Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes (4 page)
Read Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes Online
Authors: Claude Lalumière
I look down and see that she’s holding my manuscript. My novel.
She starts to read. I cry.
I cry because I see her mouth form the words that I’ve written, because I hear the tenderness in her voice when she speaks my words.
She reads a few chapters. She takes her time. She forms the words carefully, imbues their articulation with a slow sensuality.
Finally, she pauses. She looks at me, and she’s crying, too.
She says, “I like it.”
~
When I come back from my morning run, Tamara is still asleep. Her feet are sticking out from under the sheets. This is one of my favourite sights: tenderly domestic and deliciously sensual. I fantasize about straying from our scripted lives, about indulging in spontaneous intimacies outside the confines of our rituals, and...
Fuck Andrei.
I look at Tamara’s sleeping body and let the sight of her overwhelm me.
I stoop down and kiss her toes. I slip my tongue between them, slide it around each one. I nibble on them.
She moans, still asleep, and throws off the sheets.
The sun hits her skin, from her nipples to just below her luxuriant pubes. The prospect of transgression makes my blood rush, but I rein in my impatience and move with slow but focused intensity.
Cupping her heels, I raise her legs in the air. Below, I catch a glimpse of her moist vulva, framed by her butt cheeks and by the backs of her thighs. I bend down and breathe on her wetness. She gasps, still asleep.
I smell her and close my eyes. Her pubes tickle my nose, and I can’t help laughing.
That wakes her up.
I fear her reaction to this unscheduled intimacy, but she opens her arms in invitation.
I let go of her legs and fold myself into her sleepy embrace.
“You’re sweaty,” she mumbles. I’m still wearing my jogging clothes. “I love your smell.” Have we broken free? Can we write our own lives? Together. Finally, truly, together.
She disentangles herself and sits up. She hugs me, drowsily rubbing her face against my chest.
She pulls off my T-shirt, and she runs her tongue from my belly button to my armpit.
She squeezes my stiff cock through my shorts, and we both laugh.
She smiles coyly, letting go of me, then runs her hand in circles around my crotch, never quite touching it. She gently bites my nipples.
She moves as if to squeeze me again, but then she pulls away and slips behind me.
She hugs me from behind, bites my shoulders hard enough to hurt, sinuously licks my nape. I feel her breasts squish against my back, and I get even harder. Her hands start to slip into my shorts, brushing against my pubes, but, again, she pulls away, laughing.
I grab for her. I lock her wrists in my hands and push her down on the bed. I bite her nipples – alternating from one to the other – and she gasps and squirms. I pull her up and place her fingers on the elastic waist of my shorts. She pulls down my shorts, takes my dripping cock into her mouth.
She delicately scratches my chest while her mouth goes up and down the length of my penis. I could come right now.
But I pull out of her mouth. I stick my thigh between her legs and rub her moistness against my skin while I play with her breasts.
After a while, I turn her around and push her down on the bed. I run my wet, hard cock on her skin, from her butt crack, along her spine, to the side of her neck. Her tongue slips out and licks me.
Leaving my cock next to her mouth, I reach down and grab her ass. I fondle it, kiss it, bite into it. I dip a finger into her moist cleft, and I tease her anus. She squirms and coos. I plunge deep into her asshole with my wet finger, and she screams in pleasure. I wriggle my finger inside her, slide in and out tenderly. I look at her writhe with delight, and my heart swells up.
Eventually, she pulls her butt away and flips over.
She again takes my cock into her mouth. She pushes her crotch up against my mouth, and I slip my tongue inside her vagina. I pull back slightly and gently kiss her labia. I tease her by running my tongue on either side of her clit, never quite touching it.
Meanwhile, her mouth slides up and down my cock; her fingers play with my balls.
Then, she lets my cock slip out of her mouth, and works on me with her hands.
I can barely keep from bursting. I struggle to hold on just a little longer.
I cover her vagina with my mouth and work on her clit with my tongue. Her breathing changes, and I can tell she’s going to come soon.
In a sudden, almost violent, move, I pull away. She whimpers.
I grab her feet and run my teeth against her soles. Her whimpers turn to moans. I spread her legs, my tongue licking her inner thighs. Her moans become sharp cries. I kiss her belly. My hands find her breasts, my fingers squeeze her nipples. My lips find her mouth. My cock finds the wet opening between her legs.
I plunge deep into her; and she screams, comes, and then whispers the syllables I desperately want to hear, the inevitable name: “Andrei...”
