The poster Ch.1
“Dinner is served at eight.”
The young man didn’t answer. He kept looking at the walls.
They were a soft pink, and in the corners, there were several hand-painted flowers.
“It’s my daughter’s room,” Clarise clarified.
“Where is she?” John asked.
“At the university.”
“Won’t she mind me using her room while she’s away?”
“Not at all.”
“I hope I’m not a bother to you or the pastor either. You’re so kind to take me in.”
Clarise let out a small sigh.
“My husband says it’s our duty as Christians.”
“Do you share his opinion?”
Clarise took a second before answering.
“Of course.”
John nodded his head.
“Would you mind if I put up a poster?” he asked her.
“Go ahead. Though I warn you, my husband won’t like it if it’s some metal band.”
“Not at all.”
Clarise returned an hour later. She carried several folded sheets over one arm and a couple of pillows that barely fit in the other.
“May I come in?”
John was lying on the bed, looking at his phone. He looked up.
“Sure, let me,” he said, and got up to take the sheets.
“Did you already settle in...?” The sentence trailed off. Her gaze had fixed on the poster on the left wall.
It was quite large. The background was black. In the center, white lines were drawn.
The lines weren’t straight. They curved as if someone had traced them with a trembling hand. Or as if they were alive. There were circles that didn’t close. Spirals that came undone before completing. And at the edges, where the black became denser, the lines seemed to move.
The lines formed something. An animal, perhaps. A wolf. But then it looked more like an octopus. And then, when she blinked, it was no longer an animal. It was a geometric shape. A triangle. A square. A hexagon that dissolved into another hexagon.
And as she lost herself trying to decipher the image, she heard a door slam.
“I’m home, honey,” Martin shouted from downstairs.
Clarise blinked. She brought a hand to her head. It hurt slightly, at the temple.
She looked at the poster. It was still there. The white lines on the black background. There was no wolf, circles, or movement anymore, just a piece of paper stuck to the wall.
Or maybe they had never moved.
John was sitting on the bed, phone in hand. He looked at her.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Just... got distracted.”
She looked at her watch. She had come in at seven. Now it was eight ten.
“Did you get settled in?” Martin asked John.
They were eating the improvised dinner Clarise had made.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Early tomorrow we have Bible study. You can us if you’d like.”
“I’d love to, sir, but tomorrow is my first day at the hospital.”
“Of course, of course,” Martin said, and poured a little more water into John’s glass without him asking. “Work is important. Which area will you be in?”
“Pediatrics.”
Martin nodded.
“Children need people like you. Young people. People with patience.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir. It makes me feel old,” Martin laughed.
“Well,” Martin said, picking up his fork. “This dinner is delicious, honey.”
“Thank you,” Clarise said. Without looking at him. She was still thinking about what had happened.
John was the first to finish his plate. Martin asked him some things about his life, John answered calmly. Clarise didn’t listen to the answers. She only noticed that, while he spoke, John looked directly at her husband. Though every so often a glance escaped, fixing on another point: on her. It was so quick that Martin probably wouldn’t even notice. Or if he did, he’d think he did it unintentionally. But she knew that kind of furtive look well. They were the same ones several men from the congregation still threw at her.
“I’ll wash the dishes,” she said, getting up.
“I’ll help,” John offered.
“No, thanks. Rest. You have a long day tomorrow.”
John nodded. He didn’t insist. Clarise took the dishes to the kitchen and stayed there longer than necessary.
When she went upstairs, Martin was already in bed. She changed with her back to him, put on her nightgown, and got under the sheets.
“What do you think of the boy?” Martin asked, his voice tired.
Clarise took a while to answer.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He seems... decent.”
“Yes. Decent,” Martin repeated, and turned to his side. The lights went out.
She closed her eyes. An hour ed and she was still awake. Martin was already snoring.
She looked at the ceiling a while longer. Then she sat up carefully, without making noise, and went out to the hallway.
She didn’t know what she was looking for.
At the end of the hall, under John’s door, a thin line of light filtered through.
The door was ajar.
Clarise pushed the door open with her palm. She didn’t knock, just walked in.
John was sitting on the bed, in silence, looking at the wall. He didn’t turn when she came in. Nor did he say anything.
Clarise went straight to the poster. She looked at it.
The white lines were still there. Curving. Opening. Closing.
She didn’t hear John’s footsteps approaching. She only felt his breath on her neck.
Then, his lips. A shy kiss. Clarise didn’t startle. Her eyes stayed fixed on the poster.
