Drunken Love, Que Son [jenna bush book club TXT] 📗

responsibilities to your children and parents."

 

"I know. He will not find out. It will be our secret. I love your voice. You sounded so lovely and sweet."

 

Adam was surprised to know he had become a smooth talker.

 

"Where are you right now?" Adam asked.

 

"I am sitting in my closet."

 

"Why the closet?"

 

"So no one will hear me."

 

"What are you wearing?"

 

"Jumpsuit."

 

"How often do you have sex with your husband?"

 

"Perhaps once every few months. And only if he asks. I never ask. Sex with him for me is a duty because I am his wife. But sometimes he cannot get an erection."

 

"What are we going to do for each other on that day?"

 

"Whatever you want. But one thing I know I will do: I will hug you very tight and maybe I will cry."

 

"And we will get in bed, and we will make love."

 

"…" Eve suddenly became silent.

 

"Hello?"

 

"I am listening."

 

"We will get in bed, and we will make love."

 

"Yes."

 

"I will kiss you all over."

 

"Yes."

 

"I will kiss you on your hairs, your lips, your ears, your neck, your breasts."

 

"You know, I don’t wear bra."

 

"Why not?"

 

"Because it hurts."

 

"Fine. Then I will suck your nipples. How big are your nipples?"

 

"They are big."

 

"What color?"

 

"Kind of pink."

 

"Then I will go slowly down your belly and I will kiss your vagina."

 

"…"

 

"Hello?"

 

"I am here."

 

"I kiss your vagina because I know it has suffered a lot and my kisses will make it--and you--forget about the pain it has endured all these years."

 

"I will love it. I love you."

 

"I love you too. Feel your pussy now."

 

"Yeah?"

 

"How is it?"

 

"It’s wet."

"I know."

 

“You are making me feel so uncomfortable.”

 

Adam was having an erection. And it was three o’clock in the morning where he was and midnight where she was.

 

The next day Eve emailed and wrote that she had never felt like she had when listening to Adam.

 

One night during a conversation with Eve, Jane, on vacation from halfway around the world, broke in and asked if everything was all right at home and Adam said all was fine and they talked for a little bit then hung up, then he returned to the conversation with Eve. He felt as if he was living those younger days again when he ran looking for Eve after she had left the city to go to Sai Gon. It was the same fever. The same madness.

 

Shakespeare looks out the small window and sees the dim early morning light. He feels very tired, but at the same time he is happy that the lovers are going to see each other. There is justice at last. Shakespeare feels that Adam was responding correctly to the calling of his heart. He could not wait any longer, because it would be bad if they waited and waited and not knowing when they were going to see one another. Adam could not let himself and Eve get any older before they saw each other again. Eve felt the same way too. "I want to see you again and as soon as possible. I don’t want to see you when we are both old and sick and senile and I cannot recognize you," Shakespeare imagines Eve say to Adam. At this point in the story Shakespeare almost identifies himself with Adam and he is feeling the same tension and the fever as his character is feeling.

 

Shakespeare stands up and paces the room. Steam is coming out of his nose and mouth because of the cold air. He sees in his mind how the lovers prepare for their reunion:

 

Adam was slow in telling Eve exactly what date he would be in San Jose. He only said that he would be there before the end of the month, which was two weeks away. He did not want her to count the day. He continued to call her on her cell phone during her daily lunch breaks, and she called him at home every night and talked to him for hours. The insomnia was getting worse for him. But in the morning, he would still get up and go about his daily business, albeit in the fog of his mind.

 

And three days before the flight he gave Eve the date and time of his arrival.

 

"I will be there around 9:30 pm on February 22 and I will call you as soon as I got the room," Adam said.

 

"I want to pick you up at the airport. I want to do that," Eve said.

 

"No. Listen to me, I will call you from the motel."

 

"Ok, if that is what you want. But I will leave the house early after my evening bath and I will drive to the motel and I will wait around in the area. I will wait for your call. I will have all the food and water ready. But you must get a room with a microwave oven and a refrigerator."

 

"Ok."

 

"What do you want me to wear?"

 

"Jeans?" Adam said.

 

"I will wear jeans. Do you want me to put on makeup?"

 

"Yes, but no perfume."

 

"Why? Don't you like me to smell good?"

 

"I like the smell of the flesh better. And if you are so clean that you don’t have any smell, that’s fine with me."

 

"Ok. No perfume."

 

"I will buy two wedding bands. One for me and one for you because on that day we will play husband and wife even if it is for only one day. That is what you have been desiring all these years, have you not?" Adam said.

