BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📗

He once practiced in a mirror at Cleveland Avenue. He watched her ass wriggle as she crawled to the laptop, restored Pearl Jam, and wriggled back to the shaggy blue rug. Then they lay, looking upward, four knees toward the ceiling, chilling out together. At last.

For a while, they didn’t speak, but absorbed the classic band in the glow of the bubbling tank.

“I do so like him.” She broke the spell. “And I admire him so much. He’s a brilliant scientist. No question about that. He’s a man I really respect. And he’s very funny, and compassionate, and kind.”

Ben stroked his T-shirt, feeling his chest. “Sounds pretty positive. Or is there a ‘but’ I hear coming?”

“No. There’s no ‘but.’ Only a few questions, little things I’m resolving with myself.”

He raised both arms and clasped his fingers behind his neck. “Want to share them with a stranger? I won’t tell.”

She pivoted from the rug, swigged a mouthful of beer, and sank back, brushing his shoulder. “Well, I don’t know. How do I put this? Let me think… Okay, you know how you hear about those women, you know, who say, ‘I was married twenty years and I never had an orgasm. I didn’t know what they were till now’?”

He’d worried about the talking—letting her mind wander—but, as topics go, orgasm was admissible. “What, you never had an orgasm? Wow, that sucks. What do we do about that?”

“Don’t be insane. Not me. What I’m saying is, I’m supposing to myself, what if the feeling I’m feeling isn’t the whole, real thing? I mean, not love. I could find myself giving up this apartment, moving to the other side of the world almost, a different culture, new job, living with Hiroshi, and then want to come back.”

“What? You’re saying maybe you don’t love him?”

“I didn’t say that. But I mean, what does it mean? What does it really mean? Love. I don’t know. It’s like having orgasms. That’s what I’m saying. Maybe if you haven’t experienced it, like you read in magazines, you wouldn’t know what you missed. And then maybe you’d never experience it at all because you stop looking. You see?”

“Really lose out.”

“Exactly.”

Her knees sank toward the rug until her legs lay straight. Were we talking body language here, or what?

He rolled to face her, propped his head in a palm, and took another draw on the MiniVAP. Still holding his breath, he lowered the device, and rested his free hand on her belly.

She closed her eyes. This time she didn’t flinch. She was into this for certain. This is it.

“Up till about a week ago—well, until that conference to be accurate—I would have definitely said, ‘Yes, I love him.’ Would have been easy. And I’m sure I do, really. But now, you know, I can’t be sure. I’m sure I do, but can I actually be sure?”

He fingered the hem of her T-shirt. This is it.

He tugged. She didn’t move. This is it.

The tension in the fabric emphasized her shape, with its undulating hills of desire. He slid his hand beneath the shirt. She felt like sun-warmed marble. “I get it. I can empathize. I can.”

“It was spending so much time together.”

“You mean with me?”

“No. With him. Yes. No. I don’t know.”

He stroked her belly in slow, light circles. The back of his hand strained against cotton.

“I hadn’t seen him in three months. Of course, we talk on Skype and Zoom all the time. But suddenly we were sleeping together, every night. I mean, really. In Washington, and then here. He stayed over Tuesday night and last night as well, like husband and wife. All of that.”

Ben leaned toward her, supported on an elbow, his chin near her neck. This is it. He lowered his face and licked her skin. He licked long—like a lion, or a big, big dog—arched his back, looked up, and licked the air.

“He’s a great conversationalist. Even with his English. Even on Skype, you know? He’s so knowledgeable, admirable, and he’s a brilliant lover in many ways. I always look forward to seeing him. But is that enough? I mean, it could be everything, or it could be not enough. How would I know?”

He rose to a kneel. Now the big dog panted, air cooling lips and teeth. He stretched a leg across her and tugged at her sweatpants.

Her hips rose toward him. This is it.

“It’s so confusing. I mean, it really is. It’s as if I have to decide between two sides of the same coin.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If I can’t have both sides at once, then what’s best to choose? One day I think one thing, and the next day I think something else.” She pivoted again, bit his stubbled chin, and sank back to rest on the rug.

He dragged off her sweatpants and threw them in a corner. He was right: she wore nothing underneath.

“I mean, I feel I’m two people sometimes. Both my parents are second generation in America, you know, so I suppose I’m technically Japanese. But my grasp of the language isn’t that good at all. I’m as much an American as you are.”

He pulled a handful of condoms from a pocket in his shorts and threw them on the floor by the rug.

“Father said it would affect my schooling, so they usually spoke English when I was in the room. Maybe I know “Dozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu,” and how to ask the time of the next train to Kita-Kyushu. But all that side of me says what I feel is love.”

She tilted upward and raised her arms. Her T-shirt slipped off like silk.

“And the other?”

She bit his shoulder.

He pulled back, nudged her flat, ran stubble across her breasts, and slobbered more canine licks. He licked her neck, jawbone, chin, and mouth, then teased her lips apart with his tongue.

She tried to say more, but her mouth was sealed. His hands gripped her arms: she was pinned. This was gonna be the best… The best fuck of her life. Her reference point, forever,