The Secret of the Nightingale Palace Read Free Page B

had begun to set, turning the sky a dusky pink and the woods across the river gray. Anna faced Pierre in the empty loft. “Maybe I should head home, too,” she offered.
    She didn’t have to mention the complications here. They were longtime friends, and between them lay the no-longer-pertinent but still awkward fact that it was Anna’s husband who had introduced them. On top of that, Anna was out of practice. Not only had it been years since she had kissed anyone, but a decade had passed since she had experienced a moment like this one. Her last first kiss had been a singularly important one—something or other with Ford, the memory of which, unfortunately, had grown hazy over time. She worried that this first kiss, in relation to that one, would somehow upset her. She felt, too, a tumult of conflicting emotions: In addition to the welcome surge of sexual excitement and the enormous relief that came with the sense that something new, finally, was happening, she also felt apprehensive about so great a change. Two years had passed, but was she ready?
    Still, she felt that she should try. It was Pierre who walked over, took her arm, and led her to the sofa, but it was Anna who pulled him close in a way that was so open and eager that it represented a different category entirely from the dozens of hugs they’d exchanged in the past. He nuzzled his face into her neck and inhaled deeply, seeming to absorb everything—her smell, the feel of her skin against his, her solid substance within his arms. Then he pulled back and gazed at her, reaching toward her face to weave his fingers through her hair. “I’ve always wanted to do this. You may not know it, but I love”—his voice broke off—“your curls.” Anna laughed, tipping her ear down to brush against his fingers.
    It all seemed sweet and right to her, until they kissed. One can never know what to expect from that moment when two people, and two bodies, tentatively begin to explore each other. Pierre and Anna started slowly, with a few brief rubs of lip across cheek, down to chin, the scratch of goatee, then lip to mouth. Hesitant nibbles. Lip pressed lip, then, finally, that opening and tongue to lip, lip to tongue, then tongue to tongue. Considered intellectually, the process sounds entirely unappealing, but people like it. Lovers crave it. Anna herself had liked it very much in the past, which made it even more upsetting to discover that now, Pierre’s tongue in her mouth disgusted her. It felt like a snake trapped in a bag. Her own tongue, repelled, slithered away. Was she a coward? Summoning her courage, she moved forward one more time and, at the bottom of his mouth, she discovered a pool of saliva, thick and still, lukewarm. Anna’s tongue jerked back. The suddenness of the move caused Pierre to tilt his head. His jaw lifted and their teeth crashed against each other. Anna’s eyes shot open. From this angle, she could see the pores spreading in a fine mesh across his nose. She couldn’t breathe. She pulled away from him.
    They fell against the sofa, each in their own private universe, staring at anything besides each other. The last few pinkish slips of sun were visible out the window, and the lights of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge had already begun to twinkle.
    Anna said, “I’m so sorry. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.” She picked up his hand and held it lightly. She didn’t want him to feel rejected by her entirely.
    Pierre contemplated Ford’s wedding band, which Anna kept on her right thumb. “You don’t wear your own wedding ring anymore, but you wear his. Your left hand says, ‘I’m a single woman now.’ And your right hand says, ‘I’m still kind of married.’ It’s like your two hands are debating each other.”
    Anna welcomed the change of tone, but she didn’t appreciate this dissection of her psyche. “Don’t