short burst, three or four seconds. Must be faulty. New building, new systems. Or another couple has in fact scored a mutual O. There should be a prize. It’s hard work, holding back when he knows she’s close. Her body tenses. Her expression becomes concentrated. She looks so young. How she must have looked before he knew her. Tom knew her then. They met in college.

A prize. What would it be? An engraved platter. Kudos on Completing the Sexual Response Cycle in Tandem! A pair of etched goblets: Thank You for Coming! It’s an accomplishment. It happens rarely. How could she disappear right after?

It comes to him now, all at once:

Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee.

As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,

To taste whole joys.

And the glow bursts over him, a rushing, tumbling torrent. Whole joys! They have the whole night. He’s on his way to Texas for a deposition. She’s returning from being on set. Her family thinks she’s coming home tomorrow. His thinks he’s already gone. They’re both supposed to be somewhere else, but they’re here. In a few hours they’ll fall asleep together. He’ll wake at three, as he does most nights, but instead of hating the clock, rolling over and forcing himself back to sleep, he’ll reach out and find her warm and willing. He’ll have her again at dawn, and, if his cock hasn’t fallen off by that point, once more after breakfast, among the room-service crumbs, before he heads to the airport and she to the train.

He is giddy. El Cheapo. He rolls around in the sheets, back and forth, a happy hound. No more evasions and maneuvers. No more baroque veiling talk. Him and her, bodies uncloth’d. Before behind between above below. She can have all the water she wants.

Convenience penalty.

You really are an asshole.

He hollers for her again. Jenny!

Rightrightrightrightright. She just needs one more look. Feet apart on the cold marble, she twists, peering over her shoulder. The mirror is one of those big jobbies, wall to wall to ceiling to sink, with a magnifying insert, which . . . which we will not dis­cuss. No, we will pass over the magnifying insert. We’ve got trou­bles enough. She tightens her butt, then relaxes it. The results are dismaying. When she’s not clenching, her bottom is smooth, if plentiful. When she clenches, it shrinks up nicely, but those nasty little divots appear.

She looks over her other shoulder. Maybe a different angle . . .

Nope.

Junior year abroad, that was her downfall. It was twenty years ago, but nothing’s been the same since, asswise. Florence. The pizza. The ice cream. Wine in cheap student bars. She and Daphne, her blond bouncing roommate, used to huddle at the kitchen table clutching their coffee, the oven door wide open, blasting heat. Laughing like maniacs because the apartment was still so fricking cold.

They were in Italy! Nobody told them there was winter there!

God they were dumb.

Henrik lived upstairs. He was Swedish, a philosophy student. She couldn’t believe it the first time she saw his tight turquoise briefs, so at odds with his Nordic solemnity. They were about to have sex, but she couldn’t stop giggling.

Which didn’t go over well.

Clench. Release. Clench. All the food on set didn’t help. Craft services, they called it. She kept picturing women hunched over in one of the trailers, assembling junk food with glue guns and glitter paint. She’d tried to make a joke about it to Juan Pablo, but he didn’t understand. She’d been bored all week. It was supposed to be exciting, being on set, but she was always in the way, with noth­ing to do except amble around and admire how faithfully they’d re-created Wilderkill. How they’d realized her vision, as the pro­duction designer kept saying. Wouldn’t you agree the house is essen­tially a character in your novels? She’d nodded, oh yeah, totally, but she didn’t agree. A house is a setting, not a character, duh. Still, she didn’t want to be rude. So she listened and nodded as various intense and possibly highly medicated movie people explained her books to her. Nodded, snacked and avoided Juan Pablo’s increas­ingly loaded looks.

European men. They think they can get away with anything.

Seduction. Tiny underwear.

She shivers. Chilly in here. She touches a folded washcloth, a tiny round soap wrapped in pleated tissue. Whatever happened to Henrik? And Daphne. They were so important to her back then. People disappear if you don’t keep up with them. Especially the friends of your youth. Sometimes they disappear right in front of you, changing so much they become unrecognizable. The way Tom says she’s become don’t think about Tom right now. Tom is fine. You’re fine. Somewhere in the world, Daphne and Henrik are fine.

She could look them up on Facebook. She should.

She probably won’t.

There’s another mirror above the tub, offering another dispirit­ing view of the old stern. The old tailpiece. She wonders what Nick thinks. She knows what he says he thinks—he never stops saying what he thinks. But is what he says he thinks what he really thinks? Could he be secretly repulsed by her abundant flesh and its numerous small indentations? No, dummy. He wants you. Think about how he looked when he opened the door—that wasn’t po­liteness, okay? That wasn’t suppressed horror. She remembers what she said when she saw him, and she cringes. He didn’t seem to catch it, thank God. His hands were already on her.

She looks over her shoulder again. Alas, my vast Florentine ass. She watches it in the mirror. Clench. Uhnnh. Release. Ahhh.

She grunts absurdly, like a weightlifter.

Uhnnh. Ahhh.

Woman! he yells. Have you fallen in?

