The Big Dream (20 page)

She doubled underneath the duvet to remove her flesh-toned, flesh-shaping, unerotic panties, kicking them out the far side of the bed. When she emerged, he was beside her and she reached up and the duvet slid down and he saw her breasts and they were beautiful, and then he pressed on top of her and she flattened out beneath him and her beautiful breasts gritted on his perfect grey-and-chestnut chest hair. He pressed his mouth to the curve below her ear, and his penis to the curve below her stomach, and she kissed his hair and rubbed against his hip, and they were like that for a long time. His tongue in her mouth in hers in his. His palm at her ribcage, his fingers on her shoulder blades.

Suddenly, perfectly, in nearly a single movement, they both drew back, rolled apart, her reaching for the box in the bedside drawer, him scrambling into the chill of the room for his wallet twisted in his pants. Both thought warmly, dreamily, of the naïve and hopeful fools they'd been that afternoon, averting their eyes while setting down condom packets in front of jaded cashiers in two Shoppers Drug Marts miles apart. They'd both bought the same brand, though they would never know.

They used hers. She kissed his throat, belly, hip, foreskin, before all the steps of squeezing out air and rolling rubber gently down. They would never know each other's dead parents, he would never meet her estranged sister, she would never befriend his rebellious furious children; they could only have so much and even then they knew it.

Slicked, sheathed,
safe,
he looked at her eyes and didn't feel safe. He felt a spiral of vertigo, because her eyes could've been hazel or navy in that dim room, and he didn't know but wanted to be inside her with a longing that covered any colour her eyes could possibly be, all the flavours of yoghurt and religious practices and arguments with her sister and work-life imbalances and ugly bathing suits she could ever consider. He was scared he knew nothing about her and would want her under any circumstances.

She lay on the sheets where she had been with men she didn't take her bra off for, or even her blouse, once, and she had been meek and casual as they left in the dark. It was a bland pale room and he improved it, his crumpled charcoal pants and hairy unsmooth chest and the clinkless belt and the unjoined earlobes swinging free, her genetic opposite. She wanted to absorb it all, hair and finance and suavity at parties and awkwardness in cars. She wanted to devour his driver's license.

He slipped inside her, she slipped inside him, their stomachs tight and slick together.

It could never be put into words, what they desired.

She said his name, loudly, an almost-wail as they began to move. He clutched her and said her name.

These were the words they said, all they could say to cover each other that night and the nights that would come after, if any ever could.

SANJEET WAS LOST in a tangle of bodies and mist from dry ice and sweat and terrible music. The male vocalist whined that everyone should wave their hands around, the drum machine sounded aggressively unlike a drum, and Sanjeet finally spotted Mark. The chief executive officer of Dream Inc. Canada was leaning against a wall in a fire-exit hall at the back of the club. The flash off the disco ball illuminated his face pale and silvery. Sanjeet stood a good distance away, at the mouth of the hall, but he could see that Mark's eyes were closed.

The young woman at the CEO's feet had long slippery straight hair – he couldn't make out the colour, because every flash from the main room dyed it green or purple. She was looking up at Mark's face from waist-level while she pushed her hair back and, Sanjeet could have sworn, wiped her mouth. After a moment, without Mark opening his eyes, she grabbed his limp hand and pulled herself up. Her tiny skirt revealed a silver thong and a purple-flash ass.

By the time Sanjeet reached the couple, the music had changed to jagged rap over the same fake drum and the girl was tucked in close to Mark's pink-shirted chest (Sanjeet wondered what had happened to his chalk-stripe suit jacket). She was still clutching his hand. Mark might have been sleeping. The girl glanced at Sanjeet. Her lips gleamed when the light hit them – it could have been lip gloss, but Sanjeet was worried it was semen. He and Mark had a close working relationship, one that included the occasional too-much-party vomit, but never semen.

“Mark!”

His eyes opened, quicker than Sanjeet expected. “What?”

There were a million whats – leading the pack, what they would say in the “directional” meeting with their American parent-company's leadership first thing in the morning – but suddenly he felt as if he'd shown up in Mark's bedroom instead of the fire-exit hallway of an ugly club. “I'm going,” he said finally.

“What?”

He jerked his thumb at the door. “Seeya back at the hotel.” He took a step following his thumb.

“Going?” Mark grabbed his shoulder, digging like a crab-claw.

The girl gazed from one man to the other.

“Yeah, we got that thing in the morning, and then the flight . . . .” Sanjeet had hit on like 14 women, dancing well, smiling well, and gotten nowhere. At least he hadn't lost
his
jacket. He wanted to go back to the hotel and drink the minibar and sleep and wake up and have an entire plate full of bacon at the breakfast buffet. Then get to work.

Mark squirmed away from the female, staggered deeply and grabbed her bare shoulder for support. “If yer gonna go, um unna go too.” He turned to peer into the girl's face. “Whirr in
sepa
rable. Bess . . . colleagues. He goes, I gotta go. Yah unnerstand?”

“Yeah, that's nice.” She reached up and squeezed the hand on her shoulder, and then tugged it off. “Bye
.
” She turned down the hall to a door marked Fire Exit. No alarm bells went off when she went out.

Sanjeet turned to watch her go and then Mark threw his arms around his shoulders, leaning his full weight against his back. When Sanjeet twisted back, they were closer than they'd ever been before. “Are you really this drunk? Or were you roofied?”

Mark pressed his face into Sanjeet's shoulder. “I am this grunk,” he muttered through a mouthful of expensive fabric. “Are we really going to lose the company?”

