RED 2: A Trick of Mirrors [#Wattys2017]

25. Desire

The blue-faced watch on the nightstand marked three o'clock when they went to bed. Through the open balcony curtains, the diffuse luminosity from the external decks encompassed the starry night in an aura, covering the bed with a flimsy veil of silver. The two lay naked under the sheets as was their habit. But contrary to habit, Marisa turned her back to Marco without a word, fixing her eyes on the white rose adorning the nightstand—the rose unaware that it would perish in a few days.

Marco drew closer to Marisa. He traced her flank with his fingertips, from the contour of the shoulder to the dip on the waist, from the curve of the hip to the tip of the breast. Retaining its form in the palm of his hand, he then glided to her belly and the recess between her thighs. Marco had done that countless times, the velvety erection slipping inside her when she was ready, his face buried in her hair, a bite on the nape of the neck, teeth and stubble arousing her skin. Marisa's heart was dead to his touch, though, and desire crept into her body as an uninvited visitor.

She withdrew to the edge of the mattress.

"Not tonight. I'm tired."

"I know a way to solve that."

His voice enveloped her in a satin mantle—soft and cold. Marisa closed her eyes. Marco ran his hand on her back, soft and cold satin following the route of her spine, a whisper of skin flowing on skin. He stopped at the buttocks. Silence and stillness. A sudden slap. Marisa inhaled the air with force, the startled sound of desire vibrating through her lips and pleasure burning the flesh like ice. She turned to Marco and laid one hand flat on his chest to keep distance.

"It's all about sex with you."

He let his hand drop and scrutinized her face streaked by the dim.

"What's the matter, Mari?"

"You disappear with Eliana all the time and only remember I exist at bedtime."

"I explained she's just a friend. You know sex is a channel of expression for me. It's a manifestation of the deep self, not only of the body. It's how I express my love."

"I wonder if you've already expressed yourself like that with Eliana. Do you think I didn't notice how she stood next to you during the truth or dare game? And oh how moving, she made you smile with her little story about the Campbell's soup."

The glare Marco aimed at her was fulminating.

"And didn't Robert stand next to you and give you a little foot massage? Tell me the difference."

Marisa's reply was on the tip of her tongue, on the verge of being thrown at him, screw tact. She would repeat Robert's words, sit back and watch Marco's reaction. If he didn't appreciate her, others did. Robert saw qualities in her that Marco was no longer able to see. Robert wanted her and she might as well want him, why not? Marisa bit her lip hard and swallowed her words. In the black hole that had become her mind, all of that and none of it was true. As she opened her mouth, something else tumbled to the tip of her tongue.

"Did you fuck Eliana or not?"

His posture changed, jaw stiffening, emptied features. In that void, Marisa sensed something she couldn't grasp.

"Where is this heading?" Marco's tone was incisive.

"You two were more than friends in San Francisco. That's plain as day."

A glint in his dark eyes. It glinted. It was gone. Marco lowered his face, staring at his own hands.

"We never dated."

"Are you sure?"

Without realizing, Marisa held her breath waiting for the answer. She felt like escaping to the infinite blue for air. But she was imprisoned in that moment.

Marco raised his gaze to Marisa.

"At the time I had thought about it," he admitted. "But Eliana started dating a guy and I obviously wouldn't make the same mistake as with Lorena."

"You told me you never wanted another relationship after your divorce."

He assured her Eliana had been an exception. He had met her in his first year at the University of San Francisco when she was an assistant to the chair of psychopedagogy. Since his doctorate focused on cognitive education, the two had interests in common and became friends. They ended up discovering they lived in neighboring buildings. Eliana was the anchor that helped him in the transition to life in a strange city. She was the person by his side in his hours of loneliness, when he needed support so not to quit everything. Marco reiterated that, if he had made it this far, he owed it to her.

Marisa pressed one hand to her stomach to suppress nausea. Then she wasn't imagining things. Eliana was in fact more than just a friend: she had made Marco want to love again.

Another woman is about to win Marco's heart.

Had she already won it? Eliana was the anchor. The link to the world bringing balance and comfort to Marco. One day Marisa had also been his anchor. Not anymore.

Since she kept quiet, Marco explained: "Eliana wants to divorce Robert based on theories that, frankly, don't make any sense. She's getting increasingly confused. You have no idea what it's like, Mari. After investing all your hopes in a life together, you watch it crumble and can't stop it. Now it's my turn to give support to Eliana. I don't wish to anyone what she's going through." Marco shook his head. "You have no idea what it's like."

Marisa clenched her hand on her stomach. Didn't she know what it was like to invest all hopes in a life together and see it crumbling, each day a handful of grains slipping to nothingness as she attempted to contain the erosion with bare hands? But she had never divorced. Neither studied education nor lived in San Francisco. She couldn't share with Marco what Eliana shared. All she could do was watch them at a distance, unable to transpose the wall of their friendship.

For a poor woman in crisis, however, Eliana seemed quite well. Just like Robert sought another relationship, she was probably in search of a new love.

Marco.

Marco who was once infatuated with her, who treated her with devotion and gifted her a rare flower.

He held Marisa's hand.

"You look tense. Want a massage?"

"I told you I'm tired."

She pushed his hand and turned away, almost knocking down the vase on the nightstand. The water undulated in the crystal and the rose quivered with a faint rustle. Then everything quietened, except for the mirror above the headboard. It reflected resentment.

"Do you know what loneliness is, Mari?"

"I do. It's when your partner leaves to get drinks with another woman, disappears for two hours and picks a flower for her to put in her hair."

The mirror registered two immobile figures.

"You're wrong. You have just described a token of solidarity. Loneliness is something else. It's when you enter the body of your partner and feel like a stranger because she's not there to welcome you. It's when the next day you spot one single flower stemming from the rocks and think of your girlfriend because, just like her, the flower is rare. So you pick the flower and see a friend on the verge of crying and decide she's in more need of that flower because she has no love. And your partner rejects you because she's so distant she can't even understand that."

Marisa wanted to touch his shoulder, but he had already rolled to the side.

"Marco..."

"You'd better sleep, Marisa. We're both tired."

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