Love without Sentiment

But for two days there had been hours of waiting, when she sat on the college green, opposite the history department building, and waited for the mail truck to pull up. Then, staring in the front door, she watched while the department secretary walked from her office to stuff the mail into the faculty pigeonholes. It was not difficult, today. She stood scrutinizing each envelope in Daniel's box. The secretary knew her well; Verna could have taken the mail, as though she had come to pick it up for Daniel. But she had done so only rarely, and Daniel would wonder—why today? And if Darlene happened to be in the habit of writing him notes and putting them in his box, he would panic, sure that Verna was spying.

A large grey envelope with no return address, post-marked from the city, addressed in a masculine hand... She slipped it out of the box and very gently, her hands trembling, bent it back and forth. Were there photographs inside? It was impossible to tell. She took the envelope and left. In her laboratory, 10 minutes later, she steamed it open and slowly withdrew its contents. One photograph had been taken on a sunny day—which one? Which Tuesday? It was enlarged to eight-by-ten inches and apparently the photographer had used a telephoto lens.

Verna was sitting very close to Darlene, leaning toward her, holding out the envelope. Darlene was reaching for it. On Verna's face was a tight smile—on Darlene's, embarrassment. It was a very good shot and the note attached to it, hand written very clearly, said: "You may never have heard of me. My name is Carl Bauman. Until April, I was Darlene Sullivan's lover. Now, thanks to your wife, an intolerable situation has developed, which I wish to present to you before going to the dean of the college..."

Verna burned it carefully, efficiently, and went home. As she walked, the imaginary conversation played out, again, between Daniel and herself. It ran as though automatically, and she ignored it.

When she walked into the living room, Daniel was sitting on the couch, half-watching the news, half boxing with Kipper, their Alsatian pup. He looked up at her. "Hello, Daniel," she said wearily... And then she froze, staring. On the coffee table, in the loose pile of today's mail, was a grey envelope with the same masculine handwriting. It had not been opened. On the couch, the puppy bounded and frisked, raising its forepaws to jab back at Daniel. The news commentator spoke urgently in words that Verna did not comprehend. Daniel look up. "Yes?"

Verna walked over and scooped up the mail. She said, unnecessarily, "It's the mail." Then, she walked out of the room to the kitchen and put a pan of water on the stove. She could not destroy the envelope. It was by far the largest in the batch; Daniel would have noticed it. She held it over the steam that rose from the pan and felt the wetness coat her fingers, burning them a little, but she did not move.

The same thing. Barely glancing at the contents, she stuffed them into the silverware drawer, beneath the silverware tray. Then, she took an advertising booklet that had come as in insert in the newspaper, stuffed it into the enveloped, and resealed it. She took it with the rest of Daniel's mail to his study and left it on his desk. Then, she returned to the silverware draw, removed the material, and took it to the basement recreation room. She burned it in the fireplace there.

Carl Bauman's telephone number was in the phone book. She noted it and began to prepare dinner. When things were started, she poured chardonnay into two glasses and walked into the living room, handing one to Daniel. He took it with a smile, held it up to her in a brief toast, and took a drink. Verna did not sit down; she stood holding the wine glass, looking down at him, experiencing an immense exhaustion. Finally, he said, "How was your day?"

"Busy," she said. She noted that he looked relaxed, at ease. She thought that he looked younger, lately; he stood straighter. Something about the way he held his shoulders, perhaps; and his step had a spring to it. Exactly what she had hoped. She said, "So busy that I didn't even write up my lab results. I have to go back for an hour or so."

"You really have to? You look tired."

"Not too bad," she said. She drank off most of the wine, put the glass on the table in front of him, and went back to the kitchen.

No old-fashioned melodrama could have prepared her for the uncomplicated heartlessness of what Carl Bauman had done. There had been no sly smiles, no drawn-out dialogue with pleas and threats and adamant replies. No threats made and withdrawn. Just one statement: 'It's finished,' and in the next possible mail the envelopes sent simultaneously to home and office, almost guaranteeing discovery.

