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Afterward, he curled next to me, his arm slung gently across my middle, his fingers absently fondling my breast, then tracing a path along the inside of my arm until his fingers reached mine and he curled them together. I waited until I was sure he was asleep before I let any tears fall; I might never tell another soul what I had done, but I knew definitively now exactly what I was capable of.
The birds were not yet chirping when I drowsed awake to the soft sounds of Nao Kao’s voice, whether a prayer, perhaps, to the gods for understanding, or merely a lament for what was not and never could be, or a brief moment of thankfulness, I do not know.
“You’re beautiful, Liss.”
His voice was so quiet it barely registered, but I stirred enough that now he felt me move and squeezed my hand in his. When I opened my eyes, I realized he had moved to the other side of me, so that we were almost nose-to-nose. Confusion registered on my face.
“I wanted to look at you. I like to watch you sleep.”
He pressed his index finger into the place where a deep dimple appeared when I smiled. If that was the award he awaited, he would not receive it this morning.
“It’s dark. You can’t see me,” I replied, half-angry and half-teasing. I wondered if he noticed the same sharp edge that I felt in my voice.
“It’s here,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “I don’t need my eyes to know.” He moved his hands along my body, moved his face toward mine to kiss me.
I turned away.
“Nao Kao, I think you should go.” My tone was firmer now, my voice set, my decision made.
“Come on, Liss. It’s not even light.”
“I want you to go. Now. I need to think.”
“Are we still on for the museum later?”
“Justgo.”
The door latched quietly behind him and I rolled into a ball and sobbed. I had been half in love with him for months. I had never felt so shitty.
NAO KAO
“What are youdoing?” Liss asked, and it was a reasonable question.
“Only what I’ve wanted to do for months,” I might have replied, had tried, in my way, to reply, but I couldn’t help but feel the trueness of my sentiments did not reach Liss as I wanted them to.
I’d never meant for things to turn out this way. I’d never meant to date another woman while I was here, to meet someone with whom I could converse until we ran out of words. When we made snow angels, I told my family; by the time we wandered through the Art Fairs, I studiously avoided any mention of “my American friend.” Whatever amusement members of my family might derive from my misadventures earlier this week on the Huron River, I knew I would never speak of it.
Maybe, if not for September 11, it might not have happened. But life is short, and if I hadn’t appreciated that before, over the course of a life begun in the shadow of war, the long arm of hunger and disease never too far from reach, I certainly appreciated it as we sat transfixed by the horror in New York. Even here in the relative safety of the American Midwest, ensconced in an ivy tower, you never know when your time will come.
I considered kissing her on September 11, pulling her to me as we sat on her couch, Peter Jennings narrating the previously unfathomable. That day held too much sadness, and rightly so. It needed the sadness.
Lying on the couch, replaying that devastating Holocaust movie in my mind, I couldn’t help but contrast the heaviness of the past week with the life and lightness of the woman clicking away on the other side of the wall.
If not now, when? I asked myself, and knocked lightly as soon as I noticed the rapid-fire typing had ceased. To my amazement, she was already under the covers.
You’re married, she had protested, the truth crystallizing in that moment. I’d been tempted once to joke with her about being on date, held back by the fear that the sentiment would appall her and that she would cut me out of her friendship circle completely and ruthlessly. Liss took marriage seriously. She planned her life so carefully: she would never understand how I had more or less stumbled into marriage.
“I want you,” I had replied, and the trueness of the statement caught the words in my throat as I spoke them. Those three words were inadequate to my meaning: you, physically, in this moment, yes, but also, you, all of you in all ways. Always. I am not good at expressing my feelings in the best of circumstances, and in the warmth of Liss’s embrace, my words failed me. It would have been easier if I had a plan, not merely a desire.
PART II: LOVERS
~
LISS
Where is theline between friends with benefits and an affair of the heart? That is a question I have had more time to ponder than most, and since I haven’t answered it yet, I don’t expect to, not in this lifetime at least.
I did not expect to hear from Nao Kao after I sent him from my apartment at first light that Saturday morning. I certainly did not expect to find an email from him by the time I powered on my computer after strong tea and a hot, tear-soaked shower.
