Take 5
The morning comes and, in a way, I am back where I was the morning after Charline left. Well, I guess I need to get used to it.
Showered and dressed I descend the stairs and head to the kitchen to prepare my breakfast and brew my coffee only to find it is all ready for me.
I look around and see no one. I look further and find Jecim on the terrace texting.
Why are you here? You left me last night.
My mother and uncle tell me I am stupid. They tell me to return. Where is Jezryl?
I kicked her and Myra out when I found that you left and they didn’t stop you or call me. They are gone and so, child, are you. Leave.
I am sorry. I make a mistake.
Yes you did. Leave.
Why?
What did Charline do?
Leave?
Yes. What did you do?
Leave?
Yes, and I have had it with girls who leave.
But I come back.
You came back because others tell you that you are stupid. Maybe Charline will try to come back if she runs out of money. I am not interested in girls who leave.
I leave her on the terrace and go back inside. I don’t think I had connected with my feelings of abandonment by Charline, as I just realized out there on the terrace. I am not hungry and even the coffee no longer seems inviting. My stomach is messed up. I collapse in an easy chair.
In a moment I go from angry, to emotionally exhausted. I am not thinking, I am just staring at a spot on the wall. How long? I feel used up. I don’t trust anyone, anything. I am messed up. How long have I been sitting here?
I notice movement. Jecim is standing there.
I told you to leave.
I know.
Then why are you still here?
This is where I live, with you.
And you think you can just decide that?
You going to pick me up, and throw me out?
No.
Then yes. I just decide that. I decide that Jezryl lives here too. I tell her to come back.
And is she here?
No. She is afraid. She say she not come back unless you ask. Here, call her. She holds her phone out toward me. Tell her, come back.
No.
Why? She not leave you. I do it.
She was here because you protected her. What did she do when you decided to leave? Nothing. Not a damned thing.
We both make mistakes. We not make that mistake again. You make a mistake now. She be good. Tell her to come back. Here, use my phone.
OK. Maybe you are right. Call her yourself. If you get her on the phone I will tell her to come back.
She gets the girl on the phone and sticks it to my ear. I say, Come. That is all I say. It is evidently enough.
Come have your breakfast.
No. I am not hungry. Just leave me be. I close my eyes. As much as she wants to be my company, I feel completely alone. Having others here will not change that feeling.
I go back upstairs to my room. She, of the wood, will have to wait. I have no desire to do anything. I feel empty, hollow, and isolated. All around me are facsimiles. ‘Care for’ is only ‘need of’. Love is only fear. All is false. The only thing true is the wood. I am too hollow inside to honor it.
My head hurts, I take two aspirin and lie down.
A knock on the door startles me. It is dark outside. My clock tells me it is six-thirty. I get up and open the door. Jecim is there.
Roland, you not eat all day. Please come and eat. I make mashed potatoes and gravy for you. Please come.
I agree, and wash my face before coming downstairs. There at the table are Jecim, Jezryl… and Myra.
I know why Jecim is here. … I know why Jezryl is here. … Why, the fuck, are you here Myra?
I… I thought… Jezryl said… I sorry, I go!
Stop! That is Jecim. Roland, Stop it!
Why?
Wait five days. Ask then. You need to stop hurting. It take time. Don’t punish because you are hurt. I know I leave, just like Charline leave. I wrong. Myra not know you. She wrong. Maybe she very wrong, but she learn! I promise it. Jezryl, she afraid and not know what she must do last night. She know now. She will beat down wall to find you. She promise this. Wait, I know you hurt inside. Wait.
I don’t say anything, but I take a seat. Myra doesn’t know if she should sit or leave. She is still half out of her chair. Jezryl pulls her down into the chair. She turns to Myra, and informs the older girl, that regardless of what she thinks, I have accepted Jecim’s request. They are all staying.
The mashed potatoes and gravy tastes good. The smooth warmth feels comforting as I take it into my mouth. These are sensations I have known from childhood. They are connections that speak of safety to me. In this land of rice, the potatoes transport me back, back to an earlier life. I relax a bit. Jezryl turns on the music. I relax a bit more.
After supper I take my brandy and retire to the easy chair. I close my eyes and just drift with the music.
There are hands on me. I am not looking. My eyes are still closed. But my sandals are being removed. Someone is massaging my shoulders and someone is massaging my scalp.
It feels good. I seem to want to hold on to anger, but the girls are, with their hands, pushing the anger away, denying it a place to stay. Their hands are talking to my body and bypassing my brain. It is hard to stay angry, when the body feels good.
