Somehow, Joanna had thought the words “we should sleep together” would have a greater effect on Malcolm. An immediate effect—taking her hand, knocking teacups from the table, ravishing her in the kitchen nook. Or lifting her up, carrying her into the bedroom, and throwing her on the mattress. Or—okay, at the very least—a mischievous grin, a twinkle in his eye. But this, this non-reaction, unmoored her.
She spent the next six days in a state of agitation. Was he going to do something? Or at least tell her, flat out, that he preferred the challenge of the somnambulant kiss to the “open” sign flashing above her head? He didn’t act as though anything had changed. He still looked happy to see her when she walked in the room. If they were both up at the same time in the morning, he made her breakfast. In the evenings he sat on the couch reading and patted the space next to him so that she could sit by his side with her own book or a stack of papers to grade. She would plop down on the couch and sprawl out, affecting supreme casualness. These hours on the couch were torture. She couldn’t remember how she had done it before. When she leaned against the arm of the couch, her feet inching toward Malcolm at the other end, she couldn’t stop thinking about her feet. What if she became so absorbed in a book that they took on a mind of their own, finding their way into Malcolm’s lap?
What was Malcolm trying to do to her? Did he think they could just live like this, brushing by each other in the halls, their hands accidentally touching across the table as they reached for the French press every morning?
Malcolm had secured some independent contractor work, so he was out of the house more than usual. She observed him smiling to himself, whistling softly as he padded around the house pounding protruding nails back into the floorboards or repainting the trim on her windows. He’d moved on, she guessed. He’d forgotten their conversation or dismissed it as a joke. Or—another possibility—he was ignoring it. This was his way of letting her down easy.
She came home to a quiet house one Friday evening after teaching all day. Malcolm was holed away in his room; she could see the light coming from under his door. She sighed with relief. No awkward conversation in the living room, no casual suggestion that they should go to the movies or out to eat that would leave Joanna exhausted from the effort of “acting natural.”
In her own room, with the door shut firmly behind her, she snuggled under her covers with her laptop. Online, a smorgasbord of ready and willing guys awaited her. She should find someone. Not any of the guys she’d been out with over the last few weeks (James or Tim or Daniel or, or, or)—just some anonymous stranger to have sex with. She could get rid of this pesky tension taking over her life, return calm and carefree, ready to be a good friend to Malcolm again. After forty-five minutes of clicking through profile after profile, she gave up. No one matched her criteria for an anonymous sex partner: tall, dark-haired, thin, scraggly, brooding. Cold, calloused hands, smelling of wood shavings.
This was pathetic—hiding away in her own house, trolling around for a one-night stand. With a sudden sense of purpose, she threw the covers off and jumped onto the floor to make her bed, tightening up the sheets and shoving the edges under the mattress. She tugged at the duvet, eradicated lumps and wrinkles with a firm hand. Most mornings her bed remained unmade, cluttered with cold, crumpled sheets. Now it was eight o’clock at night and the act felt necessary, important.
With the bed meeting her newly-developed homemaking standards, she directed her attention to her own appearance. In the bathroom, she ran a brush over her hair, made her lips shiny with lip gloss. She flashed herself a determined look in the mirror.
It was silent in the hallway. Perhaps Malcolm wasn’t home after all. He wasn’t prone to leaving the lights on, but maybe just this once he had forgotten. … She turned to go back into her own room, then pivoted and delivered three firm knocks to his door. “Malcolm?” She let herself in without waiting for a reply.
He was sitting on his bed, reading, his legs stretched out before him. She walked over to the foot of his bed and stood there, her hands on her hips. He glanced up from his book. Seeing him right in front of her—his hair wet from the shower, wearing jeans and a new white T-shirt—strengthened her resolve. Without taking her eyes from his face, she lifted her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. His expression did change then, almost imperceptibly. He widened his eyes, but didn’t put down the book.
Panic kept her glued to her spot on the floor. She hadn’t planned beyond this moment. Removing the shirt should have been enough, should have ignited a spark of interest in him, prompted him to action, made him throw down the book and leap from the bed. Perhaps he required more assurance. Trembling, she reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, then let it fall to the floor. If he laughed at her, she would never speak to him again. She resisted the temptation to cover her breasts with her hands and let her arms dangle uselessly at her sides.
