Love in the Age of Chemicals Ch. 06

I felt something returning to my mind: rigor, a solid rigidity of thinking that had for so long established and kept me in my ways. A rigidity that would protect me. That would ensure my success.

I worked late hours that night. At 11:00 p.m. I received a text message from Miranda. It's late. You OK?

I replied, Working. I'll sleep here. On your own tomorrow.

She sent back a frowny face with the message, Miss you. Take care.

I deleted the message, rubbed my eyes, and started another pot of coffee.

*******

I stayed three days in that state, going from lab to office to lecture hall, leaving only for food when my body insisted. I returned home late Thursday night, mostly to shower and to retrieve a few notebooks necessary for work. I found Miranda in my bed with my gray shirt on and decided to sleep on the couch.

On Friday morning, Miranda tried to engage me in conversation over breakfast, but I was curt. She seemed hurt, which I expected, but I also expected her to eventually give up trying to distract me. We drove to campus in utter silence, and silence prevailed again as we drove back that evening. I took dinner into my room to begin skimming a stack of journal articles I had brought home. I heard her on the phone with my mother – it was Friday – but I said I preferred not to talk when she knocked on my door to hand me the phone.

Saturday and Sunday were productive for reading and researching. On Sunday night, as I was getting into bed, Miranda knocked and then entered my room.

"I know you don't want to talk, but..." she began.

"That's correct."

"Could I just sleep in here tonight?"

"I'd rather you not."

"You don't have to say or do anything, Deke. Just let me be close to you, OK?"

"No."

"We can have sex if you want," she said timidly. "I brought my boobies with me." It was an attempt at humor, but her voice was thin and scared.

"I prefer to sleep alone," I answered and waited for her to leave. With one long, sad look at the bed, she honored my request and left the room.

I expected the first few weeks to be a period of rough adjustment, mostly for her. But I knew it would be possible for us to establish a new, more effective cohabitation routine. And to that I was committed.

*******

On Monday, as we arrived on campus, I informed Miranda that starting the next day, I would be working in my lab until late most nights and that sharing a ride would not be practical. She seemed upset but didn't argue.

In a case of horrible timing, however, as we drove home that evening, my car began to emit a black cloud accompanied by a foul odor. Most of the car's functions stopped working, and I pulled over into the parking lot of a strip mall. From the passenger seat, Miranda watched me sit helplessly as I tried to think of what to do. Then she pulled out her phone and made a call.

"Please be there, please be there, please be there," she whispered to herself as the phone rang. Then, when the other party answered, she said cheerily, "Hey, is Andrew there right now?... He is? Great! Can I talk to him, please?... Miranda..." She was quiet for a moment, then Andrew seemed to pick up. "Hey, Andrew! Sorry to bug you... No, I'm fine. It's just that Deke's car broke down on our way home tonight... No, it's not going anywhere... In the parking lot of the Woodbridge Shops, just past Oklahoma Avenue... It's a gray sedan, a Honda... Yeah, we'll wait with it. Thank you so much... Would he do that? That would be great, thank you! Tell Gina hi and give Dom a kiss for me, OK?... Bye."

She put her phone away and looked out the window. "He's sending a tow truck. The driver will swing us by the house before taking the car in to Andrew's shop. Should only be a few minutes – they're just down the road."

I sat and stared out the other window.

"Can we talk, Deke?" she asked after a minute.

"About what?"

"About whatever's going on. You're acting... upset. Or... I don't know. Are you mad at me or something?"

"Things aren't always about you, Miranda."

"Well then, why treat me so mean? You're... you're ignoring me and shutting me out. I want to help you with whatever's wrong, not be treated like part of the problem!"

I thought for a minute how best to explain things to her. "Have I made you leave my house? Or refused to continue the charade that keeps you in school?" I asked, sticking to the facts.

"No," she answered softly.

"Then I have done what I agreed to do."

"But... Dammit, Deacon," she yelled. "You know it's more complicated than that!"

"Only if you make it so," I replied.

She opened her mouth to reply but then we both were forced to squint and shield our eyes as the tow truck rounded the corner and approached. We exited the car and watched as he turned around and parked in front of us. It took about ten minutes to get everything hooked up, then the driver had us join him in the cab of the truck. The three of us squeezed shoulder to shoulder for the quiet five-minute drive to my house. Once home, Miranda started making dinner. "Am I cooking for two?" she asked, restraining the anger in her voice.

"I can make my own food if that's easier for you," I told her.

"Deke, don't be an ass. Of course I'll cook for you. I just don't know if you're planning to eat with me. Your routine is changing, and that worries me."

"No need to worry on my account," I assured her. "I'll eat if there's enough."

"OK," she said, shaking her head.

