A Wager With Sadie: 011

When it was done he lay with her, both of them naked on their bed, sun and breeze coming in the opened doors, the curtain gently dancing, an oblong of bright burning hot on the floor. He stroked her hair, her neck, cupped her shoulder; she stared in his eyes. Neither of them spoke for a long while, happy but unsure in the moment. But at least they were reunited.

He started the awful conversation with this: “Where the heck did you get that sarong?”

It took a beat for her to answer, his wife preparing herself for what they were about to get into. “In a village north of here.”

“A village? You didn’t stay on the boat?”

She chewed a cheek, shook her head no. He could tell by the fear in her eyes that she really had used her hand on this other man and he wasn’t sure how he would deal with it even though he asked for it.

“Who is he?”

Her eyes strayed ceiling-ward. “Quan Davis. He’s American—”

“Not Vietnamese?”

“Quarter. His grandmother’s village is up the coast here. He comes in the summer and the resort—”

He kissed her on her perfect mouth. She melted to his lips and they kissed and breathed.

When they parted, he said, “I don’t know if I want to know.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to hear.”

He cupped her neck, and they both smiled. It was progress. “That’s where you went—this village where his grandmother’s from?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me . . .”

She paused a moment, then said, “The boat took us up north, he said we could have lunch but I said I couldn’t be away long.” Now she showed him her wedding ring, wagging the fingers of her left hand.

“He knew you were married?”

“Yeah. It was too late to hide it, wasn’t it? I was wearing it through the whole yoga session.”

“Where’s your husband?”

She touched his nose with the pad of her index finger. “Right here.”

“Where did you tell Quan your husband was?” He held her wrist, kissed her fingers.

As if talking to the yoga instructor named Quan, she batted her eyes and said breathlessly: “My husband’s out hiking and I really shouldn’t be leaving the resort with you . . . but I’d love to see this village.”

He groaned, shook his head and closed his eyes, picturing his beautiful wife through this other man’s eyes, flirting with him, the guy pretty sure he might fuck her, this beautiful married woman so flirty. Sadie’s lips touched his. He said, “Keep going.”

“I didn’t know we’d be gone so long. I thought I’d ride back with the fishermen without him. Maybe walk around the village, then get back on the boat, leave him to stay with his family.”

“What happened?”

“They were all so nice . . .”

“His family?”

She nodded. A twist worked through him, a tight jealous feeling, not liking the way this was going. When he pictured this happening, for some reason he thought it would be more simple. Take some nameless guy into the jungle and it would be over in five minutes. But she met this man’s family before she jerked him off?

She caught his expression and called him on it. “Does that make you mad?” She stroked his cheek.

“Yeah,” he admitted in a low quiet tone, and lost any lightness in his expression.

“Why?—‘cause I went away with him?”

“Because you . . . you practically had a date with him.”

“It’s no different than any hand job I’ve ever given before, Teddy, what are you thinking? I’ve never in my life jerked some guy off without talking to him first. Is that what you wanted? Wanted me to just sneak off and put my hand in his pants? How did you see it happening?”

He sighed and said aside: “I knew we should have talked more first.”

“Too late now, Teddy. I wish I hadn’t done it at all.”

Now he looked in her eyes again. “No, don’t say that.”

“I wish I didn’t,” she said, looking toward the foot of the bed and running her hair back from her face. She looked morose, her eyes wet like she might cry. She whispered, “I cheated on you.”

“Hey, don’t say that,” he said, touching her chin, turning her face to his. “Not really.”

“You made me cheat on you.”

“It’s not cheating, Sadie. We did it together.”

Looking down into the bedding, she murmured, “You weren’t there.”

“Did you want me there?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know, Teddy. Are you happy I did it?”

He showed her a pensive face like he was really contemplating, not wanting her to think his answer lacked weight. “I’m very glad you did it. I know you didn’t want to. I know it was for me.”

He gripped her wrist, stroked the heel of her soft hand with his thumb, brought her hand near his mouth and kissed it. Lips to her thumb knuckle, then the backs of her fingers. He said, “Which hand, this hand?”

