16

I was in the office the next day, staring at my engagement ring, when the phone rang. I picked up. It was Michael.

"hi, Michael," I said.

hearing his name, Betty pointed to her open mouth to indicate she

was going to lunch and, grabbing her coat and bag, made for the door.

"hi," he said. "We haven't spoken in a while."

"Yeah, I know." hearing his voice, I felt my anger come up. "I had

lunch with Anna yesterday."

"I want to talk to you about that—"

"I don't get it. how could you move so fast after what happened

between us?"

"It makes the situation more equal," he said. "Don't you see? You have someone to fall back on, and I have someone to fall back on. More of a

square and less of a triangle."

"And that's why you and Anna are talking about starting a family

together?"

"Can we have dinner? I'll explain everything in person. Why don't

you come over after work?"

"Why should I?" I said, though of course I wanted to see him.

"We need to talk and then—spend the night with me," he said, his

voice dropping. "tonight."

164 the Geometry of Love

"You sure?" Warmth flooded up between my thighs and into my belly.

"We should have one night together, just a single night, don't you

think? Isn't that what you want? I've thought it through, and I think that's

what we should do."

I sat there, holding the phone to my cheek as though it were his face. "You think we can stop after one night?" I asked.

"Yes, if we agree to it beforehand—if we swear to it. It's the only way

not to get hurt."

"You're crazy," I said.

"What time will you be here?"

"Around five thirty," I said.

"okay," he said. "See you then." And we hung up.

A couple of hours later, as the energetic bus driver hurtled the rush-

hour crowd across Central Park, I stood gripping the ceiling handle and swaying back and forth. With each curve in the road, I collided with the handsome, suited businessman next to me.

"Sorry," my neighbor said. he had, on the last curve, swung into my breast. I didn't mind. Maybe he worked for a Madison Avenue advertising firm and lived in a palatial prewar apartment with a balcony and a view of Central Park.

"That's okay," I said.

Studying him out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he wasn't wearing a

wedding band, and I wondered whether he had a sense of humor and liked old movies, whether he lived on the surface of life or plumbed the depths. In New York you're surrounded by men whenever you step out onto the street. If Ben found out about my night with Michael and decided to break with me, well, so what? I wouldn't be alone for the rest of my life.

I realized I didn't have my diaphragm with me. Well, again, so what? I remembered Dr. Sarler's drawings of my reproductive system. The chances of my getting pregnant were slim. And I wasn't going to blow this window of emotional opportunity.

opportunity for what? What was I doing? Ben had just asked me to marry him—I was wearing the fucking engagement ring and taking a bus to screw a man who had once been his best friend.

Sorry, honey, I apologized mentally to Ben. Sorry, sorry, sorry, but I just have to do this.

Jessica Levine 165

With a spasm of yearning for something dead and gone, I remembered that snowy Saturday when Ben and I first kissed on a bench in Washington Square. Quickly we agreed to go back out to New haven early the next morning so we could make love in his apartment. I hardly slept that night. Sunday morning we met at Grand Central to catch a 9:00 a.m. train. As we rode the train kissing and touching each other, I was exploding with desire. When we got back to his apartment, we got naked, and everything happened in a kind of whoosh.

I'd been in love those first few months. It was, I thought, the "kind of love that it takes a lifetime to measure." I read that line or something like it in the Alexandria Quartet, I think, and was struck by the idea of a love so enormous that it would take decades to discover all the different aspects of the beloved's being. And with each new aspect revealed, you would fall more deeply in love. Isn't that what everyone dreams of? Wasn't that what I'd thought I had for a good five, or was it seven, years? or was it until that moment I'd run into Michael in the bookstore? had I been lying to myself? No. For a while it had been real.

And now I was going to kill my love for Ben with clear intention. This was not an impulsive act. It was premeditated murder.

Maybe I was going to commit this murder because it was the only way I might experience again the magic of first love, which I couldn't have with Ben anymore. There was no going back because our love had been eroded by the wear-and-tear of time. or maybe I simply needed to free up the parts of me that were stuck.

I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing, and as I got off at the Broadway stop and transferred to the uptown subway, I stopped analyzing. I was in the grips of an obsession and the only thing I could do was follow through.

When I stepped into Michael's, he kissed me on the cheek with a sheepish look. I was surprised to see how he'd tidied the place up. The dining table and windowsills had been cleared of plates and food, books and papers were in neat piles, and a clothes-drying rack with several damp sweaters stood in front of the radiator. The clean smell of washed wool hung in the air.

he'd probably cleaned up for Anna, not for me.

