Twenty-two

Natalie woke up with a start as if she’d just remembered something urgent she had to do and then she realized: She’d already done it. Or, more precisely, she’d already done him.

She rolled over, looking at Gary in the half-light of the early dawn. He was not asleep, either; his eyes were wide open, looking up at the unfamiliar ceiling of her home office. In the heat of the moment she had thought it would be the most appropriate place for them to spend the night.

“What are you thinking?” she asked him. “And I don’t mean that you have to tell me something wonderful or romantic. I just wondered what you were thinking.”

Gary turned and looked at her. “I’m wondering if I should be here,” he said, simply.

Natalie nodded. “I don’t think your being here is bad,” she replied after a moment’s pause. “Because we both wanted what happened to happen and what happened was really nice and neither one of us wants anything else to happen that the other person doesn’t want so really when you think about it everything that’s happened is fine.”

“Pardon?” Gary asked, with a hint of a smile.

Natalie smiled back and stretched out. She had been worried she’d feel self-conscious about her post-baby body; after all, this was the first time that she had had sex with anybody since Freddie was born. She was worried that it would feel different, that she would feel different and that it might possibly hurt. Everything had changed “down there” since the stitches—it even looked totally different, as she had discovered with the aid of a compact mirror one morning. She was nervous and tense as the crucial moment approached, but she didn’t have to worry about being inhibited, in fact the opposite had rapidly become true. The heat of Gary’s desire for her had been so urgent and frankly so obvious that it had been impossible not to feel desirable. Somehow the combination of his solid muscular mass and her soft pliant body had worked wonderfully well. And when he was inside her, she quickly forgot her worries about any pain or discomfort. For a time she forgot everything.

So, although she was certain the feeling would not last, just for those few hours Natalie had gloried in her flabby tummy, her stretch marks and enlarged breasts. Gary had made her feel something she hadn’t felt since well before Freddie was born. He made her feel like an individual again, a separate person whose purpose stretched beyond that of merely being a baby-support system. Natalie hadn’t realized until that state of self had been returned to her just how much she had let it slip away; she hadn’t really missed it until she got it back.

“What I’m saying is I needed last night, more than I realized, actually. I’d really started to fancy you a lot, which is odd because you’re not my usual type, but I was starting to get quite heated, and anyway,” Natalie smiled wryly, “it was a great night. I don’t regret it at all, so don’t worry about me. I know your work here is nearly finished and you’ll be moving on. I don’t expect you to fall in love with me or marry me or any nonsense like that.”

Gary watched her, saying nothing for a moment or two.

“Maybe it’s not you I’m worried about, Natalie.” He smiled sideways at her. “I get asked out now and then on dates, mostly ones my mate’s wives have set me up on. Women can’t stand to see a man of a certain age single, it drives them mad! But nothing’s ever come of them. I never click with anyone. I haven’t got all that talk some women like. But I liked you as soon as I saw you.” Gary paused. “I thought you were married but you’re not. Which makes you a bit crazy but also available. I’d like to see you again, Natalie.”

“I like you, too,” she said, in an attempt to dodge the issue. “I really do.”

“So, do you really want me to just go when I finish the job, or would you like to see me again, too?” Gary asked her with some effort.

Natalie drew a circle on the sheet with her fingertip as she considered what he had just said. The bald truth of the matter was that if she did see him again it would be for all the wrong reasons, and she couldn’t do that to him.

“Gary, last night was important to me but I…I think I’ve treated you unfairly. I wanted you to take me to bed, I wanted you to put your arms around me like you said and make everything go away, and you did for a while. But more than anything I thought that if I…if we spent the night together it would help get me over Freddie’s dad. And it couldn’t, no matter how wonderful it was, because all the feelings I had yesterday were bound to still be there this morning. I can’t just dump them in one night. I have to let them sort of wear away. And I can’t see anyone while I’m waiting for that to happen. It’s not fair.”