Verna walked as though in a trance. She was dealing with a brute: a blunted, unsubtle mind to whom her pleas, Daniel's feelings, their careers, their lives were nothing. Nothing. As soon as she had cleaned up after dinner, she had left the house, saying only, "I'm going, now, Daniel." Although she wore only light slacks and a blouse, buttoned up to the neck, she was soaked with sweat before she reached the address.

It was a three-section graduate-student housing complex on Bowen Street, the doors to the connected segments of the building hooked open. She ignored the soiled row of black buzzers and, noting the name and number of his apartment on the fourth floor, she climbed the stairs. She climbed steadily, not hurrying, but her black hair clung to her face in wettish strands and in the tight crotch of her slacks the wet cloth chafed. Though she deliberately took controlled breaths as she climbed, her heart pounded.

The fourth was the top floor, with a tiny landing at the head of the stairs. Doors faced her from three sides. It was darkish in the summer evening; no one had switched on the lights. The smell was of dusty wood cracks and friend meat. His was the door directly in front of her. She knocked.

"Who?"

She lowered her voice, "Verna Noyes. We have to talk. Please."

No lock turned, no knob moved, the door did not open. She knocked again, harder. There was no reply.

"Please!" she said in a loud, hoarse whisper. For a few more moments, she kept knocking, waiting, listening. This wasn't possible. People made deals, tricked each other, but they did not do this. They talked. She thought desperately that she would have to leave, to return to wait for more envelopes. Or telephone calls. An envelope slipped under the door of Daniel's office. She couldn't.

She thumped hard on the door. From behind the door to the right, a girl's voice shouted: "Cut it out! He's not home! Can't you see that?"

Verna froze, hesitated for a few moments. Then, she leaned very close to the door and moved her lips to speak. She realized she had been about to shout. She said, softly, "Carl! Please! Open the door!" After a moment, she added, "What do you want? What do I have to do?"

Suddenly, there was a normal voice behind the door. She leaned close, straining to hear. The voice said: "I will say this once. Nothing more. Take it or leave it. If you leave it, you can stand there until morning."

"All right," she whispered. She heard the eagerness in her voice the relief.

"Take off all your clothes. Everything. Then you can come in and we'll talk."

"I can't! Carl! Just let me in—first!"

"Quiet, for Christ's sake, or I'm coming out," said the woman's voice from behind the door on her right.

She pressed her face to the door. She realized that she was crying. "All right," she whispered suddenly. Then, with a sudden frightening image of him in the bedroom, the bathroom, the door already closed to her for good, she added, more loudly, "Can you hear me?"

She heard the dry rasp of brass as the peephole in the door screwed open. She started at it, seeing nothing, but she knew he was watching. Her fingers moved dexterously from button to button down the front of the blouse, and she shrugged it off. She reached behind her and unhooked her bra; she paused only a moment, lifted it off. Then she reached for the belt of her pants...

If the girl opened the door over there, now... She felt her long, bare legs tremble. This was the worse moment to procrastinate. She hooked her thumbs in her panties and pushed them all the way down, bending far over, so that she felt her breasts separate, their thick tips nosing toward the closed door. The slice of her buttocks felt damp and chill, now, felt thrust out ridiculously to the stairs behind her.

She stood up straight and took a step back. She felt almost as though she might lose her balance, tumble backward down the stairs, because she was short of breath and in her mind was a sensation of swirling. Not thoughts, just movement, chaotic... Now she was trembling all over, aware of her belly, her long thighs, even her arms, her face... Her face! How must she look?

The door swung open and he stood there. She reached down for the pile of clothes at her feet, but he said, "No. Come."

She almost leaped forward, shoving past him, and was aware that behind her he bent, picked up the clothes, then stepped back and closed the door.

When he turned to her, she was several steps away from him in the room. Her arms were wrapped around herself, but below her breasts, not concealing them. She was enormously aware of her naked belly; she did not believe in trimming and shaping the hair, in fussing with it. She knew that the curly black hair was thick and spread up toward her navel. She felt the pressure of a rush of words, cursing him for his cruelty, for endangering her career, Daniel's—and for this evil game that he played as she stood outside his door. But the few seconds standing outside that door, naked, had convinced her that with this man, her indignation, her rage, was impotent.

