Naked

Joanna Wiley has a nightmare. She's running, pigtails bouncing, so hard her feet never touch the ground, so fast her legs are blurring. Her lungs are burning when she finally collapses in a field on top of a boy, his pants down, panting.

"I won't pee," he says, absurdly matter-of-factly, as she catches her breath, "if you put it in your mouth."

"Yeah?" She considers him, surprised to realize he must be the who she was chasing. His face is splattered with freckles, and his hair is a shock of blonde. "Bet you'd get a good laugh at me if you did."

"I think you should put your mouth on it," he persists, ignoring her, holding it up in his palm. "At least you oughta touch it, feel it, see what it's all about."

Joanna stares at him, feels something sharp glinting in his blue eyes, accepts the offer to poke at the thing, naked like a worm beneath her fingertips.

"Go on and do it," he says. She drops to the ground in front of him, going in for a closer look.

"I'm not sure if I want to," she answers. But the snake charms her, fascinates her, and the wet grass feels good beneath her knees. He places it on her tongue with all the solemnity of a priest giving out communion, and her eyes close, something inside of her shaking.

When she looks up again, she is surprised to see it isn't a young boy's face above her but that of her English Lit professor. The eyes that meet hers are older and wiser, and she does not think innocence can be her excuse for this seduction. She realizes with some amazement that she is a woman, and she moves her hand up behind him, feeling the hard muscle in the back of his thigh, the soft curve of his flesh yielding. She tries to move her entire body upward, straining hard to stand.

She only begins to panic when she realizes her knees have rooted to the ground as if she were a weed long ago seeded, and she wakes from her dream sweating, tangled terribly in her black hair.

She watches him at the blackboard tapping a chalky word with a pointer stick, and she wonders again what Dr. Silka looks like naked. She has studied him as hard as her textbook all semester, noted the thick build, curly raven hair, scruff beard until she sees even the slightest changes: a haircut, circles under his eyes, a nick on his chin where he must have cut himself shaving in the naked skin underneath his lip.

She knows through quiet observation the tiniest of details about him. She derives from the white hair on his slacks that he owns an affectionate cat. He keeps a bottle of non-dairy creamer in the top drawer of his desk. His hands are strong. He always squeezes a tennis ball when he lectures. He likes to run. He wears Reeboks instead of dress shoes. He must be just a year or two older than her.

"Mrs. Wiley? Can you respond to the question?" His eyes fall heavy on her, hard as rocks breaking apart her meditations. "Or are you really paying attention?"
"Of course I am," she says, embarrassed. She drops her eyes to the poem. "The cat-like smoke helps set the sensual feel of the piece, the sexual overtones."
"And your favorite image?" He raises a dark eyebrow. He stops squeezing the ball in the palm of his hand as he waits for her answer.
"The arms on the women," she says. "The hair on them."
"Very nice." He nods, complete understanding of her registering in his features, fingers opening and closing around the ball again.

Glowing in his praise, she slides down in her seat as if she can hide the rose color that lights up her cheeks. It is silly to be so affected, she thinks, like a silly schoolgirl. She chokes down a laugh as she reminds herself she is a schoolgirl again, even if she isn't the right age. This makes her flush warmer, and she twists her wedding band around and around and around on her finger.

Joanna cooks dinner. Pete left a message to put his plate in the microwave oven again, but, for once, she isn't annoyed. She got home late herself after researching T.S. Eliot all afternoon in the university library. She had gotten lost in the language, and the clock had ticked off the minutes so quickly she hadn't noticed how many of them were gone. The famous writer has that affect on her, the power to reach through her senses into her mind, which is the root of all her attractions.

The grease in the frying pan crackles as she browns hamburger meat for the spaghetti. Pete always teases her for her Shake-and-Bake basics, but the cookbooks her mother bought for her the Christmas she'd gotten married still sit on the bottom shelf of the dining room bookcase unopened.

She hears Pete struggle with his key in the lock, and she thinks about how she needs to call someone to stop the dead bolt from sticking. Juggling little league, laundry, and going back to school has proven to be a challenge for her, and Pete's long hours don't help much around the house. She is lucky if he remembers to put his socks in the hamper. She wishes he would think of taking a screwdriver and fixing the dead bolt himself, but she accepts this will not happen.

She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and scratches her shin with her big toe. She smiles when she hears her husband finally slam the door open and stumble in. She looks over her shoulder to see him scowling at the keys he holds in the palm of his hand.

"Hi, Pete," she says. "Hungry?"
"You're still cooking?" He looks up in surprise. Despite his age, he is a handsome man with rugged features. "This late at night?"
"Yeah. Aren't you the lucky one?"
"Lucky to eat your spaghetti? Even when it's warm, Jo, I hope that's a rhetorical question." He winks at her as he takes off his jacket. He is wearing jeans and work boots, his customary uniform for his job as a foreman at a construction company. He hangs the jacket on the wooden rocking chair he bought for her when the children were colicky babies who needed motion to untie their insides. "Where're the twins?"
"Cub Scouts. They're camping out at the Scout Hut after their meeting."
"Oh, really?" Something livens in his soft brown eyes.
"Really," she answers. He moves around the island that separates the living room from the kitchen to stand directly behind her. Her black hair falls to the small of her back, and he lifts it up, kisses the back of her neck, reaches around to cup a breast in his palm. "See?" she says, moving meat with the spatula. "I told you you were the lucky one."

