FIFTY
A flurry of letters followed.
Obligations at home—dreaded obligations!—now kept me from him for a time. It seemed as though John’s sisters had one disaster after another, almost as though they were inventing them. No matter how many disasters his sisters might have, however, the one disaster they never spoke of, and that the greatest disaster of all, was Katherine. It was as though, powerless to do anything about her loss, the wound of that loss perhaps too great, they smoothed over the hole she left, pretending she had never existed at all. Surely, though, they must have thought of her? I know I did. In the moments when my mind was not filled with Chance, or perhaps because of Chance, I obsessively imagined her new existence. Recalling the words of her letter, the talk of the cold and the damp, I would think how awful it must be for her in so many ways. But then I would think of her freedom, freedom to love as she wanted, where she wanted, and I could not help but envy her with a bitter fervor that made my mouth go wet with hunger. And still John’s sisters said nothing of her. As for John…
John’s novel of prison life had been at last published. Having spent so long in the birthing, one would think John would be cheerful about how well the book was doing. And yet he was uneasy, as though he had uncharacteristically been expecting some kind of failure and was now disturbed that what he found in its place was success. Our circle of friends having been awed by that latest success, this one greater than any before, meant our presence was required at a seemingly endless series of parties in John’s honor.
And, so, while the social aspect of life was whirling us all around, where Chance was concerned, all there was to do was write, write, write—a flurry of letters, some containing no more than a half-formed thought.
I wrote first: of how I loved the thing we had done by the lake, of how I now wanted to do that very thing with him, again and again.
Him: What you did to me, I could do to you.
Me: What?
Him: I said, What you did to me, I could do to you.
Me: But how…?
And he described it to me in full, how he would lay me down on the edge of a bed, how he would get down on his knees in front of me, how he would insert his fingers, one and then two, how he would use his tongue and lips to lick, suck on, and tease that part of myself that throbbed for him.
Me: It is difficult for me to picture you on your knees to anybody, least of all me.
Him: Try.
His words, his images, stole my breath.
Me: Oh my!
Him: You see? Do you see now, Emma? That is how it is for me when you say the things you do.
There was no bed, but we did meet, by the lake again, and he did everything he had said he was going to do. I watched that dark head moving between my legs, doing things that when I had read them in his letters seemed like mere words. I could not believe a man was doing these things to me. It was like something from a dream.
More talk of being together always like that, more words…but no resolutions, no single answer, in sight.
Then, one last letter, from him:
Perhaps if your husband were no longer in the picture…