166 the Geometry of Love

"I'm ravenous. Let's go get something to eat," he said, grabbing his

leather bomber with the fur collar.

"okay," I said.

Suddenly I felt a little shy, but in the elevator he put his arms around

me and gave me a long kiss.

"So you really want to spend the night with me?" I asked. "of course," he said.

Kissing him was incredibly sweet, as was holding his hand on the way

to Jade Villa.

When we sat down and picked up the menus, he noticed the ring on my finger.

"The sapphire's nice," he said. "Thanks," I said, embarrassed.

"Saw that coming."

"All right, Michael. okay."

"When's it going to happen?"

"This summer."

"hmm?"

Wishing I'd left the ring in my office, I returned to studying the

menu. Soon we'd ordered and he reached for my hands across the table.

I thought, even as I felt his fingers on my ring, I'm never going to let go.

"So start explaining," I said. "What's going on with you and Anna?" "Well, I think I could be happy with her. I feel I could actually make

a commitment to her."

"But you're not in love with her?"

"I read an article recently about arranged marriages. It was in

Psychology Today—I was in the dentist's office—about how in societies where arranged marriages are the norm, people are just as happy, maybe even happier than they are in the West, where we choose our own mates—"

"Michael!" I let go of his hands.

"I'm desperate, Jul. I'm turning forty-two and I've had a string of

disastrous relationships, and I won't be able to focus on my work—my creative work—until I'm in some kind of domestically stable situation. And I love children. I mean, I love teaching other people's kids, and why shouldn't I have my own? That conversation we had in the bar in Penn Station, when you talked about deciding to be happy—that made a real impression on me. I realized I had to make the same decision. And the way

Jessica Levine 167

you and Ben have committed to each other has inspired me. I finally got it through my thick head that lasting love is something that's constructed, not just pulled out of thin air, like a rabbit out of a hat. And I'm grateful

to you, because you made me see that."

"how can you take Ben and me as a positive example under the

circumstances?"

he didn't hear my question. "Anna and I are in similar situations. We both want to be in a committed relationship, and we both have come to

believe that a lasting relationship is worth making sacrifices for."

I was astonished. Those were the words Ben had spoken the day we'd had brunch with Anna, who had obviously repeated them later to Michael.

"And we'll be able to help each other creatively. I need—Julia, I need—to be supported emotionally as a musician. Because success as an artist isn't just a product of talent. The right circumstances are necessary. You need to be gifted, of course, and you need drive and training, but

mostly, mostly, you need support—"

I wanted to scream, I could offer you that support, but I didn't.

"—I want to be one of the lucky few who not only does what he

wants to do in life, but is good at it, too. I mean, look out the window." he gestured at the throng on the Broadway sidewalk. A short obese woman with two small children, one of them in a stroller, was passing by. "She's probably on welfare and would give anything to land a job as a supermarket checker. The checker would give anything to be the floor manager. The manager wishes he'd had a chance to go to law school. And the lawyer wishes he could have been an artist. And the artist—" he paused.

he was rambling all over the place, and I was ready to strangle him. "The artist," he continued, "is ready to kill himself because he can't

pay the rent."

"I'm not sure how you and Anna together are going to pay the rent," I said.

"We'll trade off. We'll be compatible, I think—" "But you're not in love with her?" I repeated.

"As I said, in this article I read—"

"So now you're making life decisions based on Psychology Today? You

don't think love is important?"

"I could love Anna. I'm attracted to her and I find her interesting

168 the Geometry of Love

and fun and all that good stuff. There's no reason I shouldn't love her,

eventually."

"okay, what does all this mean? You're arranging your own marriage?" "Yeah, you could put it that way. I mean, isn't that what you did with

Ben?"

"What?"

"Yes, you were wildly in love at the beginning. But then, when that

wore off, you made the mental computations and decided he would be a good bet—reliable, stable, a good daddy, yada yada." The mu shu arrived and he reached for a pancake and carefully filled it, sauced it, rolled it, while I looked at him in stunned silence. "And those same computations

are what's keeping you from breaking up with him now."

The truth in what he said struck me dumb.

"And for some reason," he went on—with a bit of malice, I thought—

"Anna's computations have led her to think I would be a good bet for her."

"She thinks you've sown your wild oats," I said.

"I guess only time will tell, huh?"

he was eating like a horse, while I could barely swallow a single bite.

"You're accusing me underhandedly of?not having faith in you?"

"That's one way of putting it. Listen, Julia. You see me as risky, but

the truth is, from my point of view, you're risky, too, because of Ben and that ring on your finger, and I just can't—I just can't—risk another failure. It would drive me over the edge. I mean, really over the edge, if you know

what I mean."

