An Untamed State (8 page)

He grinned. “Do they give trophies for football?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Wrestling.”

“Come again?”

“I wrestled in high school and college. And yes, my mom has kept my trophies and awards and such in my room at the farm. And yes, people tend to like me. Is that so bad? You like me.”

I dropped an ice cube in my mouth, chewing it loudly. “I don’t even know you. So far, you are mildly tolerable.”

“We can remedy that.” Michael leaned back in his seat and told me his life story, the good and bad of it.

His openness was frightening. Americans are so fond of confession without considering the consequences. I didn’t tell him much about myself; there wasn’t much to tell. I had always been a good girl, focused on being excellent.

Before long, the alcohol went straight to my head and I stopped making sense. I have never been good at holding my liquor. When the bartender threw us out at closing, Michael said, “I should get you home.”

“Now would be a good time for you to take me to your place so we can wrestle.” I giggled and flexed my arms. “Maybe I will win a trophy.”

I expected him to say something chivalrous. Instead, Michael opened my door and spilled me into my seat. As we drove, I sang along with the radio. I always sing along when I hear music no matter where I am—grocery stores, malls, dental offices. It is either a charming affectation or a terrible one, depending on whom you ask.

“You have a nice voice.”

I turned to look at Michael. I rested my hand on his thigh, my fingertips reaching inward. “You, sir, are a liar.”

“No really.”

I began singing more enthusiastically and lowered the zipper of his slacks, sliding my hand between the folds of fabric. I had seen it in movies. Michael stiffened at my touch. My hand tingled. He gripped the steering wheel more tightly. He sighed softly, and I squeezed my fingers around him but then I wasn’t sure what to do next so we stayed like that until we didn’t.

Michael’s apartment was spare but clean—an old love seat, a large television, and an array of stereo components. In the spare bedroom, there was a drafting table, a futon, and lots of athletic gear—a basketball, dumbbells, a weight belt, some sort of cryptic-looking exercise machine that seemed neglected. We stripped as we stumbled to his bedroom and by the time we fell onto the bed we were naked. I could feel every inch of my skin. It was so strange but I didn’t want that feeling to go away. We were not shy. I kissed him wetly, running my hands over the muscles in his shoulders. I said, “You have such nice shoulders. You have very pretty shoulders. Did you know that?”

Michael held himself above my body, his muscles flexing attractively. “How drunk are you?” he asked.

I traced his breastbone with my fingernails. “Do you care?” Before he could answer, I rolled over onto my stomach and looked back at him. My head felt heavy and I buried my face in the pillow. I giggled and said, “Your shoulders really are so pretty. You are a pretty, pretty princess.”

He pressed his thumbs along my sides and worked his hands up my back like he was trying to push me out of my own skin. I reared, tried to pull him into my body with my leg.

“You have beautiful skin, beautiful brown skin,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

When I woke, the room was painfully bright. I covered my eyes with my arm, rolling away from the window. The bed was unfamiliar. I rolled to the other side, slowly moving my arm, taking in my surroundings. I tried to remember where I was. I tried to make sense of the thick, sour taste coating my mouth, my lips, my teeth.

“Good morning,” a voice said.

My own voice didn’t seem to work. I mumbled incoherently.

I was naked and quickly pulled the sheet tightly around me, sat up and pulled my knees into my chest. One layer of fog evaporated. I slowly began to recognize Michael, those pretty shoulders, his ridiculously appealing hair, his face, open and eager to please. He brushed stray strands of hair out of my face and tucked them behind my ear. He kissed the tip of my nose. He said, “You are lovely to look at first thing in the morning.”

My stomach rolled uncomfortably. I leaned back against the headboard and closed my eyes. “You didn’t take me home last night?”

“You asked me to bring you to my place.”

I buried my face in my hands, began rubbing my temples. “I drank too much. This is unusual for me but I don’t remember anything after you holding my ankles in the bar. And something about trophies.”

Michael tugged on the sheet that had fallen around my waist. The throbbing in my head trumped modesty. “You were a wildcat. And you called me a pretty, pretty princess.”

I shook my head violently, then instantly regretted that decision. I rolled out of the bed and began grabbing for my clothes. I dressed quickly and made an awkward goodbye with a half-assed apology. As I walked home I tried to reassemble my dignity. By the time I reached my house I had sweated most of the gin. My hangover stink was terrible. I needed to wallow so I fell onto the couch and passed out after cursing myself for my inability to interact normally with men.

Hours later, a loud knocking at my front door brought me out of my still-drunken stupor. “I’m coming,” I said hoarsely, carefully finding my way to the front door while trying to maintain my balance. The sour stink lingered. I opened the door a crack and peeked out. Michael stood on my porch holding coffee, which he passed me through the narrow opening.

He smiled. “I came to make you something to eat.”

I accepted the coffee and inhaled the rising steam and waved my hand. “No food.”

He pushed the door open and slipped inside. As I closed the door, I muttered, “What is it with you and personal space? Come on in, why don’t you.”

Michael stood in the foyer, his hands shoved into his pockets. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks. Tell me—when you come to the home of a one-night stand uninvited, is that stalking?”

Michael laughed. “You’re the lawyer in training but I’m not a one-night stand.”

I arched an eyebrow. He cupped his hand around the bottom of my coffee cup and raised it to my lips. “Drink.” I took a small sip. The coffee made my mouth taste even worse.

“We didn’t have sex last night,” he said.