John kissed her neck again. This time lower. With more pressure. His hand rested on her waist.
Clarise didn’t look away from the white lines. They kept moving.
She felt John’s body right behind her. Something hard and large pressed against her ass. And without noticing, her right hand began to move. It searched for John. Her palm closed around his crotch.
John didn’t say anything. He just exhaled, very close to her ear, while putting his own hand inside her nightgown. Moving up through her stomach until he reached her breasts.
When he brushed the first breast, Clarise exhaled a little air, though without looking away from the front.
John separated for a moment. Clarise didn’t turn to see what he was doing. She heard the sound of the weight of clothes falling to the floor.
Then he returned to her. But this time there was no fabric. Only skin.
And then she saw it.
In the poster, between the lines, a mouth drew itself. It was an opening that opened and closed. Slow. Rhythmic. As if breathing.
Clarise parted her lips. She tried to imitate it. She opened her mouth a little. Closed it. Opened it again.
But it wasn’t working. Then she realized the mouth in the poster wasn’t on a face. It was lower down.
John took her by the hips. He guided her one step toward the wall. Clarise placed her palms on the cold plaster. The white lines were in front of her, an arm’s length away.
And then she felt it. Her real mouth was opening for John. It was difficult because he was much bigger than Martin, but little by little she was managing.
The rhythm was slow at first. Gentle, almost kind, but little by little the intensity was increasing. Each new thrust was increasing in speed, in force.
Soon it became a constant pounding, one after another. Her breasts bounced. It had never happened. Martin was a calm person.
John began to put more weight on her. John’s breathing was ragged, as if it was hard for him to breathe.
The rhythm of the thrusts also changed. It was no longer controlled. Each time they became more erratic, more desperate.
Clarise felt John begin to grab her hair, pulling it. It wasn’t violent, it was as if he needed to hold onto something.
“Fuck,” John exhaled.
His legs began to tremble. Clarise saw that the poster now showed an image of a circle in the center, then this seemed to explode across the whole poster. It was like a firework.
It was then that her legs also began to tremble.
John went rigid. Then she felt it. John was exploding inside her.
Clarise opened her mouth. The air left her. A sound began to rise from her throat, a moan she didn’t recognize as hers. She had never sounded like this. She had never felt like this.
John’s hand got there before the sound came out.
The palm covered her mouth completely. Clarise gasped against his hand, and the gasp stayed there, trapped.
When Clarise finished gasping, John slowly removed his hand from her mouth. Clarise didn’t turn around. She heard him move away, heard him pick up his clothes from the floor, heard the mattress give when he sat on the bed.
The poster now seemed like a meaningless image to her. Even boring.
She was still leaning against the wall. Her breathing was slowly beginning to return to normal.
She touched the back of her nightgown. It was wet and something thick and warm was sliding from her crotch.
She stayed still a moment longer, her forehead almost against the poster.
When she was sure her legs would respond, she moved away from the wall. She looked at her hands. They were red.
She didn’t look at John. She didn’t want to see him sitting on the bed, half-dressed, with that face he probably had. She pulled down her nightgown. She felt the fabric stick to the damp skin of her thighs.
She walked to the door.
“Clarise.”
She stopped for an instant in the doorway. But she didn’t answer, she simply left and closed the door.
Outside, she brought both hands to her face. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Everything had been like being in a dream.
Except she ed everything in detail. Every caress. Every movement.
She thought of Martin. Asleep on the other side of the hallway. She had betrayed him. With a boy she had just met.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that a part of her—a small, disgusting part that she didn’t recognize—had liked it. She had always liked sex, while Martin had always found it somewhat sinful.
That, of course, was no excuse. She tried to go over in her head what had happened. Why she hadn’t put up any resistance.
When she opened her eyes, Martin was no longer beside her. She heard him moving downstairs, in the kitchen.
She sat up in bed. Everything hurt. Her thighs. Her back.
She showered. She put on a high-necked dress.
When she went downstairs, Martin was sitting at the table, newspaper open and a cup of coffee in hand.
“Good morning,” he said, without looking up.
“Good morning,” she replied.
“John left early,” Martin commented, turning a page. “He didn’t even have breakfast. Said he didn’t want to be late to the hospital.”
“Ah,” Clarise said. She sat across from him. She poured herself coffee. Her hand trembled a little. She hoped Martin wouldn’t notice.
“He seems like a hardworking boy,” Martin continued. “Not like others.”