 

"Yes." Eve said.

 

"You and I will get our wishes. We will be married."

 

"When you see me, you will find that I have changed. I am not as naive as I was before."

 

"I will not expect anything. You are you. I know you have changed, of course, after all these years, and that is ok."

 

"Do you want me to be naive and sweet as when you first knew me?"

 

"That would be nice."

 

Adam drank a lot of wine when he was talking with Eve because it put him in the proper mood for sweet and feverish conversation. The words came out of his mouth easier, and they carried the passion that overwhelmed Eve who said she was becoming addicted to listening to him, and to his voice.

 

On the afternoon of the flight Adam took the subway to the airport and it was a nice and cool afternoon. After checking in and while waiting to board the plane, he called her and told her he was on his way.

 

"You still don’t want me to meet you at the airport?" Eve said.

 

"No. just wait for me to call you. I have already booked the room." Adam said.

 

"And it has a microwave oven?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"After work I will go to the gym and after that I will take a shower and I will leave the house and I will wait for you near the motel." Eve said.

 

"Have you seen the motel?"

 

"I have checked it out twice. It is a nice place. It has a swimming pool. I want to see you swim."

 

"We will not have time for that."

 

"I will wait for your call."

 

Adam sat around the terminal and ran to the gate when he suddenly heard his name called over the loudspeaker. He was the last one to board the plane because as soon as he walked into the cabin, the attendant closed the door behind him. Adam found his seat, buckled himself, and lost in thoughts: the tension had been building for almost a month and the time had come for an anti-climax. We have talked a lot, it is now time to face reality, he thought. I will see you and you will see me as two concrete objects, not images, not thoughts, not imagination, not fantasies, not abstraction, not words in the emails, not the distant voices on the other end of the phone. We will see one another in the flesh and in the blood. We will come near each other and touch and sniff. I am sure you will sniff, because you are such a clean woman and has such a sensitive nose. I will let you sniff. But I assure you, this body is me, mine, the real me, the one you have loved all these years and desired to see again. So here I am, touch me and sniff me all you want. Look at my face, you will see the same features, still those large eyes, that nose, that flat cheek, those full lips, and the dark skin. But of course, time has ravaged me and made me look much older. There is nothing I can do. I am not seventeen years old anymore. I am now 45 years old. You cannot use the past to measure the present. Things change, and so do I and so do you. What you will do to verify my ID I will do to you too. But I have seen your latest pictures, and have seen how you have aged, how the youthfulness was gone, how your face now has the sharp edges, and also the lines under your eyes. You clearly look a middle-age woman in the picture. So I am prepared. I know what I will see. I will touch your face just to make sure the basic features of your face are still there, those that I have carried in my memory for 30 years since the day we met and fell in love. A reunion at last. We must meet, even if in secrecy. Because if we don’t see one another before we die, there is no justice in the world. So let’s prepare for tonight. We have discussed the game plan in details. We know what we are going to do for and to each other. I don’t think I will cry because I know my tear-well has long dried up, I cannot cry anymore. But I guess you will, because you are a woman, and women are faster with tears than men. And I will be happy to see tears streaming down your bony cheeks, because I know they are tears of happiness, a rarity, and how precious they are. But what if you do not cry? I will take that as a sign that you have become a strong woman, and I will compliment you for that. You said you want love and only love, not viruses. I promise: love only, no viruses. But why the hell am I so anxious? I need to curb my enthusiasm. I must have no expectation. The only thing that is 80% certain is I am on an airplane right now heading west to see you and I pray that I will get there safely--because I must see you. After one day with you, I am willing to die. But I am going into the unknown.

 

Adam looked at the TV screen in front of him until his eyes got tired, then he took a pill and drifted off to sleep. Sleep but no sleep, because he was always conscious of the presence of the guy next to him and the conversations that were going on around him and his left foot sometimes was stepped upon by the flight attendants or by the passengers going to the bathroom. The tension in him strangely died down with each passing hour. It was the start of the anti-climax, he realized, because now the wish was about to be fulfilled.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

Shakespeare feels as if he was going to see Eve himself. Like Adam, he is also full of expectation and is determined to make sure things go smoothly for them. The parallel paths they have been walking on all of their life are now about to meet, if only for a brief moment. There is no stopping now.

 

Adam flew for six hours and landed in San Jose. It was 9 pm. Walking through the parking lot from the motel's office on the way to his room he saw a small head inside the window of a small car and he immediately thought that it was Eve. The two bright eyes were