his face, which was cruel, if it was cruel, if it was anything but an impulse she was having but not meant to be cruel the way kissing would be. He wondered if what she was saying was You will never get a fuck like this again in your whole mortal life unless… unless something he couldn’t imagine, something other than stay with me and see what happens. He knew it wasn’t that, nothing as crude as that. It was something else. He had his own idea, by God, which was to ask for help from not God but Rhonda, help me Rhonda, help me keep her out of my heart, something cheap to make him slightly hate her, help me Beach Boys, anyone, help me, help me keep the knot tied in the heart the base of my cock, tied tight. She was letting him in.
He felt strong. He inhaled as hard as he could. That was usually helpful. He needed help. He needed everything
The knot keeping him from coming was threaded on his will, his willpower, his will, out of the night. Out of the night that covers me, out of the nineteenth century, the will, yes sir.
He was in and he was going to fuck her until she said to stop in the name of God.
And he needed to think of his semen bolt as a pearl of great price, a pearl, a containable thing.
He was in a little more. He grasped her waist. In Eden sex had been like a handshake according to Augustine, before there was hot sex, after the Fall. This was not going to be a handshake, except that a handshake could be goodbye as well as hello, as well as Hello I must be going.
He was in even more. She was being so careful. When she got close she wouldn’t be able to maintain herself on top. She would clutch him and fall on him and drop and roll over onto one side and pull him over on top. Now she was grasping his shoulders.
He was in deep, she was letting him in, she was sinking down to seal it, that was it, it was perfect. She was pausing, holding him there. He didn’t know what she was doing, whether she was trying to leave him with a fuck he would use the rest of his life to search for, to search for one like it, or was she trying to do something else, by this act, to change everything between them, everything in his mind having to do with what he should be doing, with what they should be doing. He had no idea.
She was starting and stopping. She was coming down hard and then she was drawing back a little way and then coming back down slowly and then waiting. There was sweat shining in the little hollows on either side of the base of her neck. She was moving her pelvis in a slow circle.
She was moving now. He grasped her breasts.
She was moving less carefully. It was going on. He tried to get outside himself. He tried to see the stars and the glints of light in her hair and on her teeth when she opened her mouth and looked up as one combined field. She was oblivious to the strength of her movements. She was edging them off the afghan. She was making small sounds in the back of her throat. She was a noisy lover, normally, but she was trying to be mindful of prudence, because of their situation, he understood.
There was a tear of sweat on each of her nipples. She shook them off, onto his chest. She was going to stay on top until she came. That was now. It was all right. He wanted to see her face when she came. She was getting close. Her legs were shaking. He wanted her to go first. He wanted to hold back and let her go and then fuck her just after she came until she came again, and until she said no, it was too much.
He thought of Guatemala, the agency, Boyle, to cool himself. He thought about Malawi and Banda and one or two things he knew about the agency there, things Marion Resnick had told him, a man who never lied. But he thought about these dark things in a new way for him, not by acknowledging them as things at a distance but as sites of horror, bodies, dead bodies, fields of them, like the bodies at Ngami Bird Lodge, spread on the ground, pitched into the flames of the burning lodge.
He held his breath. He held himself in. There were things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to say I want to say goodbye. And he wanted to say Remember me.
It was good. She came. She fell against him. He managed to stay in her as she fell and he maneuvered her over and under him. It was done with art and it reminded him of something they had talked about, which was how amazing it was that the configurations two people could get involved in when they slept in the same bed never seemed to be exhausted.
He wanted her to tell him to fuck her, but it didn’t matter if she didn’t. He moved in her. She was in one of the afterwaves of coming when he began. That was what he had wanted. His heart was killing him. He loved her.
He drove himself harder into her. She was whining with pleasure and that was good. She would climax again right away.
He kept on, slowing himself. He pushed her knees up higher. He was almost there and so was she, again.
And then the knot at the root of his cock dissolved in fire, melting. He shouted when he came. Then she was snorting, trying to say something. She was telling him to stop. She had come a second time and she wanted him to stop. They disengaged, shaking.
He felt heavy. He accompanied her while she urinated and cleaned up. She was very quick about it. She took care of herself not far from the car this time. He went off by himself, further off, to urinate.
They pulled their clothes out of the car and dressed hurriedly. Before he buttoned his shirt she stopped him and reached in to touch his chest, his sides, tenderly.
He felt leaden. Because he didn’t know what the message was, the message of what they had just done together. Or he felt leaden because there was no message. She looked ravaged, tired, not the way he wanted her to look after what they had done.
When he bent down to gather up the afghan she said, “Leave it.”
They were in Johannesburg and almost downtown. They were passing through the Observatory District, an odd, middle-class residential area laid out on abrupt hills that had formerly been vast heaps of gold mine tailings. The streets were empty.
Iris said, “What are we going to do?”
He said, “I’ll tell you exactly. You’re going with Morel and I’m going to be down here, alone. I’m going to find Kerekang. And then I’m still going to be here. But that’s not what you mean. What you mean is what are we going to do once we’ve done what we’re going to do and it isn’t working out so magnificently, when we have regrets, if we do. That’s what you mean.”
There was more, but he wasn’t going to go into it. There was going to be a school connection. He would be joining the new South Africa. There was a certain heroic vagueness to his plans that he liked.
She said, “There’s a certain heroic vagueness about your plans.” He was startled. It was a cruel reminder of the way their minds followed, tracked together, unless it was telepathy, which was nonsense. He must have used the phrase in some historical situation and it must have stuck in her mind.
“We have telepathy,” he said.
“Ray, I always wanted us to be in a school, set up a school together, you know. Or open a bookshop together. I’ve had that idea.”
“Right, an idea for going bankrupt.”
“Maybe not.”
“Believe me.”
“I’m so glad you’re out of the agency. It’s what I wanted. I hated it.”
“I’m glad too.”
“We’ll be friends,” she said.
“I know. Of course. Forever.”
“We’re having a sighing contest. We should stop it.”
“Okay, my dear girl. One last sigh.”
“We’re saying goodbye.”
“Not yet. In the morning.”