“Yeah,” she said in a soft voice, giving a little nod. Then looking up, and back again, she clarified: “Well . . . both hands.”

He nodded, still kissing, his left hand taking her wrist. She didn’t mean alternating hands, did she? His heart rate picked up. “Both hands . . . together? . . . That big?”

She snuffled a little laugh. “I can use two hands on you, Teddy.”

He asked, “What were your notes?”

She smirked, her mouth tucking to one side like she was trying not to laugh. “Don’t,” she said then, letting the laugh come out, then shying away from him.

He pursued her, pulling on her hand to get her face-to-face again. “Tell me what you would write down in your jerk-off diary.”

“It wasn’t a jerk-off diary, it was a journal. It was thoughtful, I keep telling you. You want it to be dirtier than it was.”

“Tell me what you would write.”

She told him what she would have written. Told him in the way she would have written in her diary, giving him the highlights. The highlights in her opinion. And she left out some of the details that were boring and slowed the story down. And she also left out some of the things he might not want to hear. He might act like this was his idea and he was some hot-blooded swinger, but it was easy to see Teddy Graham had some tender spots, even though he’d insisted she do it.

“We rode out in that boat, just talking and getting to know each other. I didn’t think anything would happen. I figured—honestly—we’d go out to the village and I’d have an interesting afternoon, like sight-seeing . . . I didn’t want to do it, you know, use my hand, and I thought I’d play a game with you, make you wait it out and go crazy—”

“You had me going crazy. I was out of my mind.”

She couldn’t help smiling. At first she’d enjoyed the trip out, knowing Teddy’d be mental, thinking he deserved it for asking her to do something so stupid.

Teddy looked irritated but amused saying, “It’s not funny, Sade, I could have ended up in the infirmary—my heart couldn’t take it.”

“Baby, you asked for it,” she said, touching his cheek. He groaned. She continued: “Anyway, we go out on a fishing boat, we’re heading out into the bay. Quan knows the fishermen, and he can speak Vietnamese. And he was saying to take us across the bay.”

“You went across the bay?”

“I told you that. North of here . . .”

“But on the other side of the bay?”

“Teddy, you can see the other side of the bay.”

“It just seems so far her,” he said, touching his hand to his breastbone, over his heart.

She touched his cheek again, then her hand joined his, smoothing his chest over his heart. “Teddy, calm down.”

“I’m calm.”

“Are you really?”

“Please, tell me . . .”

She took a moment for a breath. Began again: “Quan . . . Well, Quan and I, we have a lot in common.”

“Great.”

She shook her head and pressed a finger to his lips to shush him. “Just let me tell it.”

He nodded.

“Sorry, Teddy, but we do. He’s at Brown. And he plays ball there, too. Second year of law school. I mean, he’s a student-athlete like I was, and he’s in law school like I was. We had a lot we could talk about.”

She could see how badly he wanted to interject, but now his lips were pursed. She scratched his chin. “Don’t be mad. He’s really nice. He’s not as intimidating as he looks.”

“How do you think he looks intimidating?”

“He’s a big guy.”

“I’m a big guy. Am I intimidating?”

She rubbed her brow. “I don’t know, Teddy.”

Teddy offered: “He has a lot of muscle.”

“He does.”

“Plays ball at Brown? What does he play?”

“Running back.”

“You guys have a lot in common,” he agreed.

She didn’t step into his trap, instead moving the story forward: “We go across the bay, and the fishermen drop us off. But they tell Quan and I they’d wouldn’t be back for like an hour. So, his family wasn’t expecting us, but we walked this dirt road out to this village not far from the shore, everybody there knows him. He’s got little kids running around him, it was really nice.”

Teddy was nodding.

“They didn’t make us lunch special, Teddy. Quan and I come by, his family doesn’t speak any English, but he speaks Vietnamese and we—”

“Wow, smart too.”

“Teddy, stop. . . . Look, it was a friendly gesture taking me out there.”

