Miranda Read online

  “Let’s just say it was his methods,” I whispered.

  “Do you have other commitments?”

  He bit the sandwich a second time. Did he feel victorious or did he want to challenge me?

  “No... Well, yes! Yes, I have another commitment. It’s important... I forgot.”

  Eliezer smiled. Ethan’s tactics didn’t work on him. I wasn’t a good liar. He left the sandwich on the counter and walked towards me. Again, he gripped my arm. He held it tightly – that impulsive gesture of his that I hate.

  Sometimes, I recalled in my mind.

  “Stay,” he shut his eyes and he exhaled. “Stay... please.”

  He released my arm. Silence filled the kitchen. There was only one reason why I felt I should stay, and it wasn’t necessarily so that we could have another one of those conversations where he easily upended my thoughts, my beliefs, and my morality.

  “What for, Eliezer? If we can’t even have a conversation where we agree in the slightest. That’s not the only thing that bothers me about you. What bothers me even more is that you force me to think differently, to rethink my ideas and my philosophy. I feel that, with you, I’m lost.”

  My confession caused his eyes to relax.

  “Miranda Wise, if you hate so many things about me, why do you waste so much of your time with me?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Because I like self-flagellation,” I said nothing more.

  We looked into each other’s eyes. I smiled and he smiled. He bit his lower lip.

  “You know, picturing that in my mind is very tempting...”

  I didn’t think twice. If he could say and do what he wanted, then I could too. I approached him, my skin radiating heat. Eliezer took two steps back. He avoided the collision of our bodies. Standing at a distance, he repeated himself.

  “I’m still waiting for an answer, Wise.” He licked his lips. He spoke more slowly, with a huskier, more seductive tone. “If you hate me why waste a single minute of your life with me?”

  He approached me again. It was my downfall. My eyes traveled over his provocative chest that heaved boldly with each breath, until I remembered his beautiful eyes and watched him. I approached him. It was his downfall. Desire had us eating from the palm of its hand, and he was overwhelmed with it.

  Without looking away from those lovely and lustful emeralds, I reached out and unzipped his pants. I placed my hand inside feeling somewhat like an intruder, and I began to stroke the instrument of passion that he was hiding. I noticed that he was enjoying our silent conversation. I was using a new strategy: provoke the prey so as to bring it out of its hiding place and once it was exposed, pounce.

  As I carried out the laborious task of providing him with caresses, Eliezer’s eyes slowly transformed. The peculiar green color of his eyes was dissolving into a diamond-like tone. He knew the day would end this way. I suspected it too, but neither of us imagined it like this.

  I pulled out his manhood from his pants, feeling like I owned it. I held it tightly so that he could feel me. I took it to my mouth and caressed with my tongue. Eliezer took me by the hair. He wanted to guide my movements. Every time I took him deeper into my mouth, Eliezer would curl his fingers in my hair even more, he would let out groans, moans and almost imperceptible lustful curses. Arousing so much pleasure in a man had never excited me so much as that night. I felt like I was losing control with only light strokes.

  Eliezer moved away. With his fingers still entangled in my hair, he picked me up and moved me close to his face. He sought my lips and kissed me passionately, carelessly, limitlessly. He wanted to bite my lips off. He scraped the skin around my mouth with his beard.

  He moved away from me once more and took me by the hair to the black couch in the living room. He removed my pants and underwear. His face moved to the space between my legs to tend to the fire he had ignited. His tongue and fingers were the combination that made me lose my judgment and my morals. From below, Eliezer stared at me intently with the sweet rage that adorned his pupils. When I could no longer take the insistence of his touching and his glances, I shut my eyes and allowed my body to be at his complete mercy, to take whatever course he wanted. After the quake, I caught my breath and I looked at him again. There he was, in the same position, watching what he was capable of doing to me.

  With his hands he brusquely took me by the hips and sat me on his thighs. He swung his waist until he felt himself inside of me. We opted for silence. The union was perfect–so unique and necessary, that neither one of us wanted to ruin it with the kind of awkward words that we would blurt out in conversations.

  His burning fingers embedded in my skin and his hands swayed me to and fro in a raging ocean storm. The groans of pleasure were deafening. Once more, I felt as if I was floating. This time as I came back down, I knew I was in love.

  Eliezer moved a little to fall back down on the couch. I was on top with him still inside me. Our hearts were beating together. The sweat of our bodies was the only thing between our skins. His right hand was tenderly caressing my hair. With the other hand he held my chin and turned me to face him. He broke our pact of silence.

  “You drive me crazy.”

  I had no idea my heart could beat faster than it already was, and at that moment I realized how wrong I was. I sighed.

  Should I say something? What? There was no word that wanted to be spoken. I never imagined that something like that could happen. I froze under his increasingly strange look.

  “It started the moment that, thanks to your clumsiness, you ruined my shirt with your coffee.” He raised himself a bit and I with him. He leaned his elbow on the couch. With the fingers of his free hand, he moved a strand of my hair on my sweaty forehead. “You know it Miranda. You know you drive me crazy and you enjoy it.”

