Mating for Life (18 page)

This had been a different Michael, though. A happy, confident Michael. It was incredible to Ilsa how much of her husband's being was tied to his company. She had at first kept telling herself it was normal: Wasn't
she
tied to her art, wasn't it destroying
her
slowly inside that she couldn't paint? But somehow she saw what Michael was going through as different. While he fought desperately to improve his company, he allowed their relationship to starve and himself to decline from the stress. She didn't respect this. Once she had said to him, “Is this really worth it? We could live on less.” And he had looked at her over the rim of his glasses, laughed bitterly, and said, “Perhaps
we
could, but my ex-wife couldn't, and my
children couldn't.” She felt sorry for him then. But this didn't temper her resentment.

• • •

Two days after she dumped out the coq au vin, when she arrived at her studio, shoulders already beginning to slump dejectedly in preparation for another fruitless morning, there had been a postcard leaning against the door. On the front was an image of Gauguin's
Nevermore (O Tahiti),
and on the back, Lincoln had written:
Ilsa Bissette, I'm longing to kiss you again. Where have you gone?—L.

Bold of him,
she thought. How did he know her husband didn't accompany her to her studio, that her neighbors weren't nosy, that this wasn't an invitation to be found out?

She had picked up the postcard and brought it inside, then stood looking alternately at it and at the morning sunlight streaming through the window and the dust motes dancing in the air. Then she had sat down and started a painting that was not terrible, that was not heavy with dark purple—like the color Lincoln had seen on her wrist the day they had met, part of a palette of dark, depressing colors she had been working with, even though she hated them—but was instead light and alluring.

Her elation had not lasted. She didn't know how to respond to his postcard. She still couldn't bring herself to send a text message, wasn't sure if she should call, and couldn't very well walk over to his house. Yet for a week the postcard lit the edges of her life with the something that had been missing.

Until Michael casually asked her if she had any shows coming up, any paintings to sell, and she felt the light go out. “No,” she had answered, wishing she could offer an explanation.

“I'm wondering if it makes sense for you to have the studio anymore,” he had said, and she had hated him in that moment even as she knew it was true. “Perhaps we could
just set up the spare bedroom as a home studio? Or maybe the basement?” The basement. The
basement.
Didn't he know she needed light? And yet, she knew he had a point. Did it make sense to pay a monthly rental on a room where she went to do absolutely nothing? No, it didn't. But she needed the space, desperately, had needed it always and even more so after having children, whom she loved but also felt crowded by at times. It was hard, when she was at home, not to think of them and what they were doing or what they would be doing when they returned, or what she had said to them last. She needed a place to go that was only hers, so that she could otherwise be what they needed her to be. She felt angry at Michael for suggesting that this be taken away, and angry with herself for not being able to produce enough to sustain it. “
You're
the one who said once we could try to live on less,” he said later, in response to her sulking. When she left for her studio, she had slammed the door, hard. Ani and Xavier were at the park with Sylvie, or she wouldn't have done it.

At her studio, she cut out a small, postcard-sized piece of stiff paper, and she did something daring, something she used to do when she and Michael were dating—and not just Michael, but also Eric, her first husband. It seemed even more daring now. So much was at risk.

This painting was the curve of her waist, the rise of her hips, and the top of her thigh. She stopped there. She let the painting dry for a day, then wrote on the back of the makeshift postcard:
Next time, knock. I'm at my studio most days, at least until three.

She thought about traveling into the city, all the way to his studio, but knew that would be a mistake. He wasn't like her, virtually unknown. She couldn't just walk in and prop a suggestive postcard against his door. He probably had an assistant who would intervene, toss this piece of perceived fan
mail in the trash. So she looked up the name and address of his studio on the Internet and put the painting in an envelope and mailed it before she could change her mind. She felt sick with anticipation.

• • •

Four days later, midmorning, there was a knock on the door of her studio. Ilsa froze before the canvas she had just begun to dab at without purpose. She stood, threw a drop cloth over it, wiped her clammy hands on one of the paint-spattered hand towels on a hook by the sink, took a sip of water. Another knock.

“Coming!”

She opened the door.

He smiled. “Hello there.” She was about to return his greeting and invite him in but he was already pushing open the door. He closed the door, put one hand on the small of her back, one on the back of her head, and kissed her, tongue plunging in, no time for pleasantries. She moaned softly and accepted that she wasn't in the
mood
for pleasantries.
He knows this about you, even if you don't want to admit this about yourself. Maybe you really do just want someone to play rough with you.

Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.
And he did, endlessly, until she needed air, pulled her head away. “Good morning,” she said, meaning it to sound coy or cute, but it didn't work. He left her standing alone and began to stalk her studio, his height and bulk making the room, with its high ceilings and exposed brick, seem somehow smaller to her, like when you return to a place you spent time in as a child and realize it wasn't as grand as you thought it was. He reminded her of a lion again, this time caged. He looked like he might roar without warning and begin to rip canvases apart, knock paint pots to the floor, trash the place, and leave simply because he had to, because the energy inside him was too much to contain.
This genius,
this man, is in my studio, touching my things, in my space.
It made her feel special. But also, powerless and inadequate.

Many of her canvases were shrouded, mostly because she just didn't want to look at them anymore. He lifted shrouds indiscriminately and she was reminded of the way he had so carelessly lifted her skirt that night in the alley. He looked underneath, let the sheets drop, moved to the next. “Show me more,” he said, and she obeyed wordlessly, standing by as he flipped through her paintings.

“You lack passion,” he finally said, and it was like a slap.
I didn't ask you to come here and critique my work,
she wanted to say. “You don't lack talent, though. There's something here. Raw, but here. A soul.” And now the sting was gone and she was glowing, humming inside. Lincoln Porter had not told her that she was talented but he had told her that she
did not lack talent,
and he had made reference to her soul.

