Yearning (25 page)

And she had to keep reminding herself that Solomon had never tried to look her up. He hadn’t even admitted he’d wanted to. He seemed to welcome contact with her now, but so far he’d revealed little about what he’d been
up to in the last twenty-five years. Had there been other women? Surely there had. Where were they now? He was still unmarried, still living alone, and still so far out of her reach. He’d given no indication he felt anything for her but a nostalgic fondness. Had he been wondering about her all these years, holding out for her until she made contact with him again? Or was she just deluded? She felt branded by him, as if he’d stamped an invisible tag on her rump, and she cursed herself for being unable to forget her savage passion for him. Twenty-five years on and she was still as gullible to the idea of loving him as she was when he first touched her.

On the pad her pen made smaller and smaller circles. Words crowded in her fingers. She began to write.

I am unravelling. It began a long time ago with a golden thread from the tight ball of love I wound around your heart. Over the years I held onto that thread, knowing it would leave a shining trail, tracing my path back to you. Now it’s tugging at me, urging me to find you again. I follow the thread only to find the end dangling uselessly among sorry stars. Stars you breathed out only moments ago.

So what am I to do with this moment now? Where am I to put it when the thread has run out and you are gone? Without a mark or a dwelling place, the moment is lost and so am I.

In her chest she felt a familiar hollow pain, heartache. She’d been so stupid with him, she’d been so young. He had lifted her up and made her feel like something
precious, had made her glitter inside like a diamond. But all her questions were still unanswered and she couldn’t bring herself to ask him now. He wouldn’t give her the chance. He always cleverly redirected her at the edge of that conversation. He would probably always leave her guessing.

She remembered reading somewhere that glass is liquid, that if you hold your finger against it long enough, for hundreds of years, eventually you will penetrate it. After hundreds of years old glass thickens at the bottom like a middle-aged man. She wondered if Solomon’s resistance to her was like glass, that if she held her passion to him long enough perhaps she would finally penetrate him. It was divine torture, this yearning that had followed her through all the long years. His name was forever whispering through her blood.

Max snored noisily beside her as she climbed reluctantly back into their bed. She was guilty of the fever in her body, wanting to blame it on the weather or the baby, yet knowing it was desire that evoked this sickness in her.

Suddenly the sound of her mobile phone rang, loud in the stillness. Even though she was awake the unexpectedness of it made her jump. Max grunted and rolled over. She slid gently out of bed and hurried back to the kitchen, glancing at the clock. One o’clock in the morning. It had to be a wrong number. By the time she’d reached the phone, it had rung out. She peered at the glowing screen.

1 missed call

Solomon

1:04 am 2 Aug

She caught her breath. A tangle of questions tumbled through her mind. Solomon? Why? Why was he calling her in the middle of the night? Should she respond? Shouldn’t she?

The baby shifted inside her, putting pressure on her bladder. She paced to the toilet in time with the throbbing of her pulse, vibrant with blood and fear. Returning his phone call at this time of night would be tricky, she’d wake Max for sure. A text message perhaps? Just to let him know she got the call? She knew she should let it go but something within her wouldn’t allow it. Picking up the phone she pressed out a message.

sorry missed your call. r u ok?

Minutes passed. She switched the phone to vibrate. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she felt it shiver against her fingers. Solomon’s name lit up the screen like a tiny ghost.

All cool. Just up late & thinking of u.

She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and replied immediately, a harmless response in a conversation between two sleepless people. That was okay. She couldn’t get into trouble for that.

I cant sleep. Love 2 talk but a bit hard. Was thinking of u 2. What r u up 2?

She took the phone to the relative warmth of the lounge where the fire was dying and waited. Through the window she watched stars shimmering in the wild wind. She stirred the coals and put on another lump of wood. Anticipation warmed her from the inside.

Fifteen minutes passed. She watched the phone lying dark and silent on the coffee table. Why didn’t he respond? She tried to imagine him. Where was he? What was he thinking about? Why didn’t he answer? She wondered if she should just go back to bed but curiosity gnawed at her better judgement. Flipping the phone open she sent another message.

