The Kissing Game Read online

  Ted reaches his hand across the table and touches the elbow of my pink robe. “Ah, who cares if you cry? It wouldn’t be the first time someone cried in front of me. I’m sure I can handle it. Tell me, what’s the worried face about?” The dim light over the table makes his brown hair glisten. His arms look warm, blankets that damsels could crawl into.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Have you ever just done something so stupid, something you wish you could undo, but you can’t, and thinking about it makes you wonder what the hell you’ve been doing your whole life, makes you evaluate all the things you’ve ever done until you feel like green fuzz that grows on cheese?” I gesture with my hands and smile, but a hot tear sweats down my face.

  “Hey,” Ted mutters, scooting his chair over to me and yanking me into a hug. The gesture feels unnecessarily forceful, and my face tucks into him. His arms are like a blanket. And he smells perfumed and scrubbed. I return the hug, my hands on his lower back, which feels particularly muscled.

  When Ted releases me, his hand rests on my own. “Whatever you’ve done, I’m sure you’re blowing it out of proportion.” Serial killer to the rescue.

  “No, it’s horrible.” The kettle whistles and I stand and turn it off. I put two tea bags into two mugs and pour the hot water into the mugs. I sniffle and wipe the tear off my cheek before returning to the table. I hand Ted a mug and he takes it. “You want sugar?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “You’re about the most harmless person I’ve ever known. I can’t imagine what you’ve done that’s all that horrible.” He sips his tea and then scowls.

  “What I’ve done is so bad,” I begin, “that I can’t even talk about it. That’s how bad it is.” I sip the tea. Watery grass with a hint of jasmine. “I’m going to get someone fired, for sure, but it’s more monumental than that.”

  “Who?” Ted asks.

  “My boss.” I stare at my disgusting tea.

  Ted gazes around my tiny kitchen and then back toward my bedroom before looking back at me. “Uh, isn’t your boss a jerk?”

  “Certainly, I mean, yeah, he can be. But I’ve intentionally hurt him, and I tried to fix the problem, but I can’t fix it. The worst part is that he’ll know what I’ve done. He’ll know I’ve hurt him intentionally. He’ll figure it out.”

  “I’m sure he’ll handle it. He seems like a big boy, capable of handling a little pain.”

  “I suppose so.” Feeling a slight breeze on my thigh, I notice my robe has fallen open. Ted’s eyes flicker over my skin and then down at his cup. I stand, and the weight of the day feels like hands closing my eyes. “Look, I’m gonna be facing the tribunal tomorrow. I should get to bed, but thanks for coming over. I never tell you how much I appreciate having you as a neighbor. You’re more like a friend than a neighbor.”

  “A friend?” Ted scrunches his face at me.

  “Yeah, a friend. Friends are important. Everyone needs friends.”

  Ted exhales and rises. I follow him to my door.

  “A friend?” he re-asserts turning around.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

  He opens my door and pauses. “Then, as your friend, your very good friend, I’ll say goodnight.” He leans down and kisses me on the cheek, ceremoniously, but I can sense the pandemonium in the whites of his eyes as he edges out onto the landing and shuts the door.

  I’m too exhausted to contemplate Ted, so I hit the lights and make my way to my bedroom, where I fling myself onto my bed, close my eyes, and pray to die in my sleep—one of those painless deaths where people find me the next day and scratch their heads. She looked so healthy, they’ll say. I can’t imagine how she could’ve died. They’ll have to perform an autopsy and months later the doctor will determine I died from a yet undiagnosed disease, something like guilto-phlanadosis, a condition that causes people to die in their sleep.

  Unfortunately, the next morning, I awake to the sound of my alarm. The sky outside my window looks ancient grey like the middle ages.

  I ready myself for work, choosing a red shirt to wear along with grey pants. Red seems a fitting color today. My hair is a wavy mess, but using a brush, I tame the curls. One must look nice on the day of reckoning.

  As I’m about to head out the door, I contemplate calling in sick, but decide against doing so. All villains must face their villainy, right?

