Habitations by Sheila Sundar

Author:Sheila Sundar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Vega and Winston first went to his flat together under the pretext of finding a paper, an early piece he had written on the care of patients with dementia in four Jamaican parishes. “It was well regarded at the time, actually. Rather a breakthrough study in the use of qualitative data.”

There was no need to find the paper, which Vega had already read. She knew, also, that Winston had not amassed enough publications to misplace one; all of his articles were compiled in a thin binder on his bookshelf. But she played along as he riffled through the files in his office. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I must have them back at my place.”

He lived in a tidy, sparse studio, on a commercial strip of Bloomfield Avenue. His sports coat hung on the back of a chair. A single pair of running shoes was lined up next to the door. There were no photographs, no women’s clothes. The wedding band should have been evidence enough, but it struck her—thrilled her a bit—that there were no signs of a shared life.

“You live alone?” she asked.

He gave her a small smile. “You really want to get into all of that right now?”

She didn’t. There was a bed in the far corner of the apartment, and she followed him there. He sat down, pulled her between his knees and looked up. The angle made him seem boyish, almost pleading. He slid his hands to her waist. She was wearing one of the wrap-dresses Rukmini had bought for her for the purposes of breastfeeding, and he looped the strings around his fingers.

“I want to see you,” he said.

She touched his chin with her thumb. “You are seeing me.”

“No. I want to see all of you.”

He untied her dress, unhooked her bra, and slid her underwear down her legs. She had never before known that desire could hurt, that there was a small knot inside her that could wind itself so tightly that it ached. He ran his tongue over her nipples, and she worried she would leak into his mouth, but she didn’t, or if she did, he didn’t notice. When he lay her on the bed, she had an impulse to apologize for her stretch marks, for the excess flesh around her stomach, but she couldn’t find the words. They worked together to undo his clothes. His body was taut, almost sinewy, his skin a shade darker than hers. He opened her legs and played with her so softly she was afraid to move, afraid of knocking his hand away, and when he slid inside her it was easy, not the coarse and rutted entry she had come to know with Suresh. She said his name, and he said hers, his voice muffled by her hair.

Later that week, he lay next to her, tracing on her arm the circular mark of her childhood smallpox vaccine. They had hardly spoken over the previous two days. In class, they barely acknowledged each other.

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