Promises by Belva Plain

I love it. I took it with me to California and I brought it back. That and some dishes that belonged to my mother, along with my bed, are things I’ll never part with.”
    The door into the bedroom was half open. He seemed to recall that it always used to be so. In the small apartment where he had grown up with his mother, the bedrooms had never been exposed in that way. Margaret, too, would certainly keep the doors closed if the bedrooms were in the line of vision. But Randi—Randi just
lived.
He wasn’t sure whether he approved or not.
    She sat down in the corner of the sofa close to his chair. Her white robe, of some heavy, shining silk, fell open on one side, revealing a firm thigh. He stared at it, wondering what had happened to the fierce desire that had brought him to this place. And he was suddenly engulfed by a wave of fear.
    She stretched and sighed. “It’s good to be home. I had a long day, but I think I made a sale. And you? How’ve you been since I talked to you at noon?”
    He surprised himself with his own reply. “Restless.”
    She gave him a long, thoughtful look, starting at his feet and rising up to where the look made contact with his eyes.
    “You’re all buttoned up,” she said. “You’re so tight, you’re ready to burst. You need to get loose.”
    “That’s easier said than done.”
    “Let me massage your neck and shoulders. Bend over.”
    Her fingers were strong and hard. As they pressed and prodded, they soothed. Her murmuring voice soothed along with them.
    “Here we go, here we go. You’re all in knots.”
    She began to hum. The sound was tuneless, monotonous, and curiously sweet. He closed his eyes, letting a soft relief pour through his blood. After a while he said, “You must be tired.”
    “No, it’s good exercise for me.”
    She was pushing so hard, leaning so close, that he could feel the warmth of her breath on the back of his neck.
    “How did you learn to do this?”
    “It came naturally. Like this.” And she kissed the back of his neck.
    He jumped up, turned around, and stared at her, at the dare in her eyes and the crooked smile at the corners of her lips.
    “Well,” she said, “you do remember what you came for, don’t you?”
    He could barely speak. “Yes. Yes.”
    “Well?” she said.
    “Come here. Take that thing—”
    But the white silk had already slithered to the floor and lay in a heap around her feet. Still curved and light, unmarked and white as the silk, she was unchanged. It might have been yesterday, he thought, as he lifted and carried her to the bed. Yesterday.
    It was not yet six o’clock when he awoke. She lay with her back against him. They were as close as nested spoons. For an instant he felt a startling sense of unreality; the window was in the wrong place, the wallpaper, Margaret’s butterflies and birds were missing. Then reality took hold, and his heart pounded. He was in panic. Before any words could be spoken, he must escape from there.…
    Carefully, he slid out of the bed, threw on his clothes, and tiptoed out of the house. At seven he reached home. People were already about, attaching lawn sprinklers and taking in the paper from the front steps. A neighborwaved. The man would be wondering why Adam was arriving home at that hour rather than departing from it.
    He went into the house, let the dogs out, made a cup of instant coffee, and went upstairs to shower and dress. As he stood in the bedroom taking a suit from the closet next to Margaret’s, as he looked at the pillow on her side of the bed, he felt as if he were sinking into deep water.
    How the hell did this happen?
    Last night had been an aberration, or to put it less elegantly, a one-night stand. Quite simply, he would refuse to see her again, not even in a public place. There would be no lunches, no drinks after work, nothing.
    With that determination he went back downstairs again and was in the car when he remembered the bird-feeder and got out. He had promised to keep