“Can’t I decide if it’s fair or not?” Gary asked.

“Any minute Freddie will be up,” Natalie said. “And worse still my mother will drag herself from her pit and want to know what’s going on. If she catches you here, my life will be pure misery until the day I can finally get her to leave again. Actually, it will be pure misery anyway, but she’ll have more ammunition and I can’t have that.”

“I think you’re a bit hard on her, you know,” Gary said, sitting up in bed, accepting the change in subject with good grace. He was aware, Natalie realized, that she had chosen not to directly answer his question, but he seemed at the moment quite content to let it pass.

“Are you joking? You spent the evening with her!” Natalie cried.

“Yes I did,” Gary said, looking faintly puzzled as he spotted his boxers on the back of the desk chair. “And yes she is a drunk, scary, over-the-top kind of woman. The sort of woman you wouldn’t choose to be your mother. But, well, you’ll hate me for saying this, Natalie, but you and she aren’t that dissimilar.”

Natalie looked at him, horrified.

“I actually do hate you!” she told him, although his words were not exactly a revelation.

“She talked about you a lot last night,” Gary said. “She really loves you, you know, and she’s ever so proud of you.”

Natalie looked at him as if he were mad.

“Don’t be silly,” she said flatly.

“She is. She told me.”

Natalie sat up too, drawing the covers up under her chin, and feeling the chill of the morning air raise goose bumps along her spine.

“She has never once said that to me. Not once.”

“Well, she said it to me, so don’t you think you should try a bit harder?”

Natalie shook her head. “No, no, I don’t think I should,” she said bitterly. “I think she should.”

She felt the warmth of Gary’s palm on her back and she resisted the temptation to lean on it. It would be all too easy to lean on him for support, but she had to get through this part of life on her own two feet. Only then would she be truly ready for whatever the future held, even if it was the possibility of ending up like her mother.

“That piece of information didn’t exactly have the effect on you I thought it would,” he said.

“It’s just that she can say that to you, the man she was planning to stun into paralysis with her spider venom and then bind up in her web before eating you. But she can’t say it to me. And that makes me angry.” Natalie shook herself as if she could physically dissipate the anger she was feeling.

“Look, don’t worry about me,” she said, summoning a smile. “I’ll be fine. It’s enough that you had sex with me and fixed the wiring, you don’t have to solve my family problems too!”

“Glad to be of service,” Gary said wryly as he reached for his boxers, and sitting on the edge of the sofa bed he began to pull them on.

Natalie watched him in this oddly touching and vulnerable moment and before she knew it she had flung her arms around his shoulders, pressing her bare breasts into his back.

“You are a nice man, Gary,” she told him.

“Nice?” Gary said. His tone was casual but Natalie had felt all the muscles in his neck and shoulders contract when she touched him.

“Yes, nice,” she replied. “Don’t underestimate the sexiness of being a nice and decent man.”

Gary shrugged. “Nice,” he said with some resignation.

Natalie looked at him. He seemed like such an easy person to be with. This had been a rarity in her previous relationships, not that she could count Gary as a relationship. Nor for that matter could she count many of the men in her life as relationships. For a second Natalie got a glimpse of what life with a man like Gary could be like. Relaxed mornings talking about nothing especially. Friday nights in, watching TV and eating Chinese. Great sex every now and then and, more important, a steadfast, warm, and loyal friendship. For a second it didn’t seem like too terrible a prospect.

“I wish things were simpler,” she said wistfully.

Now fully dressed, Gary knelt on the sofa bed and leaning forward, kissed her briefly on the lips. He looked into her eyes.

“I’ll be back later on today to clear up and settle the bill,” he said.

“Oh, you old romantic,” Natalie replied, laughing.

“I could try to be romantic for you,” Gary said, standing up. “But you don’t want that, do you?”

“No,” Natalie said regretfully as she closed the door softly behind him. “I don’t suppose I do.”