What If ...?
In an extract from Rodham, a novel that asks: What if Hillary hadn’t married Bill? the sexual tension is palpable but, at a critical moment, she questions his preference for ordering more food over kissing
We were still making eye contact and smiling, and Bill said, “How would you feel about being kissed inside a diner?” I didn’t hesitate; I leaned in, under those bright lights, and I kissed his mouth. I said, “Does that answer your question?”
He looked very happy. “Your fearlessness,” he said, “did your parents instill that in you, or did you come out of the womb that way?”
“I wish I were fearless.”
“You weren’t afraid to take on Professor Geaney for his Ladies’ Day nonsense.”
“He was clearly in the wrong,” I said. “Exactly.”
“Didn’t Mark Twain say something about courage being the mastery of fear rather than the absence of fear? Although this might answer your question. My family moved into the house where my parents still live when I was 3 and another little girl in the neighbourhood immediately started trying to fight with me. Physically, I mean.
“When my mother realised I was running away and hiding inside our house, she very calmly told me that the next time Kathy hit me, she wanted me to hit her back. Not even, ‘You can hit her back’ but ‘I want you to.’ I did, and it solved the problem.”
“Kathy started hiding from you?” “Actually, we became friends and still are.” “Of course she wanted to become your friend. I’m sure everyone does.” He ate the last spoonful of icecream. “Is your roommate here tonight or in New York with her fiance?”
“She’s in New York.” I paused. “Would you like to see where I live?”
“I’d love to see where you live. But before we get out of here, should we order one more round of fries and a sundae?”
For the first time, I was genuinely taken aback by Bill. More than I was put off, I was confused by his simultaneity of appetites. Wasn’t this moment about sexual tension rather than eating? But Bill, apparently, could be hungry for multiple things at once.
Though it wasn’t a word anyone used at the time, he could multitask. I’d have far preferred to leave immediately and continue kissing, to kiss for real but, because of his earlier reference to being fat, I didn’t want to make him self-conscious.
“Sure,” I said, and he flagged Edith. When the next order came, I took one bite of the sundae. When he’d polished off the food, he grinned and said, “Does the offer of the apartment tour still stand?”
We were lying in my bed, him on top of me, both of us on top of the covers, the only light on in the entire apartment the small one on my nightstand. I was wearing jeans, socks, underwear, and a bra, and he was wearing jeans, socks, underwear (or so I assumed) and a white T-shirt.
His sweater was on the floor and we’d been kissing for a long time and it had been wonderful. I loved how his neck smelled and I loved his chest pressed to mine and I loved how his back felt when I ran my hands up inside his T-shirt and I loved how sometimes we were talking and joking around and sometimes we were just making out.
He propped himself up, as if doing a push-up, and looked down at me, our faces perhaps six inches apart. He said, “You’re not a virgin, are you?”
I smiled. “You sound like Professor Geaney.” “You know that’s not how I meant it.” “No, I’m not a virgin,” I said. I was joking as I added, “Are you?”
“Yes, so please be very, very gentle.”
“I’m on the pill, if that was your next question.” “At the risk of scandalising you even more than I already have,” he said, “I lost my virginity when I was 14.”
“Wow,” I said. “I was 19.”
“Who was the lucky fellow?”
“My college boyfriend.”
“Were you in love with him?”
“Not really.”
To my surprise, he laughed.
“Were you in love?” I asked. “At 14?”
“I was in lust. She was 16 and I thought she looked like Anita Ekberg. You know who that is?” I shook my head.
“A very voluptuous actress.”
“Half of me is tempted to ask how many women you’ve slept with, and half of me doesn’t want to know.”
“Maybe we ought to defer to the second half of you.”
With our faces close together, I scrutinised him, and he added, “For as long as I can remember, even when I was just a kid, I’ve had a weakness for a nice figure. A girl in a skirt walks by, and I’m like a dog drooling over a bone. But it’s ... ” He paused. “It’s infatuation. Not love.” His face remained a few inches above mine as he watched me absorb his words. “You and me,” he said. “This isn’t infatuation.”
“At the risk of making an argument, I don’t want to win, you wouldn’t really know, would you? Presumably, infatuation never feels like infatuation until it’s over.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I haven’t told you this yet, but soon after that day in the lounge when you heard me talking about watermelons, I saw you at a lecture. It was when Judge Motley came to campus. Do you remember that? I was sitting in the row behind you, and when it was over, I thought, I’ll introduce myself to her. I reached out my hand to touch your shoulder, and I felt — I realise this will sound strange, but it was like an electric shock. I knew I’d be starting something I couldn’t stop.”
It was difficult to know what to make of this story. I was flattered, yes, but also confused.
Then he said, “Can’t you feel it, too, how this is different from everything else? I want this — us — to last forever.”
Prior to two days earlier, we had hardly spent time in each other’s company. But with Bill’s face so close to mine, waiting for my response, with our bodies pressed together, it seemed that either of us might blurt out “I love you” — that I was just as likely to do it as he was. And, almost impossibly, that it would be true. However, “I love you” wasn’t what I said. Soberly, I said, “Yes. I feel it, too.”
Soon after that, we weren’t talking much. We were kissing a lot, and removing the rest of each other’s clothes, and his fingers were stroking me in different places and I was overwhelmed with wanting to be as close as I could to him — him, Bill, a specific person.
With Roy, and with another law classmate named Eddie whom I’d dated my first year at Yale, the sex had been enjoyable enough but not personal. It had felt like we were doing pleasurable things that human beings did, in a fairly consistent sequence, but it hadn’t felt relevant that I was specifically me and the other person was specifically the other person.
I gasped both because it felt so incredibly good and because I couldn’t believe I was naked with this man.
And then he really was inside me, it was happening and we would eternally from this moment on be two people who’d had sex with each other. There were a few seconds in which our eyes met and we looked at each other, both of us unblinking. Neither of us was smiling; smiling would have been trivial, or beside the point. To be with him in this way was an almost intolerable ecstasy.
It was the most precious thing I had ever experienced.
‘To be with him in this way was an almost intolerable ecstasy’