  On my way into the office, I wonder if Robert will be there or at the hospital again today. Since he didn’t call me this morning, I’m guessing he’ll be at the office. The thought makes me feel cobbled ice in my stomach. Even though the commute to work usually gives me enough time to contemplate the blinding agony of eight hours of drudgery, today I barely have a chance to contemplate my predicament before I arrive at my stop downtown.

  Soon, I step off the elevator and trudge to my desk, halfway expecting to see Robert burning at the stake outside his door, a group of chanting, clapping employees throwing flowers in the air and dancing to music. Instead, I see Robert’s light on, as it often is on cloudy days like these. As I round the corner to my cubicle, I spot his elbow through his partially open door while he sits at his desk. At the sight, I feel as if I might have to wheeze and croak, but I glide towards my desk. It’s just a normal workday. A normal workday.

  “Caroline,” Robert beckons before I can even put my bag down. He’s not using the intercom. The sharp sound of his voice causes me to jump, and all hope of a normal day vanishes. I put my bag in my drawer and tread the few paces to Robert’s desk.

  As I stand before him, he types on his laptop, fingers heralding keys. Looking at him makes me wonder again whether time will ever make him ugly or whether his beauty will remain intact like stone. Before, I might have thought his beauty would be unfair. Now, it almost suits him. His dark brown hair looks recently combed, his eyelashes thick and curly as if they were pressed on moments ago with a glue stick.

  He abruptly closes his laptop without looking at me and says, “Shut the door, will you?”

  I shut the door and make three tentative paces back to the front of his desk. It really is like standing before a firing squad.

  “Sit down,” he orders pointing to the chair. When I sit, he rises, walks around to the front of his desk, and leans on it, his butt barely sitting on the edge, his legs straight yet angled in front of him. He towers over me, giving me an unfortunate eye-level view of his midsection. My eyes dart from his blindingly white shirt to his multicolored tie to his face. It’s hard to look away from his face, or his pants, which are tailored to fit him.

  “How’s your dad?” I ask, looking up.

  “He’s better. He’s awake, talking and eating, moving around a little. His speech is a little slurred, but that’s to be expected.” Robert crosses his arms in front of him and seems to hem his words. I sense a speech or a reprimand coming. The muscles in my body tense automatically.

  “Listen Caroline, I’ve operated on little sleep before, in law school, before the bar exam, at various times, but never lost as much sleep as I have recently. So if I don’t say what I need to say, I’ll just lose more. With the hours I work, I can’t afford to lose much sleep.”

  He glances around the meticulously organized office, binders alphabetized on the wall, files stacked in precise piles, the closed door, before looking back at me. “I’ve decided the reason you kissed me isn’t important. I just think it’s important you know that I wasn’t drunk or tipsy, or whatever you think I was,” he says.

  He scratches his perfect chin, and then his eyes explore the contours of my panted knees as if they’re worthy of study.

  “I didn’t kiss you back in some stupor,” he says. “Maybe you don’t realize the potential consequences for me. Maybe you do. Regardless, I wish I had the drunken blur that might have blocked out the memory. I might have lost less sleep. But it doesn’t matter now.” He stands and grabs the chair along the wall and places it beside him. “What matters now is we’ve got an important conference call this morning. Judge Herrington. It’s
about to begin. I’ll need you to sit in and take notes.” He gestures at the seat beside him, pushes his laptop over, and flips open the screen. “You can type.” At the thought of having to sit right next to him, I feel as though my breathing has sped up to the pace of hamsters on treadmills. He points at the empty chair beside him again.

  “Okay,” I say, rising and taking several steps over to sit down beside him. Robert retrieves the file from the stack and dials the number on his phone. Judge Herrington’s old voice crackles on the speaker.

  “Hello,” the retired judge says, speaking to Robert as if they’re old friends.

  “Judge Herrington, it’s Robert Carver. How are you this morning?” Robert announces loudly.

  “Fine, Robert, thanks for calling. Did you hear back on the claim yet?”

  “No, not yet. I imagine it’ll take a few weeks before we hear back, but I’m sure it’ll go through. Just have to be patient.”

