The Kissing Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

me.
Instinctively, Robert removes his hand from me and twists away. He looks as if
a heavy bag has just been slung on his shoulder. His reaction should make me
feel rejected, but I don’t. I feel fuzzy. Incubated. Ready to hatch. He looks
at me as if I’m that headless child again. Instead of backing down, I stand
there contemplating the two years of mistreatment, the late night speculation
about my self-worth, the mutilated remains of my confidence, the constant fear
that he’ll erupt about timesheets, misspelled words, perfume smells, misplaced
documents. And the cow sucking its tongue.
    And then I’m there. Right there in front of him. Face to face, so
close I feel him breathing on me dimly. I see the little stubble hairs on his
chin. Close up, his beauty becomes apocryphal.
    Of course, I plunge--my lips in the abyss. Only the abyss feels
warm, as if I’m in Mexico, lying on some beach near a wild jungle kissing a
stranger. Next, I hear my purse drop from Robert’s hand. Then I feel both his
hands on my back. Ah yes, instruments of the devil. And now he’s pulling  me  into  him .
Somehow I’ve passed through myself and stand at the boundary between hell and
emancipation. His hands feel like icepacks on my back. He smells of nakedness.
His lips are silvery affliction—the whipping before the freedom. He kisses with
the sort of evil abandon that starts wars, overturns dictatorships, kills
foreign powers. I’m not surprised. If I didn’t hate him so very much, I would
say, without speculation, the kiss might be worthy of writing about in a book.
He tilts his head now, his mouth still working while he rubs his cool palm up
the skin on my back. I feel his panted knees on my bare thigh. He’s very tall,
I think. It’s a good thing I’m in heels.
    In Robert’s mind, he probably considers himself a victor. An
attractive man with yet another woman throwing herself at him. This exchange is
likely a frequent occurrence for him, frequent enough to contribute to his gargantuan
arrogance. Yet in my mind, I’m the victor. I’m the savage with the war-painted
face. And he’s so close to the flames that I can smell his burning flesh and
feel the security camera capturing us.  I would dance around the fire
and chant if I didn’t feel so pondering and indulgent at the moment. Presently
my arms seem confused by the enormity of the situation as they wrap around
Roberts neck. It feels so odd. My brain seems to ask itself— you realize
you’re kissing your boss, right?
    And then the elevator doors fling open and the wind throws back my
hair. The smell of concrete and rubber blasts in from the parking
garage.  
    With that abrupt change in atmosphere, Robert disengages himself
from me as if someone has pressed the “stop” button on us. He shoves me away.
His hands seem to say, “Don’t come any closer.” We’re instantly two strangers
disconnected, studying each other, only I feel as though I’ve just dismounted a
wild animal who for some reason is shimmering.
    Robert picks up my purse from the elevator floor and points it at
me like a weapon. Then he holds the elevator door open with his other hand so
it won’t close. “Caroline,” he says calmly. His voice is a tree. A breathless,
angry tree. “Can you walk?”
    “Of course I can walk.” Stupid question.
    I walk, more like slog, out of the elevator toward the massive
underground cave that is the parking garage. I feel a hand tap my shoulder.
“This way,” he says. I turn and follow him. Almost candle-lit, the orange
lights in the garage spread glow out of corners and crevices. Immense concrete
legs coming from forty floors above meet the earth down here, their strength
reigned in below our feet. The cool air inside the garage holds its breath
while my heels clack and echo. Around us, cars are parked on a downhill grade,
which makes me feel billowing. To catch my balance, I stop but then feel
Robert’s arm hooking around me, this time around my waist.