"The luckiest," he murmurs. He pulls her hips hard toward him making her grunt in surprise. His thick hands rub down her thighs and up between them, lifting the cotton cloth of her skirt. His mouth kisses through her silk shirt, down her spine until he is on his knees behind her, turning her, and she momentarily forgets the stove as his thumb loops under her panties tugging them off. She is only half-aware that the hamburger is burning when the grease starts spewing out smoke.

"I'm gonna catch my hair on fire!" She pulls herself away from his mouth long enough to turn off the burner, long enough to remember she's in the kitchen.
He smiles up at her, the dimple in his left cheek appearing.
"You like that, huh, Joanna?" he asks. She looks down at him, smoothes the tired wrinkles on his forehead, touches the full mouth. She tugs on his hand to lead him into the bedroom.

After making love, Joanna stretches her body until her toes slip out from under the sheets. Her fingers touch the cherry-oak headboard, and she feels like she is growing bigger. She knows intuitively that school is the thing that does this for her, fills her up, stretches her mind like a bag being loaded full of ideas. She needs knowledge now-- yearns for conversation. Is drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

She puts her head on her husband's bare shoulder. His finger traces the vertebrae in her naked back as she talks about something more exciting than the PTA. An exchange of ideas is more engaging to her, more intimate now than their bodies, even when joined in climax.

"I read of mermaids today," she says to Pete, "and the ragged claws at the bottom of the ocean."
"Ah, a seafood commercial, I presume?" He smiles, and she laughs at his ignorance, his carefree joking.
"No, silly. We read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in class. You know. By T.S. Eliot."
"J. Alfred who?" He puts his chin on her head, and she can hear his heart beating.
"He's a guy in a famous poem," she explains. She tells him all about the verses she has memorized and what she thinks the words mean.
"So you liked this Prufrock character then?" He pushes her bangs out of her eyes with his thumb. "Because you like balding, old men?"
"No." She slaps his softening stomach playfully. "I liked the poem because it was different. A new voice on life is all. Like school is different from home. Makes me think about things."
"A brave new world, huh? Education?" he asks softly, and she is taken aback by his reference to Aldous Huxley's work. Once upon a time she had believed her husband knew everything there was to know-a sophisticate by virtue of the twenty years he had on her--but she had grown up since her wedding day, and she knew writers were not his forte.

When Pete falls asleep, Joanna lies in bed looking at the man she married. His lips are slightly parted, a spit bubble in one corner moving slightly with each steady breath. His brown eyes dart beneath his eyelids like water bugs moving under the surface of a pond. She lightly touches her thumb to one of them as if she can feel what he is seeing, as if she can get inside his head.

She notices the lines that are deeper around his eyes, the hair that is falling out. She can see the skin beginning to weigh heavy underneath his jaw, the whiskers that are flecked gray. Still, when he speaks he can look beautiful to her-the full nose, the strong chin that had made a man as old as her father appealing.

She glances at the digital clock before picking up Pete's hand, heavy in sleep, and strokes his fingers. She likes to touch the wedding band he wears, likes to stick his knuckles in her mouth. She curls in a fetal position beside him, his fingers wet on her face. She moves herself closer to him as if trying to burrow into his skin, and she finally falls asleep, plummeting fast into strange dreams.

Joanna Wiley goes to a cocktail party in her mind. She knows she isn't awake as soon as she sees fog curling outside the window, inside the room, and the air she is breathing feels too heavy in her lungs. She looks around the room at the many people talking, holding their martini glasses between two fingers, staring intently at one another's mouths constantly moving. She isn't sure if she should approach any of them, but her tongue feels dry, and her throat is parched. She begins to look for the hostess in the huddles of men and women, scanning the painted faces, but no names come into her mind-no friends are in the room.

She decides to try the kitchen, and her feet take her there without much question. She can hear music playing somewhere, but it is a generic muddling of tunes. There is a man in white flannel trousers at the Formica table lining up silver coffee spoons.