Later, a few hours after we finished dinner, I was preparing for bed. Miranda knocked on my door and waited for me to invite her in. Standing in the doorway, she said, "Deke, we really need to talk about some things... really... important... things. But we can't talk when you're in this state. I wanna hear first about whatever's bothering you, why you've suddenly turned into an angrier version of who you were six months ago."

"I'm the same person I was six months ago and three months ago and one month ago," I snapped. "Who else would I be?"

"You know what I–"

"But I am intentionally resuming the behavior and lifestyle that was less distracted and more effective in my scientific pursuits. I'm regaining my focus on the genuinely important things in my life."

Miranda flinched at the mention of "important things," correctly inferring that I did not consider her to be among those things. She put her hand on her abdomen and closed her eyes. Then, her breath getting heavier and her look hardening, she abruptly pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. Standing topless in my room, she said defiantly, "OK, go ahead and tell me, Deke. What are the important things in your life?"

She stepped towards me and stared me down. I looked away and said tersely, "Get out of my room."

She didn't respond or move at first, and I could see her body out of the corner of my eye. Then, with a soothing voice, she said, "OK, Deke, listen. I know you're stressed about something, something that's got you pretty upset. And I know you're not trying to hurt me, but you're doing a pretty good job of it anyway. It's been a while – a month almost – since we had sex. I'm starting to feel distracted by that, and I'm sure you are, too. Maybe you don't even realize that's going on. Let's both lie down – we don't even need to talk. Just be close for a while, relax, and go to sleep. What do you say, Puppy?"

When I turned around to face her, she smiled, probably thinking I was warming up to the idea. But instead, I said calmly, "I asked you to leave my room." I stood still and waited for her to comply, clenching my jaw and forcing myself not to look at her chest. Or at her eyes. Physically I desired her, but the process of satisfying that desire rather than keeping it contained had been one of the elements of my recent spiral of indiscipline, an element I knew I had to give up, however reluctantly.

She measured my expression, ascertaining my conviction, then turned and retrieved her shirt from the floor. As she walked out, she looked down and said softly, "I'm right down the hall if you change your mind. I'm hurt, but you're still welcome to come to me. I won't say no."

I was restless that night and more than once considered her offer. But sleep finally came.

*******

My car was in bad shape, according to the phone message I got the next afternoon. Andrew told me it would take a week or two, but he'd try to bump it up the list. In the meantime, I decided, I would need to find alternative transportation to and from campus. It was a five kilometer trip each way. That wasn't too far to bike, even in February. So I pulled my bike out of storage, filled the tires with air, and rode it to a neighborhood shop for a tune-up. It was road ready the next day.

I continued to avoid interacting with Miranda, who continued to make efforts to talk. She said it was important, but I didn't share her definition of that term.

To make matters worse, she was correct that I was feeling distracted by sexual desire. That had not been as much of a problem before Miranda entered my world, in part because I did not have a sexually attractive woman living with me before. I also had not had a sexually available woman living with me before. And I had not experienced sexual relations before. But now, knowing what sex was like, and knowing that there was a woman available to share that experience with me whenever I wanted, it was much harder to suppress those desires than it had been six months earlier. As much as I didn't want to do it, I started to think it was inevitable that I may need to take Miranda up on her offer, just to release some of the tension and help me regain my focus. But I wasn't at that point yet. And barring any more bare-chested propositions, I might be able to avoid that route.

My research continued steadily, though I didn't seem to be making any progress beyond the results I had already achieved. I was stuck and could move forward only with determined plodding. And so plod I did.

By the next week, I was growing frustrated: despite reestablishing all my former habits, I was not feeling comfortable. Miranda had remained unobtrusive, but I couldn't stop thinking about her. I couldn't shake the memory of the contentment I had experienced with her just a month prior. I knew rationally that it wasn't a better state, but I was being pulled by irrational currents.

Miranda seemed to be faring worse. I overheard her on the phone in her room the next Saturday afternoon as I passed down the hallway. I didn't know whom she was talking to, but she was crying. Unreasonable curiosity got the better of me and I paused to listen.

"No, he still won't tell me..."

"I tried that, too, but he's just shutting me out in every way..."

"I didn't say anything. Valentine's isn't something he would have noticed, anyway..."

"No, it's fine. It's not like that with us..."

"I would. I want to, but it's like I don't exist anymore..."

"No. No, I haven't said anything about that yet. How can I?..."

"Or it could make things a lot worse..."

"No, you haven't seen him. I think it really would make it worse..."

"No, I really think he'll be angry, and I'm not ready for that..."

"I'm just going to be patient for a while..."

"I'm not going to be that patient! But something has to change... soon."

"Thank you. And please, don't tell anyone. I need to talk to him first."

