Sleeping Beauty's Double Bed

by Angela Lovell

Her ties were fringed and slowly severed to the five suitors she'd collected, each one serving a specific purpose, most of them serving the same. Love was absent from the shelf where they lined up neatly. She saw this ugly fact one night after drinking too much at the hand of an undefeated Persian boxing champ who did not take advantage, but rather stuffed her in a cab home as the sun came up, not wanting her sick on his time. She woke later in bed with the free dinner in her hair, bought by the investment banker she saw before the boxer got her drunk. Green peppers clung to her locks, practically whole, as though she'd not even chewed them. Stumbling to the bathroom a vegetable fell from her hair and her roommate's dog gobbled it up more efficiently than she had in the first place. That was the first day Viv knew how lonely she was.

Ringing phone met no ear. She had nothing to say and knew they would all say the same. That's what made it so easy--they all said and wanted the same. She spent much time in the bathtub with water in her ears, making all of it sound the same, just as she suspected it always had. In the bathtub her potential watery grave suggested that beauty brings no salvation. Beauty is a temporary fix. She could hold one man with it or five, but beauty would never bring her peace. She said this aloud with her ears underwater and the voice sounded foreign. Viv stood and reached into the medicine cabinet where the dog grooming kit sat dusty like a failed experiment. Water fell to the floor as she took temporary leave to remove her reddish locks that looked charcoal in the light. She considered shaving her head entirely, but found discouragement in a post-tub chill and wished to finish this job and return as quickly as possible. The mirror claimed that in this fluorescent bathroom lighting she appears blue. Usually the bathroom lighting painted her gray, but this afternoon her outside matched her in.

Days pass and no one knows what to say. Her hair was so beautiful. Her tips will surely suffer. That's what the other girl with a proper short cut says. "Her tips will suffer--I don't care how great her tits are." They're all actresses who behave like rape victims. Except Viv--she came to New York City just because she knew it was where she belongs. Maybe she was an actress at first. When her roommate comes home early and hears Viv making up melodies in the tub she assumes Viv was supposed to be a singer. But now Viv is just another piece of tenderized meat, wondering if there's a way to go back to her beginning. The hostess says Viv can go early tonight; the club is slow. What the hostess doesn't reveal to her is that Viv's presence puts everyone on edge. She doesn't talk like the other girls, about men and such. They don't like the way she listens. It's too intense. It's frightening and causes them to talk too much, babbling as Viv listens with her eyebrows pressing down into her dark eyes, hanging on their every word. No one likes her. But they do respect her.

Viv wanders through the theater district as snow comes down. She does not want to go home. It takes too much to get her out and into the city now that she lives way up on West 170th Street again--far from everything. Viv used to smoke but she forgot she was addicted. She thinks perhaps she should start again and maybe the addiction will make her forget something else. In a corner shop that tourists wouldn't find, Viv buys a pack of cigarettes. Two girls bubble and giggle over diet soda. They're wearing a lot of makeup. In a glance Viv knows they are chorus girls, fresh out of a show this Thursday night. Pausing like a trapeze act against the wind, Viv lights her cigarette as the chorus girls exit the bodega and there is a spark of recognition. Yes, yes, of course I remember. How long has it been? Viv . . . The girl with the kicks, yes! Are you in a show right now? It's tough. It's all so tough.

Viv joins the dancers in a cab downtown. The tallest dancer lived on Viv's floor in the dormitory. They had classes together in a performing arts school but never really spoke. This painted doll fills Viv in on all the people she never cared about and has since forgotten. Viv is glad she found these girls though. Viv is neither depressed nor bored, she is just looking for something to color in the gray, something to wake her up, the bigger the better. These girls seem very determined to find something as well. Dwarfed and hidden behind the statuesque line dancers, Viv finds it.

She didn't meet him--she found him. She'll say that to people when she's old and talks more. "I didn't meet him--I found him." It's the sort of Lower East Side bar that no one could locate unless they knew exactly where to look. There are heavy curtains over the windows and a bouncer just inside. Looking at Viv's ID, the doorman wonders silently why beautiful women try such trendy, unflattering hairstyles. Long legs head straight to the back for a birthday party, the two dancers interacting like hummingbirds, not even noticing the drop-out of their tiny appendage. Walking to the bar, Viv feels the way she did after summer camp when her mother waited in a lineup of parents for hugs. From afar Viv knew her mother without needing a close look. It's the way she brushed hair from her forehead and stood with hands on her hips and jumped up and down when she saw what she knew was her little girl at the top of the hill. After a bed-wetter's shame-filled summer, Viv ran down the hill to arms that loved her no matter. On a snowy night in a bar that does not exist to everyone outside it, Viv found Ian.