Do u want 2 talk?

The reply came quickly.

I want to make love with you. X

The shock of it floored her. It was so direct. So out of the blue. So wrong. So . . . tempting.

She stared helplessly at the phone. This was no longer an innocent conversation she could excuse. The choice loomed large and immediate. As she swayed under the weight of it the frayed inner binds tying her to Max began to give way.

What to say, what to say? She told herself to ignore it. Go back to bed. You can’t do this, she thought, you can’t. Solomon’s words were awash in her recently recalled memories of satin hands and warm breath, moments that should have been long forgotten. She feared if she
hesitated too long the chance might be lost. She agonised with indecision.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. A gust of wind whipped branches against the window.

I can’t not.

She picked up the phone, pressing the numbers urgently.

You made me blush : ) I’d love to.

Her heart pounded as she waited for the buzz.

Can you go somewhere quiet? Now?

Shit! Did he know what he was asking of her? Surely he knew. In a home filled with the quiet of a sleeping child and husband, where could she go? She walked across the lounge into the kitchen, picked up her teacup and put it absently on the drainer. She sat at the kitchen table and stared at the text message. An old-fashioned fluorescent light buzzed over her head. Moths clapped against the kitchen window, trying desperately to reach the brilliance behind the glass. She hated that light. She hated the noise and mess those stupid moths made. She got up and turned the light off. The only light in the kitchen now was the pale blue glow of the mobile phone screen.

Where could she go that was quiet enough?

The sunroom, at the back of the house. It was away from the bedrooms. There was a couch there. It was all windows. It would be cold, but she could take a sleeping bag for warmth.

Time spun on and she was afraid her chance would
pass. Barely believing her own audacity she got up and tiptoed into the hallway to the linen cupboard. The sleeping bags were squashed down at the bottom, under a brittle picnic basket. She groaned with the effort of crouching, leaning sideways past her belly to yank the sleeping bag from its lodging place. The basket fell to the floor with a clatter. She held her breath. Nothing stirred in the house but draughts of wind creeping through the gaps in the window frames. She closed the cupboard gently and clasped the sleeping bag close to her chest. On her way to the back of the house she collected the phone from the kitchen table. The sunroom door closed behind her. Moonlight melted over the tatty couch, turning its grubby green to a soft grey. She turned on the electric heater, arranged herself on the couch and texted him back.

I’m ready.

Solomon’s name lit up her face as the phone buzzed silently. She answered with fright and desire wrestling in her stomach.

‘Hi.’

‘Hey.’ He paused. ‘Talk to me, babe.’

She sighed at the sound of his old pet name for her. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’ve never done this before.’

‘What are you wearing?’

She felt the warmth of her flannel pyjamas and lied. ‘Something silky and short, thin shoulder straps.’

‘Sounds delicious. I’d like to watch it slide it off you and fall to the floor. I’d love to see your beautiful body again.’

She giggled at the instant and familiar intimacy of him. ‘I’m a bit fat at the moment.’

‘No, no, you’re perfect. Pregnant women are very sexy. All woman.’

She was smiling and flattered. ‘You think so?’

‘I’ve always thought so.’

She could almost taste him he sounded so close.

‘What do you want, babe? If I were there what would you like me to do for you?’

She sighed. Solomon was the only man who’d ever asked her that. All the others (and there hadn’t been that many) had never bothered to ask, they’d just taken what they wanted. The phone shook a little against her ear. She knew she was doing wrong, but she was too excited to stop.

‘Kiss me.’

‘Where?’

‘In my favourite places. Do you remember?’

His voice was low. ‘Your neck. Your long, beautiful neck. I remember the milky softness of your skin.’

‘I loved your kisses.’ She paused. ‘I’ve missed your kisses.’

‘I want you to close your eyes and think of me. Take your hand and touch yourself. Just the way I would if I were there with you.’

