The sound of the wind rustling through the grass and aspen trees around the yard at her grandma’s house can be heard through the open window. But she’s straddled him on a wooden chair in the narrow kitchen and barely notices the wind. They cycled out to the small house that’s not been lived in since her grandma died, they giggled up the steps, then she hitched up her skirt and planted her feet on the stretchers between the chair legs on either side. She’s standing on the balls of her feet, one hand on the door handle, the other on the kitchen table, lifting herself up and down. He’s holding her buttocks and helping, looking red and pained as he bangs the back of his head against the yellow-paneled wall. They met at a party six months ago, and as they stood on opposite sides of the room and looked at each other, they just knew, they said when they were lying on a mattress on her floor a few hours later, stroking each other’s hair, that this had to happen. They lay like this at regular intervals over a three-week period, until she’d had enough because she thought she detected a trace of reluctance to commit on his part. It upset her. “Don’t talk to me again,” she said. They’re not talking to each other now. She feels her thighs burning and he is deep into a brain-draining darkness.
* * *
They met again at a party three months ago, and as they stood there on either side of the room looking at each other, they just knew, they said when they were lying together on a mattress on the floor in her room later, they just knew that this had to happen. And it happened at regular intervals over a three-week period until she couldn’t take anymore because she detected a trace of reluctance to commit on his part. And he didn’t run his hands through her hair anymore. He held her by the hips and banged his head against her stomach and said: “I don’t want to upset you. But I can’t have a girlfriend right now. It’s just not the right time.”
* * *
They met again three weeks ago, at the Shell station in the middle of the night, and as they stood there on either side of the freezer and a stand of sunglasses, they just knew, they said when they were lying on a mattress on the floor in her room later, they just knew that this had to happen. He slides his hands up to her breasts, which move up and down under her top, and his eyes look as though they’re sinking back into his head behind his eyelids, like two heavy stones. The kitchen window is ajar, the stay rattles, the panes vibrate in the wind that blows over the fields of tall grass, through the leaves of the aspen trees outside, and makes the rope on the flagpole slap against the pole in a hollow metal rhythm. She thinks: This, the fact that we’re here having sex now, must mean that he’s changed his mind.
* * *
A cat meows in the wind, but he doesn’t hear, he moves his hands back down under her buttocks. It’s getting closer; he grabs her by the hips. Always, when it’s nearly over, he turns her around, holds her by the hips. She, on the other hand, has always hoped that he won’t turn her around, but rather come looking at her face-to-face, so she can see what he looks like in that moment. She believes that this expression, this expression of ecstasy, will show her the truth, something that he doesn’t want to show her; she thinks that he loves her, secretly, but that he doesn’t dare to admit it, not even to himself, but she thinks that his expression in that moment will give him away, will express something like love. She has to see it, she has to know that what she believes is true, is there. It would be enough. And that is what makes her into what one could only call a fool.
* * *
The wind sings in the grass and soughs through the aspen trees, everything is sighing and whispering, everything is green and comes in waves. They’re in the kitchen trembling, and now she feels him letting go of her hips at precisely the moment she sees an old porcelain cup in the sink with a gold pattern that has almost been washed off, she listens, and now she must, she will see his face: she turns around. But she lifts herself a little too much and he slips out of her with a sucking sound just before the crucial moment, and all she sees is a red face twisted in frustration before she loses her balance and falls forward onto the floor, onto some rag rugs made of something that resembles plastic. He gets up from the chair, asks if she’s all right, hears a yes, and then finishes off against her back, which is arched in front of him, just as somewhere outside in the wind the cat meows loudly and she realizes how tired her thighs are.