Free Dancing in the Dark by Joan Barfoot

touch him, and I got used to the sight of him rising and flushing and the feeling of him jerking and throbbing to the touch of my fingertips; and later I could see him shrinking, fading, and withdrawing. But how it happened, that was some excitement I could not grasp.
    He tried to watch me in the same way, but I wouldn’t let him. Those parts, I think, are not beautiful. Those parts of him weren’t beautiful either, but he was so proud. He looked at himself sometimes with wonder, as if he also didn’t understand it. It must be odd to be a man, so exposed. In women, everything is tucked away and hidden.
    So I didn’t understand his body, no. But I thought the actin general was of the heart, not of the body, and that those parts of us down there were symbols, ways of showing, and not the thing itself.
    “I love you,” we told each other before and after. During, even he was mute.

13
    A nd then there we were, married, and there I was safe on the other side of twenty and the gap. A leap hand in hand with Harry, like in a movie.
    Twenty years between then and the appearance of another gap and a leap into danger again. Still, twenty years of safety.
    What if he hadn’t asked? But I was sure he would.
    I was sure he had to. From the first moment, his presence, his existence, blocked the world. I could not see it, nor could it touch me. He surrounded me, was in every direction I looked, filling up my view.
    Once we went to a public beach and, far out in the water, standing up and moving with the waves, made love. It must have been apparent, if anyone had looked, what we were doing; and I never thought of that. Or if I did, it was only that a watcher would be far off and anonymous, while here was Harry. We were invisible, or our passion must have blinded people. We were all that existed, our twined-together two-ness made all the world our own possession, unreal except as we might admit it. It was delicious, this satisfying protection we made together.
    Did I fill up his view that way? I suppose I didn’t. He may have been keeping an eye on the beach over my shoulder.
    What if he hadn’t asked? If I’d gone out and found a job, taught English all these years, hating it I’m sure, putting my own pay cheques in the bank, paying rent on some small apartment somewhere, watching, watching all the time all the ordinary people, coveting their ordinariness—would I choose that if I could undo how this has ended?
    I had twenty years. I can’t see giving them up. The thing is to see how much was true.
    He was quite a while working up to asking. Sometimes I saw him watching me in a speculative way, and I thought I knew what he was wondering. I did my best; was my best. And finally, I guess, he too found it the only thing to be done, came to my conclusion (but by what route?), took a deep breath, said, “Let’s get married.”
    He sat beside me on my old couch-cot, holding both my hands, turned towards me, looking at me, more than that, into me—was he trying to see through and past me into the future, to calculate the risk?
    “But before you answer,” he was saying, “we have to have an understanding.” I nodded willingly. Whatever.
    “The thing is, I’m scared of feeling trapped. I know myself, and I know I can’t take that feeling. So if we’re going to do the paper and promises, I want to be sure they won’t make any difference. I know you let me be, but sometimes that can change when people get married, and I have to be able to feel free. I don’t want to have to answer to anybody.”
    “But,” I protested, “have I ever?”
    No, I was careful. I said, “Don’t worry about it, that’s fine,” when he called to say he had to study or was going out for adrink with some friends. I would never have said, “Oh, but I was counting on you. I have nothing else to do.”
    “No, of course you haven’t, or we wouldn’t still be together. Look, I’ll tell you what I think: if I had to feel responsible I’d resent