He wore only blue jeans, his chest bare, flat and deeply grooved down the center. Dark hair clustered in the center of his chest and circled each of his dark nipples. Below, it ran down his stomach, disappeared into his blue jeans just below his navel. He stepped toward her, a slight frown on his face, watching her expression.

Verna lifted her chin a little defiantly, but her lips were trembling. Now he would take her, she thought. It would all right. It was nothing to her, nothing! He would use her body as he wished because he was an animal; he would find out that he got only a body. She would treat it as though it were an unpleasant medical examination, tugging at her flesh, probing, penetrating.

She was terrified. All that remained in her mind was the thought: once I can talk with him, once I can work on him, I can deal with this.

As though responding to a magnetic field, her tension soared as his half-naked body approached her. But he reached her and walked past her without touching her. He entered the living room and let himself fall back into a chair. Then, he let her little bundle of clothes fall from his hand to the floor beside the chair. His body seemed to relax utterly and Verna released her breath.

Starting at the door she had entered, the room ran, long and rather narrow, to two tall windows that overlooked Bowen Street. The furniture was vintage undergraduate, spare and makeshift—an old couch, a single new easy chair in which Carl sat, and a very large, beat-up leather bag of the kind that are stuffed with pellets and take the body's shape. The rug was rubbed away to straggling fibers in many places, but still a rich red. On the walls were unframed posters and cheap art prints: Carl seem to favor the classical when it came to art. On the windows were shades, but no curtains. Off to Verna's left, as she stood facing Carl and the windows beyond, there were doorways that led to a kitchen and a hallway—presumably with a bedroom and bathroom at its end.

Verna was standing near the center of the room, not looking at Carl, but gazing around her, chin slightly raised, as though disdaining to speak to him. When he said nothing, she glanced at him, a look of faint distaste on her face. He smiled at her. "You are very much more beautiful naked than the way you dress most days, you know, Verna," he said. "You are so much a woman. I admit that before this I never realized what a woman would look like. Up close, I mean."

She said nothing, but she became intensely aware of her body. She knew she was trembling—her legs, her belly. She hoped it wasn't obvious. This ridiculous person before whom she stood, stripped naked, awaiting a command, was a graduate student! And she was a psychiatrist and an associate professor of biochemistry.

He said, "There is paper over there on the desk. It's for my Russian Lit. seminar. It needs to be retyped. I think I caught all the typos, but if you see any, correct them. When you've done that, you can leave."

For many moments, she didn't move, staring at him. He said the desk is there, just snap on the light."

"What about my clothes?"

"When you leave. You aren't cold, are you?"

She said slowly, "No."

"Before you start, though, get me a Diet Pepsi. The kitchen's down there. Take one yourself, if you want. There's an open bottle of Chianti, too."

She turned and walked toward the kitchen, aware that he was watching her full, rather heavy buttocks—well, her ass—as she walked. In a few moments, when she came back to hand him the Pepsi, she stood back from him, holding it out at arm's length.

He laughed at her in a way that made her blush. He heaved forward, reaching out for the bottle. He said, "I like that you don't shave. It makes me want to just run my fingers through your hair."

A shiver ran across her belly. She turned away quickly, because she felt fullness in her nipples that portended stiffening.

It took her almost an hour to type the paper. She had to go slowly; he made many interlineations. Once, he came up behind her and stood watching. It took all her will power not to turn around when she felt the fabric of his blue jeans against her bare back. He stood, silent, watching her work. And then he put his hands on her shoulders and began to massage them; it was very strong, but very gentle. And now, she was helpless; she could not control her body, could not. Her nipples stiffened, and, the longer he touched her, the more they wide, dark-brown aureoles crinkled. She felt her neck burning with embarrassment. He must have seen it, his fingers moved up and down her neck in long strokes, caressing her. She had no idea, later, how she had managed to finish typing the paper, proofreading the last page, rising and walking to her clothes as he watched her.

When she had dressed, he said. "Tomorrow at the same time. It would make sense to wear something you can remove more quickly, wouldn't it?"

"I guess so, yes." The huskiness of her voice startled Verna.

