“I meant I wanted to get up there now before I was settled,” Sana said, making herself comfortable with her feet on the coffee table, “and before we were into some interesting conversation.” She was eager to hear more of his story than the rote version he’d told her.
“Is he okay?” Luke asked. He couldn’t help but remember his father and the violence alcohol engendered.
“He’s on the bed and passed out, if that’s your definition of okay.”
“Since we talked about it last night, I still don’t know why he stopped sleeping with you.”
“It’s simpler now than it was six months ago when it was more his idea than mine.
We’ve grown apart. Have you noticed how little we touch? What I’m talking about is little things, like my putting my arm on his shoulder, like this.” Sana was sitting to Luke’s right, so she lifted her left arm and casually draped it across Luke’s shoulder behind his neck. Then she pulled her arm back and laid it along his leg with her hand on his knee. “Or even just sitting close with my arm on his knee. When we were first married, we both did such little physical things that were no more than an urge to let the other know that we were together, and that we were enjoying being together, like I’m doing to you. But all that stopped, and as I said, at first it was him, but now it is us. At first I thought it had something to do with our large age difference, but now I’m not so sure: I’m afraid it is more.”
Luke felt a sudden heat enter his leg and travel up toward his groin. He was infinitely conscious of Sana’s arm against his thigh and that her hand was ever so loosely clasped over the top of his knee. It was as if her fingers were on fire.
Sana was completely unaware of the emotional avalanche she’d unwittingly started in Luke’s mind, with its backed-up hormonal overload. She’d placed her arm and hand near him in what she thought was a platonic way, but it was also a physical reminder of how close she felt toward him, and she assumed he felt the same way toward her, as they had been trading extremely private thoughts and feelings since he arrived. In fact, Luke was the first person to whom Sana had verbalized the growing problems with her downward-spiraling relationship with Shawn. As a direct consequence, she felt Luke understood something about her hidden life, forming a bond, an attraction like a brother and sister, a special place in her mind, that even though Luke appeared to be a mysterious man-child, he projected an emotional perception older than his apparent years. After all, Sana reasoned, he had seen things on his own about her relationship with Shawn and had commented, and he was only a little more than three years younger than she.
For the moment, Luke wasn’t thinking. He was feeling. The heat from Sana’s hand was still burning against his knee, and now the length of her arm was doing the same, all the way up to the point of his hip. Each heartbeat he could feel pulsate in his swelling penis while his testicles contracted under him into painful knots. He needed relief. He needed to move, which caused the muscles in his legs and groin to begin to contract in rhythmical spasms.
Sensing Luke’s muscular contractions, Sana started. She was sitting directly next to him, and she suddenly spun around to face him, her left hand dragging innocently up his thigh. Seeing perspiration dotting his forehead and his dazed expression, her first horror was that the man-boy was having a heart attack. She stood up at once and tried to get him to lie down. But he fought her, and fought her with overwhelming strength so that the pushing match was short-lived.
“Okay!” she cried. “You’re hurting me!” He had grabbed her wrists and was compressing them to the point of shutting off the blood supply to her hands.
As if waking from a kind of seizure or at least a daze, Luke let go of Sana, who immediately recovered her wrists and rubbed them to restore circulation.
“My God, you hurt me,” Sana complained, still massaging her wrists.
As if in a postictal state, Luke merely stared at Sana. He didn’t try to talk, merely stared at her with a flaccid, shell-shocked face.
“Are you all right?” Sana asked. Even his eyes seemed glazed. His mouth was slack, with lips slightly parted. Although the firelight made his complexion difficult to judge, it seemed to her it was more pale than it had been earlier. “Luke! Are you all right?” Sana repeated. She reached forward with both hands to grip his shoulders and give him a little shake. “Talk to me, Luke! I need to know if you are all right.” Leaning forward, Sana studied Luke’s face. His eyes, which had been recently focused on her lips, now slowly rose. She could see that he was returning to the present, wherever he’d been, but it was a disturbing present. Instead of being the happy person he’d been, he was returning angry and censorious. Before he spoke, which Sana could tell he was about to do, it suddenly dawned on her what had happened. She couldn’t help but smile, especially because now that she thought about it, she couldn’t understand why it had taken so long.
“You had an orgasm, didn’t you?” Sana questioned with relief and even humor. “I think I’m right. Well, don’t be embarrassed on my part. I think it’s terrific. Congratulations.
I’ll even take it as a compliment. It is reassuring to know that someone finds me sexually attractive, even if my husband doesn’t.” Sana had carried on in an attempt to forestall embarrassment on Luke’s part, as it was her impression that he’d never had sex with a woman, not that what they had done was sex but because his response was certainly dependent on sex. It was her hope that despite the traumas he’d experienced since puberty, there was a chance he could turn out normal.
“Whore!” Luke yelled suddenly.
“Excuse me?” Sana said. She’d heard, but she didn’t want to hear such nonsense, certainly not from Luke, her special friend.
“Satan,” Luke snapped.
“Oh, really?” Sana questioned contemptuously. “So it’s like your mother and father all over again. The victim is at fault. This time it was all up here, my friend,” Sana added, while reaching out with her index finger to touch Luke’s head.
Luke viciously batted Sana’s hand away, causing her to briefly cry out in pain. “Satan’s whore,” he snapped, in the grittiest voice he could muster.
“Well, that’s that,” Sana said, babying her hand. “I thought you were doing well on the religious-fanatic chart, but I suppose I was overly hopeful about your progress. As for your welcome here, I have to warn you that it’s getting very thin. As for me, I’m going to bed with a locked door, so even if you consider apologizing, I’ll hear it tomorrow.
Needless to say, I do think it in your best interest to apologize. Good night!” Sana strode toward the stairs, while behind her she could tell that her mini-lecture had fallen on deaf ears. Luke let out a final “Satan, be damned for all eternity” as Sana started up the old, noisy stairs.
28
9:43 A.M., WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008
NEW YORK CITY
By nine-forty-three a.m., James was already in his office clearing his mail and answering e-mail. It amazed him how much of the business of the archdiocese was accomplished by e-mail, and he regularly attributed most of his thirty percent productivity increase to his adaptation to the new technology. What it did magnificently was speed the spread of information and eliminate many otherwise-lengthy telephone calls. For James the latter effect was so crucial.
He’d been up that morning from well before six; he’d already read his Breviary, showered, and shaved while listening to the news. He’d said Mass with his staff and breakfasted with the
“Good morning, Your Eminence,” Luke said the moment James had said hello. “I believe I have some good news for you.”
James rocked forward in his seat, his pulse quickly speeding up. He happily envisioned Gabriel the Archangel on the line. “Has he changed his mind?” James demanded gleefully. From chatting with Luke on the two previous days, James had essentially given up hope on plan B and worried that a plan C did not seem to be in the offing.
“Not yet, but I’m sure he will.”
