Conversations with Friends(49)

You’re not keeping it, he said.

I like it.

Unfortunately, I like it too.

Was it expensive? I said.

We were still looking at each other in the mirror. He stood behind me and lifted the coat open with his fingers. I watched him looking at me.

It was, uh … he said. I don’t remember how much it was.

A thousand euro?

What? No. Two or three hundred maybe.

I wish I had money, I said.

He slipped his hand inside the coat then and touched my breast. The sexual way you talk about money is kind of interesting, he said. Though also disturbing, obviously. You don’t want me to give you money, do you?

In a way I do, I said. But I wouldn’t necessarily trust that impulse.

Yeah, it’s weird. I have money that I don’t urgently need, and I would rather you had it. But the transaction of giving it to you would bother me.

You don’t like to feel too powerful. Or you don’t like to be reminded how powerful you like to feel.

He shrugged. He was still touching me underneath the coat. It was nice.

I think I struggle enough with the ethics of our relationship already, he said. So giving you money would probably push it too far for me. Although, I don’t know. You’d probably be happier with the cash.

I looked at him, seeing my own face in my peripheral vision, my chin raised slightly. Blurred out on the periphery I thought I looked quite formidable. I slipped out of the coat and left him holding it. I got back onto the bed and ran my tongue between my lips.

Are you conflicted about our relationship? I said.

He stood there holding the coat kind of limply in his hands. I could tell he was enjoying himself and too distracted to think about hanging it up.

No, he said. Well, yes, but only in the abstract.

You’re not going to leave me?

He smiled, a shy smile. Would you miss me if I did? he said.

I lay back on the bed, laughing at nothing. He hung the coat up. I lifted one of my legs in the air and crossed it over the other one slowly.

I would miss dominating you in conversation, I said.

He lay down beside me and flattened his hand against my stomach. Go on, he said.

I think you would miss it too.

Being dominated? Of course I would. That’s like foreplay for us. You say cryptic things I don’t understand, I give inadequate responses, you laugh at me, and then we have sex.

I laughed. He sat up a little to watch me laughing.

It’s nice, he said. It gives me an opportunity to enjoy being so inadequate.

I propped myself up on one elbow and kissed his mouth. He leaned into it, like he really wanted to be kissed, and I felt a rush of my own power over him.

Do I make you feel bad about yourself? I said.

You can be a little hard on me from time to time. Not that I blame you really. But no, I think we’re getting along well at the moment.

I looked down at my own hands. Carefully, like I was daring myself, I said: if I lash out at you it’s just because you don’t seem very vulnerable to it.

He looked at me then. He didn’t even laugh, it was just a kind of frowning look, like he thought I was mocking him. Okay, he said. Well. I don’t think anyone likes being lashed out at.

But I mean you don’t have a vulnerable personality. Like, I find it hard to imagine you trying on clothes. You don’t seem to have that relationship with yourself where you look at your reflection wondering if you look good in something. You seem like someone who would find that embarrassing.

Right, he said. I mean, I’m a human being, I try clothes on before I buy them. But I think I understand what you’re saying. People do tend to find me kind of cold and like, not very fun.

I was excited that we shared an experience I found so personal, and quickly I said: people find me cold and lacking in fun.

Really? he said. You always seemed charming to me.

I was gripped by a sudden and overwhelming urge to say: I love you, Nick. It wasn’t a bad feeling, specifically; it was slightly amusing and crazy, like when you stand up from your chair and suddenly realise how drunk you are. But it was true. I was in love with him.

I want that coat, I said.

Oh, yeah. You can’t have it.

When we arrived at the launch the following night, Nick and Melissa were there already. They were standing together talking to some other people we knew: Derek, and a few others. Nick saw us coming in, but he didn’t hold my gaze when I tried to look at him. He noticed me and looked away, that was all. Bobbi and I flicked through the book and didn’t buy it. We said hello to the other people we knew, Bobbi texted Philip to ask where he was, and I pretended to read the author bios. Then the readings started.

Throughout Melissa’s reading, Nick watched her face very attentively and laughed in the right places. My discovery that I was in love with Nick, not just infatuated but deeply personally attached to him in a way that would have lasting consequences for my happiness, had prompted me to feel a new kind of jealousy toward Melissa. I couldn’t believe that he went home to her every evening, or that they ate dinner together and sometimes watched films on their TV. What did they talk about? Did they amuse each other? Did they discuss their emotional lives, did they confide in one another? Did he respect Melissa more than me? Did he like her more? If we were both going to die in a burning building and he could only save one of us, wouldn’t he certainly save Melissa and not me? It seemed practically evil to have so much sex with someone who you would later allow to burn to death.