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Let me lie down, she says.
If nothing is ever taught, how is it that the body knows how to
move and where to place itself? It must be a kind of instinct of
course it is a sense of physical practicality. Olympia has never had
the act of love described, nor seen drawings, nor read any descrip-
tions. Even the most ignorant of farmers children would have more
knowledge than she.
She goes into the bedroom alone, into the room where Haskell
and his wife have so recently lain together. The bed is unmade and
rumpled, its occupant having left it in haste. There are no traces of
Catherine now, nor of the photographs that were on the bureau.
Olympia takes off her dress and her hose, her corset and petticoat.
Wearing only her steps-ins and her vest, she lies down and covers
herself.
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anita shreve
Haskell comes into the room and stands at the foot of the bed. If
you only knew how you looked to me, he says.
She watches as he takes off his collar and unbuttons his shirt. For
the first time in her life, Olympia sees a man undress. She is struck
by the way Haskell tussles with his cuff links, the way he removes the
collar of his shirt as if freeing himself from a yoke. She feels odd and
cold beneath the sateen puff and frightened at the thought of a man s
nudity, which, in fact, she does not entirely see this day. Haskell
stops short of removing his undergarments before he slides into the
bed with her.
She rolls into the crook of his arm and rests her head there. She
puts the palm of one hand against his vest. Uneasy and expectant,
they are silent for a time. There is nothing impetuous in their ac-
tions, nothing at all. Though impetuosity will come soon enough, it
is as though each movement toward the other must be taken with
some forethought, some understanding of what it is they do.
He shifts his position and dislodges her from his arm, so that she
is now lying beneath him. I saw you at the beach that day. You do
not remember me.
I am not sure.
I think I loved you then. Yes, I am certain of this.
How is that possible?
I do not know, he says. But I am sure of it. And then when
I saw you on the porch the night of the solstice, I experienced . . .
He searches for the words. As though I had known you. Will
know you.
Yes, she says, for she has felt it, too.
You cannot know how precious this is, he says. You will think
that this is how it always is. But it is not.
He supports his weight on his forearms. He kisses her slowly on
her neck. As if they have all the time in the world, which, in fact, they
do not.
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fortune s rocks
I envy you, he says. I envy your not having known anything
else.
She can feel him pressing into her, a weight lowering itself, even
as his hands draw up her vest and push away the rest of her under-
clothing. For a moment, he fumbles with something he must have
had in his hand when he entered the bed, something she cannot now
identify, though later he will explain his caution to her.
Does she feel pain? Not exactly. Not terrible pain. It is more a
sense of greater weight, of a thrusting against her, though she does
not resist. She wants to take him in.
Am I hurting you? he asks once.
No, she says, struggling for breath. No.
She is thrilled, tremulous with the event. The sun moves and
makes a hot oblong of light on the topaz sateen puff, so oddly un-
masculine, a spread similar to her mother s. All around them is the
soft cotton of overwashed sheets almost silky, almost white
and beyond these the austere mahogany of the carved furnishings:
the wardrobe, the bed, the side tables. There are a man s garments
strewn upon a chair and on the floorcloth, which has been painted
to resemble a rug. She looks up at the pattern on the sage tin ceiling.
Only near the end, just at the end, does she feel a quickening
within herself, the barest suggestion of pleasure, a foretaste of what
she will one day have. Oddly, she understands this prophecy, even as
she hears for the first time the low hush, the quick exhalation of
breath, and knows that the event is over.
His weight, which has been great upon her, becomes even heavier.
She thinks he does not understand that he will crush her. She shifts
slightly beneath him, and he slides away. But as he does so, he pulls
her with him, nestling her within the comma that his body makes,
as one might cradle a child, as, indeed, he may have nestled his own
children. She arranges herself to fit within his larger embrace.
For a time, Olympia listens to his breathing as Haskell dozes in
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anita shreve
and out of consciousness, a particular form of sleeping that she will
come to treasure over time, to feel privileged to witness.
He wakes with a start.
Olympia.
I am here.
My God. How extraordinary.
Yes, she says.
I will not say that I am sorry.
No, we must not say that.
She moves so that she can see his face.
I feel different now, she says.
Do you? It is not just . . . ?
No. As though she can never return to the girl she used to be. I
did not even know enough to wonder about this, she says. I did
not have any idea. Not the slightest.
Are you disturbed. . . ?
No. I am not. It seems a wondrous thing. To become one. In this
way.
It is a wonder with you, he says. It is with you.
I should go, she says. Before the maids come.
And he seems sad that she has so quickly learned the art of decep-
tion. Not yet, he says.
They lie together until they hear footsteps in the corridor. Reluc-
tantly, Haskell stands up from the bed, trailing his hand along the
length of her arm, as though he cannot physically bear to remove
himself from her. He dresses more slowly than he might, all the
while watching her on the bed. Only when they hear voices in the
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