The Pisces(77)

“I wonder what the experience will be like, how my life will—manifest under there. Also, how I will stay under the waves and not just bob to the surface.”

I was hunting for a potential answer.

“You have to trust me,” he said. “It’s going to be beautiful. I will help you go. You will have chosen, but I will assist you. Then we will have a very long time together.”

“And we’ll still make love under there?”

“Of course we will,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m just a little scared.”

“Here, let me come up and join you.”



With that he pulled himself out of the water and took a seat next to me.

“I love you,” he said, cupping my face with his cold, wet hand. He kissed me softly on the cheek in a way that made me feel like a sweet child, no longer horrible. I felt that I was again back in the womb he and I shared, an innocent. Was this all it took to be cleansed: one beautiful person to treat you kindly and gently, and you were exonerated? How could Dominic’s death and Theo’s love both be true at the same time? How could I have killed Dominic and still be worthy of such tender affection? I was either awful or I wasn’t. Which one was it? I didn’t think I could be both.

His kisses moved from my cheek to my nose to my lips. I gently kissed and licked his beautiful mouth, one lip and then the other. He lay back on the rocks and pulled me on top of him. My thighs sandwiched his pelvis. As we kissed more, I felt him get hard under his cloth. I was excited to still have that remaining life force in me, the kind that could make his cock come alive. I began rubbing my body against him, moving up and down on his thigh and then on his pelvis. Then I moved my pussy back and forth on the length of his cock, over the cloth, as though I were anointing him. I rubbed faster and faster as we stayed in an embrace, our mouths locked on each other. A warmth spread from my pussy up through my stomach and into my heart. It radiated out through the top of my head. Everything was suddenly warm, the cold completely eliminated.

Was this what the eve of one’s wedding was like? I felt that we were being held on the rock by Aphrodite herself. Tomorrow she would drop me into the water, but maybe the water was only her lap. What if I would only be dropping to a warmer, deeper embrace?

I moved against him again and again. As I moved, I imagined us beside a giant underwater sand castle. The walls of the castle were made of coral and sea crystals of all colors, textures, and sizes: peach, silver, pastel mint, cyan pieces embedded in translucent white chunks, big slabs made of thousands of tiny sparkling dark-green crystals, rusted gold rocks, transparent indigo pyramids, rosy sea glass, neon-orange honeycombs of coral. The castle had tall turrets and spires, and Theo and I were beside it, preparing to enter.



But then I began to come and, as I did, the castle melted slowly to the ground. He and I clung together as the castle vanished, eclipsed by a wave of pleasure, disappearing from my inner vision. I didn’t stop moving until I rode over the peak of that orgasm. If anyone had looked at the rocks they would have seen a woman, thirty-eight years old, hopefully a little younger-looking, writhing against what looked like a large fish. Or maybe they would have seen her just riding the air. I wasn’t sure which was crazier.



* * *



—

When I got back to the house Steve was awake at the kitchen table, eating cereal, wearing a pair of blue striped pajamas, hairs sticking out from his balding head. I was drenched with sea spray and grime. He looked at me sternly.

“Late-night swim?” he asked.

“Just a beach walk,” I said.

“I don’t know what went on while we were gone,” he said calmly. “But why is it that every time you come here, disaster strikes?”

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving tomorrow night,” I said.

“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not telling you to leave. I only mean—your sister just wants to be good to you. She only wants you to be happy.”

“I know.”

“But you can’t not make a mess.”

“I guess I can’t.”

“If it were up to me, we would have hired a dog sitter. But Annika wanted to give you the time here. You know she’d do anything for you.”



“Would she?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said, as though it were crazy that I didn’t know. But the truth was, I didn’t.

“Whose blood is that? What happened?” he asked, pointing to the sofa. He had turned over the pillows.

“It’s—”

But just as I was about to answer, he cut me off.

“No, you know what? I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to know.”

“Okay,” I said. “But it’s my blood. There was no one else here but me.”





56.


The following evening I packed my suitcase. I thought about my little sweaters and dresses floating in the water as I packed up each one. It made me feel sad. I kept thinking the words belonging and my belongings. Dominic was no longer in the pantry. I wasn’t sure who had come and taken him away. It smelled heavily of ammonia, but I swore I could still smell death.

Annika had gone back inside the pantry. She was just sitting there on the floor with Dominic’s bowl and a squeaky toy in the shape of a duck.