Linked to another man, Ian waves with his cuffed hand as Viv approaches. There is blue in his suit and eyes, maybe the first real blue Viv has seen all year. Ian's friends thought by the duo's ease that this was a woman Ian knew--maybe even a stripper hired for the occasion. As she draws near, Viv's and Ian's worn smiles raise together, like roadies lifting a patched-up circus tent after a season spent packed up under harsh weather. It looks as though they'll embrace but Viv comes very close instead, asking, "Why are you handcuffed to him?"

A key turns, metal dangles, and in a moment Viv is linked to Ian. His nose is buttonish like a doll's. Hers is straight and angular. His eyes are bright blue and hers are dark brown. His skin is pale and milky like a girl shut inside sitting on a dowery. Hers is darkened like a boy who worked on an Italian vineyard all summer. It's snowing outside and the city feels heavier, especially with them inseparable now this way, linked up like two toys sold together, inoperable if one is lost, incompatible and useless with anything else.

Ian is from a town in England from which a town in Pennsylvania took its name. Is that where you grew up? What were you like as a child? How funny that we grew up in the same town, yet an ocean apart. I didn't know how to get down from trees either, that's what the scar is from. His friends watch. Later, when they're old men, some of them tell the story as though it was an alien sighting--the way Viv and Ian found each other.

Ian has to release some of the vodka from his body but is first released from the handcuffs. Viv is temporarily linked to Ian's best friend as he pulls her onto the floor for a tango. Viv had not even seen the band set up. She actually hadn't noticed her dance partner before now or the heavy curtains that hung on walls, mostly for show, maybe keeping the draft out. He whisks her, surprised when she takes a bit of the lead. It's like a movie and Viv feels she's watching herself on a big screen. He asks Viv to leave. He offers her cabfare and pleads, for Ian's sake, he's not this kind of guy, he doesn't know what's come over him. Viv wonders how this friend knows she will be taking Ian home. She and Ian are not pawing or affectionate. She learns that her dance partner's role this weekend is to pass a ring to his best friend and Viv asks, "Are they built to last?"

She already knows this answer. She knew the moment Ian told her about being handcuffed to his best man for this stag party. Ian wanted to marry his fiancee right up to the moment two dancers parted and a grand entrance brought his house down. The best man shakes his head and stops dancing, doom-saying Ian's fate as the pronounced returns with key, suiting up to Viv and dismissing his bodyguard. Her step becomes heavy as though it has snowed inside, and Viv carefully asks Ian, "Will you regret this?"

He knew he'd be going home with her. Though he's never had a one-night stand, Ian knew he'd be waking up next to Viv. It felt like he already had. He touches her butchered lock and says with a softened British accent, "Even if you and I just sit cross-legged, discussing Winnie the Pooh all night, I want to go home with you."

Moments later snowflakes in their hair turn to water as they bundle together in a cab uptown. He jokes about losing the key but Viv can think of worse fates. They talk about their parents, each feeling orphaned. She tells him something very sad that no one knows and the way his face shapes makes her stomach hurt. He touches her hair again and their smiles fetch each other.

In her room he asks about the pictures on the wall. He wants all of it, everything she's got. She reads him part of her favorite book. He takes it and shows her the paragraph that made him come to New York. She circles it so that when she's 80 years old she will have it to thank. He kisses her with no urgency, as though they have the rest of their lives to do such things. Within moments their clothes are pulled apart, and neglect for the handcuffs goes unnoticed. It takes about a moment--as though all the talk had been real foreplay--and Viv begins to sink deep into her body's vibration, feeling beauty for maybe the first time, when suddenly Ian collapses on top of her.

She grabs at his head, but it's harder to maneuver the handcuffs with his dead limb giving into gravity like this. Panicked, she lifts his face to hers and sees that Ian is sleeping. Linked to him in two places, Viv rolls Ian over and stretches across the bed for his pants, hoping she'll find the key. In a deep sleep, in the soft rice paper lighting, Viv stops her freedom mission to enjoy him. His naked body reminds her of being a virgin, of being new. She trails along his ribcage, his torso smooth and hairless like a child's. Her chest aches a little as she craves his company and her hands return to fumble for the key. A few hours later Viv wakes to the same image, only now it's covered in blankets, curled at her side, blonde and pale in morning light. Holding perfectly still, Viv braces herself for the worst. He'll wake to rage, mortified by his betrayal to the woman he marries this weekend. As though her fear made noise, Ian's eyes open. The sight of Viv causes his features to rise, even his eyes smiling, as he works himself into her arms. They giggle like honeymooners, Ian kissing her neck and ears, rolling on top of her to stare deep into her eyes. "You're so pretty. You're so beautiful. Where'd these pajamas come from?"