  I was still unable to speak. I was drawing every possible response on what little canvas was left blank on the skin of his back. Suddenly the situation seemed more confusing.

  “Don’t you have anything to say, Miranda? Here I am trying to figure out my thoughts and you have nothing to say?”

  I looked down. I spoke softly.

  “It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, Eliezer. I don’t know how to react or what to say. Out of so much I’d say, I don’t know what to say.” I looked toward his chest. Sincerity took hold of me.

  Eliezer took me by the chin again. He moved my lips to his. The kiss was rushed but it saved me. He looked into my eyes. He wanted to surround himself with more of my confessions. I didn’t want to disappoint him.

  “I hate so many things about you, Clausell. To name a few: your arrogance, your pompousness, your insensitivity, and you smoke, and honestly, these months I have done nothing but ask myself how the heck I can’t stop thinking about the only person who irritates me so frequently on a whim, and with the slightest provocation, even with just a look.”

  He half smiled. Sarcastic and absurd: that was his kind of reaction. It was the confirmation he needed that his feelings, whatever they were, were reciprocated. He moved his face close to mine again. While he sighed, he kissed my forehead. This time, I felt he was grateful.

  The cell phone rang, interrupting the moment. Eliezer held his gaze on me.

  The cell phone rang again.

  Eliezer got up and went to the kitchen. He returned to the living room in short steps, with a dark cloud over his head, yelling and cursing.

  “I don’t want any visitors! Shit! Why did you let her in?”

  And without waiting for a response, he hung up. His face had transformed. No more sweetness, just anger.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked while I picked up my clothes from the floor and dressed, worried about the unexpected visit.

  “Isabel is in the elevator.” He began to put on his underwear.

  “Oh, God!” was the only thing I could say.

  I couldn’t let that woman see me here. If she thought I was an intruder at first, I couldn’t imagine what she would think
if she found out that I sleep with her son.

  “Calm down” Eliezer noticed my worry. “Why don’t you go to the bedroom and take a shower while I send her off?”

  I couldn’t have thought of a better idea. He finished getting dressed.

  “Where do I go?”

  “Second door on the left.”

  I headed for his bedroom. He kissed me and slapped my behind.

  The room was very big–bigger than the living room and more unsettling than the rest of his home. Everything was white: the floor, the walls, the carpet, the headboard, the sheets, the linen, and the chair near the window.

  There were no cologne bottles or containers on the white dresser! It was driving me crazy! Nothing that wasn’t white! Nothing with color, besides the red cushions on the bed!

  There was also no mess. Every object that was part of the space had been placed in a precise location. Was Eliezer obsessive compulsive?

  The private bathroom was also white. Against the wall at the end was a square shower enclosed by clear glass that allowed viewing from any side.

  I heard the voices outside and I turned on the faucet. I couldn’t resist. So, wrapped in a white towel, I went back to the bedroom door, opening it slightly to see.

  “What do you want, Isabel?”

  “You are my son. I came to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

  “It’s not a good time.”

  “Is something going on with you?” Isabel asked.

  Eliezer responded before she could finish her question.

  “I have company.”

  “I don’t want to intrude, but do I know her?”

  “I don’t think who I sleep with is any of your business.”

  The way Eliezer spoke to his mother told me that he had no respect for her, and barely any affection. I didn’t think him a miscreant at all, but he had no trace of the admiration that children usually feel for their parents… the kind of admiration that I felt for Norman.

  “You’re right, and I don’t want to intrude. I’ll leave.” Her high heels could be heard as she walked away… she paused. “One more thing, Eliezer: make certain that these kinds of encounters don’t ruin our plans.”

  “Merry Christmas, Isabel,” he concluded in a sarcastic tone and closed the penthouse door.

  I ran to the shower and nimbly covered my body with soap, to make it look like I had not been eavesdropping. Eliezer’s silhouette cast a shadow through the clear glass. He wasn’t wearing pants.

  “May I join you, Miss Wise?”

  “Of course, Mr. Clausell… as though we were in your house, and this were your shower, and your soap.”

  As soon as he was in the shower, he began to caress my back. His lips neared my neck.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he asked.

  What has gotten into him?

  Something in Eliezer’s psyche had changed. It was obvious. He appeared relaxed and no longer uncomfortable with me. I turned halfway around and embraced him, caressing his back and each one of the inked emotions. It was then that I knew that every second that I would spend with Eliezer would not be enough to save him, to save myself, to calm my hunger to be with him.

  “For the moment…” I bit my lips, lost in his nakedness, experiencing short circuits deep inside. “What about repeating what we just got through doing?”

  He made that idiosyncratic smile that he would make when he gets excited.

  He imprisoned me in his arms to the point of hurting my breasts.

  That’s how the rest of Christmas Eve went, and that’s how we began Christmas: wine, sandwiches, a few hours of sleepiness, and a lot of sex. Neither of us questioned anything. Neither of us wanted to solve the enigma of what was happening.

  Tomorrow would be another day.

  Eliezer

  “What are you doing?”

  We woke up in his bed, our souls stripped of their differences. I looked at the clock. It was ten in the morning and Eliezer Clausell was asleep. In deep sleep he appeared so defenseless and so peaceful.

