CHARLOTTE

Standing in the hotel bathroom, naked, looking at her body in the full-length mirror, Charlotte saw herself for the first time in a long time. She was so familiar with her parts, more familiar than most people would ever be with their own bodies. She knew her face, her arms and legs, her elbows and knees. This whole body was a stranger to her, so white. She never paid much attention to it. Her nipples and the triangle of hair were the same deep rich brown, neatly placed, two perfect circles and a triangle, geometric counterpoints to her boyish angularity. She spread her hand across her stomach; it was still taut, having borne no children, no abuse other than what she’d put it through for the sake of art.

“Not bad,” she whispered to her reflection.

She pressed her fingertips into her belly.

“Tight as a drum.”

Her reflection winked back.

And Luca. He was even better. There was something obscene in that, as if being that beautiful, and a man, should qualify him as a freak of nature. His skin was gold and smooth, his eyes, close up, too blue. The first time he touched her she quivered. She tried to tell herself it was because his hand was cold.

“I’ve always played the man,” he said. “The doer, so to speak. Just so you know, sometimes, when I really needed the money, I screwed women. It was a living.”

“Some living,” Charlotte said. “A perpetual starring role in remake after remake of The Night of the Living Dead.”

Luca laughed.

“Welcome to Hotel California”

They were still standing a foot or so away from each other at the end of the bed. She was conscious of trying to preserve some distance leavened with humor. Given the events of the day, she wasn’t going to begrudge him. The room was dark except for a sliver of light that cut through the window where the curtains hadn’t quite met. He touched her face and slowly ran his hand down her neck to her breast.

“The dead man lives,” she said, to his growing erection. With one good push they were on the bed.

Later in the shower they soaped each other, carefully, slowly. He washed her face, removed every trace of makeup, licked the water off her eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth. He used a condom, although she knew if he wanted her to she would have screwed him without it. Sex not only keeps you young, she thought, it makes you dumb. He was so skillful, too skillful, a reminder that what he did to her was a business—a business he was very, very good at. Afterwards, they folded themselves together and slept until she woke to him moving against her again. This time it was different. He was a more tentative lover, needier, which made her feel like she could manipulate him. She didn’t like that feeling. She didn’t like it at all.

When they were through she turned to look at him, and as handsome as he was, as good as he had been, his face wasn’t the face she wanted to see. Luca slept and she lay next to him with one hand on his back. He deserved to be loved and she hoped for that for him. Her touch was all she had left to give; it was the last thing she was willing to give him after such a day. What else could she do except reassure him, for the moment at least, that someone would be there to hold him down, to prevent him from breaking apart?

And at the same time it was Zdenĕk she wanted, his steady, uncomplicated good humor in the face of obstacles as daunting as Luca’s, his relentless dedication to his absent family, to his friends, to her family—for Christ’s sake—his perpetual optimism that love really did have the power to transform, to heal. She wanted him next to her. She drifted off into a dream in which he came to her—it was so like him—looking quizzical and a little amused. She smiled at him, at his beloved cheekbones and tilted eyes, which were watching, waiting for her to say the only thing there was left to say.

“Forgive me.”

She’d have to wait to find out if he would.