Martin Marprelate
Open Source since 1588
Portrait of Love and its Demise
by Martin Marprelate
1. 1973
They are snuggled together on the couch watching television, their legs intertwined, their shoulders touching. “I love you,” she whispers.
He looks down at her. “I love you, too,” he says.
And their eyes meet while they smile.
“How’d your day go?” he asks finally, pulling away.
“Fine,” she says, kissing his cheek.
He shifts and then looks at the television. “I had a new client come in today. A custody battle.” He animatedly describes the legal intricacies and the personalities involved. He expresses particular unhappiness with the opposing counsel.
She looks at him as he speaks and occasionally runs her finger along his jaw line or through his dark curly hair, hardly adding to its natural disorder.
“You’re not listening,” he complains.
She laughs. “I’m a little distracted,” she says and she opens her mouth wiggling the tip of her tongue at him.
“And now I am, too.”
They leave the living room, fumble with their clothing, leaning towards each other as they do. Then she gets in bed. He follows. The waterbed waves slap the side of the frame. They roll and laugh and grunt and sigh and groan.
Then they both roll over on their backs panting.
They laugh breathlessly and express their mutual satisfaction.
After awhile, his hand moves to her thigh again, and they roll towards each other. Now the water bed rolls slowly and rhythmically and their sounds are softer and slower.
This time they stay together, him spooning her in his arms.
“Let’s buy a house and get married,” she says.
“Sure. Why not?”
2. 1974
Their house is a tiny old bungalow built in the early part of the century. Two bedrooms with a bathroom between, a kitchen containing a refrigerator, an oven, a sink and three feet of rippling countertop, a porch that has sunken away from the house, and a separate garage leaning into itself.
But the floors were golden quarter-sewn white oak.
They had a quickie in the attic while the realtor waited and pronounced that they were ready to make an offer.
When they move in, they don’t talk of the kitchen or porch or garage. They study the painted white doors that lead to the bedrooms.
“Under that paint, there’s probably more oak,” she says.
For days, they apply stripper and scrape, listening to albums of Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Moody Blues, Led Zepplin. The hard lead-based white paint peels off slowly to reveal a more stubborn layer of grey primer that had been outlawed years before.
When the panel is finally cleaned, the oak emerges – swirls with flames and burls. They grab each other and dance around the room.
3. 1975
His eyes are glued to the television.
She rests her hand on his knee.
He is smoking, puffing on his cigarette regularly, evenly, without pause.
He shifts his leg just enough to shake her off.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
He does not answer.
She puts her hand on his shoulder and leans to look at his face. “What’s wrong?”
He shrugs her hand off. “Nothing,” he replies, not breaking the rhythm of his cigarette. Not looking at her.
They both look at the television. His cigarette going in and out of his mouth in the same regular interval. She is growing, her back becoming straighter, her jaw clamped, her shoulders rising.
“Don’t ignore me!” she screams. “Look at me! Talk to me!” She stands up, swipes her hand in the air, bending towards him.
He looks up at her, his eyes widened, his mouth opened to accept the butte of the cigarette. “I have nothing to say,” he says.
She marches to the television set and snaps it off. Standing in front of it, she says, “Let’s talk about this!” Her voice is shrill, strident, and shaking.
“I was watching that,” he says. He leans back and takes another puff of his cigarette.
“And I’m talking to you!”
“No. You’re yelling.”
“I’m trying to talk to you!”
“Well, this isn’t the way to do it.” He puts out his cigarette, stands up and leaves the room. He lays down on the bed.
She follows him and lays down next to him.
He gets up and walks away.
She follows him, her fists balled, her neck bent forward, her shoulders hunched.
He stops and turns to her. “I’m not going to lower myself to your level,” he says. He pulls out another cigarette and puts it in his mouth.
She slaps the cigarette from his mouth.
He throws her to the floor.
When he looks down at her, his face is contorted with contempt. “Damn you!” he says in a low tone. “You’re almost pulling me down with you.”
She runs out the door. It is winter and icy and she has neglected to put on a coat or even shoes. Still, she runs for a block on the broken sidewalks and then slows to a walk. She passes houses with lit windows flickering with the blue of television sets.
He is laying in bed in the dark still smoking when she returns. He says nothing.
She lays down next to him. She says nothing.
Finally, she says, “I’m sorry.”
He rolls over to her.
“I love you,” he says roughly, urgently, as he pulls her against him. “I love you, too!” she cries.
The water bed sloshes, waves slapping the frame.
4. 1976
Now their kitchen has been liberated from its tiny box. They have five feet of counter space. And a bay window. She is in the kitchen when he walks in.
“It sure was hot today,” he says, already having changed from his suit to jeans and a teeshirt. He reaches around her and kisses the nap of her neck as he does. “What’re you cooking?”
“Spaghetti.”
