Good Harbor

“Workingmen,” Patrick said, leading the way. “Mostly Irish. Working two jobs, a lot of them. Sending money back home.”

Patrick’s room was at the end of the hall. The two windows, hung with old floral bedsheets, overlooked the street. Five oversize wrestling posters were taped to the walls. “Not mine,” he said, pointing to the lurid masks and rippling muscles. “The kid before me had ’em up, and they cover the cracks.” He lit another cigarette.

Jeans and work shirts were folded neatly and stored in blue milk crates that also held a half dozen books, a carton of Marlboros, an ashtray, and a gooseneck lamp. The king-size mattress took up most of the floor space, a worn, green acrylic blanket tucked into hospital corners. It looked, oddly, like a monk’s cell. Or an odd monk’s cell.

He took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. She could barely breathe.

When he closed the door, Joyce panicked. Was she out of her mind? No one knew where she was.

“Are you all right?” he asked, stepping back and holding an open palm out to her, as though she were a wary dog. He let her make the first move.

She paused, then put her mouth to his. They kissed, standing. He was in no rush. They held each other, and he ran his arms up and down her back. He held her head and tangled his hands in her hair. His attentions — deliberate, almost chaste — made Joyce feel light-headed.

She had to sit, to lie down. But he held her standing, kissing, running his hands down to the small of her back, her midriff, her ears, her ass, everywhere but her breasts and her crotch.

She moaned. Patrick pulled back a little and smiled at her, as though he had won some kind of victory. “You can go now if you like.”

Joyce pulled away, feeling as if she’d been slapped. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s hardly a palace where I live, is it now?”

“What difference would that make?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Americans are, can be . . .”

Joyce imagined a string of women coming here, turning up their noses at the squalor. Though it wasn’t really squalid. It was shabby, but clean enough.

She put her hands on his hips and pushed herself up against him.

He laughed. “All right then.”

He drew her to the mattress and they necked like a couple of high school kids until Joyce thought she would pass out. Patrick got up and excused himself to go to the bathroom.

He’s getting a condom, thought Joyce, who took off her shoes.

The lock clicked shut behind him when he returned. Patrick lay down and started kissing her. He unbuttoned her jeans and slipped his hand under her T-shirt, kissing her. He stripped her slowly. With his tongue and with his fingers, he caressed her slowly, head to foot.

He held her head between his hands and whispered in Celtic — sibilant, purring nonsense warming the inside of her willing ear. He ran the silky insides of his forearms on her thighs in a way that nearly brought her to orgasm, then paused for long, aching moments, before taking her the rest of the way with his hand.

He put her toes in his mouth, and she nearly laughed at the intensity of that pleasure. He reached up her thighs, and up inside her. Fingers and tongue, turning her inside out. He was practiced, and generous. He took his time and seemed to know just when to apply a little more pressure. He cooed as she climaxed, “Ooh, Joycey.”

Joyce grinned at herself in the mirror on the way home. Her skin glowed. Her lips glowed. She looked young. Was it really the most intense, satisfying orgasm she’d ever had, or was it just new?

She painted three closets that afternoon. She finally lied outright to Frank when he asked about her day. “Antique shopping,” she said. She slept for twelve hours and woke up at eight-thirty, to Frank’s phone call.

Then Patrick called, as he said he would, at ten. “Give me a couple of hours to sleep. I’m done in.”

He was waiting outside for her and kissed the back of her hand as he took the sack of coffee and muffins from her. She sat on the folding chair in his room, watching him eat.

He ate in big bites and drained the cup. Joyce watched him wipe his mouth with the napkin. “You’re the cure for loneliness,” Patrick said, putting the cup back into the bag.

He leaned against the wall, stretching his legs on the bed, and pulled a book from his shelf, a big, dog-eared collection of contemporary Irish poems. “Come sit by me, Joycey.” He patted the space beside him. “Let me read you something.” He read three poems full of longing for a lover and for a green piece of land, which turned out to be the same thing.

When he finished, he kissed her on the cheek and jumped up. “Back in a sec.”

He took off her clothes, standing up this time. Nuzzling her breasts, stroking her thighs, kneeling before her, he steadied her with his hands when she sw

ayed. There was a moment when Joyce grew fearful that he would stop, or that he would do something cruel. But that never happened.