From MS page 119 of Under the Small Lights . . .

Corinna says the double bed where she sent me to nap used to belong to her Dad and his first wife, the one who killed herself before he met her mother. They bought the frame and mattress somewhere in Central Europe in the late fifties, just after the Bulgarian ceremony, traveling as part of a cultural exchange program. The thing about the frame, she said, is that it was designed to hold a huge mattress filled with 'tempered straw.' Her Dad told her a story about how it reminded them of when they had to sleep in a hay loft once. But the original mattress was long gone and it was replaced with a queen-size American mattress too narrow and not long enough for the frame.

I was daydreaming half asleep when she came into the room, quietly stripped down to her underwear and crawled under the covers.

 

"Hey."

 

"Weren't you sleeping?"

 

I couldn't tell if I was tired or pretending to be tired as I turned my head on the pillow. There were a few car sounds from the street. Surprisingly, considering how close it was to Corinna's house, I was never able to smell or hear the ocean.

 

"I'm tired too," she said, putting her arm around my chest, wrapping her bare leg around my bluejeans underneath the sheets.

 

Since she married Paul, this was the closest we'd been alone. I felt split between how comfortable I was-how comfortable I wanted her to be-and the movement of her bare leg.

 

And while we're being ridiculous, lying here like aspiring saints, what the fuck is marriage anyway but an ornamental restraining order? Who was I, who lived for her more than my father lived for America, with his flag-embroidered throw pillows, more then Charles Jodoin lived for poetry with his long beige books-who was I to be patient?

 

I couldn't be still but I didn't move much. We shifted against one another for the next half hour. I wound my fingers in the base of her hair. She brushed her face against my chest. I moved my thigh tight between her legs.

 

"You asleep?"

 

"No. You?"

 

With her head on my chest, there was no graceful way to kiss her. I was still unsure.

 

"Jack?"

 

"You?"

 

"Tell me a story. Tell me about Maybe."

 

We both had the same children's book. It was one of the things we talked about when we first got to know each other.

 

"There once was a Maybe from Maywhich," I recited, "Who lived with a bird in his hair."

 

"What about the may witches? The women?"

 

"You're getting ahead of me."

 

"Sorry."

 

"And none of the maidens of Maywhich knew why, or knew how, or could care."

 

I unhooked her bra from the back and touched her breast.

I felt her breath warm through my shirt.

 

As I kept repeating the children's book, slowly, not sure what I was saying, I felt her cool fingers inside my shirt, moving up my belly and onto my chest. She fell back from me, left her face on my neck. Her breath came unevenly. Her hand warmed under my shirt.

 

"If you listened at night you could hear them. moving far from the lights of the town."

 

I spoke into her hair. Her hair muffled it. With my free hand I tilted her chin up and kissed her. Only after a minute did she open her mouth, and then only a little. I kissed her and ran my hand along the side of her body where I felt her hesitate, slow.

 

"Come here."

 

"I can't."

 

"What?"

 

"Paul."

 

"Fuck him." I said, and pulled her hair away from her face. I had no idea what was behind her eyes as she looked down at me. I realized then that I hadn't taken the spurs off my boots yet, that I was lying in bed with spurs.