TITLE    : Hallway
STORYID  : hallway
SUMMARY  : Two old friends meet again.
AUTHOR   : blueboar@lit
DATE     : 2002-03-26
CATEGORY : adult-romance
FLAGS    : 
TAGS     : |none|


He stands in the cold, on the open porch with peeled paint, waiting, pulls up his coat collar and she slowly opens the squeaky door for him. It's always like this when he sees her. He flushes, cannot bear to look at her.



"Look at you. My God. Come in," she says smiling white teeth, almost laughing, bundled baby in arm.



He hesitates, feet feel like dead weight, and she motions the way she always motions with her head poised controlled, and he takes a step in. It's always like this. She backs away and he takes another step and he's inside. The squeaky door is closed behind him slowly. The baby smiles.



"You look so good," she says, her blond bob waiving as she tilts her head to see whether he's gone gray yet, and the 'how are you' and 'great to see you' are exchanged, and they stand silent, not touching. "Here," she says, holding the baby to him, and he takes her from her hands. "Hold her while I get my coat." And she walks away to an unseen closet in a dark hallway. Another man's baby smiles.



Nothing has changed. The old house is the same. Even now with no one here, but her. It belongs to her sister now, has been her sister's since her father's funeral two years ago, the last time he'd seen her, the last time she'd returned home. Sister is gone, at the corner bar, tending bar, for the old, retired factory workers who've come there every day of their lives because they have nothing else, and the greasy young guys laid off will be there, will hit on her and she'll be home later. 



The two of them are alone, but the house is the same. The same house he used to come to, so many times, to get her that first summer in his blue '71 Cutlass, after they graduated from high school, that summer they first knew each other, almost sixteen years ago.



She returns, a black, expensive cashmere overcoat on, takes the baby, and opens the door. "I've got some pasta boiling and a wonderful cream sauce I know you'll love, so we can't be long," she says as they step out and she carefully locks the squeaky door behind them.



The street blocks of the old factory town seem so much smaller now. When he was a child, even when he wasn't, when he was with her, the blocks seemed enormously long, unending, powerful. Not now. And the houses, the sad, turn-of-the-century tiny duplexes, with fake aluminum siding covering rotting wood, narrow sickly smoking chimneys on top of steep black asbestos tiled roofs, all of it seems so awful, such a miserable reminder of who he once was, where he came from, where he met her. The oddly decorated Christmas lights, after knowing only the rows upon rows of perfectly lit houses on his own historic Tudor lined exclusive street in the City, make him want to cry. But he must look at the bizarre green and red arrangements no matter how sad, because he cannot stand to look at her.



The wind blows, streaks the gray clouds, blows the dead leaves at their feet as they walk, and she is asking about his wife, about his children and he tells her they are all fine. She asks why he didn't bring her to the wedding three years ago, her wedding with someone else, and he is silent.



They walk, but it's too cold, baby's nose is bright red and running, and they turn around earlier than either would have wanted, earlier than either would have wanted to be alone with each other.



* * *



He stands in the cold, on the open porch with peeled paint.



"Don't be like that," she says, opening the squeaky door, holding it against her hip, baby in arm. "I know you don't have to be home right now. You're always like this. Come in."



She holds the door open for him, but he stands still.



"Alright," she says. "Do whatever you want, but I'm going in. The baby's cold. The door's open. Come in if you want. Leave if you want. I'm going in." And she goes in, and only for a moment he hesitates and follows her. It's always been like that, except now, older, he doesn't have the strength to pretend, and affect disinterest, cannot pout like he used to for long minutes, sometimes for hours, like he used to.



She says nothing to him as he closes shut the door behind him. She tosses her coat lightly on an old brown couch, and he watches as she carefully unbundles the cooing baby. She grins at him, finally, victorious, and he takes the baby from her outstretched hands. "I'll check the sauce," she says. "Play with Nadia."



The baby reaches up and touches his lower lip, pulling it down, tiny, chubby fingers prying open his lips and the baby laughs as he gently tries to shake his face free. He is alone, in her living room, holding her baby, another man's baby, and he remembers them in the town's only college together, in her dorm room, junior year, so many years ago, her crying, in bed, eyes swollen, pale. And, at first, he didn't understand what had happened until he saw the bright instructions from the Clinic, until he saw the bloody pads in the bathroom, until she, hating him for what he'd done to her, told him how she'd uprooted the stake he never knew he had planted there insider her.



"Ummm," he hears her calling to him from the dim bulb light of the kitchen. "I've put artichokes in this cream sauce. You won't believe how good it is."



Artichokes. Where did she get them? Not in town. No one in the town knows what an artichoke is, that it might taste good. She must have gone, traveled some distance to the City to find them, wanting to impress him, and he can smell its sweet tang all over and it brings tears to his eyes that she would have done that for him.



The worst was right after she left him, after they graduated from college, after she forgave him their junior year, after they'd both been accepted to graduate school together in the City University. But she left nonetheless. Their careful plans, hopes, shredded.