And then I come inside of her, and the jism spurts out of me in neverending waves. In my mind’s eye, I see the beautiful face of my dead friend.
She Watches Him Swim
Veronica lays her handbag on the little white plastic table, kicks off her pink flip-flops, and arranges herself on the sun chair. She catches Harold’s eye; he’s sitting at the edge of the pier looking over his shoulder at her while dipping his feet in the lake. He’s naked. She’s not. She’s wearing a dark grey one-piece bathing suit with green piping. She doesn’t mind being naked in the heat of passion, but otherwise her breasts always get in the way. What’s the big deal with men and nudity?
There’s no-one to see them out here at the isolated cottage of Harold’s Uncle Davey, as Harold had reminded her a few times – when they were packing; en route, while they drove; and again when they were unpacking – not so subtly hinting that he’d enjoy it if she could try a few days without clothes. She knew she could be too uptight, but she wouldn’t make herself uncomfortable just so Harold could get a kick. Regardless, to make sure he wouldn’t take her subsequent clothed state the wrong way, she’d initiated a hot, enthusiastic bout of sex – doing several things she knew he especially liked – before they’d completely settled in for their holiday.
This is Harold’s cottage now. Hers, too. His uncle died and left him a surprisingly comfortable inheritance. Not nearly enough to live on for the rest of their lives, but enough to make some substantial changes and improvements. Already, even though Harold won’t receive the bulk of the estate until next year, she’s been making plans with that money. She hasn’t shared these ideas with him. Whenever they talk about plans and the future, it turns into a quarrel. Plans make Harold panic.
Grinning, Harold waves at her. She yawns when she waves back. In the aftermath of sex she tends to gets drowsy.
He stands up. The way the early afternoon sun hits his golden curls and his broad, sculpted shoulders makes him look like Apollo, the Greek god of the sun. Then he ruins the moment. Jumping awkwardly into the insanely large private lake, without the slightest hint of poise, Harold is more buffoon than god.
The glare from the sky gets in her eyes, so she reaches into her handbag. She finds her sunglasses and puts them on.
She watches Harold swim. It occurs to her that he swims like he lives: randomly, with no style and no plan.
Planning out her life makes her feel safe, secure. Lack of planning makes her tense and withdrawn.
Veronica’s career is on the right path. She was recently given a promotion at the marketing firm. In the last five years, she’s received three substantial raises. She worked hard and planned carefully to earn those rewards. She wants to make partner, and she’ll make it happen.
Harold is the store manager for the main outlet of a local independent CD chain. He makes less than twice minimum wage; there’s no higher to climb on that miniature corporate ladder; and he has no further ambition. He’s been working at that same store for the twelve years they’ve been together. At 22, she’d hadn’t had the foresight to imagine how things would play out, given how different the two of them were. How different they still are. More different than ever, maybe. Harold was just this tall, easy-going, goofy-charming, nice guy who kissed better than anyone. Sure, she’d fallen in love. Sure, she married him.
Look at him. He’s not even trying to use any technique. Couldn’t he at least attempt a breaststroke? Or a front crawl? Or even a dog paddle? No – he’s just splashing around, barely keeping afloat. He can’t even tread water reliably. Sometimes, he can appear to be such a moron, and she forgets that she loves him.
The ironic thing is that Harold adores the water; it’s almost mystical the attraction it has for him. But he doesn’t know how to swim properly. Harold’s like that about everything. He’s never managed to learn anything. He loves music, and knows more trivia than anyone should ever care about, but he can’t hold a tune, read sheet music, or play an instrument.
It’s not about how things work, he says, it’s more important how they live in your imagination. Whatever that means. Sounds like a rationalization for laziness to her.
And yet, Harold isn’t exactly lazy. He does more than his share of chores with no complaints. He’s dedicated to his dead-end job. He even exercises: goes running every morning before Veronica wakes up, then rouses her with vigorous, sweaty sex. She likes that. Always starting the day off with a bang. Or two, sometimes.
The nice thing about Harold is that he genuinely likes women. Most men say they do, but they don’t, not really.
Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em
is a motto most guys don’t admit to anymore, but they think it anyway. She notices it in their lack of empathy, their impatience with anything they can’t immediately grasp – like a woman’s point of view. Like a woman’s way of doing things.