  It took me several minutes to understand this new state of affairs… us. I didn’t know whether it was a sure thing or whether the hours of sex lent it to us for a few moments, or if this was, essentially, the beginning of something less sporadic, or at least sensible, because I couldn’t see anything logical to these sparks of passion that ignited between us.

  His mother’s comments, “don’t ruin our plans,” and the argument with the woman on the street circulated through my mind. What plans could there have been, if he could barely tolerate her for a minute? I didn’t feel like I had the right to question it, nor did I want to ruin the moment.

  As soon as I placed one foot on the floor, he woke up.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” He grabbed me by the arm, his voice hoarse.

  “I was trying to escape.”

  “I thought so.” He turned around and looked at the clock on the nightstand. The morning tone rose in volume. “It’s ten o’clock already?”

  “Surprised, Clausell?”

  “Enough…” He scratched his head. “I don’t remember having slept until ten in the morning… ever.”

  I thought he was joking.

  “Never?”

  He didn’t answer.

  My cell phone rang. It was Norman. I hesitated to answer, until I remembered that it was well into the morning. I couldn’t avoid the call. We would have lunch together every Christmas. That was our family tradition. I thought that this year we might break the rule. The events during the last few months made me feel like, perhaps, I was no longer one of his priorities.

  “Good morning, Norman! Merry Christmas.”

  He sounded more excited than I did.

  “Merry Christmas, Miranda my love!”

  That very moment, Eliezer’s cell phone also rang. He looked at it and looked at me confused about the coincidence of the two calls.

  “Where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “Yeah? I just rang your doorbell, but you didn’t answer.”

  I couldn’t lie to him, nor tell him the truth, so finding something in between was what was necessary.

  “I just woke up.”

  Norman was silent. He knew me too well. I heard a sigh.

  “Are we going to lunch today?”

  “To tell you the truth, I thought that we wouldn’t be having a lunch this year. You know, after the…”

  “You’re mistaken, girl. The food will be served at one in the afternoon.”

  I smiled.

  “I’ll see you at one.”

  I hung up. Eliezer was no longer talking on his phone. He had his silent look planted squarely on my naked chest.

  “Let me guess. Lunch is at his house at one in the afternoon.”

  “You guessed it. Are you going too?”

  “That was Isabel.” He made a gesture with his hand that held his phone. “She has something up her sleeve. I was also invited.”

  “Are you going?” I asked while I put on my bra.

  “I don’t think I’ll have a choice.”

  “The truth is, you do.”

  It infuriated me that Isabel exerted a certain control over Eliezer. And I couldn’t understand why deciding not to go would be complicated and carry negative consequences for him.

  “We’ll see what I do. You’ll find out at one.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I got up off the bed. I put on my pants that I supposedly would not have taken off.

  “I need to go. I need to go home, shower, and change.”

  I looked at his eyes. The time had come. Now what? I needed to be brave and willing to hear Eliezer’s response, even though it may not be what I’d want.

  He walked me to the living room.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  His green eyes became misty. He stroked my lips with his fingers. I had to control my body.

  “We’ll see… We’ll see…”

  He opened the door.

  I
got to my car. My cell alerted me to an incoming text message.

  “Let’s enjoy the moment”

  I didn’t know what to make of the message, so I decided to follow the advice, at least for the day.

  ***

  I got to Norman’s house and the first thing I saw was the white GTR parked near the enormous entrance. Eliezer had decided to come too. I would pretend that nothing had happened between us, but, in any case, we would at least treat each other cordially.

  A new maid greeted me. How things have changed, I thought. The woman walked me to the room where various people were already gathered. This was not the traditional and familiar lunch with Norman to which I was accustomed. For the first time, Medika put on a big show. For a few seconds, I was stunned and didn’t react. Before me there were silhouettes with names and faces: Norman, Isabel, Ethan and his wife, Eliezer, and… who was she?

  I don’t believe it. The woman with whom he was arguing yesterday!

  As soon as Norman was aware of my presence he got up with the aid of a cane, then Isabel rose, holding one of his hands and the other supporting his back so that he would not teeter and fall. The gesture didn’t seem sincere to me. The moment turned strange. Even Ethan, in his surprise, shot a look of confusion at me. Suddenly, just as Ethan saw me, the rest turned their eyes toward me. I became the center of attention.

  Norman approached. He caressed my face, from my cheek to my chin. He smiled while he moved his hand into mine to hold it firmly.

  “It always pleases me when you come,” he said, and I smiled.

  “How could I not, Norman?” I responded, looking at his eyes, filled with a mixture of happiness, hope, and a few traces of some emotion that I’ve never seen him experience, and that I could not describe.

  Even though my mind tried to decipher Norman’s sentiments, my eyes outsmarted me and escaped to look a few meters further away to where Eliezer was intently watching our interaction. The moment those green eyes, stuck to my memory like screen protectors, met mine, he looked down because they were interrupted by what appeared to be his companion speaking to him. I couldn’t hear her, but only noticed that Eliezer gave her his attention.