He hadn't talked to her for more than three years afterwards, after she left him, until she called him one night at work, while he was working late, a frenzied new associate at a big law firm, engaged to be married in six months. 



Her voice. She called to tell him she was in town and wanted to see him. A week, then, with her, a blur, a bliss, ended and she went back from where she came and he went back to work, back to the frenzy, back to planning for the wedding with the woman he thought he loved, the woman he chose to forget her. 



And it would be like that almost annually, almost every time she returned to see her family in the old-town, almost every holiday, until she got married, long after he got married. So many excuses. So many lies. All of it for her.



* * *



The baby sleeps in its crib upstairs. She'd put her to sleep after the pasta, before the dessert. 



They sit cross-legged, across from each other, on the old, dusty floor of the living room, and she takes his plate with its film of melted coffee ice cream from him.



"I've got a surprise for you," she says, and he can hear her carefully placing the plates in the sink, can hear her walking from the kitchen and then up the stairs to the tiny bedroom she grew up in, the tiny bedroom he'd first seen her naked, when her parents were away at the corner-bar. The tiny bedroom where her baby sleeps.



She is coming down the stairs, unhurried, measured, and he hears her say, "You won't believe it. You really won't."



Still seated, he watches her enter the room, walk to the stereo with a black cassette, put it in and then she turns to him, smiling.



And before he can say a word, the opening notes of a song he's not heard in so many years fills the room.



"Van the Man," she says, grinning, coming to him, flushed, sitting down. "Can you believe it? I found this old tape-God I don't remember where it came from-while I was cleaning my room upstairs. . ."



But he doesn't hear he. He knows she lies. She will do that. It's a little thing with her. She gives no satisfaction. She knows like he knows like it was only yesterday that he gave the tape to her during their first year in college. He made the tape for her, just for her, special for her.



"Ummm," she closes her eyes, as Van Morrison's deep moan lifts, 'Didn't I come to give you a sense of wonder/Oh, didn't I come to lift your fiery vision bright . . .'



And he watches her as she gently sways to the music. "So good," she says. "So fucking good." She opens her eyes and smiles at him. "Can you believe it? Van."



He nods, smiling.



"Great song," she says. "How long has it been? My God, this is like 1986, maybe, isn't it? So good. I mean, Van got weird with all of that religious stuff, but this song and the next album . . Ooh, listen to it."



He listens to it and watches her and then she sees him watching her and she turns from him, leaning back, hands planted on the floor, behind her, her feet stretched magnificently forward almost touching him.



"Oh God, listen, listen," she says. "This is it. So long, you know," and they both turn to the stereo as Van Morrison's "No Guru, No Method, No Teacher" begins, the delicate oboe begins its cry. 



"I love this song," she says, her eyes now watering.



'Oh, we've got to go back/Got to go back/Got to go back/Got to go back/For the healing go on with the dreaming.'



And the songs, Van's songs, their songs filled with so much memory of youth and despair, play for quiet minutes. He will catch a glimpse of her catching a glimpse of him and they will turn away from each other, embarrassed at being caught, like little school children on the playground. But they know what the other is thinking, and they can't permit that. 



And yet the songs play, and he must watch her now with her eyes shut, watch her with her lovely long, swan neck exposed, wanting to touch her. And he knows the next song, the one they wait for, is coming, and the piano begins and, finally, she opens her eyes and stares at him.



'The streets are always wet with rain/After a summer shower when I saw you standin'/In the garden in the garden wet with rain."



Tears are slowly descending down her cheeks, streaking pink from pink blue eyes and he beckons to her. She shakes her head, hurriedly, fear in her eyes. His hand remains outstretched, waiting for her.



"I can't," she says, her voice choking. "Don't you know that? I can't now."



"You can," he whispers to her, but she shakes her head, crossing her arms, almost rocking herself like a child.



'You wiped the teardrops from your eye in sorrow/As we watched the petals fall down to the ground/And as I sat beside you I felt the/Great sadness that day in the garden.'



"Oh, please don't look at me like that," she cries. "You want me to cry. You always want me to cry. You're not happy until I cry. Always."



He shakes his head.



"You don't know. Not like that. Please don't look at me like that. You're making me feel like shit. You're always like this. You'll never know. I can't."



"You can. I did. I do," he says.



"He suspected at the funeral. You're always like this. You didn't know that, did you? He almost left me after the funeral," she says rocking. "I never told you that, did I? He almost left me. What were you going to do? Leave your wife and four children? What were you going to do? What will you do? Tell me."



And now he is crying. He tries not to, but cannot help it, as he remembers her gaunt, pale face, when he arrived at her father's wake late more than two years ago, and she had turned, looking, and then she saw him standing in the back, and she moaned, rushed up, crying, moaning, and ran to him from her front seat, as everyone she knew watched her go to him. And she was in his arms. And he held her. And she'd cried in his chest. He held her, kissing her blond damp head, as her husband watched.



