Alexandra Waring (40 page)

In any event, at the club this weekend, apparently Pooh had asked Belinda if she could arrange for her to attend a taping of “The Jessica Wright Show.” Pooh said she had always watched her when in Aspen and in Taos when she visited her mother, thought Jessica was just divine, a real card, and was dying to meet her. And so Belinda had come to West End posthaste to meet Jessica and to try and figure out what the heck Pooh could be up to. (Belinda felt sure that Pooh was anticipating major celebrity and would like nothing more than to be the first to trot Jessica Wright out at a charity function when Belinda and her family owned the damn network that employed her!)

So here they were, Langley and Belinda, unexpectedly spending the day together, sitting side by side, listening to a young woman talk about how her most wonderful sexual experience had been when she and her husband had had intercourse in the laundry room off the kitchen while they were supposed to have been serving dessert to their dinner guests. She was saying how special it had been—a conspiracy, urgent, quick—and how close it had made them feel. And then she described the afterglow, of sitting there, looking at one another across the table as their guests nattered on, having no idea of the wonderfully exciting thing that had just transpired in the other room.

Belinda’s hand crept over to Langley’s. He held it.

The show went on, and they broke for commercials, but the spell never broke. The newlywed talked of what had been his greatest moment, but how he later lost the girl, but then how he had known there was another one out there for him somewhere, and how he had found her, married her, and that his former greatest moment paled in comparison to the fourth night of his honeymoon with his wife. The married father of three talked about the night he had done what his wife asked him to do—simply hold her, in bed, without any sex—and how, when they practiced this, their sex life reawakened on other nights in ways he had never imagined. And then, finally, the older woman shared the most provocative story of them all (and it was so strange, because she was older and not very good-looking—at least not before she started talking). Her story was about how, after thirty-one years of marriage, she had finally gotten up the courage to ask her husband to do something to her differently, and how that night had ended up being the most sexually thrilling night for them both in all the years of their marriage.

During all this Jessica would periodically slip down to the audience and murmur to someone, “How does hearing this story make you feel?” to which people responded in a variety of ways: special, warm, hopeful, excited. (Yes, excited. Langley had noticed that there was definitely a rising sexual tension in the air. The young man next to him had taken off his blazer and covered his lap with it; everybody looked a little warm in the face; and Belinda was getting caught up in it too, he could tell.)

He tightened his grip on Belinda’s hand, half delighted and half terrified that she might get that vacant, half-drowsy, half-seductive look that she seemed to get just before she “went off.”
Oh God
he thought to himself,
what has happened to us that I think Belinda can only have sex when she’s crazy?

Because that’s the way it’s been the last couple of years
, he answered himself.

When he thought back to the first decade of their marriage, of the fun they had had, it became hard to believe that Belinda was the same woman.

He had first met Belinda at a Darenbrook Communications Christmas party in Richmond. He had been twenty-five and a little drunk. He also had been with the company for less than two months, and so when this beautiful blond girl, who said she was going to VCU, asked him back to her apartment for a nightcap, he said sure, having no idea that Belinda Smith was actually Belinda Darenbrook, Jackson’s baby sister. They had had lots more Christmas punch; they had gone to bed; Langley had passed out; and in the morning, when he saw the apartment he was in (it was
some
apartment), he had a feeling that Belinda Smith might not be the struggling young scholarship student, orphaned in Arkansas, that she had said she was. Then Belinda had come bounding into the bedroom and onto the bed, made love to him again, and
then
she had told him who she was.

Six weeks later, shortly after Belinda told him she thought she was pregnant, Jackson (whom he had scarcely met), came into his office, said, “Congratulations, brother,” slugged him, helped him up and then took him outside to a waiting car, in which they went downtown so Langley could apply for a marriage license. It was announced that Belinda and Langley had secretly eloped the night of the Christmas party; a wedding was then held, “for the family,” in Hilleanderville in February; and the next thing they knew Langley and Belinda, man and wife, had been sitting there looking at each other in a suite at the Royal Hawaiian in Honolulu, supposedly embarking on their lives together.