The music had become a female moan. “I – ”Sanjeet pulled Mark's left arm until it was around his own shoulders, then began hauling him through the club “ – am not drunk enough for this conversation.”

They slept in and missed the breakfast buffet, and the meetings were grim, endless, and uncatered. Of course, O'Hare was a hot mess, as always – their flight was an hour delayed, the guy who checked their baggage was visibly holding back tears, and there was a pigeon in the foyer. They had some sort of business airline membership that entitled them to sit in a sealed-off glass room with comfortable chairs and drink tepid imported beers, but that was useless at eleven a.m. when you were hungry. Those lounges always had bits of cheese and grapes that were deflated on the underside. They went to a restaurant anyone could go to, instead.

Sanjeet read the menu as Mark muttered into his phone at his wife – Sanjeet could hear Devorah's squeaky snarl in between Mark's words. “Yes, we are. I said
yes.
No. Terrible. I really – don't want to go into it. I said
no.
K, goodbye.
Jesus.
I love you too.”

There was quiet music playing – while Mark redialed you could hear it. It had some sort of chimes and a heavy bass, haunting but tinny and faint. It took him a minute to locate the source – a laptop on the next table, guarded by a dark-haired woman bent so low over her work you couldn't even see if she was pretty. The lyrics – now that he was focused he could hear them – were about hanging around wearing bathing suits, but the low slow music was so dark. When she glanced up, he still couldn't peg her attractiveness, obscured by glasses and hair and the flush of finding him watching. She bent again and plugged in her earphones and he lost access to the sound and her face.

All morning, throughout his thoughtful recitation of their company's woes, through the insistence of head-office that the
Canadian team fold one of their major magazines and outsource the call centre – through it all, Mark had been hungover miserable and Jeet had carried him. But now they were alone, together, the flight was delayed, it was eleven a.m. on a Thursday, the restaurant wasn't even serving breakfast, and Mark was listening to the refracted ring on his inane wife's bejeweled Blackberry Pearl.

“She doesn't want to hear you say goodbye again. Put it away.” When Mark did, Sanjeet started immediately with, “I can't believe that with all this shit yesterday, overhead cuts and layoffs and looking like idiots, we take a break to get politely trashed and you not only forget to call Devorah, you find your second wind to fuck a teenager.” He took a breath as the waitress arrived. She was obviously herself a teenager and wide-eyed at these flabby, bed-headed, unshowered gentlemen in smoke-coloured suits wishing to fuck her. She set down the coffees.

“Thanks.” Mark took a gulp, winced. “Could we have some cream? And eggs?”

“I
told
you, sir, the breakfast stops at ten.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

The girl continued to stare, bellicose but uncertain too. “You ordered the chicken burger. Do you still want that?”

Mark's glossy black Boss shirt was three buttons undone, revealing chest hair. “Um, sure.”

“Ok.” She turned away slowly, as if they might jump her.

“To return to the topic at hand . . .” said Sanjeet.

Mark blinked hard. “To return to the topic at hand . . . what? We went to dinner, we went to that
stupid
club with the Australians – if there's any national heads in worse shape than us it's them. Ok, I got more than what
you'd
call ‘politely' trashed, but you're a born-again virgin, these days.”

Sanjeet's scalp crinkled in rage, but Mark kept talking. “And then back to the hotel to sleep it off. I don't remember every detail but I know I didn't . . .”

“Didn't get a blowjob in the back hallway from a 19-year-old?”

A bowl of dairy cuppets hit the table hard, and a two-percent bounced out. “Here you go!” It was hard to tell if the edge to the waitress's voice was nerves or rage.

“Thank you.” Sanjeet scooped up the milk before it rolled off the table.

She gave them a grim, appraising look before leaving.

Mark said slowly, almost hopefully, “I don't even remember hitting on anyone. I mean, I don't do that, right?” He tapped the phone.

Sanjeet sighed, peeled back the milk top and poured it into Mark's coffee. “Congratulations. Do you remember
anything
, though? If the whole evening's blank, I don't know how much you can really assert . . . .”

“I remember . . . music, dancing. I danced with that marketing lady . . . Pam?”

“Ok, the girl I saw kneeling by your dick did not look like she was from the direct-marketing division.”

“
Kneeling by my – ?
So where
did
she look like she was from?”

“High school.”

Mark smiled. “That doesn't sound like me . . . .”

Sanjeet rolled a creamer in his fingers. “Fine. You fucked a teenager when you were too drunk to remember it. You're 45, but I guess as the head of a foundering magazine concern, about to be sold for parts by the parent company, that's about right . . . .”

“Even if what you said is true, I didn't
fuck
her. A blow job . . .”

“I believe the technical term is
face-fucking.
”

“Weren't we born in the same year?” Mark slumped forward as the waitress arrived with the chicken burger and pizza. She thumped them down, then departed. “Aren't you COO of that same failed concern?”

“Oh, I know. We have to reach a 30% reduction in head count, make a restructuring plan.”

Mark picked up his burger. “The other was more interesting. But ok, let's work.”

Sanjeet held his fork up. “Is this a pepperoni?”

“I would assume so, yes. That's the logical circular meat to find on a pizza.”

“I ordered plain. I'm vegetarian this week. It's like a mini-cleanse.”

“Man, you just can't win. So, we gotta outsource the CSRs?”

Sanjeet pressed the fork tines against the edge of his plate until the meat slid off. “So you've heard nothing that's been said the last 18 hours, is what you're saying?”

Mark reached for the leather file folder lying on the table. “I'm here now, man.”