  “I see, is Caroline there?” the judge asks, his voice a little higher.

  “Yes, she’s here.” Robert looks at me.

  “Hello, Judge Herrington,” I say.

  “Hello, Caroline. How are you? I have a letter to dictate. Would you be a sweet and type it for me?”

  “Certainly,” I reply. With my hands on the keyboard of Robert’s laptop, I begin typing a letter to a government official about a property holding the judge wants to sell. The letter is long, and I have to pause at intervals to read it back to him. Meanwhile, beside me, Robert pulls out a thick document and a red pen and commences scratching red edit marks onto it.

  When I finish the letter, the judge asks, “Robert, would you sign it for me and mail it out?”

  “Certainly,” Robert answers professionally.

  “If I ever had a secretary like yours, Robert, I don’t know, I wouldn’t have gone through so many,” the judge laughs. “You’re lucky, you got the only good one. You should keep her.”

  “Yes, yes,” Robert answers, and I feel something on my knee, something warm, so I glance down and see Robert’s hand there. Perhaps he’s mistaken the texture of my pants for the texture of his chair? I wiggle but feel him grip more tightly, his middle finger sliding just under my knee and locking there.

  I’m a statue.

  The judge says something else—something about next Tuesday, a meeting.

  “Right,” Robert says to the judge in the most businesslike tone. “Once I hear back, we’ll schedule another meeting with opposing counsel.” His thumb rubs over my knee and I feel sucked into another universe where everything is backwards. Where clocks reverse, where birds bark, where the sun moves east across the sky.

  “Thank you. And Caroline, you don’t let Robert yell at you too much, alright?” the old judge says.

  “Uh, I won’t.”

  “We’ll talk with you soon, then,” Robert states.

  “Alrighty, buh-bye.” I hear the click as the line disconnects.

  Robert’s hand remains on my knee. Certainly he has simply failed to realize he put his hand there and will note the mistake and jerk it away.

  Instead, he gazes at his own fingers and frowns, as if contemplating the arc of his arm and the length of his tether to my leg. His other hand then moves toward me, and I feel my chair swivel to face him as he swivels his own chair to face me. There’s a faint intake of breath when I come to a halt. His hand remains on my knee while the other holds the seat of my chair, and he looks at me as if deciding where to begin. Considering the fact that the hates me, I wonder if he’s going to take me apart piece by piece or just rip me in half. As always, it’s impossible to be unaware of him, of the direction of his gaze, of the straightness of his posture, of the round tightness of his shoulders, of the black leather belt on his pants that remains slightly hidden under his tucked dress shirt, of the meanness in his unnaturally appealing eyes. Seconds pass as he sits still, fastened to his position.

  Then he pulls at my knee as though it were a rope and he were tightening the line. His knees part and my knees slide between his legs. I have no other choice but to allow my wheeled chair to slide toward him inch by inch. He doesn’t speak. Not Come here. Not I’m going to kill you now. Nothing. He just pulls me.

  Inching forward, I watch his hand and think: His hand is touching me, which ridiculously reminds me of the painting in the Sistine Chapel where Adam and God touch fingers. I’m watching as if my eyes are witness to a magic trick; he’s going to pull out a shiny silver dollar from behind my knee and say Ah-hah! Only there’s no coin, no ah-hah, just the feeling of his hand pulling me with so much determination that one of his fingers presses behind my knee, hitting a nerve sharply. His right hand then cups around my other knee and joins the effort. The strangeness of his touch whorls and flares and draws back again and I think he’s too austere, too cruel to be touching me. Something is so very wrong with the gesture, with the simplicity of the effort, with the closeness of it all. And then my chair bumps into his knees

  He leans toward me and my lungs contract in a series of unequal elongations. I’m terribly aware of my chest, of the slim fit of my pants, of the alien-ness of his proximity.

  “I think I need to make something clear, so that you understand,” he states, all business-like. All lawyer. “You initiated the kiss that night, not me.”