"I can't do it anymore. You don't know me anymore. I'm not who I was," she is saying. "I have a baby now."



"I know," he says.



"I've never been who you thought I was. I could never make you happy. You can't make me feel guilty. You just want to make me cry, like you always do. You're not happy until you break me."



"That's not true," he says.



"It was your choice as much as mine."



He shakes his head. She lies. She lies. He never wanted her to go. Never.



"I shouldn't have called you to tell you I was here. I don't why I did. I'm sorry."



"I never wanted you to leave. Don't say I had a choice. Please don't say that."



"I had to go. I couldn't stay here. You know that more than anyone. You know me better than anyone. For God's sake. You know that. Not even for you. Not for anyone. I had to leave all of this or I would have killed myself. You wanted a wife, a family, you wanted me dead. I couldn't do that for you. Please don't look at me like that. No," she says sobbing, as he makes his way to her, crawling.



"Please don't," she says as he touches her face and she stares at him and he leans and kisses, licks, the salty dew of her raw lips.



"I can't," she whispers quietly. "Please." But his hands are on her now, and he is holding her, touching her and she grabs his hand, shaking. 



"Not there," she says so quiet that he doesn't hear at first, as he palms her left, full breast. She puts her hand over his and he feels her heart racing. "I'm breast-feeding," she whispers. "It's sort of gross." She pleads with her eyes. "Please, don't do this to me." 



But it is his right-she knows this; this is his due--and his hands are on her and as they touch, as they kiss, reluctantly, strangely, hungrily, he undresses her quietly on the dirty, dusty floor, and they are lying down, falling together, side to side, and her swollen pink breasts, glistening, are revealed, his pants struggled off, his excitement obvious. 



And he reaches for her, and she is touched at her delicate center, sticky, creamy, squirming and her pants are pulled down, away, kicked off, and soft cotton of her underwear is pealed from her hips, down her thighs, and she is naked. He is naked.



She is rolled over onto him and he holds her, and he begs God in Heaven that she will be the same, that nothing has changed since the baby, since the marriage, it would be unbearable if anything had changed, he will die if she is different, damaged, and he cries as she groans deeply, almost in pain, as they fit into, grip into and grab hold of each other like always, more perfect, and it has never been better. 



She is on him, her jaw tightly closed, slowly rolling, joining and he holds her firmly as she stifles groans and noises she cannot help as she lifts and falls, and he reaches for her, wants to kiss her face, wants to draw her to him, but she avoids his hands, pushes him away, and it rains, drop by drop, mother's milk on his stomach, lost pink tears on his chest and neck. 



He reaches again for her, but she pushes him away, and then slaps him hard on the shoulder. Her eyes shut, and he reaches and she slaps him blindly, harder this time, on the face, falling and lifting, curling and joining on top of him. 



And now she hits him again and it stings, and she hits him and it stings. She despises him and it stings. He pushes up and she moans down on him and they hold and try to dig through the other's skin.



Harder, he is lifting her, she is falling on him, and the warm mother's milk flows and pink tears stream from her onto him. 



They are panting. He can hear them pant. Their bones, conjoined, are breaking, plowing into each other now, crashing hard, and she is liquid, burning him inside her until he cries out, until it hurts. 



And she hits him and it stings.



He can feel it enveloping him, beginning, just beginning to begin the surge that leads him to her more completely than anything. He mustn't let it happen. That would be too cruel. She has to leave. He knows this. Has known it always with her. Is terrified. Get off! She has to leave. Get off!



But she hits him and it stings.



His body, tenses, expands impossibly inside her and she feels him and she erupts into a chant scream, almost a cry of animal despair, so the whole house can hear.



"I'm going to come!" he says to her suddenly through clenched teeth, lurching up, hands aching on her slippery, full hips. "I'm going to come. Get off."



She hears nothing, stops nothing, grinds down harder than ever.



"I'm going to come," he tries to tell her again. "I'm going-"



"SO, COME MOTHERFUCKER, COME!" she screams and then collapses, thighs shuddering, and he nearly throws them off the floor as his head explodes in a whirlwind of motion, until everything freezes, is paralyzed.



And then he grunts . . . 



and grunts . . .



and he grunts and the violent release does not stop and all slows . . .



and he grunts and she whimpers and groans, taking everything her soaked face on soaked chest, her mother's milk streaming down his stomach to their joining, mixing in the drowning of their joining.



And then, and then, as memory returns, all is quiet except their breathing and pounding chests, compressed to each other, the dead air of the stereo waiting for the other side of the cassette.



All keeps quiet, their bodies burning against each other, all keeps quiet for a long minute, then, barely audible at first, the faint cry from without comes stirring down to them, and, suddenly, rudely, she pushes off him before he has a chance to grab her, to keep her one second more, and she is bounding up the stairs, her firm muscular ass bouncing as he watches, as he watches her rush to her crying child.



He is alone, naked and cold on the floor. 