"Excuse me," she says just loud enough to catch his attention. "Where can I get something to drink?"
"I'm not sure about alcohol." He looks up at her, and she recognizes with her skipping heartbeat that the man is Dr. Silka from her English Lit class, his wild eyebrows pushed together in curly concentration. He is squeezing a tennis ball in one hand. She looks at his fingers, nails square and filed. "But there's a pot of coffee by the sink."
"Oh, it's you." She feels only a little surprised to find him. "I didn't expect to run into you here."
"Well, who were you expecting? Your husband?" He looks directly at her, and his eyes seem heavier than usual, heavy like a storm.
"I'm not sure," she answers. Dreams can be confusing. "Can I have a seat?"
"May you?" he corrects, but he smiles as she pulls out a chair. "I'm glad you're here, Mrs. Wiley. I've been meaning to talk to you after class."
"Really?" she asks. Her hands are shaking as she reaches for the steaming coffee mug that he pushes toward her. "What about?"
"Your life, of course. That trapped feeling you've been having."
"Excuse me?" Joanna asks, blinking.
"Well, I can't help but read about your life in your papers, and how you feel is all very clear in the writing that you do." He puts down his ball and rearranges the pattern of silverware in front of him. "You've started to feel smothered, haven't you? Smothered by your children, your husband, your life, like a child who has hidden under a down comforter and found it's gotten hard to breathe."
"I don't understand," Joanna shakes her head, her knuckles turning white on the handle of her mug. But she does understand. She wonders if he has something new to offer.
"Of course you do." Firmness is set in his square jaw. "I think you know exactly what I mean." His face has moved in closer to hers, and she feels his breath warm upon her skin. "I know what you've been thinking when you look at me."
"What?" she blinks again. Only for a very small moment does she think he's gotten it all wrong. Something inside of her is being smothered, is clawing at her insides in its struggle not to drown, and it just seems possible its only hope of survival is this man. The idea of him.
"Are you a mermaid, Joanna?" he asks, almost purring. "Or do you think that's me? I'm a merman?"
"A merman?" The hair is rising on her arms; the blood feels warm in her skin.
"Can't you hear them singing? Don't you want my song?"
"I do," she says. Her ears are full of the music drifting in from the parlor room: bells and tinkling voices, moving currents of sound.
"Go ahead and do it," he says, soft but urgent, silver flecks in his eyes glinting like the cat's she imagines him owning. His face is younger than her husband's, older than her own.

"I'm not sure if I want to," she says. But she has already been charmed by the thought, charmed by the words that roll like sirens off his tongue. She knows she wants to see him naked, stripped as bare as a bone, and her mouth pushes into his, greedily eating his kisses, as her hands rip off his clothes. She wants to tear him down past his skin, to uncover the hidden something she's seeking, and she closes her eyes for only a second before plunging her nails into his gray orbs, clawing to find what she is looking for inside of him that isn't him at all.

She panics when she realizes her nails have missed their mark. Dr. Silka is suddenly gone from the room. She hasn't found his song, and her husband is the man now sitting in the seat in front of her. Her eyes meet his, but Pete looks confused, dazed by the fingers that have raked across his cheek and left him bloody. He opens his mouth to speak, but his lips twist like a toothless man's, and the gurgling noise that comes from his throat, the tongue impotently flapping, makes it seem as if he's drowning on the air of the world her own mind's created. He sucks in hard to breathe.

Joanna wakes up after her dream crying, rocking back and forth in the sheets, reaching for the empty place from which her husband has already risen to make his way to work.

She puts on her slippers and goes to the bathroom. She looks in the mirror. Her eyes are so sunken she is afraid they will flip inward, spin around like glass beads on a string. She splashes her cheeks with water to assure herself she's wakened, and slowly brushes her teeth. She's thinking about how to begin her morning with each deliberate stroke: up, down.

She hopes Pete left enough milk in the refrigerator for her breakfast cereal. She already knows there won't be enough juice.

She rinses her pink toothbrush and replaces it next to Pete's purple one in the porcelain holder on the edge of the sink.

She starts the shower running, liking the water hot enough to steam up a room.

She catches sight of her naked body in the mirror as she steps out of her panties, and she touches the scar on her belly from which the twins had been taken out of her womb.

She studies her breasts carefully, pink nipples tilted upward, as if she were a gynecologist looking for lumps, as if she could devoid her body of sexual shape. That is not the thing that matters to her.

She takes a brush to her long, black hair, ripping out the tangles before she considers whether or not it is worth the bother of washing.

She thinks about her English Lit class, the end of the semester fast approaching. What going back to school has meant to her. What Dr. Silka has taught her.

She steps into the shower and imagines as the water pelts hot onto her face that her skin is melting. It feels good to her, a basic pleasure.

She gets out of the shower clean, blood so warm her skin looks like that of a boiled crustacean. Pete's terrycloth robe is hanging on a hook behind the door, and she wraps herself in it, lingering in the familiar smell of him.

She looks down at her feet, her toenails ten red drops of blood on the tiled floor, and it crosses her mind that the cloth of the robe is like another skin that can be discarded in a puddle on the linoleum to let her walk as naked as a newborn out of the room: a completely new woman. The thought is too cold to be appealing.

She pulls the belt around her waist tighter and rubs a circle of steam away from the mirror with the palm of her hand. She squints at her reflection for a moment, the face seeming almost like that of a stranger's with its cold gaze leveled hard upon her, and she meets those eyes square, standing straight as if in view of naked judgment.

Something hot is burning inside her, but she suddenly realizes it has nothing to do with the heat of another person. The teacher has never been the attraction-just the instrument to help her understand.

She smiles feeling comfortable with what she desires.
She will read her favorite poems in bed to Pete when the boys are sleeping.
She will compose her own song.

Contributor: Barbara Donnelly Lane

Comment on this story on our Message Boards