That was when Belinda had apologized profusely for all the drama —and for trapping Langley into marriage. That was also when she told him that she wasn’t pregnant—and that she never really had been, but that it had been the only way to make her family let her quit school and start her own life. That was also when Langley said it was okay because—if she didn’t mind him saying it—when he had told her before that he thought he was sort of in love with her anyway, so he didn’t mind marrying her and having her be the mother of his child, he had meant it. “Except,” he had added, sitting there on the bed, “I think maybe I really do love you.”

Belinda was only nineteen then, so it was hard to know what she really felt for him, but nonetheless Langley had proceeded to fall violently in love with his wife. And there had been a lot to love! Belinda was so full of life, so mischievous, so full of laughter and energy, it was near impossible not to love her. When she came bounding into a room, he felt it—in his heart. And she adored “messing up” Langley, taking his studious and controlled demeanor as a personal challenge to her powers of seduction. (She won, easily, over most anything, even—in those days—work.)

They lived in a house outside Richmond and Langley did very well at Darenbrook Communications, and as it became clearer to Langley that Belinda had somehow really fallen in love with him too (“It’s time for us to have children together,” she said one night, “because I love you and I think I would like to look at—at least six combinations of us”), Langley became less nervous around Jackson and actually became quite friendly with him. (Which was easy, since Jackson and Belinda had been so much alike.)

Belinda had always loved her sister-in-law, Barbara, and so the two couples started seeing a lot of each other, particularly after Jack’s kids were born. Langley eventually became Jackson’s right hand at Darenbrook Communications as well as his best friend, but in those days, while Langley had worked hard, he had also played hard, though Belinda and Jackson and Barbara were much, much better at everything than he was: tennis, swimming, riding, trapshooting, golf, flying and soaring.

And then Barbara died and everything just seemed to fall apart. Whether it was because both Barbara and Jackson were lost to the Petersons; or whether it was Belinda’s increasing despair over her apparent inability to conceive; or whether it was because Langley had to run Darenbrook Communications for the next eighteen months (while Jackson was falling apart in Hilleanderville), so that he spent precious little time with Belinda; or whether it was because Belinda started traveling by herself, then buying houses and co-ops in which to live parts of the year away from him—whatever it was (and maybe it was a combination of all these things), it or they had started the decline in their marriage and had also started the decline in Belinda’s mental health.

“Make love to me, darling,” Belinda whispered in his ear.

Langley started, looking around them in the studio. The show was over and Lilly was giving the all-clear signal. He turned to look at Belinda, fearing the worst—that she was about to “go off.” But no, she did not look that way at all. She looked like
his
Belinda, his Belinda the one who used to love him. The one he had been so very much in love with.

Belinda smiled, slowly. “There must be somewhere,” she whispered.

Could this be real? he wondered. Could his Belinda be back?

“We’ll have to hurry if you want to,” she whispered, smiling still. “It would be like the old days, remember?”

Of course he remembered. How could anyone forget the days when they were in love?

Her eyes were searching his, anxious, but eager too. Funny—that old spark seemed to be there. Her eyes were twinkling like they used to, too.

“I love you,” she whispered, but looking down then, looking acutely embarrassed.

Oh, God, he had hurt her feelings. She thought he didn’t want her.

“Come on,” Langley said, taking her hand and standing up. “This way.” He led her out of the studio, down the corridor and the halls, nodding at people but making sure it was understood that he did not wish to stop and talk. He took Belinda upstairs, to the third floor, and led over the carpeted hallway to his office. He sent Belinda into his office, told Adele that he was not to be disturbed for any reason, went into his office, closed and locked the door, turned off the light, and then went over to the connecting door to Jackson’s office and locked that too.

Belinda was sitting on the couch. “The curtains?” she said, smiling, tossing her purse on the coffee table.

“Can’t see in with this glass,” he murmured, taking off his jacket. He walked over to the couch, throwing the jacket over a chair. He sat down, taking Belinda’s hand. “Honey, are you sure?”

She smiled. “You’re not scared of me, are you?”