I think that is why when you try to comfort folks physically, they will push you away. To stay angry, you have to deny touch. This team of three has overwhelmed the wall I had in place. I don’t think it will take 5 days now. The anger dissipates with the continued administration of touch.
I still have the brandy in my hand. Eyes closed, I bring it to my lips and allow some to slide down my esophagus as hands continue to pursue my epidermis. I am warmed inside and out, chasing the blues away.
The brandy is no more and the glass is removed from my grasp. Hands urge me up. Opening my eyes, all three are participating one on each shoulder and arm. Jecim grabbing my hands, urging me up and forward. Forward to her. Forward to the stairs. Forward.
No words are spoken. No offerings made. No excuses, no promises. Just movement. Just touch. A soft touch. A warm touch. A gentle but firm touch, guiding me up the stairs and to my bedroom.
I have been here so many times. With Charline, without Charline. At peace with the world and isolated from all within it. In control of my world and in control of nothing at all.
What am I now? Jecim looks at me. She needs direction. She has succeeded in getting here with me. But now what? How does all this move forth?
She disrobes. I haven’t asked her to do so. It’s not a sexy thing. It is a matter of fact removal of garments, placed in a hamper, one after another. I am just standing there. Not gawking, not looking away, just standing.
She comes to me and removes my clothing as she might her child, or a sibling. It is an act of caring and not impending activities. It is without desire.
She takes my hand and leads me to the bed. I get on and slide under the covers. I will sleep. So apparently will she.
We are together in the bed. I am alone in the bed.
She holds my arm in her hands. She rests her head on my shoulder. She says nothing.
Maybe it will take five days. Maybe.
Sleep comes.
Morning.
I am alone.
I shower, dress, and descend the stairs. The house is quiet, but a breakfast is set out for me. The coffee is made, warm and waiting.
I eat in my solitude and venture out to she, of the wood, who has waited patiently for my return.
I pick her up. She is real, she is what she is. There is no artifice, no hidden truths. She is not a facsimile. She may not be all, but what she is can be trusted, believed, and valued.
I remove my knife from the pocket where it rests when not in service. The blade is ready and I employ it gently, slowly, and with care. As each little bit is removed, she sighs, she giggles. Maybe she thinks, ‘I wonder if he will see that! Oh good, that needed to go! Ha! See, I’m not fat! Careful, now, shave me, don’t cut me.’ I think back to her, ‘Yes I know dear, I know.’
And thereby we proceed through the long morning, she and I, in quiet conversation, collaboration, the wood and I.
Roland?
Huh?
Roland, it one in the afternoon. I call you to come for lunch an hour ago. You not want to eat?
I see. I guess I didn’t hear you, Jecim. Yes, OK, I’m coming.
Your carving. Roland, it beautiful.
Yes, she is.
What you mean ‘she?’ You make this. It not a person you meet and say, you are gwapa. You make beauty.
I don’t know. I didn’t make her, she was always there. I only found her.
Are you buang?1
Maybe… maybe.
Come eat, now.
OK. Where is everyone?
Myra go to work. I send Jezryl to Tacloban by van. She get you the wine you like. She will return tomorrow.
She can’t buy the wine. She isn’t eighteen.
Roland, sometimes you are stupid. She will get it. Relax.
Where will she stay tonight?
She has a cousin who live there. She stay with the cousin. I tell her to buy the wine tomorrow just before she return. That way it get here better.
Yes, good.
You sleep OK, last night?
Yes, why?
You talk in your sleep. You know this?
No. I have never been told I do.
I ask Myra and Jezryl, they not hear it, but I hear it.
What did I say?
You keep on saying, something like, ‘all fuck up.’ I not sure.
That’s all?
Yes. That it.
Jeez, I wonder what I really said. I don’t believe her for a moment. She just doesn’t want to tell me.
By four in the afternoon there is not a single piece of wood needing to be removed. It is time for the sanding and oiling. But I will start on that in the morning. I place my knife in its pocket, she of the wood, on her soft cloth, and I sweep up the terrace from the day’s activities before I re-enter the house by myself to clean up.
At four-thirty, there is a knock on my bedroom door.
I could have called out to come in, but I go to the door and open it. There, completely naked, is Jecim. She enters, closes the door, and pushes me toward my bed, before removing the clothing I have just put on.
I stand naked in front of the girl. She pushes me back onto my bed, climbs over me, before speaking.
Roland, find the beauty in me like you find it in the wood. Make me beautiful with your hands and heart, like you make the wood beautiful. I know it in you to do this. Please do this for me?
