This All Happened(27)

            17 Lydia doesnt feel free to see other men, feels that I’m uncomfortable whenever she’s around a man. We were drinking cognac on my bed. She said she just wants it fair on both sides. I’m free to have lunch with someone I’ve had an erotic dream about (Alex) or share writing with Maisie, I live with Iris, but Lydia doesnt have the same freedom.

            I want to bring up dinner and rehearsals with Wilf, but this is too obvious.

            I said, I want you to do what you feel like. It’s true, I’ve felt jealous. Not all the time, just sometimes.

            Kissing me, she tells me a crewneck will get me laid before a turtleneck. How I like her making sure my shirt front is done up while my sleeves are unbuttoned.

            Lydia: If you find your cuffs are still buttoned, do you feel sad that I havent released you?

            Yes.

            18 I love Lydia. I love all her harbours and coastlines and high tides and contour lines and all four compass points of her body and the interior landscape of her brain and how the trail blazes through her and I want to thread her needle and sew up a life together and be scared with her and silly and stupid and profound and come to some understanding some kind of substantial truth on this shaky ground of living near the middle of our lives.

            19 Maisie Pye has pressed her nose to the window in my porch door. She is wearing a blue-and-orange silk blouse buttoned loose to her chest. It’s freezing out. I often forget to look at her. I talk to her but never look at her. But now that she’s not with Oliver I give her a look. She is small, a little awkward in her elbows and knees. Sometimes her smile slides up the side of her face.

            We have a drink in the living room.

            Maisie’s confidence makes me shy. She’s intellectual and she’s a good laugh. I must gather evidence on how she tries to express herself, her kindness, her appreciation of other people, not confrontational but sharing.

            We have another drink.

            Maisie: What happened to us, Gabe?

            And I know she is talking about ten years ago. When everything was different.

            We were both seeing other people, Maisie.

            Maisie: I’m thinking now that it was a mistake. You should have been bold.

            Me: And hang the consequences.

            Maisie: We should not have been devoted to the idea of fidelity.

            Her face, a strong personal beauty. When I first met her, she had plump cheeks. But these have gone. As has her time with Oliver. Maisie is remembering her life prior to Oliver.

            20 Lydia suspects I’ve been drinking, but I’m just loose. I want to run at the mouth, I want to be free to do anything, say anything, have anything happen, accept all consequences, embrace possibility, ramble on into the night. Lydia is wrapped up in a red tam and scarf and gloves. She has left the car running and says, Youre late. I decide to ignore things that usually irritate me. I try not to be sensitive. I want to be big.

            I try coaxing her.

            I ask, just to be provocative, Am I inside you? In here? Heart.

            She says, I dont know.

            This does not stun me. It makes me even more relaxed. Honesty. Lydia feels distant, asks if I feel it. I’m thinking she means do I feel distant too, and I dont, I feel the immediacy of life ticking on around me she means do I feel her distance. Yes. She hasnt felt connected to me.

            She doesnt feel as sexual as she usually does, and this has never happened to her before, not to this extent. A general lack of sexiness.

            Me: Is it related to me directly, or do you feel sexual to others?