“Never,” he said.

“Then why don’t you touch me?” she asked him.

He felt shy, and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was because it had been so long since he felt as though he were really talking to
Belinda
, face to face. He put his arms around her and pulled her close. Then he really hugged her, tight. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Then show me, tough guy,” she said, laughing.

Tough guy? She hadn’t called him that in years.

He sat back, looking at her again.

“Oh, God, Langley,” Belinda sighed, taking his face into her hands, “must the South initiate everything?” And she kissed him, the way she used to kiss him—not frantically, not harshly, but expertly in her quest to “mess him up.” They could be right back in his old office in Richmond right now.

“Adele’s right outside,” he whispered.

“Goody,” she whispered back, sliding her hand down between his legs and stroking him. “As I recall, her proximity used to enhance the experience. Remember?”

“Uh-huh,” he murmured, kissing her neck.

“Oh, my, Mr. Peterson,” she whispered, feeling him; “if Adele could see this, you’d give her heart failure.”

“Uh-huh,” he said into the base of her neck, thinking this felt so good he could die.

Belinda was undoing his belt now. As he felt her mouth on his ear, she unzipped his pants and then he could feel her hand sliding down to touch him. She stopped licking his ear to murmur, “Gorgeous, darling,” and then she used both her hands to tug his pants and shorts down further. Then she took a gentle, firm hold on him and began stroking him. In a minute she sat back to look at him, her hand still stroking. “Not with your glasses,” she whispered, laughing, kissing him on the nose.

He tossed them and kissed her, running his hands over her dress, over her breasts, running his hands down her, pulling up her dress, and then sliding his hand up over her stockings, up between her legs, and then stroking her, massaging her as best he could. In a minute she broke away and stood up, hiking her dress to get rid of her stockings and panties. “There,” she whispered, dropping down again, kissing him. “There, honey,” she murmured, lowering her head to kiss his neck. Her mouth continued down, down over his chest, and she gave his tie a playful tug as she continued on down, down, down, over his stomach, and then, holding him gently in her hand, she went down, sinking her mouth over him.

He inhaled, slowly, bringing his hands to the side of her head, trying to restrain himself from pushing down on it.

Jesus but this was good.

“Oh, honey,” he sighed, feeling her work him, perfectly, down and then up, down and then up, feeling her mouth, sinking and rising, sinking and rising, her hand moving in tandem, her tongue swirling at play, down and then up, down and then up, the warmth growing hot, the sounds getting messy; down and then up, down and then up—

He gently tried to bring her head up. She wanted to do a little more, and he let her, closing his eyes, thinking there was no other feeling like this.

And then he felt her kissing him and he smiled, opening his eyes and bringing his face up to hers, kissing her lips, kissing all around her mouth, and then really kissing her, shifting around to ease Belinda back down on the couch. He broke their kiss, giving her one last quick one, and then quickly stood, just long enough to pull his pants down making her smile, reaching out to touch him—and then he crawled down on top of her, both of them laughing, softly, but anxious too, as he tried to maneuver with the back of the couch, his tie and shirttails and her dress everywhere, but then she drew her outside leg up and out, trying to give him room, and then he managed to get himself up against her and then—in a moment—he was inside of Belinda and he was moving.

The couch was not the greatest, but she was.

It was nothing really, nothing but making love to his wife on the couch in his office while Adele typed letters outside and West End produced television shows and Belinda kept saying, in his ear, over and over, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” and he thought about moving to the floor so he could do this a little better, but they squirmed a little so that Belinda was a little bit on her side, so then he could move into her better, around her and into her, around her and into her, around her and into her, the way she used to love it and, apparently, still did, because she stopped saying, “I love you,” because she was coming, he knew she was, because in the old days she had always talked her head off until she came, at which time she became deadly silent, frozen, when inside her body, she used to say, everything would be going absolutely crazy, so violently, wonderfully berserk she couldn’t speak. And she could not speak now, he knew, his beautiful, beautiful girl, because she was coming, he knew she was, and she was not crazy, she was just his Belinda, his-his-his-his—