She jumps, startled. Moves to the sink. There’s a man waiting for you, dingbat. She splashes water on her face, pats it dry. What you needed, what you lacked and longed for—you have it, and you’re in here goofing off in front of the mirror! She smooths her eyebrows. She has to make an effort to appear comfortable when she’s naked with him. He said something once, praised her for her unselfconsciousness. And so with him she is the Jenny who is loose-limbed and carefree. Not a mass of quivering female insecu­rity. She combs her bangs with her fingers. Then it’s not really you he’s waiting for, is it? And if he knew the real you, he might not be so eager oh stop. You’re in this to please yourself, not him. That’s what you’ve always said. Still, he probably wishes you were a tiny bit less bottom heavy oh my God stop.

That is one ginormous bathtub, boy. They could have a bath later. She should go back out. Surely his neediness has abated by now. She hadn’t really wanted water, or to pee. She’d just needed a little distance. From the bed, and from the look in his eye. Right after, that’s when he clings—the only time. She has learned to flee it, to harden herself against it. Otherwise . . .

The toilet! She said she had to pee—she better make some rel­evant noises, or he’ll be sure to comment. What, no flush? Letting it mellow? She lifts the lid and squats. Her belly fold smiles up at her. Hello, doll. You’re looking stop with the body stuff, honestly. The criticism. It’s boring. It is what it is.

It is what it is, she says. What it is, what it is.

What. It. Is.

There’s a phone on the wall beside her. A man put it there. Must have been a man. And men look at it—or will look at it, Nick said this place is brand-new—men will look and be pleased that they can wheel their deals and master their universes while ensconced on the old throne.

Not that they’ll ever use it. No man likes to talk while shitting.

But every man likes options.

She flushes. Lordy that’s a roar! At the tail end of it, she hears . . . is that another alarm? They should leave. Run downstairs, have a drink. There was that awful fire in the Bronx a few years ago. How many dead? And that Orthodox family in Midwood. They’d left their hot plate on for the Sabbath. The children burned up in their beds. Was it four of them, five? The mother jumped out a window and survived. But did she? Could she? Jesus. You follow the rules, the weird rules to worship your God the way you’re told he de­mands it, and he just . . . he fucks you. Fucks you and takes your babies.

She pinches the towel hanging above the toilet. It’s warm. Holy global warming! This place is literally gleaming. A far cry from the bathrooms at home. Even with Trini coming once a week now, they’re gross. The entire house is grubby. Her house, her car, her body, which hasn’t been her own for years. Even now, somebody is always hanging on her, making her sticky. Ben and Natey come into her office and take her Scotch tape. Leave balled-up socks on the dining room table. She lives in a world of boy. She makes half-hearted gestures to assert her femininity, or at least create some sort of balance. Polka-dotted canisters in the kitchen. A flower-shaped pillow on the living room sofa. They take turns farting into it, shrieking with laughter.

Beasts!

Still, it’s going to be awful when they become teenagers. All surliness and excess hair. She needs to enjoy these last few years of sweetness. Eyes lighting up when they see her. Hard hugs from thin, bath-smelling arms.

She misses them suddenly. She’s pierced by it. She should have gone straight home from upstate. But Nick was so intent on having the whole night. They’ve never had a whole night before. She was surprised he wanted one.

She should text Tom. Love you, hug the boys for me, see you tomorrow. Her bag is on the floor, tossed in here during the mad­ness of her arrival. She digs through her notebooks and magazines and finds her phone, swipes it awake, only to be shamed by a screen full of notifications. She owes calls, emails, texts to everyone. Lit­tle pieces of her attention, which she’s hoarding for herself right now. Here’s something from Charles. The subject line is all caps, that’s never good. She’ll quickly write back and say . . . what? Hey, Charles! So I’m crouched naked in the bathroom of a luxury hotel in Midtown, but I thought I’d respond to your question about the paperback cover.

She drops the phone back in her bag.

The madness of her arrival. Had Nick heard what she said? Surely not. He would have stopped everything to pick it apart in his relentless Nick way.

There’s a cluster of toiletries by the sink. Hand soap, lotion. A tiny sewing kit. Natey loves this kind of junk. The labels are sleek and expensive-looking, but they don’t identify the hotel. Perfect. She sweeps everything into her bag.

She wants to be out there, she meant it when she said how good it was to see him. She’d missed him. They’ve never had a whole night. She splashes water on her face before she remembers she al­ready did that.

Scattered!

He hollers for her again, and she swells with happiness. Six years, and he’s still bellowing for you. Six years and he still looks at you the way he does. Despite the ass-divots. Despite the stupid thing you said when you saw him. Did he hear it? Surely not.

She slides open the door and steps out.

There he is, stretched out on the rumpled bed, sipping cham­pagne, looking excessively pleased with himself. Is he handsome, in the conventional sense? In any sense? Probably not. But God, does he do it for her. He just does. The way his mouth moves when he talks. His expressive hands. How had she thought of giving him up, the time she almost gave him up? Lunacy! She loves how worked up he gets about things. How he fumes. He is passionate, enthusiastic. He has an opinion about everything.

Is he good-looking? She can’t tell. He’s simply the man she desires.

He sets his champagne glass next to her rings, which are heaped on the bedside table. He peers up at her, head cocked.

Were you renovating in there, or—

I didn’t come, she says.