Gone Girl(55)

She pulled back from me, her teeth chattering. ‘Come up with me.’

I paused.

‘Come up with me,’ she said again. ‘I want to be with you.’

The sex wasn’t that great, not the first time. We were two bodies used to different rhythms, never quite getting the hang of each other, and it had been so long since I’d been inside a woman, I came first, quickly, and kept moving, thirty crucial seconds as I began wilting inside her, just long enough to get her taken care of before I went entirely slack.

So it was nice but disappointing, anticlimactic, the way girls must feel when they give up their virginity: That was what all the fuss was about? But I liked how she wrapped herself around me, and I liked that she was as soft as I’d imagined. New skin. Young, I thought disgracefully, picturing Amy and her constant lotioning, sitting in bed and slapping away at herself angrily.

I went into Andie’s bathroom, took a piss, looked at myself in the mirror, and made myself say it: You are a cheater. You have failed one of the most basic male tests. You are not a good man. And when that didn’t bother me, I thought: You’re really not a good man.

The horrifying thing was, if the sex had been outrageously mind-blowing, that might have been my sole indiscretion. But it was only decent, and now I was a cheater, and I couldn’t ruin my record of fidelity on something merely average. So I knew there would be a next. I didn’t promise myself never again. And then the next was very, very good, and the next after that was great. Soon Andie became a physical counterpoint to all things Amy. She laughed with me and made me laugh, she didn’t immediately contradict me or second-guess me. She never scowled at me. She was easy. It was all so f*cking easy. And I thought: Love makes you want to be a better man – right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.

I was going to tell Amy. I knew it had to happen. I continued not to tell Amy, for months and months. And then more months. Most of it was cowardice. I couldn’t bear to have the conversation, to have to explain myself. I couldn’t imagine having to discuss the divorce with Rand and Marybeth, as they certainly would insert themselves into the fray. But part of it, in truth, was my strong streak of pragmatism – it was almost grotesque, how practical (self-serving?) I could be. I hadn’t asked Amy for a divorce, in part, because Amy’s money had financed The Bar. She basically owned it, she would certainly take it back. And I couldn’t bear to look at my twin trying to be brave as she lost another couple years of her life. So I let myself drift on in the miserable situation, assuming that at some point Amy would take charge, Amy would demand a divorce, and then I would get to be the good guy.

This desire – to escape the situation without blame – was despicable. The more despicable I became, the more I craved Andie, who knew that I wasn’t as bad as I seemed, if my story were published in the paper for strangers to read. Amy will divorce you, I kept thinking. She can’t let it linger on much longer. But as spring faded away and summer came, then fall, then winter, and I became a cheating man of all seasons – a cheat with a pleasantly impatient mistress – it became clear that something would have to be done.

‘I mean, I love you, Nick,’ Andie said, here, surreally, on my sister’s sofa. ‘No matter what happens. I don’t really know what else to say, I feel pretty …’ She threw her hands up. ‘Stupid.’

‘Don’t feel stupid,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to say either. There’s nothing to say.’

‘You can say that you love me no matter what happens.’

I thought: I can’t say that out loud anymore. I’d said it once or twice, a spitty mumble against her neck, homesick for something. But the words were out there, and so was a lot more. I thought then of the trail we’d left, our busy, semi-hidden love affair that I hadn’t worried enough about. If her building had a security camera, I was on it. I’d bought a disposable phone just for her calls, but those voice mails and texts went to her very permanent cell. I’d written her a dirty valentine that I could already see splashed across the news, me rhyming besot with twat. And more: Andie was twenty-three. I assumed my words, voice, even photos of me were captured on various electronica. I’d flipped through the photos on her phone one night, jealous, possessive, curious, and seen plenty of shots of an ex or two smiling proudly in her bed, and I assumed at one point I’d join the club – I kind of wanted to join the club – and for some reason that hadn’t worried me, even though it could be downloaded and sent to a million people in the space of a vengeful second.

‘This is an extremely weird situation, Andie. I just need you to be patient.’

She pulled back from me. ‘You can’t say you love me, no matter what happens?’

‘I love you, Andie. I do.’ I held her eyes. Saying I love you was dangerous right now, but so was not saying it.

‘Fuck me, then,’ she whispered. She began tugging at my belt.

‘We have to be real careful right now. I … It’s a bad, bad place for me if the police find out about us. It looks beyond bad.’

‘That’s what you’re worried about?’

‘I’m a man with a missing wife and a secret … girlfriend. Yeah, it looks bad. It looks criminal.’

‘That makes it sound sleazy.’ Her breasts were still out.