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Bernie’s breathing is uneven and off-kilter; she inhales sharply through her nose and then nothing for long seconds that make the room seem almost silent, until she must surely erupt, Serena thinks, but no, Bernie breathes in again, softly, briefly, her lips parting for just a moment to admit this impossible breath, and then more silence, more of it, until Serena fancies that even the furniture is leaning in waiting for Bernie to make a sound, and when eventually her lungs force out a puff of air it’s with a sigh so quiet, so fleeting – barely a hiccup – that the wardrobe must turn to the chest of drawers and frown and wonder if it happened at all.
Furniture! But there could be no other kind of onlooker to this intimacy – not one, whether by accident or by design; none with five senses and a heart that has loved could look for more than a second without this trespass bearing down on them so that they must crawl away with it heavy at their backs. We are only just at a safe distance, reader, you and I; submariners at the periscope, with lettered mirrors and prisms to forestall our abashment.
It’s early one evening in late summer, the dusk spilling in through the uncurtained windows and making everything appear as if on some old film, the two of them moving together in the soft focus of a speckled, pink-grey twilight. They know one another’s bodies as well as their own, better; have done this or something like this countless times by now. Serena hears the little noises that whisper out of Bernie as well as the ones that don’t, the ones that no one else would know were missing, snatched away on a breath or swallowed. Countless times and yet each its own event: familiar but not humdrum, regular but never routine. Knelt at the head of the bedstead, her hands white-knuckled and twitching around squeaking metal, Bernie has her head tipped back now, her mouth open in silent ecstasy, like she’s taking communion.
Only it’s Serena who is feasting of the body, and she can never get her fill. For such a long time this had been a birthdays-and-Christmas kind of a thing, a thing to be bargained for, a thing to bargain with; of all the new experiences that sex with Bernie has given her, this is her favourite. In this position in particular; Serena wouldn’t call it ‘hard won’, because Bernie isn’t a trophy and it hasn’t been the least bit taxing, but they didn’t fall into bed like this. You don’t just get Bernie Wolfe like this. There are the practical elements, of course – the creaking knees to consider, and the soft thunk of the bed frame against the skirting board that might give them away; the words that must be said, and really there’s no delicate way of putting it – but more than that, it takes time and trust. Oh, she’s been open and exposed and utterly at your mercy for months; she is entirely yours and trusts you the way she trusts gravity to keep her on this earth: without question, without pause for thought; that’s just how the universe is. But she has to trust herself, a thing she can be sure of in theatre so long as she keeps moving and talking, a thing she can be sure of when her hands are on you, chasing your mutual pleasure; how to cope with empty hands and a head full of sin and your mouth hot between her thighs? Are you sure, Serena? Are you sure you want to do that? Are you sure I deserve it?
Serena’s reassurance is given every time in the pleasure she takes in having Bernie like this: she licks Bernie hungrily, ravenous and noisy; couldn’t think to be quiet even if they were not home alone. Her hands have too much recreation – Serena could have two pairs and still feel short. She loves to hold Bernie’s hips as she purls her tongue over smooth glistening lips and noses through coarse, crimped hairs, but that leaves none free to grip Bernie’s backside, two perfect handfuls, and she needs more to encircle Bernie’s wrists and trace her thumbs over the pulse that burbles there beneath diaphanous skin; more still to slide her palms down thighs that tremble beside her ears; yet more to push up over ribs and cup neat little breasts and their dark puckered nipples. With wishes still to spare – though who could hope for that after so many riches? – she would have one more hand to reach between her own legs and hasten herself and Bernie together to nirvana.
And through the gloamy light this evening Serena’s eyes have a fight to see the spark excited by her touch skitter across Bernie’s abdomen; to observe the flush that blooms on Bernie’s chest, stippled and irregular, no match against the stubborn white edges of her surgical scar; to watch Bernie watching her in kind. The last is an especial pleasure even amidst all the rest, even in the same moment as Serena’s taste buds sing – what arias! What ornate hymns! – to know Bernie again. On darker evenings than this they turn the lamps on to keep the night from stealing their eyes. Serena would go without any of those extra hands, would give up the two she has, medicine be damned, before she would forego the pleasure of those shared looks.
Hadn’t it always seemed so simple, Serena thinks, to look at someone and have them look back? But then there had been Bernie, gaze cast down, to the side, anywhere but on you, as if shielding her eyes from the fire burning in yours, so that you’re completely unprepared when finally she does look at you and there’s the fire and it’s an inferno; it’s candescent and entirely mesmerising and you realise that all of the not looking was for your benefit, not hers. Bernie has turned away from Marcus to hide the lack, from her children to hide the hurt, from anyone who might glimpse her fears and her desires, but now her eyes are on yours and there is nothing to hide, none to hide it from. Just barely half an hour ago she had climbed onto your lap, gangly and grinning impishly; just that short time ago she had nudged aside the journal in your hands and kissed you and asked if you would mind terribly reading it tomorrow, instead. And it was so simple and straightforward, warm skin and soft touches and wriggling down to chase the breath from her (try, at least), and yet now here is her soul, bare and trembling and yours. In the footprints of Cicero and Du Bartas, Serena treads.
A lull: no rolling hips, no eager tongue, no sounds, just the two of them still like this, the one gazing up and the other gazing down, and here perhaps, reader, we turn our heads and wonder at ourselves for staying so long. There is nothing else for these two, only each other, and we are not supposed to see Bernie reach down and trace her thumb across Serena’s cheekbone, high coloured and dewy, nor the kiss that Serena applies to Bernie’s palm, two sets of eyes joined unblinking through it all. So we shall leave them as Serena’s mouth moves once more to Bernie’s sex, as Bernie gasps and moans. Leave them to their audience inanimate, who will bear to hear Serena’s name or some form of it escape from Bernie as she climaxes – 'S-Sere- oh, Sere...' – better than we can.