I nodded. he was referring to the suicidal feelings he'd had after breaking with Karyn.

"But you feel hopeful about Anna?"

"Actually, yes, I do," he said brightly. "I feel very hopeful."

"I don't think we're going to spend the night together, after all." I felt

bruised and depressed.

"Don't be ridiculous. of course we are." he raised a hand to hail the waiter. "Sir, some plum sake, please." I wondered whether the "sir" was ironic—along with everything else about him. he turned back to me. "It's something we need to do, so let's do it. You'll feel better after a little wine."

"You're being so businesslike about it," I said.

"No," he said with force, then added, in a completely different

register, "it's anything but business for me, Jul." I felt his knees under

Jessica Levine 169

the table squeeze one of mine in his. "honey," he said, "you believe me,

don't you?"

The way he said "honey" turned me to mush. I nodded.

We finished dinner quietly and walked back to his apartment. The

feeling of his hand in mine, the kisses he gave me in the elevator, the feeling of anticipation as we entered his apartment—all are inscribed in my memory with a bold, broad hand.

As soon as the door was closed, he said, "We have to swear first. Swear

that it's this one night only."

"All right," I said, feeling like a child about to engage in a blood- brother-and-sister ritual.

"What should we swear on?" he asked. "Since we're agnostics, we

can't swear on the Bible."

"I don't know. You got any poetry around? Byron or Sylvia Plath? And Beethoven for you?" I grinned.

"I'm serious about this. Don't you see? After you leave tomorrow, I don't want to be asking myself if you're going to break your engagement for me—because you wouldn't. You've never offered to leave Ben. I told you—I won't let myself be put in a position where I'll feel that tonight you're 'trying me out.' I refuse to go through that kind of suffering. So it's

got to be just this night and nothing more."

"But—"

"And if you were to tell me now that you were leaving Ben, how could

I trust you?"

"All right," I said.

"Let's sit on the couch. You ready to swear? Put your hand on your

heart—there. Think of something so dear to you it feels sacred."

"okay," I said.

Silence. Then he spoke first.

"So—one night only. I swear to it, on my music," he said.

I took another second to formulate my vow. "one night only. I swear

to it on the life of the child I hope to have someday."

"Good enough," he said.

he grabbed my hand and led me to the bedroom, and I followed

him, letting go of everything that wasn't of the moment—my guilt toward Ben, my fantasies about the future, my desire to have some control over this man now taking me into his bed.

170 the Geometry of Love

he pulled my sweater up over my head and unzipped my pants and

then, too impatient for me to undress him, he was suddenly completely naked, lying in bed with a huge erection, while I sat on the edge of the bed in my underwear.

"Should I take everything off?" I asked shyly.

"Yeah, take everything off."

I took off my bra and panties and then, with the sense of being

terribly, vulnerably naked, and with a shiver that was part excitement and part fear, I slid into the bed next to him and he pulled the covers up over us as I moved into his arms.

"Michael," I said. "Jul," he said.

We came together in a wave of warmth, our hands moving quietly

over each other. There was a small knot in my throat from the forbidden words of love I needed to keep to myself. I could only say his name, "Michael, Michael," as he gently squeezed me and gazed into my eyes and sucked on my breast. "What is it? tell me," he said and I just kept repeating, "Michael, Michael"—his name over and over again, like an incantation taking me to a deeper surrender. Then suddenly a more violent passion burst out, wild and broad like a thunderstorm over water, and he was around and inside me, kneading my breast, caressing my face, spreading my legs, and caressing the inside of my thighs with his as he slid into me like a diver into a lake. I was wide and wet and huge, in a place of absolute receptivity that yawned open even further when he hooked his right arm under my left knee and, bending my leg, opened me further. Every muscle in my body softened in a yielding deeper than any I'd ever experienced.

But the best part, perhaps, was right after we came, when he stayed on top of me and inside me as long as he could, kissing me tenderly and whispering my name. The velvet, baritone notes of his voice, each word like a question drawing me out, each syllable investigating my heart. his eyes, continuing to stir and probe me, to want and hold me.

When people rescue injured wild animals with a plan to free them later, they must be careful to limit the animals' contact with humans, so that a bond does not form which might "imprint" them. If the animals do become imprinted, they can no longer be released back into the wild.