"OK... Thank you... Uh-huh... Bye."

I slipped away to avoid being caught. All I gleaned from that conversation was that Miranda was obsessing over this, to her own detriment. I was relieved I was no longer relying on her for research. But I wondered if her grades would suffer, forcing her to extend our arrangement. I hoped she could get a handle on things soon. She did have such a good, reasonable mind when she applied it.

*******

That night, after I had turned out the light and gotten into bed, I heard the handle to my door turn. But I had locked it. It turned again, slowly, again failing to open. Then I heard the shuffle of feet going back down the hall.

That night, I dreamed vividly about sex. I pictured Miranda, I pictured Katerina, I pictured women I didn't even know or remember. I felt like an animal, pouring out my lust on passive creatures. I knew this was a natural effect of denying my urges for so long. When I awoke in the morning, I was pressed for time and couldn't address those urges. I biked to campus and had a busy day in the lab. At some point in the day, Andrew's shop called: my car was ready and could be picked up at any time before they closed at seven that evening.

I biked home at dinner time, went to my room and paced. I was still feeling hyper-sexual after my dream. I had been noticing young students in inappropriate ways. I had caught myself daydreaming instead of reading. I knew I should masturbate. I knew that would be a good immediate solution.

But I didn't have to.

I didn't have to settle for the substitute.

There, in the next room, was a woman I could go claim by right. She was legally and practically my wife, and she had said she would not refuse me.

Her body would serve its purpose: to give me relief and let me return to the thoughts and labors that were my true passion.

Huffing in determination, I stormed out of my room, intending to find Miranda in the kitchen. I stopped short at the living room, where Miranda was on the couch, watching a movie and eating a meal set out on a folding table in front of her.

There was another plate prepared on another table, waiting for me.

Miranda was sitting with her feet pulled up onto the couch. She had a small pillow on her lap. Her hair was pulled up into a hastily-tied bun, and a light fleece shirt hung so loosely on her that it left a whole shoulder exposed. She looked wordlessly at me, sad and curious. Looking at her, my lust strengthened.

"I want to have sex now," I said, failing to restrain the edge in my voice.

Miranda wrinkled her brow and said slowly, "No. Not right now." Her voice was hoarse.

"Yes," I insisted. "Right now."

"No, Deke," she said, sliding the folding table out of the way so I could come over to the couch. She patted the seat next to her and spoke with a voice calm and even. "We need to talk about some things first. Important things, starting with–"

"NO!" I shouted. "You said you wouldn't say no. You said we should do this so that we can help each other not be distracted by our hormones. So that our work and our studies don't suffer. That's what I need. You started this. You opened this whole can of worms. You can't just back out now. You can't try to make this about something else." I moved towards her, as if to grab her arm. She had been pleased the last time I had behaved aggressively.

Miranda was looking frightened. She pulled her legs closer to her body and embraced the pillow she had been holding. "Deke, you need to listen to me. This is important."

"Stop saying that word!" I shouted. "You're using it like it will give you some power over me. I don't find the same things important! And these illusions you have about me and you are truly just that – illusions. It's not about love or marriage or anything like that. It never was. Don't try to make it about that now. You've gotten all caught up in the act we have to put on, and you've tried drawing me into the act, and it ends now!"

"Maybe it's not about love..." she said hoarsely as the tears formed in her eyes. "But can it at least be about human decency? Can you treat me with a modicum of respect?"

My nostrils flared. She's trying to back out of her promises! With a steady, threatening tone, I said, "You offered to make your body available upon request, and–"

"I'm not just a body!" she shouted, clutching the pillow.

"Then why make the offer?"

"Because I felt safe!" she hollered. "I knew I wasn't just a body to you, and so I wanted to give you my body. I was happy to do it. I felt safe with you because you cared. But not now!"

I stepped forward to argue. Or maybe to try to pull her off the couch. I didn't even know. But as I moved closer to her, she cringed and cowered. She clutched the pillow with one arm, put the other hand up in defense, and curled her legs up to her chest.

"Stop it, Deke!" she screamed. "You're scaring me!"

Startled, I backed up. Miranda was weeping, shaking in fear. "How could you?" she whispered, not making eye contact. "How could you?"

I saw her, finally, as the frightened girl who would never forget that her innocence had been stolen while she was unconscious. Who had carried to term her rapist's child. Who would always struggle to feel safe around men. Who would always struggle to feel cherished rather than objectified. And I loathed the monster that had just tried to treat her like nothing more than a body to satisfy its lust.

But even in the searing light of that revelation, I couldn't move towards her in the way I knew I should. I roared in frustration and in confusion and in anger. I stormed out of the house and got on my bike. The garage was about six kilometers away. I would be there by 6:30.

*******