“Why are you so quiet tonight?” Leta asked as we ate dinner at the little Italian restaurant we frequented when we needed a night away from town.
“I’m just thinking,” I said. I poured her another glass of Chianti. I hoped she might let me off with the vague answer. I wanted to spare her being my sounding board for the evening. Not that we didn’t have a relationship based upon communication. Talking was the thing I liked best about us, aside from sex.
I couldn’t reveal myself to her, however.
But I couldn’t fool her, either. She sensed work was bothering me. She had probed me with questions about my workday, about things I had mentioned earlier in the week, on our drive to the restaurant that evening. I had avoided the questions as tactfully as I could. Worse: I felt as if I had avoided her for asking them. It was difficult to tell her how dissatisfied I was with my job, how aimless I thought the position had become. Though I felt every bit the modern man, I still subscribed to the notion that it was my duty to bring a greater share of financial responsibility to our relationship. To admit that I was having a difficult time fulfilling that duty felt like a weakness to me. It was something I could have shared with a brother, not the most important woman in my life.
We quietly finished our meal. I followed her through a single quiet circuit of the mall. We quietly started home.
I drove with the windows down. The air was cool. The sun had all but faded from the sky, leaving only faint wisps of burnt orange clouds amid the purple, gray, and dark blue of twilight. I enjoyed this time of day the most of all the hours. Though most of the world would soon be thinking about sleep, I felt as if I was truly only waking in my day. I felt bad that I was spoiling it with the rat race. I felt bad that I was not enjoying it with the woman I loved.
She watched the world speed by her window, her long brown hair tossing gently in the breeze. She had worn the skirt I had bought her for her last birthday, her 31st, and the red silk blouse I had bought her for Valentine’s Day. From the corner of my eye, I could see a kind of tightness in her face. Concentration. Concern. I hoped my quiet had not given her too much to think about.
Letting a hand drop from the wheel, I reached over and cupped her bare knee. She turned toward me. She smiled in relief. He’s going to say what’s bothering him, her smile said. I wasn’t ready for that yet, but I couldn’t let her be alone any longer while we were together. I let focus upon the road mask the look and smile I should have given her.
My hand, however, sought to give her warmth. My fingers ran slow circles around the inside of her knee. I felt her begin to relax under my touch. In itself, touch was communication. She accepted that. I could give that. Her face softened. She leaned her head back against the headrest.
I felt bad for keeping her secluded from this thing which was not about her and yet was as equally important in her life as it was in mine. Such are the weights of being a man. They tell us we do not share our feelings; it is only because sometimes we cannot.
She was precious to me and deserved more from me.
My hand smoothed up along her thigh in hopes of conveying gratitude I could not otherwise express at the moment. She sighed pleasantly. Her body shifted down in the seat. Her legs opened ever so slightly more to me. It was a very subtle, small move.
I stroked her thigh softly. I petted her. Never once did I look more toward her than with the corner of my eye. Never once did the expression on my face change. What a mystery I must have been to her. Stoic. Then feeling her up.
My fingers found the silk at the junction of her thighs. I had watched her slip into the creamy ivory panties before we left for dinner. Not directly. Through a mirror in the bathroom as I finished my shave. At almost any moment, she would have bared herself for my viewing. Yet sometimes I preferred these voyeuristic moments when I caught her within the mundane, unaware of me, unaware of herself, when I could see her completely.
I felt the silk dampen as I traced along her slit. Her breathing had grown deeper, punctuated with soft mewls.
I signaled a left turn, took the BMW from the highway onto a smaller lane that followed round the northern edge of the lake. Ahead were picnic areas where we often came on Sundays. Another turn took us closer to them. This road was even smaller and more secluded than the last. Spindly southern pines guarded the road on the left. Scrub led toward the inky lake on the right. I’m not sure she had noticed we left the highway. My hand kept her thoughts preoccupied.
I moved my hand long enough to park and shut off the car before returning it to her thigh. She had blinked “awake” when my hand left her silk-covered sex. She took note of our surroundings. She smiled at me, though I had yet to look at her.
As I stroked her thigh, she said, “This is so much better than not talking.”
One thing I may never be able to understand about being a man is our illogic. I do not know why I perceived it so, but something in what she said bothered me. Angered me? It made no sense to me, but I felt it nevertheless.
I took my hand from her. I opened the door and stepped out of the car.
“What’s wrong now?” I heard her ask from within.
“Nothing,” I said. I walked away from the car. It was one of those moments when I expected to hear the engine turn over and the tires squeal away as she gave up on the foolishness I had given her. Instead, I heard her open her door and follow me across the gravel. I did not stop to wait for her, but continued toward the shore through the grass that had grown high after the close of the summer season. I was surprised by the brightness of the rising moon as it broke through the trees and glistened upon the lake. It stopped me.
She stepped in front of me.