We're not so different in matters of the heart. There are experiences

Jessica Levine 171

of connection so deep they mark and change you forever. After excessive joy there's the knowledge that everything to come can only be less than; that the happiness experienced is now gone forever, carried away by the torrential river of time; that the rest of life, as a result, can only disappoint. The bliss becomes a traumatic initiation into the ultimate insufficiency of life. Whatever the future has to offer, one thing is clear: it won't be enough.

of course, at the time all I knew was that there was something I needed to experience in order to touch some place in my emotional being that had never been touched before. I expected that such an experience would yield some kind of permanent satisfaction. I never thought it might become an obsessive memory that would feed my longing indefinitely.

And yet, as though I had some premonition of the empty feeling to come, in the long, sweet night that followed I memorized everything about him. how he moved against me like a river, how he moved inside me like a song. The temperature and rhythm of his hands. The way he held his huge body above me with the lightness of a bird. The way he melted under me, his body conforming to mine as I yielded and held him. And the exact, deeper register of his voice, the slow, exact tenderness of it

as he asked, "how about this? Does it feel good?"

It felt beyond good. And we kept on making love and going back to that place of beyond good until, completely exhausted, he could no longer stay erect and I was completely sore; and then still clutching each other, we dozed off as night gave way to dawn. And in my dreams our coming together kept repeating itself, and the rhythm of our breaths together felt like the rhythm of our union, only more languorous, as it rocked us into a sleep imbued with the motion and smell of sex.

Surfacing the next day, shortly before noon, I had a moment before he woke up to reflect. Maybe it was for the best that we'd made a pact to be together for a single night only. Could I bear receiving such exquisite joy, could I tolerate being so sensitive to another human being and needy of his love on an indefinite basis? The intensity of my feeling for him was almost unbearable. And unbearable pleasure could only give way to unbearable pain and loss, if we were to continue and watch it inevitably fade. Perhaps best to truncate it like this, cleanly and sharply; then at least we'd have a perfect memory.

one thing I knew: how I would carry this experience in the future would largely depend on how we parted. I had to stand by what I'd sworn

172 the Geometry of Love

to the day before and leave him with all the tranquility I could muster.

Thus it was that when he rolled toward me and opened his eyes, I'd already prepared my mask of cheerfulness.

"Thank you," he simply said.

I answered the same. "Thank you."

We got up, and I showered while he made breakfast. I was beginning

to feel numb, as though I were anaesthetizing myself to prepare for the pain of separation.

But sitting across from him at his little table, the words slipped out of me, "So what now?" I had the tiniest sliver of hope he might change his mind.

he didn't take it as any big question about our relationship. he simply looked at the clock and said, "My first lesson is in half an hour. We

need to leave soon."

My heart shook under the numbness like an earth tremor shifting snow. I wanted to say to him, I'll call Ben and tell him it's over because I'm in love with you, and I reached over to take his hand.

"I'll—" I began

he shook his head. "No. Because I lack the confidence, don't you see?

I don't feel confident I can make you happy, that's the problem."

"But you feel you can make Anna happy?"

"There's no other guy with Anna."

I took the words in and sank to a deeper deadness of body, heart, and

mind. It was comforting to know that in the future I could move into numbness when the pain became too intense.

"All right then," I said.

"What will you tell Ben if he tried to call you last night?" he was an

animal smoothing over his tracks in the forest.

"I'll tell him I unplugged the phone and went to bed early."

"That sounds reasonable," he said, looking at the clock again. If he looked at the clock one more time, I'd explode. "Let's get going," I said.

We went out into the hall, and he pressed the elevator button

energetically. Then we had the awkward wait for it to arrive. It wasn't a fancy building, and the insufficient lighting, worn carpet, and old paint were infinitely depressing.

"Michael—"

Jessica Levine 173

"I'm glad we did this," he said. "Now we have something sweet to

remember each other by. It's nice."

The elevator arrived right then, with a couple of faceless people in it, and we got in and rode down not looking at each other, not touching. I thought of reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze, but what was the point? our story was over now.

We walked out of the building and toward the bus stop at Broadway and one hundredth Street. he pressed forward as I followed, one step behind.

"I hate being late for a lesson," he mumbled.

Suddenly the lumbering, farting 104 bus was there, and he gave me a

quick kiss and turned away to climb the steps.

As I watched the bus disappear, then walked toward the Ninety-Sixth Street subway stop, I realized that not once in that whole long night and morning, had either of us spoken the words, I love you.

Is this love then?—This gray place

after the sparkled night where you have left me alone.

Loss has a head and feet too. It walks into

the howling cavern

and finds music there.

Down the slope

where nothing grows

it slides on its ass

stopping now and then to stare at the horizon with binoculars.

Loss is hungry

for a sighting of hope. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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