She went over to him, but still, he didn’t reach for her. He just held on to that book with both hands, marking his place. It was too late to back out gracefully—hide her chest with her shirt and slink out the door, pretend it was all a joke. He was watching her, waiting to see what she was going to do next. “Put your book down,” she said. She climbed on top of him, facing him. He didn’t react. In his bed, topless, straddling him! Was he planning on sitting there, mute, a bewildered expression plastered on his face, while she had her way with him? Joanna plucked the book from his hands and dropped it over the side of the bed. It landed with a loud thump on the wood floor.
“Hey!” he said, though he didn’t sound the least bit upset.
She took him by the shoulders and shook him. “What are you doing to me?” Her voice broke. She made a move to leave, at once determined to march half-naked out of the room if she had to, refusing to humiliate herself further.
Malcolm latched onto her arm and drew her back to him.
“Ow,” she said.
He loosened his grip but didn’t let go. “Don’t go.”
“Why not?”
“It’s working.”
“What is?”
“This.”
She tried to shake his hold on her arm, but he tightened his grip again, then pulled her in until their foreheads met. He ran his other hand down her bare back.
For a moment they just looked at each other. She could barely breathe, bracing herself for the possibility he would break the spell, jump up, grab her clothes, and run out the door.
“Now what?” he said.
She let a nervous laugh escape her. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Can’t we just … do this? Like normal people?”
He smiled at her then, his hair falling over his eyes. He pushed her back on the bed, positioning himself on top of her. “Like normal people, huh?” He lowered his head down to hers, so close she could smell his skin. He touched the tip of his nose to hers. She stopped breathing. Then, finally, he brought his mouth down to hers and kissed her, slowly. “Like that?”
She tilted up her chin so he’d kiss her again, but Malcolm was already reaching under her skirt, tugging at the edges of her underpants. She lifted her hips to help him pull them off. “Like this?” he said, scrunching up the fabric in his hand and throwing her underwear across the room.
She took hold of him by the shirt and dragged him back up to her. “I think you’re getting the idea.”
And then their hands and mouths were all over each other, she was pulling him closer, clothes flying, sheets crumpling.
Afterwards, she lay under a tangle of covers, her hand on his chest, her head nestled in the crook of his arm. She could stay this way for hours, all night, days. Malcolm circled his arms around her and sighed into her hair. “Mm. Your hair smells good.” He took a strand and held it up to his nose. “How do you make it smell like this? Do you spray perfume all over it?”
“Why would I spray perfume all over my hair?”
“I don’t know. Part of your seduction plan or something.”
She laughed. “Right.”
Malcolm drew her in and squeezed. “God,” he said, “Why haven’t we been doing this all along?”
She froze at the words; the warm feelings from the moment before flew out the cracks in the windows, carried out by a sudden draft. She twisted her body to free herself from his arms. “Well, I’d better get dressed. We can’t stay here all night.” She couldn’t look at him as she sat up, securing a blanket around herself. “Thanks,” she said as she slipped off the edge of the bed. “It was nice.”
In her room, she slipped into a pair of yoga pants and a tank top, shaking her head and mumbling responses to Malcolm’s comment. She headed into the kitchen. She would make tea; she needed to calm herself down. What would she do without tea, without this fifteen-minute ritual? Her accomplice in procrastination and avoidance.
Why weren’t we doing this all along? I don’t know, genius. Maybe because you screwed everything up last time. The kettle began to rattle on the stove, louder and louder, until finally it erupted with steam bursting through the whistle. She let it reach a full piercing wail before lifting it off the burner.
Joanna shook her head again, loosening the thoughts from her head. What was she doing? She and Malcolm were forging new ground here. She couldn’t get hung up on the past. That’s what this was all about, right? Getting each other out of their systems.
Malcolm sauntered in, jeans on, loose under his hip bones. He brushed his hair away from his eyes. He seemed to have an infuriating way of knowing exactly what effect this gesture had on her. Joanna got a cup out for him and placed it beside her own.
“Are you going to tell me what I did?” He was looking at her with slight amusement. He touched her cheek, lightly.
She concentrated on pouring boiling water into the cups. “Nothing, really. Forget it.”
“I mean, one minute you’re screaming out my name, then you’re storming out on me …”
“I said forget it. I already have. And I wasn’t screaming.”
Malcolm put a finger under her chin, forced her to look up at him. “Well, maybe I need to try harder next time,” he said.
This coaxed a true smile out of her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted her face so he would kiss her. He did.
“I made you tea,” she said.
The next day she found her shucked-off and abandoned clothes, washed and folded, at the end of her perfectly made bed.