After a moment, she said, "Tomorrow, then," walked to the door, and let herself out. She was never sure, afterward, exactly where during her walk home she admitted to herself—fully, explicitly. Admitted that what she felt was frustration, and more—crushing disappointment.

It was just a day at the lab, the familiar routine as she monitored, measured, and recorded changes in her cell cultures. She checked over the lab reports of the few students who were working over the summer. But nothing would make the day end. She took longer for lunch than usual, walking across the College Green, then down through the Wriston Quadrangle, then along Thayer Street. She stopped at the window of the one store that sold fancy lingerie. One black brassiere tempted her; it was at once ridiculously small and designed to hold the breasts high, pushed together. But she could not go into that store and buy such a thing; it was out of the question.

When she returned to the lab, the maddening day still stretched before her. She sat at her desk for more than an hour. She told herself that she was thinking through the situation, dealing with the crisis, but at last she admitted that not thoughts but fantasies flitted across the screen of her mind.

What was Daniel doing at this moment? And Darlene? But it had nothing to do with Daniel, did it? It had to do with her own denied libido. It had exploded, blasting away every careful calculation she had brought to her career, every standard she had brought to her professional life. The primal woman in her no longer could bear the life she had made with Daniel. She only imagined that she had been saving his soul...

She stood before his door. Somehow, the interminable day, stretching the minutes like victims on the rack, had reached this moment. She did not knock. She had worn blue jeans without panties under them, a sleeveless jersey with a bra. She dropped them at her feet and rapped twice on the door. She expected to see the peephole grind open and had stepped back for her audition. But the door swung open and Carl said, "No more stripping on the landing. That game is over."

Verna walked into the room, walked very slowly, aware of the movement of her hips, that he breasts passed within inches of him. Tonight, again, he wore only blue jeans. Again, he walked past her, into the living room, and sat in the easy chair. She followed him, slowly, stopping in the middle of the room, facing him, obedient.

He said, "You are very different tonight, Verna."

She reached up and with a very deliberate motion, passed her finger through the thick wave of hair, pushing it away from her face. She had put on her make-up, carefully, in a way she had not in years. She had opened for the first time a bottle of perfume that Daniel had given her years ago. And she was scared to death.

"Come here, then," said Carl. For a moment she didn't move. He cocked his head to the side, watching her. She had no choice. She walked over and stopped a couple feet from him.

"Closer," he said. She stepped toward him, not looking down, her shoulders held back, head raised, as though ordered into the presence of prince. Suddenly, she started. He hand had reached out and very, very softly his fingers moved through her the thickly curling black hair of her belly; their touch tickled her. She began to tremble uncontrollably.

He said, looking up at her, "Look how you tremble. Are you so frightened of being touched?"

She did not answer. He said, "Well, you aren't upset because you're a married woman. We know that. You went to a lot of trouble to get Darlene in bed with your husband."

He had not stopped touching her. His fingers traced over her whole belly, her thighs, and deep down where the thighs met, but the touch was so light that her skin quivered. Inside, she felt herself contract, her most sensitive flesh tingling. She said, "That is what I have to talk about...please..." Her own voice sounded strange to her.

His fingers had slid down between now, stroking the lips themselves, the crisp fur softly parting. "Oh, God, no," she whispered.

"Your husband made love to you, didn't he?"

She had closed her eyes.

He said, "You are required to answer, Verna."

"Yes, of course, he did. I'm a married woman."

"And you like it, making love?"

He would not stop the insidious, maddening stroking.

"I loved him." It was whisper.

She felt him rise, standing very close. She opened her eyes; they felt heavy-lidded, drowsy; they felt like closing, closing on everything and surrendering. His hand moved up to her bare breasts and his fingers sought the full, wide nipples with their points now rigid. When his fingers touched them with the same gliding, skimming, tickling movement, she knew that he realized that she was aroused. Intensely aroused. And she could do nothing, absolutely nothing about it.

"I think you do love him, Verna. I think you love him so much that you gave him Darlene. Made a gift of her. Bought her..."

She was shaking her head. "No," she said. "No. It is what Darlene wants, too." She opened her eyes. He seemed to look at her with a intensity she could not understand because it seemed focused on her words, what she was trying to say.