“Knowing you’re a married woman.”

She scoffed: “Oh, you’re worried about his morals? You, the man who sent me out there to do a certain thing . . .”

Now he took both her wrists, and she could see she’d wounded him. She kissed his mouth.

“Okay, I’ll make it brief: His grandma’s this really nice woman, she serves us two plates of leftovers from lunch, it’s like a stew and some rice . . .”

Teddy was getting impatient with her, saying, “Keep going . . .”

“And he chats a little, he’s got cousins there . . .”

“How does he have family in Vietnam?”

“His grandfather was in Vietnam.”

“The war, you mean. He fought here?”

“Well not here here. But he fought in the Vietnam War. Met and fell for Quan’s grandmother.”

“How did he get to America?”

“You want me to keep this brief?”

“Just keep going.”

“Anyway, after that, he doesn’t expect me to sit around and chat with his grandmother when they’re just going back and forth in Vietnamese. I mean, she speaks a little English . . . So his cousin’s there, a young Vietnamese guy, and Quan asks his cousin to take his bike. So we get on his bike and we head up into the hills—”

“What kind of bike?”

“Like a dirtbike. Like a motorcycle with knobby tires.”

“Wait—and you’re on the back of the bike?”

“Yeah.”

“With your arms around him?” Teddy’s eyes had grown wide, his pupils dilated. It was way more than he expected.

She said, “Teddy”—stroking his arm—“It was more than I expected, too. I told you, I just went out for some sightseeing, that was all . . .”

“You went up in the hills?”

She brightened, getting past the part that bothered him, saying now: “It’s totally beautiful up there, Teddy. We should go together.”

Teddy, uninterested: “Yeah, we should go.”

“Seriously. Teddy, it’s beautiful. You go way up in the hills but there’s a river up there. And it just runs through this canyon of bright sandy and pink rock set in like the jungle practically. We climb up high—”

“On the bike?”

“No, we ditched the bike and we hiked.”

“You hiked out in the middle of nowhere with someone you don’t know?”

“At this point I know him, Teddy. Or at least I feel like I do. Plus, I don’t know what you’re picturing, it’s not some jungle village . . . It’s not like Apocalypse Now. It’s built up. There were lots of people around.”

“Lots of witnesses. People could say they were the last ones who saw you alive.”

“You were the one who sent me.”

“Not to go dirt biking in the jungle with some stud law student who plays football . . .”

A little mad, she said, “You really wanted me to go with that old guy, didn’t you?”

“No,” he gasped, frustrated, angry with himself obviously, but angry with her too. He grabbed his forehead, his face pinched with psychic pain.

There was something about it comical, and she had to stop herself from smiling. “Teddy, Teddy Bear . . .”

“Just keep going,” he said, hiding from her.

“Don’t look away—look at me.” She dug nails into him, crawling fingers up his shoulders, grabbing his neck and face and pulling him to look at her. “Don’t. Don’t ask me to do something and then be mad at me when I do it. I didn’t want to . . .”

“Sorry, Sadie, sorry . . . I mean it, it’s hard. I want this, I do. Go . . . tell me.”

A deep breath, then she continued. “We hike up these rocks in the middle of the woods, we get to the top part, it’s all secluded in trees. There’re people up there, Teddy, it’s not like we were alone, not at first. Tourists. Some British couples were there, some Germans. Anyway, we hiked up to the backside of where these falls come over the rocks . . . and it was quiet there. But there’s like a pool, an eddy near where the water comes down from this higher part where you can’t climb up because it’s too steep. It’s like falls, but the water doesn’t just drop, it just runs through all these big jagged pinky rocks. And so we go swimming in this little swirling pool . . .”

“Is it dangerous?”

She shook her head. “It’s not very deep. We’re just bobbing around, we’re talking . . .”

“What are you talking about?”

“About school. About law. We have a lot in common, like I said . . .”

Teddy’s expression darkened. “Are you going to tell me it happened somewhere here?”

She nodded once. “This is where it happened, Teddy . . .”