She's had them since she was fifteen. He makes a joke and both wish they could go to that time and find each other. Instead he finds his way back inside and within moments their bodies are alert and making sounds of progress. Viv finds herself again on the brink and whispers it to Ian. His breathing intensifies and again, he falls asleep. She cradles him like this for a moment, listening to his lungs fill and drain, enjoying the heat of deep sleep against her neck. Again, she rolls him off and watches his slumber. Perhaps a kiss would wake him from his dreams, just like the fairytale. The pressure for such a life-changing kiss discourages Viv so she nestles into his dead arms and joins him again in sleep. It's around ten thirty when ringing comes from Ian's pants. Brunch. He's supposed to meet the boys for brunch and then they have a limo to Atlantic City. She watches him wake and move to the floor to silence the ringing. He turns off his phone and sets it on her dresser, joining her back in bed as though this is every morning. He burrows back into her arms, against her chest and they remain like that for a very long moment, almost holding their breath waiting for something, like out of no where a wave will crash down and split them apart. Ian finally cracks their dream with an obvious confession.

"I'm so confused."

She smiles and their dilemma vanishes for a moment as he kisses her, pausing only to relish with, "You're so beautiful."

She never felt that before. She knew she was, but for the first time in her life she feels it. The sensation is accompanied by her body's desire to fit his. Viv gets on top this time and his hands go to her face as though the two lovers are pieces of china fitting into slots of a cabinet, all of it made for each other. Her thighs appear tanned against his torso. His fingers graze her lips and she catches her own scent on his hands. It feels like childhood when she first discovered physical self-love, smelling her own hands trying to figure out where this came from. But it's no use as Ian falls asleep again. She sits atop him wishing she knew more about this condition, watching his eyes flutter, wondering how any creature could possibly go from passion to such a deep dream state so quickly. Her temporary dismount finds her back on top with a new addition. They said she was no good, mediocre and uninspired. Not Viv's teachers, but rather the voices in her head. So she stopped doing this, like most people who listen to such voices. With a yellowing pad and sharpened pencil, Viv sits atop naked Ian, sketching him in fluttery slumber. Even the voices quiet down to enjoy her gift and they remain quiet until he wakes and the talk presses on their peace.

Coming all the way from England for this, Viv insists Ian makes it to the meeting place for his bachelor party's Atlantic City extension. Ian scoffs as though Viv is saying the most vulgar words to ever hit his ears and he speaks again of confusion.

When she was a child Viv found an injured kitten she knew belonged to the neighbors. It had been attacked by a dog and part of its ear was missing. Viv's father assisted in healing the cat, not knowing to whom it belonged. Viv kept it near her for two weeks as the kitten healed, loving it as her parents never saw her love anything. Then one day Viv returned the kitten to its owners. No one understood how Viv, a child no less, could part with something she loved so dearly. Her concerned father asked how and Viv replied, "It wasn't mine."

She tells Ian this story, already knowing he will not stay in her bed. He is not as strong as Viv. Leaving a world of formal wear and cake upside down is not something Ian could do, no matter how much he wanted it. Viv knew this about him, almost before she knew of him. She sets him free without expecting his return--just trusting in another time and place for their reunion, maybe when she's found her way from cocktail waitress to whatever her heart busts to be. Maybe it will come after Ian goes through the proper motions with this spouse. He doesn't know what to say to this but he knows what he'll do. He'll look for her on trains, in parks, on the sidewalk and in his dreams. He kisses her neck instead of her lips. They both know why he puts it there. As he walks down her three flights of stairs she feels the kiss drying and lays back down to fall asleep, her heartbeat like a metronome pulsing in her neck against the pillow, gravity pulling it all down from the place where his last kiss landed.

Some nights when Viv cries off her makeup she thinks of him. Not during the cry--his existence is usually what makes her stop. She looks for him in subway cars, in bodegas, and in pet stores, but it will be a long time until she finds him again any way but in her sleep.