Read Online The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood - Free Book Online
Authors: Margaret Atwood
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week ago. “When you’re in there?”
“Of course I miss you. Don’t be silly,” she said, kissing him on the nose. But a nose kiss wasn’t what he wanted. Do you hunger for me, do you burn for me? That’s what he’d like to ask. But he doesn’t dare ask that, because he’s almost certain she would laugh.
It’s not that they don’t have sex. They certainly have more of it than they had in the car; but it’s sex that Charmaine enacts, like yoga, with careful breath control. What he wants is sex that can’t be helped. He wants helplessness. No no no, yes yes yes. That’s what he wants. He’s come to realize that, in recent months.
Down in the cellar, he opens the large green locker and stows away the clothes he’s been wearing for summer: the shorts, the T-shirts, the jeans. He may not be using these for a while: by the time he gets back here next month, the hot weather may be over and he’ll be into the fleece pullovers, though you never know with September. He won’t have to do so much lawn maintenance then, which is a plus. Though the lawn will be a wreck. Some guys have no feeling for lawns, they take them for granted, they let them mat up and dry out and then the yellow ants get into them and it takes a lot of work to bring them back. If he were here all the time he could keep the lawn in peak condition.
Upstairs, clean towels are deployed in the bathroom, clean sheets are on the bed. Charmaine did that before she set off on her scooter for Positron. In the past couple of months he’s been leaving the house after she does, so he does the final check: no bathtub ring, no orphaned sock, no ends of soap or wispy gatherings of shed hair on the floor. When they return on the first day of every second month, Stan and Charmaine are supposed to find the house pristine, spotless, hinting of lemon-scented cleaning products, and Charmaine likes to leave it that way. She says they should lead by example.
It certainly hasn’t been spotless every time they’ve returned. As Charmaine has pointed out, there have been hairs, there have been toast crumbs, there have been smudges. More than that: three months ago Stan found a folded note: the corner was sticking out from under the refrigerator. It must originally have been attached with the silver fridge magnet in the shape of a duck, the same one Charmaine uses to post shopping reminders.
Despite the strict Consilience taboo against contact with Alternates, he read the note immediately. Though it was done on a printer, it was shockingly intimate:
Darling Max, I can hardly wait till next time. I’m starved for you! I need you so much. XXOO and you know what more – Jasmine.
There was a lipstick kiss: hot pink. No, darker: some kind of purple. Not violet, not mauve, not maroon. He riffled through his head, trying to recall the names of the colours on the paint chips and fabric swatches Charmaine spends so much time brooding over. He’d lifted the paper to his nose, breathed in: still a faint scent, like cherry bubble gum.
Charmaine has never worn a lipstick that colour. And she’s never written him a note like that. He dropped it into the trash as if it was burning, but then fished it out and slid it back under the refrigerator: Jasmine shouldn’t know that her note to Max had been intercepted. Also, it’s possible Max looks under the fridge for such notes – it might be a kinky little game they play – and Max would be upset not to find it. “Did you get my note?” Jasmine would say to him as they lay stuck together. “What note?” Max would answer. “Omigod, one of them found it!” Jasmine would exclaim. Then she would laugh. It might even turn her on, the consciousness of a third pair of eyes having seen the imprint of her avid mouth.
Not that she needs turning on. Stan can’t stop thinking about that: about Jasmine, about her mouth. It’s bad enough here at the house, even with Charmaine breathing beside him, lightly or heavily depending on
“Of course I miss you. Don’t be silly,” she said, kissing him on the nose. But a nose kiss wasn’t what he wanted. Do you hunger for me, do you burn for me? That’s what he’d like to ask. But he doesn’t dare ask that, because he’s almost certain she would laugh.
It’s not that they don’t have sex. They certainly have more of it than they had in the car; but it’s sex that Charmaine enacts, like yoga, with careful breath control. What he wants is sex that can’t be helped. He wants helplessness. No no no, yes yes yes. That’s what he wants. He’s come to realize that, in recent months.
Down in the cellar, he opens the large green locker and stows away the clothes he’s been wearing for summer: the shorts, the T-shirts, the jeans. He may not be using these for a while: by the time he gets back here next month, the hot weather may be over and he’ll be into the fleece pullovers, though you never know with September. He won’t have to do so much lawn maintenance then, which is a plus. Though the lawn will be a wreck. Some guys have no feeling for lawns, they take them for granted, they let them mat up and dry out and then the yellow ants get into them and it takes a lot of work to bring them back. If he were here all the time he could keep the lawn in peak condition.
Upstairs, clean towels are deployed in the bathroom, clean sheets are on the bed. Charmaine did that before she set off on her scooter for Positron. In the past couple of months he’s been leaving the house after she does, so he does the final check: no bathtub ring, no orphaned sock, no ends of soap or wispy gatherings of shed hair on the floor. When they return on the first day of every second month, Stan and Charmaine are supposed to find the house pristine, spotless, hinting of lemon-scented cleaning products, and Charmaine likes to leave it that way. She says they should lead by example.
It certainly hasn’t been spotless every time they’ve returned. As Charmaine has pointed out, there have been hairs, there have been toast crumbs, there have been smudges. More than that: three months ago Stan found a folded note: the corner was sticking out from under the refrigerator. It must originally have been attached with the silver fridge magnet in the shape of a duck, the same one Charmaine uses to post shopping reminders.
Despite the strict Consilience taboo against contact with Alternates, he read the note immediately. Though it was done on a printer, it was shockingly intimate:
Darling Max, I can hardly wait till next time. I’m starved for you! I need you so much. XXOO and you know what more – Jasmine.
There was a lipstick kiss: hot pink. No, darker: some kind of purple. Not violet, not mauve, not maroon. He riffled through his head, trying to recall the names of the colours on the paint chips and fabric swatches Charmaine spends so much time brooding over. He’d lifted the paper to his nose, breathed in: still a faint scent, like cherry bubble gum.
Charmaine has never worn a lipstick that colour. And she’s never written him a note like that. He dropped it into the trash as if it was burning, but then fished it out and slid it back under the refrigerator: Jasmine shouldn’t know that her note to Max had been intercepted. Also, it’s possible Max looks under the fridge for such notes – it might be a kinky little game they play – and Max would be upset not to find it. “Did you get my note?” Jasmine would say to him as they lay stuck together. “What note?” Max would answer. “Omigod, one of them found it!” Jasmine would exclaim. Then she would laugh. It might even turn her on, the consciousness of a third pair of eyes having seen the imprint of her avid mouth.
Not that she needs turning on. Stan can’t stop thinking about that: about Jasmine, about her mouth. It’s bad enough here at the house, even with Charmaine breathing beside him, lightly or heavily depending on
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