When the ice cubes inside my mouth had turned to water, and the water was nearly boiling, I pulled away. I went to the sink to spit out before I burned myself. Quite suddenly I knew what the myth of people struck by lightning becoming more sexual was made of. It was simply this: We knew we could be gone at any time. Standing by the window, up on the roof, playing golf, on the phone. The possibility of being blown out like a match made us burn.
“Well.” Lazarus looked surprised at what he’d wound up with. “You do have some tricks.”
I was drawn to him, a sparrow to a hawk, a hawk to a sparrow. There was no logic when I followed him down the hall to the bathroom. There was no reason for me to do the things I did. Except that I felt something. I didn’t think that was possible for me anymore. Not now, not ever. That I did seemed enough to excuse almost anything.
He filled the tub with water. All I could hear was the sound of the tap. I understood that it was the only way we could be together — the elements most drawn to each other are the ones that destroy each other. I leaned down and put one hand in the tub, splashed back and forth. The water felt like ice. I could feel it down my spine. Lazarus said it was nothing compared with the bath of ice they’d put him in at the hospital, when he was burning up alive and they needed to lower his temperature, keep his heart going. It had probably kept him alive. Pure ice. Now he craved it. A cold woman like me. I think he’d been dreaming of me and then I was there, in my red dress.
The day was humid and now it started to rain. We could hear the rain hitting against the roof. There was thunder. I could be anywhere. I couldn’t leave.
“I need it to be dark,” Lazarus told me.
I didn’t care. I wanted whatever he did. He drew the blinds over the window, shut off the light above the sink. We could barely see each other. Then the last light. That one out, too. We were in the dark, groping, following our hands, hearts, skin. In truth, I was grateful for the dark. I wasn’t beautiful. I couldn’t forget that I was ten years older than he. I slipped off my clothes, stepped into the tub, shuddered in the cold water. He got in right after me, desperate, I think, wanting me; it must have been that. I could feel the edges of heat in the water. I held on to the smooth sides of the bathtub. I thought of fish in a bucket. Death standing at the foot of a bed. When he pulled himself on top of me, I imagined I might drown. Maybe I was supposed to. For all I knew, this was the other half of my death wish — half fire, half water. He drew me under and kissed me, deep, underwater, unending. By the time we came up for air, I was burning. I turned on the cold tap and let it run. Over my shoulders, over my chest, in the dark that I was grateful for. I could have been anywhere, but I was there. I could have driven west or east, but I had driven here to him. I closed my eyes. Burn me. Drown me. Do anything. When he moved inside, I pulled him deeper.
When I got out of the bathtub my legs were shaking. Water had spilled onto the floor. Every step was slippery, dangerous, cold. “I have to do something,” I said.
I wrapped a towel around me, then went to the kitchen to open the freezer. My hands were shaking. This was really crazy. I got a piece of ice and pushed it up inside me, where I was burning. I didn’t care. It was worth it. I wasn’t sure I had ever felt anything before.
“I hurt you,” Lazarus said.
He had pulled on his clothes and come up behind me. Nothing had hurt me since that night on the porch; nothing had even come close. I was shaking, still wet, so he put his arms around me. I could feel the heat through his clothes. I could hear his heart beating, the strong heart that had defied death, that had stopped and come back to life. Nothing could have made me want him more.
I wasn’t much different than that greedy, selfish girl I’d been years ago. Only now I didn’t want the universe, not the whole wide world. Just this and nothing more: Make me feel something, anything, in cold water, on a bed of ice, on a night so dark it’s impossible to tell the difference between the earth and the sky. Let it happen again and again, time after time. Hurt me so I know I’m still alive.
II
Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside? At the library I couldn’t help but notice which patrons checked out the same books. They appeared to have nothing in common, but who could tell what a person was truly made of? The unknown, the riddle, the deepest truth. I noticed them all: the ones who’d lost their way, the ones who’d lived their lives in ashes, the ones who had to prove themselves, the ones who, like me, had lost the ability to feel.
I kept going out to the orange grove. It didn’t make sense, and it didn’t have to. It was as though I had one map inside my head and it led to the man who was waiting for me. Someone who was as alone — maybe even more alone — than I was; someone whose story dovetailed with mine — burned alive, trapped in ice. I thought about Jack Lyons — I might have learned how to be human with him, but what good would that have done? There was so much more to learn from Lazarus. After the first few times we were together, I had gotten up the courage to ask what it had been like to be dead. I’d pleaded to know, but he wouldn’t tell me. All the same, I wouldn’t let it go. I nagged and begged. Did it hurt, was it heavenly, was there white light or the darkest agony? Lazarus refused to say. He had a beautiful smile, one that made me want him even more. Want, I had discovered, was a country of its own. Everything else drops off the map: oceans, continents, friends, family, the before, the after — all of it gone.