God, of all the things that girl might have said, how… for the love of God, how did that come from her? What ethereal spirit whispered in her ear to elicit that? I swear, it is she of the wood, come alive, in Jecim, that I hear in my ears.
It is to ‘she of the wood’ that I respond. I take the girl in my arms and lay her down on the bed. I kiss her forehead, her ears, her neck, her shoulders and arms. I return higher and take a breast in my mouth, sucking a nipple, flicking it with my tongue. My mouth glides down over her belly, taking brief stops to kiss and nibble on the way to her pussy.
Her pussy is warm and inviting, rising up to greet me, as I greet it. My tongue, as it slides between her lower lips, surprises her, but after the surprise, she welcomes it and me.
I kiss the inside of her thighs before moving up to find her lips. Her sixteen-year-old lips. Lips that want to be kissed. Tongues that finally meet, after such a prolonged courtship. At first, just touching, before committing to a comingling.
My fingers play with her pussy and her clit. She is beginning to breathe hard. I move on her, encouraging the mounting need, bringing her desire to peak after peak. Neither cruel, nor dilatory, I work her body as I worked the wood, knowing each little place that needs attention, with the smallest of details not to be overlooked or given short shrift.
I keep her going. Her eyes are fixed on me. They do not leave me. She is grasping on to me. I mount her. She is wet, very wet.
I believe she is a virgin, but I surely do not know. I plunge in, without warning, or caution. She gasps.
I withdraw and push in again. And again. She is still looking at me. She gives me two serious eyebrows. I am to continue. I do.
Her mouth is open, her eyes stare. Her fingers have a death grip on my shoulders. Her legs lock around my back and I start a hard, insistent fucking.
In the silent house, the only sound is that which we are making and the creaking of the bed itself.
I feel everything about her. Her breath, the beating of her heart; the perspiration between our two bodies; the heat of her pussy; the grip of her hands on me; the back of her calves as they adhere to my legs; her lips as she lifts her head up to kiss me; her thick, rich black hair; the hard pebbles her nipples have become.
We are connected. We are moving as one. Her body talks to mine without word, without the forensics of proper grammar. It is far more basic and better communicated than anything she might say.
There is desire, passion, and the need for a completion. She doesn’t have to say it. Her body announces it. My body receives the message and is preparing to answer her. She knows it. She gives me the eyebrows again. She is telling me she is ready now.
I not only see it in her face, I feel it down below. There is a demanding on my body that is unmistakable.
Her pussy begging, my nuts are tightening, and then delivering.
I fill her. She gasps. Her eyebrows again signaling approval of the completion, along with a smile that slowly engulfs her face.
Her hands leave my shoulders. They grab my head and pull me down for a kiss with a tongue that invades me, before she pulls back, looks at me again, smiles, closes her eyes and just pulls me into a hug as I slide out of her.
We stay that way for no more than five minutes before Jecim announces that we are a mess. We need to shower. She grabs me and pulls me into my bathroom.
I am going along with her needs and requests, but am half here in the world and half drifting.
When we reenter the bedroom, there is clear evidence of blood on the sheets. I am thinking, jeez, I am not sure I will be able to get the blood out. She is smiling and announces that these bloody sheets are a badge of honor and distinction she will keep forever.
I am taking that in, while she tosses me my clothing and she puts on my robe. She has no clothing. She will not leave the room without me. She pulls me along to her room, where she dresses.
She pulls me to the supper table. She puts a bowl of prepared fruit in front of me as she disappears into the kitchen to get me my supper.
Supper is half eaten when Myra walks in. She says nothing to me, but there is an unspoken conversation between the girls. I can see a sign of pride in Jecim and a sign of warmth in return from Myra.
Myra notices that there is no music playing and gets it going before returning to the table.
After dinner I move to my easy chair. Myra brings me my warmed brandy. Jecim is massaging my feet. The streaming jazz station plays a Night in Tunisia by Dizzy, before giving way to Holly Cole singing Too Damned Hot.
Myra is now massaging my shoulders.
I so wish I could feel love. I so wish I could feel this was more than it is. But in truth I know better. It is really just fear that if they aren’t careful, I will throw them out again. They don’t love me. They are afraid of what I might do next.
It leaves me sad, when maybe I should be happy. It leaves me feeling empty when I should be feeling loved and connected. It is having the opposite effect possibly, from their hoped for feelings. I can’t blame them. It only makes sense, that they should want me to enjoy and be happy with the attention.
They are doing nothing wrong. It’s just that it’s not possible to be right.
1 - Crazy? or Foolish?