“Yes,” Clarise said.
“Did you see he left the poster he put up on the wall?”
Clarise, who was drinking her coffee, began to cough.
“Are you okay?” her husband asked.
“Yes, just... drank too fast.”
“So you saw it?”
“Saw what?”
“The poster.”
“No.”
“It’s very psychedelic. Like something from the 60s.”
Clarise didn’t comment.
“Are you feeling okay?” Martin asked, looking at her over the newspaper. “You’re pale.”
“Yes,” she said. “Just... didn’t sleep well.”
“You should take something.”
“I will.”
“Or do you want me to take you to the doctor?”
“No, thanks.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Martin turned another page.
Clarise was in the kitchen when she heard the door.
She was peeling potatoes. The knife stopped in the air for a second, then continued. She heard the footsteps in the entryway.
“Good afternoon,” John said.
Clarise didn’t answer.
She kept peeling. The knife scraped the skin with a dry sound. The footsteps moved away down the hall, then creaked on the stairs, and then a door opened.
Clarise put the knife down on the board. She dried her hands on the apron.
She looked at the stairs.
She didn’t have to do it. She could stay there. Finish dinner. Wait for Martin. Pretend nothing had happened.
But she went up.
Her bare feet barely made noise on the steps. When she reached the hallway, her daughter’s room door was open. John was facing away, by the window, looking outside.
Clarise stayed in the doorway.
“John.”
He turned. Slowly. Without hurry.
“What happened yesterday,” Clarise said. “It was an accident.”
John didn’t say anything.
“It won’t happen again,” she continued. “I don’t know what came over me. But it won’t happen again. Do you understand?”
John looked at her for a second. Then he nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
He said it so calmly, that Clarise was left disconcerted. She had expected resistance. An excuse. A look. Something. But John had already turned back to the window.
Clarise was about to turn around when she saw it.
The poster wasn’t on the wall.
It was lying on the nightstand. It was hard to see from that position but she could still make out a circle that moved faster and faster. It was fascinating.
It was like watching water when you throw a stone in: waves coming from the center and expanding toward the edges. Over and over again.
Clarise took a step. Then another. She couldn’t see anything else. The rest of the room—the made bed, the window, the half-open closet door—had become blurry, as if someone had turned down the contrast on everything that wasn’t the poster.
Clarise leaned in a little, unconsciously, as if getting closer would reveal something more. The waves kept expanding. The rhythm was hypnotic. So constant that her breathing began to synchronize with it. Inhaling when the circle expanded. Exhaling when it contracted. Without realizing it.
The only thing that interrupted her concentration on the poster, though only for a second, was the presence of John’s hands on her shoulders.
Clarise didn’t startle. Her eyes stayed fixed on the circle, which now seemed to pulse with more force.
John’s hands pressed down gently. She began to kneel without resistance. Now she could see details that had escaped her before. The waves of the circle weren’t waves. They were lines. Lines that came from the center and returned to it, as if they were drawing something. Something that changed every time she blinked.
As she leaned forward, her face had ended up at the level of John’s waist. She didn’t notice. Her eyes stayed fixed on the circle. The waves kept expanding. Her breathing stayed synchronized. The rhythm of her hands kept the same beat.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
John put a hand on her head. His fingers tangled in her hair, gently, as if he were petting an animal he didn’t want to scare. Then a small tug downward.
Clarise felt the pressure. She didn’t think about what it meant. She didn’t think about anything. She just felt her head incline a little more, a few centimeters, just enough for her mouth to end up in front of John’s member.
Clarise stuck out her tongue, brushing the tip of John’s member.
He inhaled. A sharp sound that escaped before he could contain it.
Clarise kept moving her tongue. She licked the glans, slowly, as if she were tasting ice cream. The skin was soft, hot, tight. It had a salty taste.
John slid his member further into Clarise’s mouth. She closed her lips around the glans. Her tongue kept moving, now in circles, now up and down, now pressing against the underside.
It was like a kiss. A kiss from teenagers when no one wants to separate. Though in reality Martin was never very fond of her kisses and always ended up reprimanding her carnal ion.
John kept advancing a little more. Clarise coughed a little. She had never had something so big. She was red and sweating but didn’t stop moving her tongue.
John let out a grunt. A hoarse sound, while he gripped Clarise’s hair tightly.
Clarise tasted it. A thick liquid, salty, that mixed with her saliva. She had never been in this situation. Martin had never wanted. She swallowed it all.