“Always ask permission first.”
THE RIDE TOhis cabin is short but blisteringly long. My fingers crawl over his thigh as he drives, and when we get there, I practically run inside. He closes the door behind me, and I jump. When I turn, he says, “We don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.” I set my jacket and bag on his table.
He undoes the buckle of his duty belt, laying it beside my things.
A couple of lamps burn in their respective corners, but the trees block the sun from the windows, leaving the inside dark and cozy. Henry always kept the can lights on, not just a lamp or a dimmer, as if I were being interrogated. He wanted to see every ounce of pain written across my face, wanted to watch the color drain from my skin, see it bruise beneath his fingers in real time. I look up and note that Regis doesn’t have a ceiling light in his living room, just a fan. I back into the room, waiting.
“The bedroom is this way.” He gestures to the left, where a darkened doorway yawns. I know this already, but we are suddenly bashful, awkward with each other.
I shake my head. “I like it here.”
Henry didn’t tolerate sex outside the bedroom. Everything had to be ordered, exact, in its place. The few times he broke that rule, it was not for pleasure but for power, to hurt me. I don’t ever want to share a bed again.
He lowers his eyes and steps into the room. “Okay.”
We stand there, neither knowing which move to make first. Until finally, I take a breath and step up to him, pulling apart the snaps of his shirt one by one. I can’t remember the last time I undressed a man. His body is tight beneath my fingers, a barely perceptible tremble running over him. I like that he lets me take my time without interfering. I slide his shirt off his shoulders and let the heavy fabric drop to the floor. Then I tug at his waistline, pulling up the dark undershirt, peeling it off him. He watches me as I trace circles across his chest, a thin map of hair over the lean muscles, trailing delicately down his abdomen. Our eyes meet and I lean forward, pressing my lips to one side and then another. He smells like soap and pine needles, fresh, an indefinable layer underneath, warm as baked earth. I run my hands over his shoulders and down his long arms, across the ridges of his stomach, and watch his flesh rise with goose bumps. By the time I unbutton his pants, his mouth is slack with need, his eyelids at half-mast, every contour of his body straining toward me. But still, he holds back, letting me explore.
As I unzip him, his blood rises, firm and ready, and when I slide my hand over his thighs, the bulge waiting there, he catches my wrist.
“Please,” he begs, voice thin.
I tilt my head up, inviting, and his lips burn against my own. He undresses me slowly, grazing my skin with his fingers, as if I might shatter under too much pressure. Everywhere he passes my body comes alive beneath his touch, returning to me—the round of my left breast, the cinch of my waist, the stretch of my neck. Pieces that were taken in the night are brought back, restored, made new, as if he is stitching me together. The feeling returning to limbs choked off by fear, bloodless and numb. I am waking from a nightmare to a dream. I rub my skin against his, wanting to feel him everywhere, to wear him like a coat. He throbs against me, the pulse I do not have.
We stumble hungrily to the couch where he lays me back,parting me down the middle like water, drinking me in. I evaporate in his mouth and reassemble, quivering like a fawn, a new woman.
When he finally slides into me, I have never wanted anything so much.
19Four Don’ts
Their faces are slack and pale when I enter the room, white as chalk. They huddle in a semicircle around Aunt Myrtle’s thirty-two-inch television panel, silent. I didn’t realize they were up yet, or even still here. Though I suppose I didn’t expect they would leave before 8A.M., considering how many of those toddies Myrtle kept passing around. The news is on, but I’m not really hearing whatever the reporter is saying because I’m taking in the room—the long faces, the half-drunk cups of coffee, the occasional worried glance. Even Rowena, Aunt Bella’s pet chicken, seems distracted by the screen, pecking feverishly at the air before it.
“Is something wrong?” I finally ask from the doorway to the kitchen.
They all turn at once, a theater of mimes, their eyes falling on me with mute accusation. Aunt Myrtle looks sick to her stomach.
“What is it?”
“Where have you been?” Rose hisses.
Before I can mumble an excuse, Donna tsks from her chair and shakes her head, and Azalea’s wide eyes slip from mine to the TV screen. That’s when the picture and audio come into focus.
“The death was caused by phytolaccagenin toxicity from pokeweed berries, a poisonous perennial once used medicinally by Native Americans. Doctors say the man would have consumed a sizable amount to experience such dramatic symptoms, though very little matter was found in his stomach, likely owing to theprodigious vomiting. Who took his car and why is still under investigation. Ted?”
“Thank you, Nancy…” Ted says with a plastic smile.
Don.I gulp and meet their eyes. “You don’t understand—”
“Oh, I think we do,” Rose says, rising.
“You lied to us,” Lattie shakes out through clenched teeth.
“No, I didn’t lie.”
“Piers, how could you?” Myrtle asks. It is her look of disappointment that breaks me inside. I’ve betrayed her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I—I can explain,” I try to tell them.