  “I understand,” I say, because of course I initiated. Why argue the point now, when we’re having some sort of existential crisis while his legs are parted around my knees? Why quibble with him when he has me all figured out, like one of those brianiacs who can divide 486,234 by 22 and instantly give the answer. I should’ve known to never take on someone like Robert. I wonder how he plans to lift me up, open his window, and hoist me out. It will be challenging, but I don’t doubt his ability. Yet processing thoughts becomes perilous due to closeness of his face, the mythical nature of his eyelashes, long and curved upward, like fake things if fake things could ever look so real.

  “If I had initiated,” he states. “I’d have properly considered the outcomes. Given it thought, and I certainly wouldn’t have done so in your condition.”

  I nod, not capable of speech.

  “I’d have made sure you were in your right mind, that you knew what I was doing.”

  As he leans toward me, I think about how the moon has two sides but we only see one. How fish have scales but if you scrape them away, there’s just soft skin underneath. My shoes look tiny on the floor next to his black dress shoes. He smells of soap and the stiff starchy fabric of his shirt as the ball of this thumb slides across my thigh. His whole body angles while I grip my arm rests as if in an electric chair. His face moves toward me in sparks through empty space. My long red hair hangs down, tickling my forearms, then tickling his, and then it’s a strange phenomenon to feel him reach out and actually touch the bare skin on my forearm.

  “I know you hate me, Caroline.”

  If an apocalypse had destroyed all nature’s beauty, he would be enough to make up for every ugly thing. Mountains, forests, oceans—everything. And when his hand slides down to touch my fingers, I feel tiny trembles but cannot fathom when they’re mine or his.

  While his mouth closes in, it’s unsettling, like that nervous tension you feel right before you’re strapped into a roller coaster. The tension in his legs and arms seems synchronized with my own. I hear the creak in his chair. The irony combined with the electric that pools in my stomach, the sourceless sensation that shivers at my knees, and the stupidity at the core of all human beings makes me almost wince. I move with him as he urges me forward, the act of doing like both cutting and suturing all in one gesture, the urge hammered somewhere inside that void that all people feel but never talk about.

  To compare a photograph of a jungle to standing under the canopy of the real thing is to compare this kiss to the first one. It is to compare the sight of a shark from a distance to the force of the one actually pulling you under. It is to stand on a droughty plane like a native in prayer and then feel rain as comes
clanging down from the absolute reaches in a torrent. His hand grips around my back and logic doesn’t lecture me away. I’ve forgotten that he’s the cruel, evil man who ruined my life for two years. I feel freedom before spending the eternity in hell. His left hand slides up my outer thigh, and my thoughts are shadows while the focus of my brain that hid the memory of the night in the elevator with Robert zooms in.

  In your condition. In your condition. What condition? What did he mean when he said in your condition? I was tipsy, yes. But there was no condition?

  He places a finger on the top button of my blouse and says, “Your lips don’t hate me.”

  I shake my head while a thought sticks in my brain. He just kissed me, willfully and without medication. How is this possible?

  He frowns and leans away. There’re several seconds when we look at each other and I wonder if he might laugh and tell me that the kiss was all a joke. Payback bitch. That’s what you get for teasing! How does it feel? Followed by uproarious laughter. Or, better yet, I wonder if my alarm will ring and I’ll wake and laugh at the strangeness of my dream. Neither occurs. Just this beautiful man sitting so close to me.

  Is he going to speak? Tell me why he just kissed me? Or maybe just throw me out the window after all?

  The tape. All I can think about is the tape suddenly.

  “I have to tell you—” he begins.

  “I’m sorry,” I cut him off, feeling warmth on my neck. “I have something really important to take care of,” I say.

  “Now?” he asks, his lips parted.

  “Yes, right now. It’s … I have to return a call to a client,” I say standing and pushing my chair back to its proper place.

  “What client?” he asks as if clients were aliens.

  “Not a client, the copy place. I meant to call Conrad back about some questions he has.”

  Robert’s head wobbles slightly. I’m sure as he watches me fumble as I walk out his door. Outside his office the dry air hits me like a wall.