Harold is different. He’s endlessly fascinated by women. He reads mostly female authors – fiction, philosophy, feminism, memoirs, you name it. His favourite singers and musicians include a large number of women – not the teenybopper dance vixens, but real musicians, including jazz players, composers, punks, rockers, and a lot of hard to classify crossgenre iconoclasts – most of whom Veronica had never heard of before. He has a keen eye for picking just the right clothes and jewellery for her – often stuff she would never have thought of trying herself.
And Harold’s kissing ... not like a prelude to something else, but like the kiss itself is what matters. Like the taste of a woman in his mouth is most delicious taste ever.
Like the taste of Veronica is the most delicious taste ever.
Yet, she’s been wondering whether she should call it quits with Harold.
Really, she should have left years ago. But Harold is affectionate and strong and steadfast. It’s a comfortable life.
She wants more. Maybe this money will make life a bit better, but Harold himself won’t change. He won’t suddenly start dressing sharply. Start a new career that’ll take him places. Learn something that might enrich both their lives in a substantial fashion. She’d settle for being shocked. Sometimes, she fantasizes that Harold is keeping a dark secret that, once revealed, would entirely change the way she thinks of him and their life together.
When Veronica isn’t nestled in the coziness of their home, she often finds herself embarrassed by her marriage to Harold. She might be alone running errands, or taking a walk with him, or having dinner with friends, or speaking with co-workers, and then it hits her. Shame. Inadequacy. Everyone else their age seems so adult, like Veronica wants to be. But she feels stunted by Harold’s permanent, incurable adolescence.
In the past two years, she’s had three affairs. Harold doesn’t know. It would devastate him. Well, two of them would. The third one would probably make him excited, and maybe just a little wounded that he wasn’t included. Her yoga instructor, Ingrid.
The other two, though – it would be cruel to ever tell him. There was Tim, an ambitious and sleek colleague who’d been on loan from the London office. If he hadn’t been married, she’d have seriously considered leaving Harold for him. Then there was Gustave, a burly and completely inappropriate man whom she’d met at the gym; he was too rough with her, and his attitudes about women were pre- Cambrian, but he’d made her come – with her screaming like a porn starlet – harder than anyone ever had. As skillful as Harold was, he’d never made her scream. Still, sex wasn’t everything, and she could barely stand Gustave’s company unless his cock was ramming into her. That one had ended only a few weeks ago.
What’s all that commotion? Oh.
Is he...?
Yes, Harold’s in trouble. His arms are flailing too nervously to do him any good; he’s gulping in more water than he can cough out; and he’s too far from either the pier or the shore.
Mmm. She hadn’t planned this ... but she’s not entirely inflexible. Harold should be proud: he’s constantly bugging her to be more flexible and spontaneous.
Veronica stays still. Behind her sunglasses, for all Harold knows, she’s fallen asleep.
She watches him try to swim to safety. It doesn’t seem likely that he’ll succeed.
Diptych
Tableau 1: The View from the Outside
Marlyse brushed her lips against Jackson’s, closed her eyes, held her breath as she moved her mouth across his cheek, then exhaled moistly into his ear, whispering in her subtly French-accented voice, “You look so much like him.” Her fingernails dug into the flesh of his forearms, hurting him; but he didn’t show it. She disengaged abruptly and turned away from him without another gesture, without another word – as if he were not a person but a thing.
He’d never met her before today; he hadn’t even known she existed until very recently. Yet, as she climbed into her small green automobile, the back seat stuffed with the boxes he’d helped her carry down from what used to be her and Luke’s condo, he felt his heart break; before that moment, he had believed that expression was only metaphorical. It was a painful physical experience, a cavernous ache that, right then, he was convinced could never be mended.
Jackson wanted Marlyse. But he knew, too, that his desire was not really for her, his brother’s petite émigrée with long, flowing dark hair; no, he yearned for intimate knowledge of his brother’s life. Nevertheless, the fantasy unspooled in Jackson’s mind. He ripped off her thin dress, revealing that she wore nothing beneath. Reaching between her legs, he cupped her tiny ass and hoisted her over his shoulder. He threw her on the hood of the car, pushed apart her thighs, and violently explored her cunt and anus with his lips, tongue, and teeth. The sound of the departing car’s engine jarred him out of his erotic daydream before it got any further.
