She was right. The barrier or whatever it was had fallen. The fear had subsided. The pleasure of lovemaking was different from what it had been before for him, with other women he had had. It was very inward, very intense. He hardly looked at her.

When he climaxed something seemed to open up inside him. There was a sense of release in a secret part of himself, at the center of his aching and suicidal life. His eyes were shut and he heard himself laughing, immersing himself in himself.

He lay back afterward, spent and blissful. They did not speak, nor did they look at one another. He stared at the moon outside the window, the early summer moon, as cold and luminous and clear in the black sky as was his soul within himself.

***

They slept together that night for the first time. Not touching, but naked together in the same bed, each turned to the right in a nearly fetal position, like a pair of twins.

In the morning they awoke silently together and silently drank coffee, sitting side by side in bed. There seemed to be no need to speak.

And then, as they were drinking their second cup of coffee, she began looking at something on the other side of him and he saw that it was the chessboard, still set up from the night before. She was looking at it intently and her eyes began to widen.

“What is it?” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“That’s the King’s Gambit,” she said. “Morphy’s Attack.”

Something prickled at the back of his neck and he heard a tremor in his own voice. “Yes, it is,” he said.

“And the next move is bishop takes bishop’s pawn.” She turned and stared at him, her eyes wide and her lips trembling.

“Yes,” he said. “Bishop takes bishop’s pawn…. Not many people know that.”

“I’ve known it since high school,” she said. “Grover Cleveland High School. Where I was…”

“Captain of the chess team.” His voice was like gravel in his throat. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. “Ben’s mistake,” he said, whispering because his dry mouth made him whisper it “You’re Ben’s wrong body.”

And she whispered too. “I’m Arthur Franks,” she said.

“Oh Jesus,” he said. “Oh sweet Jesus.” He lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling for a long while. And then, later, when a calmness had come into him and he let his hand reach out slowly and gently and let it fall sensuously upon her smooth and cool thigh he felt, at exactly the same instant, her hand soft and sexual upon his own thigh. “Oh, yes,” he said aloud, softly. “Oh, yes.”

And he heard her say it too. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.”

7. Sitting in Limbo

SITTING IN LIMBO