The Removed(23)

“People are dying all around us,” I said. Or maybe I said, “People are falling in love all around us.” But I knew he wasn’t interested.

He said Luka was on the autism spectrum. Luka’s mother, Vin’s ex-girlfriend, was in jail, he told me, for distribution of meth, adding that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore because he became too angry whenever he thought about her. About the only thing I told him was that I knew what it was like to be around kids without a mom, since my mother had been a social worker. While I talked, I watched him set two spots at the table. He called Luka to get his food. A moment later Luka came down and took his plate upstairs to eat in his room.

“What an adorable son you have,” I told him.

Later, after Luka had gone to bed and we’d finished the bottle of wine, I followed Vin upstairs to his bedroom. It was surprisingly messy compared to the rest of the house. He clearly hadn’t planned on me seeing his bedroom, or maybe he didn’t care. There were clothes on the floor and on a dresser, a few of Luka’s toy cars in the corner, and the bed was a tumble of covers. In a way I found it humorous. His walls were a faded turquoise, with a few framed pictures of people I assumed were family members on them. A mahogany-framed oval mirror that looked like an antique hung over his dresser. It was charming compared to the rest of the decor.

He came over to me and kissed me a long time, running his hands along my sides, over my breasts. I preferred it this way, to be slowly caressed. I wanted to indulge in him. I put my hand against him and told him I could be loud sometimes, and was that a problem, since Luka was down the hall? “So what,” he said, and I pushed him onto the bed, planning to get on top of him, but he took my arms and wrestled me to my back. I watched him unbutton his shirt and pull it off. He clearly wanted to take charge, so I let him, though somewhat reluctantly. In the past I’d found that guys who wanted control were careless and quick. It appeared he wanted to take his time, though. I sat up and raised my arms so that he could pull my shirt off. He was still standing, wanting me to watch him unbutton his jeans and take them off. He did this slowly. He did not take off his boxer shorts but instead leaned forward onto the bed and kissed me without restraint. I could feel the tension in the muscles of his arms and legs. What I can say about that first time with him was that he was not trying too hard, like so many other lovers I had been with.

He wanted me to talk like an Indian, to whisper his name like an Indian.

“Fuck you,” I said. He thought I was joking, but I was serious.

I got on top of him and pulled his hair. Then he pulled mine. I called him a little white boy.

“Come on,” I kept saying. “Come on, do it!”

He kept making this face, which struck me as funny. Afterward I began laughing, which made him angry, I could tell.

“But you make a weird face,” I said, and he laughed a little, so it was all good. Both of us lay there in bed in the dim light of the lamp on the nightstand. He turned to lie on his stomach, and I ran my hands over his back lightly.

“I’m kidding around,” I said.

“Whatever, I’m good. Women tell me I’m good.”

“Funny guy.”

“It’s all good,” he said.

I didn’t care what he said. He could’ve said anything to me. I felt his skin, sticky and warm from fucking. I put my face to his back and smelled him.

After Vin fell asleep, I texted Edgar: Hey, you around? Are u coming home? Edgar never called Papa or our mom, and I knew it hurt them. Edgar had promised me, too, he’d keep me posted on what was going on. We usually texted once a week, at least, but that hadn’t happened in a while, and I was concerned. I kept texting him: Are u ok? Hey, need to talk asap!!! Call me when u can! The more frantic I sounded, I thought, the more he would realize how badly he was needed. Part of Edgar’s problem was feeling unloved, being the youngest child. He was so little when Ray-Ray died, and he’d spent his childhood trying to grow up in Ray-Ray’s shadow, listening to our mother and Papa talk about Ray-Ray’s sense of humor and about everything he did.

I walked quietly down the hall, still naked, to Luka’s bedroom and peeked inside. I couldn’t hear him breathing over the hum of the ceiling fan, but I was able to make out his figure in the bed. Outside there was thunder, followed by rain thrumming against the window. I pulled Luka’s door closed softly, then walked quietly downstairs and turned on the light in the living room, where I stood and stretched. It was raining really hard now, and the wind had come up. A squall battered the back door. How wonderful to walk naked in a stranger’s house during a thunderstorm, I thought. Something about it always excited me, being naked in a strange house. There was a picture of Luka and, I assumed, his mother on the fireplace mantel. I picked it up. She was sitting outside somewhere, wearing sunglasses, and he was in her lap. He was wearing a blue Dallas Cowboys T-shirt with the number 8 across the front, and holding a little football. The photo crushed me.

As I put the frame down, I noticed a photo of Vin and an older man I was certain was his father. I picked it up and stared at it, then set it back on the mantel. Outside I heard the rumble of thunder in the distance. The trees were waving in the wind, and it was raining hard now. I opened the screen door and stepped naked into the rain outside. It was dark, and the drops felt cold on my body. I walked to the trees and squatted to pee while thunder rumbled all around.