Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Amy Bloom [43]
I read a few magazines, plucked my eyebrows, thought about plucking the gray hairs at my temples, and decided not to bother. Who’d look? Who’d mind, except me?
Finally, I got into bed, and got out about twenty minutes later. I poured myself some bourbon and tried to go to sleep again, thinking that I hadn’t ever really appreciated what it took Lionel to get through life sober. I woke up at around four, anticipating Buster. But there, leaning against the doorway, was Lion.
“Ma.” He sounded congested.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. No. Can I come in?”
“Of course, come in. What is it, honey?”
He sat on the bed and plucked at my blanket, and I could smell the beer and the sweat coming off him. I sat up so we could talk, and he threw his arms around me like a drowning man. He was crying and gasping into my neck, and then he stopped and just rested his head against my shoulder. I kept on patting his back, rubbing the long muscles under the satiny skin. My hands were cold against his warm skin.
Lion lifted his head and looked into my eyes, his own eyes like pools of coffee, shining in the moonlight. He put his hand up to my cheek, and then he kissed me and my brain stopped. I shut my eyes.
His kisses were sweet and slow; he pushed his tongue into my mouth just a little at a time, getting more confident every time. He began to rub my nipples through my nightgown, spreading the fingers on one big hand wide apart just as his father used to, and I pulled away, forcing my eyes open.
“No, Lion. You have to go back to your room now.” But I was asking him, I wasn’t telling him, and I knew he wouldn’t move.
“No.” And he put his soft plummy mouth on my breast, soaking the nightgown. “Please don’t send me away.” The right words.
I couldn’t send my little boy away, so I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him to me, out of the darkness.
It had been a long time since I was in bed with a young man. Lionel was forty-two when I met him, and before that I’d been living with a sax player eight years older than I was. I hadn’t made love to anyone this young since I was seventeen and too young myself to appreciate it.
His body was so smooth and supple, and the flesh clung to the bone; when he was above me, he looked like an athlete working out; below me, he looked like an angel spread out for the world’s adoration. His shoulders had clefts so deep I could lay a finger in each one, and each of his ribs stuck out just a little. He hadn’t been eating enough at school. I couldn’t move forward or backward, and so I shut my eyes again, so as not to see and not to have to think the same sad, tired thoughts.
He rose and fell between my hips and it reminded me of Buster’s birth: heaving and sliding and then an explosive push. Lion apologized the way men do when they come too soon, and I hugged him and felt almost like myself, comforting him. I couldn’t speak at all; I didn’t know if I’d ever have a voice again.
He was whispering, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” And I put my hand over his mouth until he became quiet. He tried to cradle me, pulling my head to his shoulder. I couldn’t lie with him like that, so I wriggled away in the dark, my arms around my pillow. I heard him sigh, and then he laid his head on my back. He fell asleep in a minute.
I got up before either of them, made a few nice-neighbor phone calls, and got Buster a morning playdate, lunch included, and a ride to soccer camp. He was up, dressed, fed, and over to the Bergs’ before Lion opened his eyes.
Lion’s boss called and said he was so sorry for our loss but could Lionel junior please come to work this morning.
I put my hand on Lion’s shoulder to wake him, and I could see the shock and the pleasure in