“When will it be ready?”
She turns to him. “Whenever it is,” she says teasingly.
He opens the refrigerator and takes out a beer.
“How was your day?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Not bad. The usual. How was yours?”
“Dull.” She pours the contents of a can into a pan, puts the top on the pan, puts it on the stove and turns to him. “Hello,” she says seductively, bending up her head for a kiss.
“Mmmm,” he answers. “I’ll take that and raise you one.” He holds her tight against him. Then he steps back, opens the beer, and watches her.
They eat their spaghetti in front of the television.
“Let’s go sailing on Saturday,” he suggests after she has taken the dishes to the kitchen and returns.
“That sounds nice,” she agrees.
The news is over. He turns off the television set. “Ready for bed?” he asks.
“At the end of this paragraph,” she answers.
“I’ll get it warm for you,” he says as he enters the bedroom.
Half an hour later, he is asleep and she is still reading.
When she finally enters the bedroom and climbs into bed, she looks at him for awhile. “I do love you,” she says.
5. 1977
They return from a garage sale with a white painted table with clawed feet. “It’s got to be oak,” she says.
“Or walnut,” he says.
“Wouldn’t it be great if it were mahogany?”
They spread plastic sheets on the floor of their tiny dining room, the new bay window with philodendrons hanging from macramé ropes. He puts an Eagles album on the stereo and they begin to strip the paint.
The paint comes off easily, before the second album drops.
The table is pine.
6. 1978
She is laying on the bed, her eyes closed, the light off when he stumbles in, slamming the door harder than normally, tripping on the shoes she left on the floor. He tiptoes to the bed and looks down at her with a sloppy frown. Then he begins to undress, one hand holding the bed post.
He crawls into bed and scoops her close to him.
Her eyes remain closed. She does not respond.
He starts to move against her rhythmically.
She opens her eyes. “How’d the game go?” she asks.
“Terrible,” he says, rocking her in his arms. “I hardly made enough for us to go to dinner tomorrow night.” He moves his hands around her eagerly and kisses her neck passionately. “Skip was the big winner,” he says.
“Can you brush your teeth?”
He pulls away. He lays on his back, still trembling.
She doesn’t move.
Finally she rolls over on her back and reaches for his hand.
The waterbed that night somewhat splashy.
Her eyes were still open staring at the ceiling long after he was snoring.
7. 1979
Neither of them claims responsibility for the decision. They agreed.
The day comes where his friends come to their house and help him move his clothes, music and furniture.
She isn’t there. They say she has gone to the zoo.
8. 1980
She opens the door and he is there. She gestures him in. “How are you?” she asks.
“Fine,” he says. “How about you? Are you doing alright?”
“Fine,” she says.
They sit on the couch, him on one end and her on the other, their legs facing one another but their bodies leaning back, away.
“I hear you’re getting married,” she says.
“Probably.”
Both of them glance at the oak door leading to the bedroom, the golden swirls they had liberated from the tenacious paint while singing the same songs.
Then they look away. They do not look at each other.
He stands up. He walks into the kitchen and looks at the tiny dining room they had added. Green plants hang on macramé ropes and cluster on the seat of the bay window. “Nice table,” he says.
“I gave the old one away.”
He walks back into the living room and studies the door to the bedroom with its swirls of oak.
She stands up and joins him.
“We did a good job, didn’t we?” he says. “Underneath everything was beautiful. Only the surface looked plain.”
Through the open door, the waterbed remains unchanged. They both look at it.
“It’s hard to imagine another man in there with you,” he whispers.
He bends down and kisses her. She presses herself against him. Then they slip down onto the bed, still kissing, still dressed. They touch each other’s faces and smile. Tears roll from her eyes.
“How are you really doing?” he whispers, fingering a strand of her hair.
She smiles and a tear detours around her curved lips. “Okay.”
He touches her tear. “You’re still hurting,” he says and now his eyes well with tears.
She nods, smiles, twists her face. “But it’s okay to hurt. Hurting isn’t bad. It just means we had a good thing.”
The waterbed hardly moved as they hugged and rolled together. Then their hands start moving slowly slowly to eachother’s faces, necks, and they discard their clothes.
The waterbed sloshes, waves slapping the frame.
They roll over on their backs, holding hands.
“Do you still love me?” he asks.
She emits a short startled sound, inhaling and exhaling at one.
Then she shakes her head. She sniffles. “No,” she says.
They lay together for a few more minutes, both of them looking at the ceiling, their hands still clasped.
“I’ve got to go,” he says.
“I know,” she answers.
When he rises he dresses turned away from her as if to shield his body from her view.
She looks at the fan turning slowly above them.
“The thing is,” he says. “I never knew there was anything wrong.”
He closes the heavy oak door behind him.
Part of the Martin Marprelate Returns collection