She sighed deeply as she caressed the dip at the base of her throat. She drifted her fingers lightly down her torso until they reached the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

‘Do you like it, babe?’

‘God, Solomon, it’s all I’ve thought about for over twenty years.’

A deep rumble of a laugh.

‘Solomon?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Do you really remember me? I mean, have you always remembered me?’

He laughed again. ‘More and more each time I see you.’

‘I thought you might have forgotten me.’

His voice, low and growling like a wolf, made her shudder with pleasure. ‘I could never forget you, babe. Do something for me, for old time’s sake?’

She listened. As he spoke, as she followed his instructions, memories that had been long buried within her body, resurfaced. His caress, gentle as a whisper against her skin; the long moments of anticipation when he barely touched her at all; her heat rising to boiling point before he gave in to her pleading.

She was edgy, afraid her moaning would wake Max and he would come to investigate and find her there, sprawled and wanton across the old couch. But it wasn’t enough to stop her. Her desire for Solomon drove her deeper, longer into the dark. She panted into the phone, lying breathless across the couch, one hand reaching around her swollen belly to stroke the velvet between her legs, the other pressing the phone hard to her ear. The guilty part of her felt disconnected, as though she were watching herself from a distance, watching as she invited him in, as she surrendered to the longing that burned her from within.

Solomon’s voice drew him close to her, so close she imagined she could smell the smokiness of his breath and the sandalwood incense she knew would be burning by his bed. His voice wandered over her body. Those secret places marked by his touch in that twilight night,
when she was unripe and sixteen, came alive at the sound of his voice.

‘You need a devil,’ he whispered.

‘I need a god,’ she breathed.

‘You need a devil and a god.’

Somewhere in that deep endless night she knew he was right. But where was such a creature to be found? She dared herself to believe that Solomon might be the one.

In short gulps she described the imagined joys of taking him into her mouth. His rising excitement fueled her appetite for him. She felt sensation building as he moaned into the phone. She wanted this so badly, to satisfy him, to bring him to a luscious orgasm and hear him groaning, all because of her.

A bright light flashing from the phone startled her. She was writhing under the doona and it took her a moment to realise the connection had dropped out. Desperate, she tried to call him back but every attempt failed. Call not connected. The screen was blank.

Slowly she became aware of the violet semi-darkness and the silence in the house. It was after four in the morning and she was adrift, utterly alone, her skin burning and singing under the ever vigilant moon.

Joshua woke her early. She staggered out of bed and found reality tilted, as though everything had been pushed sideways. Recalling what she’d been doing only a few hours before she wondered what had possessed her. Did what she’d done with Solomon constitute cheating? Was she having an affair? If there was no physical contact, no technical adultery, did it count? Was it any more unfaithful than Max ogling the girlie magazines he kept behind the paint tins in the shed? It was. She knew it as surely as she recognised the rat of guilt gnawing into the happiness of being reunited with Solomon, but she didn’t want to believe it.

She bit her nails as Max packed his tools. She felt guilty and exposed, as if a thief had passed through during the night and turned out her bedside drawers, scattering her diaries and underwear all over the floor for everyone to see. She was desperately tired, but tried to cover it up, hoping Max wouldn’t notice her dreamy exhaustion. She sat at the kitchen table in her dressing gown and watched Josh mash banana and cornflakes together with his hands.
Normally she’d stop him, but she was so preoccupied she barely noticed him.

If this was an affair with Solomon, it wasn’t the affair she’d dreamed of. She was married, and that had never figured in the picture. In her diarised versions of their meeting she was free, and so was Solomon. She’d imagined Solomon taking her in his arms and declaring that he’d always loved her, that they should be together. They made plans to find a house, maybe by the ocean. They made love over and over again, they travelled and talked. It was a future she imagined with Solomon, not a cheap affair. She wondered what he wanted from her. Last night he said he’d never forgotten her. She remembered that. ‘I’ve never forgotten you, babe.’ That’s what he’d said. Perhaps, underneath, he loved her after all.