“More,” he said, “are there more?”

She bit her lip. “A few.” She opened a cabinet. He flipped through them quickly.

“Nothing else?” She pulled out some much older canvases, canvases from years and years before, and realized too late what was at the bottom of the stack: the paintings she used to do for Michael. “We should store these at your studio,” he had said to her once, and she had imagined he was afraid one of his children might find them. “What do we have to be ashamed of?” she had asked, and he had just shaken his head. She remembered he hadn't been comfortable posing but he had let her take some pictures and she had found it so arousing. She had loved painting him. She had never done it for anyone else. Now she thought, suddenly, that she would not like to paint Lincoln, as much as she was infatuated with him, would not like to have to linger over his aging body, would much rather focus on his mind, close her eyes and let him kiss her and touch her, listen to him speak.

He didn't come here to talk, though.

He was still going through the stack. “Hey, what are these? They're in a different style.”

“Oh.” She blinked. She had almost forgotten she still had those, the ones Eric had painted of her, when they lived in Paris. Two years. A blur. Sex, art, heartbreak. She reached for the paintings in his hand. “No, not those,” she said. She hardly thought of Eric anymore, but she did now, looked down at the painting and remembered this one, how he had painted her lying naked on his bed, and himself, too, what could be seen of him in the mirror. The short-lived marriage had ended because she had caught Eric, a rising abstract painter, making love to his mentor's daughter. He had seemed surprised at her anger. “You're free to have a lover, too, you know,” he had said. “I thought you knew that . . .”

“I don't want that!” she had screamed, and then she had screamed other things, too. (“She is seventeen fucking years old!” for example. He was shocked, laughed at her, said, “You might have a French father but you're American, aren't you?” “Canadian,” she had sniffled at him. “I'm from Canada.”) She left him, flew back to Toronto, borrowed money from Helen she would never be asked to pay back, and moved into the Annex, which was where she had been living when she first met Michael, in an apartment with polished wood floors like her studio, and a bed with a wrought-iron frame, and a big window with a view of Casa Loma. She attended art school during the day and worked as a coat-check girl at a jazz bar on weekends. She remembered how Michael had asked her to quit that job, said he would send her money if she needed it, and how she had said, “I don't want to be treated like I'm your mistress.” He had proposed on his next visit.

Lincoln was now holding up one of the paintings she had done of herself.

“This is like that one you sent me. And
that
was good.
These
are good. And not just because of your body, your tits.
These
are
good
.
These
are what you should be doing. Paintings like this.” He held up one of her husband. “And this.” He took the painting she was holding away from her.

She swallowed hard. “Nudes?”

“Not nudes. These are more than nudes. And I'm sure you're capable of an even higher intensity of eroticism, aren't you?” Now he had put down both paintings and was pulling her to him. “
Aren't
you?” She was wearing one of Michael's old dress shirts and he opened it roughly, popping all the buttons. Then he unhooked her bra and let it drop to the floor. “Beautiful,” he said. “
Better
than in the painting. But not by much.”

Now she was unbuttoning his shirt and running her hands along his chest. And he was unbuttoning and unzipping her slim black pants, sliding them down her legs. Soon she was standing before him in nothing but her black lace thong. Their mouths had not parted. He pressed her against a wall and she undid the button and zipper of his trousers. They were both breathing hard and the sound of this, and their sighs, filled the room. They knocked over a stool. She pulled off his pants. He slid off her underwear and plunged a finger inside her and she moaned and arched against him. Two fingers, three, “Ahhh.
Yes
.” He put his hands on her hips and she lifted herself up and wrapped her legs around him as he entered her. She moved her hips, he moved his. He bit her neck and she clawed at his back. She felt her backside slapping lightly against the wall, wondered what her neighbor might think, if he was there painting. This just added to her arousal. Faster now, her moans and his becoming as rhythmic as the sound of her body against the plaster. She pulled him deeper inside her with each thrust. She heard herself say, “
Fuck me, fuck me,
” and heard him say, “
Yes. Yes.
” He shuddered and came and so did she.

And then it was over. He put her down, and she stood before him, naked and panting, her legs wobbly.

She found the old dress shirt and wrapped it around herself, and when she turned around, he was buttoning his shirt. She wondered what they should do. She had stools they could sit on, she could make tea. She opened her mouth to make the offer, but he silenced her with a fast kiss.

And then he left.

• • •

When Ilsa had told her mother she was marrying Michael, Helen had asked her why she was getting married again.

“Because I love him.”

“Well, yes, but . . .” Things were left unsaid that Ilsa had been incapable of understanding at the time, but did understand now. What her mother
had
said, quietly, was, “Is it because . . . I'm sorry, but I have to say this: Is it because he's like a father to you, like a father you never had? I mean, we both know you
have
a father, but Claude is more like . . .”

“Like a boorish uncle, thank you, I know that,” Ilsa had snapped, and they had proceeded to fight, which was rare. “Did it ever occur to you that I don't
want
to be like you?” Ilsa had eventually shouted, and Helen had flinched and said, “No, it didn't occur to me, because sometimes I think, of all three of you, you are the
most
like me, which is why I felt I could be so honest with you. I regret that now.”

Ilsa had said nothing to this, but she remembered feeling wretched. She had, especially when she was younger, wanted to be just like Helen. But as she grew older she had realized that Helen was only pretending to have no true need for men. Her strength was somewhat of a façade; she ached and felt lonely like everyone else. Perhaps in response to this realization Ilsa had developed a yearning for men that was even stronger than her mother's unacknowledged one.