Jackson wanted to be disgusted at himself, but instead he felt alive, raw, masculine. He was a tender lover – too gentle, according to his ex-wife. Even his taste in porn ran to nothing more risqué than full nudes posing coyly. He’d never had such a brutal, animalistic urge toward a woman before. The fantasy, and especially the thrilling intensity with which its images and sensations still roiled within him, perturbed his sense of identity. Loath to diminish the moment with self-indulgent introspection, Jackson did not question this newfound dichotomy.
He reached into his pants pocket and took out his new set of keys. He turned around and made his way up to his recently deceased brother’s condo.
Tableau 2: The View from the Inside
The condo’s top floor was divided into two rooms: a large bedroom dominated by a king-size bed, with a bookcase that had been partially gutted by Marlyse (not that Jackson cared, he’d never been a reader) and an armchair positioned to take maximum advantage of the brightness that flooded from the skylight; and a second room that had already been completely emptied – the smell of fresh paint wafted from its bare and spotless walls. Holding on to the railing at the top of the stairs, Jackson scanned the floor below, an open-concept loft area on the walls of which hung Luke’s paintings. Jackson’s older brother had been a mildly popular artist but a successful set designer. Jackson had followed his career, grateful for the internet, which made it easier to stalk his sibling from the distance Luke had stubbornly refused to bridge.
Jackson walked down the stairs and noticed a thick, well-thumbed notebook on the long table facing the couch. It hadn’t been there earlier, when he’d helped Marlyse move out her last remaining possessions. She must have left it there for him. Jackson sat on the couch and picked up the book.
The cover was black and bare, but the first page revealed what it was, in bold letters written in marker: LUKE’S DIARY. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to read its contents. He hadn’t seen Luke in more than twenty years, since his older brother had left home at the age of eighteen. Their parents, with Jackson’s help, had planned a huge surprise birthday party, inviting both family and friends of Luke’s, but Luke never showed up. His girlfriend, Natasha, was supposed to bring him, but instead they both failed to show.
The next day, both sets of parents had planned to go to the police station to file a joint report. But a postcard arrived in the mail, signed by Luke and Natasha. It was terse: “Goodbye. Good riddance.”
Natasha came back six months later, broke, heartbroken, and desperate. Her parents refused to take her in, but Jackson’s parents offered her Luke’s old room in exchange for her help around the house. She rarely emerged from the refuge of her room, never made any noise or trouble, spent much of her time reading and writing. Soon, she was preparing most of the meals; she was a fantastic cook, while neither of Jackson’s parents had ever shown any skill in the kitchen. Jackson’s parents were too timid to ask after Luke, but he pestered her. But all she’d tell him was that Luke was okay, not to worry about him, but that he was a selfish bastard who was unable to care about anyone but himself and that they were all better off without him. Next autumn, she went away to school. They never saw her again, but annually she sent the family a postcard for the New Year.
Jackson never understood what had motivated his older brother to sever all ties with the family. Their parents were dull, yes, but they’d always been caring. They were good people. He’d heard enough horror stories from friends to understand how fortunate he and Luke had been.
Facing the couch, two paintings of a seashore hung on the wall: the same view at dawn and at dusk. Jackson got up to examine his brother’s other works. All of them had something to do with water. But Jackson knew that already. He’d read reviews of Luke’s gallery showings. Whenever he could manage it, he’d even drive to Chicago, where his brother had lived since fleeing the family, to view Luke’s new paintings, but he’d avoided premiere nights. He didn’t want to cause a scene, even inadvertently. Luke had never responded to any of the letters Jackson had sent, nor to any of the messages he’d left on his voicemail.
The first time Jackson had gone to one of Luke’s shows, he’d offered to bring his parents, but they refused, panic flashing across their faces. He never troubled them with that again.
Jackson returned to the couch and opened his brother’s diary. Half an hour later, he put it down, disappointed. Much of it was written in an illegible scrawl, and even the parts he could make out mentioned people he’d never heard of and contexts he could not understand. The diary offered him no insight into the life of his brother.
Why had Luke left him anything? Despite their shared childhood, they had been estranged for so long. And yet, this condo now belonged to him, mortgage-free, as did everything Marlyse had left behind. He also owned the rights to Luke’s works.
It was as if he’d stepped into another life, another reality. None of this felt real. He had yet to inform his parents of Luke’s early death.
He stood again in front of the diptych. There were no people in the scenes – just the beach, the waves, the sky, and the sea. The pictures radiated a palpable yearning, and for an instant Jackson intuited something profound about his brother, but when he tried to articulate it the insight dissipated, as if it had been nothing but a mirage.
