But Benton was so different I still could not quite believe it. Our male and female pieces had interlocked in a manner unparalleled and unfamiliar, for it was as if he was the other side of me. Or maybe we were the same.
I did not quite know what I had expected, and certainly I had imagined us together long before we were. He would be soft beneath his hard reserve, like a warrior sleepy and warm in a hammock tethered between mighty trees. But when we had begun to touch on the porch in the early morning, his hands had surprised me.
As his fingers undid clothing and found me, they moved as if they knew a woman’s body as well as a woman did, and I felt more than his passion. I felt his empathy, as if he wanted to heal those places he had seen so hated and harmed. He seemed sorrowed by everyone who had ever raped or battered or been unkind–as if their collective sins had cost him the right to enjoy a woman’s body as he was enjoying mine.
I had told him in bed that I had never known a man to truly enjoy a woman’s body, that I did not like to be devoured or overpowered, which was why sex for me was rare.
“I can see why anyone would want to devour your body,” he matter-of-factly had said in the dark.
“I can see why anyone would want to devour yours,” I said with candor, too.
“But people overpowering people is why you and I have the work we do.”
“Then we won’t use devour and overpower anymore. No more words like that. We’ll come up with a new language.” The words of our new language came easily, and we had gotten fluent fast.
I felt much improved after my bath and rummaged through my carry-on bag for something new and different to wear. But that was an impossibility, and I put on the deep blue jacket, pants, and turtleneck sweater I had been wearing for days. The bottle of Scotch was low, and I sipped slowly as I watched the national news. Several times I thought of calling Marino’s room, only to put the receiver down before I dialed.
My thoughts traveled north to Newport, and I wanted to talk to Lucy. I resisted that impulse, too. If I could get through, it would not be good for her. She needed to concentrate on her treatment and not on what she had left at home. I called my mother instead.
“Dorothy’s staying the night up there in the Marriott and flying back to Miami in the morning,” she told me.
“Katie, where are you? I’ve been trying you at home all day.”
“I’m on the road,” I said.
“Well, a lot that says. All this cloak-and-dagger stuff you do. But you would think you could tell your mother.”
I could see her in my mind puffing a cigarette and holding the phone. My mother liked big earrings and bright makeup, and she did not look northern Italian like I did. She was not fair.
“Mother, how is Lucy? What has Dorothy said?”
“She says Lucy’s queer, for one thing, and she blames it on you. I told her that was ridiculous. I told her just because you’re never with men and probably don’t like sex doesn’t mean you’re a homo. It’s the same thing with nuns. Though I’ve heard the rumors” — “Mother,” I interrupted, “is Lucy okay? How was the trip to Edgehill? What was her demeanor? ”
“What? She’s a witness now? Her demeanor? The way you talk to your simple mother and don’t even realize. She got drunk on the way up, if you want to know.”
“I don’t believe it!” I said, furious with Dorothy yet again.
“I thought the point of Lucy being with her mother was so something like that wouldn’t happen. ”
“Dorothy says that unless Lucy was drunk when they put her in detox, insurance won’t pay. So Lucy drank screwdrivers on the plane the entire trip.”
“I don’t give a damn if insurance pays. And Dorothy isn’t exactly poor.”
“You know how she is about money.”