table. The orchid didn’t budge, of course, didn’t blink an eye, but, at the other end of the table, my handbag went flying onto the floor, spilling out—not its entire contents, but just two items. Martin and I swooped down to retrieve them, almost bumping heads. I got the toothbrush; he got the fresh pair of underwear. I considered going the embarrassed excuses route. Instead, I chose the knowing, can-you-handle-this smolder. I smoldered, and Martin—God bless him—smoldered back.
Notorious : The smoldering was interrupted by the chime of the kitchen timer, and my first thought was, Please, please, please don’t let him say “Saved by the bell!” because it would have been too obvious, amateurish, but he didn’t of course, and I could tell it didn’t even occur to him, which evidently is more than one could say for me. He walked away, turning once to toss me my underwear and flash me a grin, and I returned my workaday version of slippers and peignoir to my handbag, then followed him into the kitchen.
It was duck, glistening darkly and smelling like heaven. Martin stood poking it with the kind of authority I rarely feel while cooking, even though I’m quite a decent cook, which made me want to stand behind him and put my arms around him. So I did. Thanks to my ridiculously high heels and a lifetime of practice standing on tiptoe, I was able to rest my cheek against his shoulder. His sweater was sage green and the softest sweater I’d ever felt.
“I love men in sweaters,” I said.
“I’m a man in a sweater,” he said.
“Tell me about the duck,” I said, and he turned around in my arms and began to do just that, beginning with the market where he bought the duck and the alleged purity of the duck’s diet, thus sparking the Notorious segment of the evening. Hitchcock again, I know, but the man knew his way around a love scene. Ingrid and Cary kissing and laughing their way from the balcony to the living room, straight through a telephone call, and all the while talking about dinner—that they would stay in; she would cook a chicken; they’d eat it with their fingers. Kissing him, laughing, she accuses him of not loving her. “When I don’t love you, I’ll let you know,” he says, kissing her. We didn’t say anything like this to each other—I threw it in because the line is just so great—and we talked about duck instead of chicken, but the moving from one room to the next, the smiling into each other’s mouths, the shadows sliding into all the right places, under cheekbones, along jawlines, and just the pleasure of it all, happiness suffusing every glance and touch, we got that spot-on, exactly right.
Not Casablanca : “The chief beauty of the duck is that it can wait,” Martin told me, mid-kiss, and this is the point at which the camera turns away, maybe running over the sensual lines of the Art Deco and Modernist furniture, taking a peek at the street beneath the window, resting on the duck cooling in its pan, before switching off altogether.
If you’ve been wondering whether Martin was one of those men who looks so divine in clothes that he is diminished and somehow nakeder than naked without them, he was not.
He had delectable sheets.
We hit that hard-to-hit balance between intensity and kindness, demand and generosity. We really did.
There was not one awkward second, not a single readjustment, no “Ow, my arm’s sort of twisted under…that’s better” business. Our rhythm was as effortless as the ocean’s; we waltzed; we tangoed.
And the earth did not shift on its axis. It should have. Clearly, it should have. The stars could not have been more aligned. But it did not.
I’m not sure why. But just afterward, before either of us had even caught our breaths, I looked at his faultless profile, at his lashes resting on his cheeks, and at the hollow at the base of his throat that is one of my favorite parts of the human anatomy as it is one of
Notorious : The smoldering was interrupted by the chime of the kitchen timer, and my first thought was, Please, please, please don’t let him say “Saved by the bell!” because it would have been too obvious, amateurish, but he didn’t of course, and I could tell it didn’t even occur to him, which evidently is more than one could say for me. He walked away, turning once to toss me my underwear and flash me a grin, and I returned my workaday version of slippers and peignoir to my handbag, then followed him into the kitchen.
It was duck, glistening darkly and smelling like heaven. Martin stood poking it with the kind of authority I rarely feel while cooking, even though I’m quite a decent cook, which made me want to stand behind him and put my arms around him. So I did. Thanks to my ridiculously high heels and a lifetime of practice standing on tiptoe, I was able to rest my cheek against his shoulder. His sweater was sage green and the softest sweater I’d ever felt.
“I love men in sweaters,” I said.
“I’m a man in a sweater,” he said.
“Tell me about the duck,” I said, and he turned around in my arms and began to do just that, beginning with the market where he bought the duck and the alleged purity of the duck’s diet, thus sparking the Notorious segment of the evening. Hitchcock again, I know, but the man knew his way around a love scene. Ingrid and Cary kissing and laughing their way from the balcony to the living room, straight through a telephone call, and all the while talking about dinner—that they would stay in; she would cook a chicken; they’d eat it with their fingers. Kissing him, laughing, she accuses him of not loving her. “When I don’t love you, I’ll let you know,” he says, kissing her. We didn’t say anything like this to each other—I threw it in because the line is just so great—and we talked about duck instead of chicken, but the moving from one room to the next, the smiling into each other’s mouths, the shadows sliding into all the right places, under cheekbones, along jawlines, and just the pleasure of it all, happiness suffusing every glance and touch, we got that spot-on, exactly right.
Not Casablanca : “The chief beauty of the duck is that it can wait,” Martin told me, mid-kiss, and this is the point at which the camera turns away, maybe running over the sensual lines of the Art Deco and Modernist furniture, taking a peek at the street beneath the window, resting on the duck cooling in its pan, before switching off altogether.
If you’ve been wondering whether Martin was one of those men who looks so divine in clothes that he is diminished and somehow nakeder than naked without them, he was not.
He had delectable sheets.
We hit that hard-to-hit balance between intensity and kindness, demand and generosity. We really did.
There was not one awkward second, not a single readjustment, no “Ow, my arm’s sort of twisted under…that’s better” business. Our rhythm was as effortless as the ocean’s; we waltzed; we tangoed.
And the earth did not shift on its axis. It should have. Clearly, it should have. The stars could not have been more aligned. But it did not.
I’m not sure why. But just afterward, before either of us had even caught our breaths, I looked at his faultless profile, at his lashes resting on his cheeks, and at the hollow at the base of his throat that is one of my favorite parts of the human anatomy as it is one of
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