I slapped Michael’s chest hard. My hand stung. I shook it loosely. “You could have told me that hours ago.”

He shrugged. “This was more fun.”

I turned to walk away, muttering, “Asshole,” but he grabbed me by my waist, pulling me into his arms. I dropped my cup and a thin trickle of coffee began to spill onto the beautiful wooden floors, something exotic the original owner said when my father bought the place for me. Michael pulled his fingers through my hair, stretching my face taut. He kissed me so hard I felt his lips in my spine. It was the kiss of a stranger and I wanted it and I wanted him. I have always played hard to get because other people terrify me but right then, I didn’t have the energy for my usual nonsense. I reached for his waistband, drawing myself into his body.

Between kisses, I said, “I look and smell hideous right now.”

My eyes were dry and sore. My head continued to throb dully. Everything was fuzzy and distant and then it wasn’t. Michael started pushing me back toward the staircase. He bit into my neck and fumbled with his jeans, trying to shove them down with one hand while he pulled my pants down with his other hand. The edge of a step dug into my back painfully. I ignored it. Then he was inside me and I gasped as he opened my body, a sharp ache spreading up through my stomach and down through my heels and he was shoving his tongue into my sour mouth, groaning loudly while he fucked me steady and hard. His hair brushed my forehead and my neck and I arched into him like I was hoping to conjoin our rib cages. He showed me how little I knew about him.

When he came, he pressed his sweaty forehead against mine, slowly turning his head from side to side. He said, “God, I’m going to marry you,” and I gasped softly and sank into the mild panic he inspired. He continued moving inside me, breathing hotly on my face, inhaling my ugly hangover sweat, and the earnestness and inappropriateness of his words and his mouth on my neck and his fingers between our bodies and my thighs nearly made me come too.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to sleep. Michael’s body grew heavier on top of mine. I had to push him off me, finally, because the pressure of the step digging into my back became too much. I started crawling up the stairs. I said, “Are you coming?” He looked down at his cock, hanging half stiff, coated with a thin layer of blood. I blushed, said, “I must have started my period.”

I wouldn’t tell him he was my first until our wedding night, when finally, in our room, I shouted, “Jesus, just rip it off,” after endless minutes of his awkward fumbling with my dress. Michael calmed himself; he was patient, found a way through the silk to my skin. We did not make it to the bed. Even though we were tired and drunk, we fell to the floor and just before he entered me, I grabbed his chin, was reminded again of the weight of the rings on my finger. I said, “You are the only one.”

He smiled softly, kissed my chin, said, “You’re the only one too, babe.”

I grabbed his chin again. “No. I need you to hear me. You are the only one.”

Michael paused. His body trembled against mine. He drew his fingers down my face and paused at my lips, sliding his thumb into my mouth. “Seriously?”

My face warmed. I looked away.

He shook his head. “Mireille, you are utterly impossible. You should have said something.”

“I just did.”

“Miri, if I had known, I would have waited, I would have been more of a gentleman. I didn’t know.”

“You know now and you were perfect.” I spread my legs, wrapping them around his waist, pulling him inside me.

After the first time we made love, Michael bounded up the stairs after me, saying, “Blood doesn’t scare me.” I pointed him to my bed, said I was going to jump in the shower. He said, “You look beautiful.” I ignored him. In the shower, I stood under the hot stream of water, my arm against the wall, my head against my arm, trying to make sense of how fairy tales begin.

A
new day, a rough hand pulled me to my feet by my hair. My scalp screamed, had already withstood so much. I tried to stand, disoriented. Again, I didn’t remember falling asleep. I still couldn’t breathe. I ached. I wanted a moment of clean, fresh air. I wanted water. I smelled sharp and sour. My stomach rolled.

The Commander shoved a phone into my hand. “It has been two days,” he shouted. Thick strands of saliva flew out of his mouth, wrapped around each word. “Why doesn’t your father pay?”

I shrank, trying to find an answer that might satisfy us both. That answer did not exist. “I told you. My father will not negotiate. You are wasting your time. You stole the wrong woman.”

The Commander grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. The pain was so sudden I gasped. The muscles in my shoulder twisted uncomfortably and I tried to do anything to make my body stop feeling like it was being pulled apart.

“Call your father,” he said.

I tried to dial the number using my thumb. It was hard to focus on the numbers and the pain at the same time, hard to figure out how to manage either. I was not going to cry. That’s what I kept telling myself. I was sick of those words. When my father answered, I said, “It’s me.” I looked at the Commander. “What do you want me to say?”

He twisted my arm harder. I bit my lip but tried to make no sound, no sound at all. “I want your father to hear what is happening to you while he wastes time negotiating or not negotiating, as the case may be. I am the one who does not negotiate, not him.”

I was shoved against a wall and dropped the phone. The impact threw me off balance but still I was silent. The Commander handed me the phone again. “Tell your father. Tell him how you’re being treated.”

When I looked at the Commander closely, I realized how young he was. Not even the hideous scar beneath his eye could hide how little he knew despite how much he knew, that he was, in his skin, more boy than man. I told myself he could not force me to do anything. He could not make me dance for him. Or it was that the Commander did not understand how I knew my father, a man who has put great faith in himself. That faith has always been richly rewarded. Performing my distress for my father to demonstrate how badly I was being treated would serve no purpose. I am, or I was, very much like my father. I shook my head. I did not waver. I did not look away. I held the phone to my ear again and said, “I am fine and being treated as well as can be expected, but I am ready to come home.”