The Turnout(85)

Dara closed her eyes. The feeling was too much somehow. She wanted to cover her face.

“For every pleasure,” Mrs. Bloom said as if reading her mind, “we pay a price.”



* * *



*

Get inside it,” she told Dara, turning on the taps.

Mrs. Bloom wanted to show her the bath jets.

Without thinking Dara stepped in the tub, peering inside, its center pink, a blush pink like the inside of a seashell.

The water was a hot gush on Dara’s feet. There was no stopping it.

Mrs. Bloom in her proper turtleneck, her blown-straight hair, sunk down to the carpet, her hand gripping the side of the tub.

Mrs. Bloom, her voice gone low and throaty, knelt against the lowest dip in its lip, running one hand, her wrist, her forearm into the water, its heat and energy.

Standing there, Dara let it happen, surrendered to it. The hot jets thundering against her blood-struck, bruise-mottled feet, she couldn’t stop it if she wanted to. She didn’t want to.

And that was when Mrs. Bloom told the story.



* * *



*

She was drawn to him that very first day. A man so different from her husband—soon to be ex-husband—with his Brooks Brothers suits, his tight shoes and cool eyes. Her husband, who traveled constantly and who hadn’t held her hand in half a dozen years.

But the contractor . . .

She never thought of him as her acupuncturist’s husband, not once. He erased that in an instant that very first day. He was such a big presence. And how persuasively he spoke—about what she could have, what she deserved. This should be your most private space, he said. It should be classy and sensual. It should be pristine and safe.

It was exciting having him in the house. Knowing he was down the hall. Sometimes she would even lie on her bed, under her duvet, and think about how close he was. What he was doing. The walls vibrating with him, his noise and power.

A man in her house and her husband forever out of town, like every glossy paperback on the library spinner rack. There was a reason those books were so worn, their covers peeling.

One day, she discovered him working long after she thought he’d left for the day. He was kneeling beside the tub, fondling its new gold taps with such delicacy.

To see such a big, hulking man handle such dainty things stirred something inside her. Those hands of his, great, big things like a sea captain might have. How they seemed to enclose all her small, fine things.

A man who dominated the house every time he was in it, tracking mud and leaves into her kitchen, never shutting the powder room door all the way when he used it, and never seeming to wash his hands at all, the guest towels always hanging pristinely in place.

A man who, once or twice, she caught looking at her through lidded eyes, snake eyes. Like the men on the street when she was fourteen and too big for her training bra.

She watched from a distance. If he noticed, he didn’t let on.



* * *



*

The day he finished installing the tub, he invited her to see. There was something obscene about it, the suggestive shape and color, its fleshly pink center.

And the way he ran his hand inside it, showing her his work. His fingers.

Without thinking, she said she wondered if that was how he touched a woman.

She covered her mouth the minute she said it.

But he merely looked up and asked if she’d like to see.

The answer, it turned out, was yes.



* * *



*

He told me to take off all my clothes,” she said, Dara listening and nodding, her ankles and feet tingling in the water, the steam making her drowsy, confused.

“I couldn’t wait to do it. I was so excited. He told me to slow down because I was going too fast. I was trying to cover myself.” Mrs. Bloom touched her pinkening face. “Doing all the locker room tricks.”

Slow, he said, like you mean it. Like you want me to see all of it.

“He wanted to see it all,” she said. “You know. You know what I mean.”

Mrs. Bloom looked at Dara, her hand on her thighs, then one palm sliding between them.

“And I showed him,” she said, staring at Dara now, eyes big and confused. “I showed him everything.”



* * *



*

At some point, Mrs. Bloom had stopped talking. Or maybe Dara just couldn’t hear her anymore over the water, see her anymore through the steam.

Closing her eyes, listening to the hissing radiant heat, she was thinking of things, her brain soft and dreamy and strange. She was thinking of the Nutcracker Prince costume at yesterday’s final fitting with Svetlanka, their tailor since their mother’s day. They’d spent countless hours over the years watching her sew tutus, her tarnished thimble ring, her painted nails. Yesterday, running those nails across Corbin Lesterio’s chest, the deep-red waistcoat. Corbin distracted, his slender fingers stroking the gold trim, the epaulet fringe, reminding her of all the past Princes, back to Charlie even, all in the same costume, its velvet still bright and spry, sliding one finger beneath its tight, high collar, his blushing throat. There were so many of them, from their mother’s hands to hers, their bodies still unbroken, still growing, waiting, begging to be shaped, smoothed, perfected. Corbin looking down at Svetlanka’s silver-black hair, kneeling at his feet, needle in her mouth as she bid him to shush, shush, it’ll all be over soon. . . .