Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  Then when she got back from the trip she would no longer be a virgin and could set about taking Bobby Sheen away from Annie-Annie. If she could get him in love with her before the summer was over she might forget about the girls’ school and go to S.M.U., where Bobby was going. They might even pledge related fraternities.

  The one flaw in the whole plan was Duane. It occurred to her that he might not want to break up with her even if she let him sleep with her before breaking the news. He was dead set on their getting married in the summer, and he was a very stubborn boy. She decided that the best thing to do would be to make an ally of Sonny—she knew Sonny would do anything she wanted him to if she played up to him the least little bit. If Duane got ugly and wouldn’t quit trying to go with her she could then date Sonny a few times. Duane would never in his life excuse that.

  The senior play was rehearsing at that time and Sonny and Jacy both had parts. In order to strengthen her hold over him Jacy started giving Sonny a ride home every night; often, at her suggestion, they would ride out to the lake and sit and talk a while before going home. Jacy mostly wanted to talk about Duane, about how much she wanted to marry him but how frightened she was that it would never work out, her parents being set against it like they were. Sonny tried to listen, but mostly he just looked. Jacy had a way of leaning forward so she could hook a finger inside her blouse and straighten her bra strap, a movement that always made him ache with desire. Even the flash of her white teeth as she popped her chewing gum—even that could cause discomfort. Once in a moment of emotion she reached out and they held hands for a little while. “I tell you I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you to talk to, Sonny,” she said affectionately.

  At such times Sonny could hardly keep from wishing that Duane and perhaps Ruth too were out of the picture Jacy was everything he wanted. She had always seemed infinitely more desirable than Charlene or the other girls, but she had also begun to seem cool and simple and lovely in contrast to Ruth, who had begun to disturb him a good deal. Once Ruth found pleasure her need for him rapidly increased and her sensual appetite had become, if anything, stronger than his own. At first he had found it delightful—he had never imagined that he would ever in his life have as much sex as he wanted. By the time he had visited Ruth almost daily for a month he was forced to admit to himself that it might even be possible to have more than he wanted. Ruth lost all caution, all concern for what the townspeople might think. All she wanted was Sonny, and he began to feel strangely washed out and restless. He ceased to eat particularly much, or to sleep particularly well. Despite almost daily sex he had erotic dreams at night and would often wake up to find himself painfully engorged.

  As he grew more tired and less certain of himself, Ruth seemed to grow fresher, more self-possessed, and more lovely, though it was only at odd, oblique moments, lying beside her or coming into her room, that he noticed that she was lovely. Instead of drooping about the house as she had once done she acquired grace and animation and moved about as active and lithe as a girl. She even repapered the bedroom, much to the coach’s disgust.

  Sonny found he could not keep a consistent feeling about her two days or even two hours in a row. At one moment, during lovemaking, seeing her become avid, sweaty, almost frenzied, he felt as he had the first day with her in the car, as if he were being pulled by some force stronger than his own. A few moments later, an hour later, he would see her, her face calmed, lit from within, her eyes wide and soft, and feel completely happy with her. He simply could not understand what had happened to her. When she touched him, drew him into her, it was not that she was trying to have him exactly—she was insisting that he have her. She was not saying “You’re mine,” she was saying “I’m yours,” and that was almost more troubling. She was completely focused on him; the rest of her life had ceased to matter.

  Her hair had grown longer, and he loved to smooth tendrils of it back behind her ears. But he wasn’t sure that he wanted any person to be his: it made him too responsible.

  “You’re my love, I can’t help it,” she would say, if he brought the matter up. And she would go on brushing her hair, completely at peace with herself because of him.

  One night he almost gave way to an impulse and spoke of Ruth to Jacy, but he didn’t because he realized just in time that it would mean the end of his talks with Jacy. She wanted to talk about her problems, not his. Because of their talks she began to fill his fantasies again, and the fantasies made a fitful background to his afternoons with Ruth. Somehow he was sure that passion with Jacy would be more intense and yet less strained than it sometimes was with Ruth. With Jacy things would be sharper and better timed, and would never be blunted by anxiety or bad balance or anything.

  To Ruth, that period of her life later seemed a little insane, but insane in a good way. She remembered little about it, just Sonny’s person. Occasionally it occurred to her that people were probably talking, or that she ought to go to the store or somewhere, but none of those things seemed immediate. Sonny was the only thing immediate.

  Later, when time was passing much more slowly, she told herself that she had not planned well—she had not thought to save anything. She had held nothing back for the morrow, but it was because she did not suppose she could afford to think about the morrow.

  It was not until an evening in early May that the fact of a future was brought home to her. Sonny had come that afternoon, and all had gone well. Three hours later, while Herman was finishing his supper, Ruth went out into the backyard and began to take some clothes off the line. It was just dusk, a soft spring dusk, and as she was unpinning Herman’s stiff, unironed khakis a car went by on the street. Idly curious, she glanced around to see who was passing and saw Sonny and Jacy, on their way to play practice in Jacy’s convertible.

  She only glimpsed them as the car passed between her house and the next, and all she saw really was the glint of spring sunset on Jacy’s gold hair. She did not even see Sonny’s face, did not know whether he looked happy or glum to be with Jacy, but the glimpse ruined her content. For a moment or two she had to hold onto the clothesline—it was as if she had been struck a numbing blow across her thighs. Her legs felt so unsteady that she could hardly move down the line to the next stiff pair of pants. Sonny had never mentioned Jacy to her: she had glimpsed the very beginning of something. Duane and Jacy might have broken up. As she dragged the sheets off the line she felt a sudden panic, silly but nonetheless terrifying. She was sure that Sonny was in love with Jacy and would never come to her house again. She would have wept, but the dread that seized her was too dry. It was as if she had suddenly been faced with her own end, an end too dry and commonplace to cry about. When all the clothes were piled in the basket she stood in the yard a minute, under the empty lines, her only comfort the soft evening air. She could not stand the thought of going into the tight, hot kitchen, where Herman was eating black eyed peas, but the next moment a thought came to her and she grabbed the clothes basket and hurried in. Herman had finished the peas and was eating a bowlful of yellow canned peaches, one of his favorite desserts.

  “Herman,” she asked, “have Duane and Jacy broken up? I thought I saw her go by just now with someone else in the car.”

  The coach looked up with mild interest. “Hope so,” he said. “Nothin’ I’d like better than to see them two bust up. I might get a couple of good baseball games out of Duane if they would.”

  Ruth took heart and took out the ironing board and sprinkler bottle. Life came back into her legs; she decided the spasm of dread had been irrational. Even so, considering it calmly, it was clear that in time she was bound to be hurt, and badly so. She was twenty years older than him, and he would not keep wanting her forever. Sooner or later he would leave and she would have to get over him, but she was so relieved to know that it was going to be later—not for a week, at least, and perhaps not for a month or even a year—that she resolved not to care. As she ironed she indulged herself in the pleasant fantasy that she was in So
nny’s room, doing the ironing for him. She nursed a strong secret wish to go to his room sometime, to be with him where he lived rather than where Herman lived.

  The coach finished his peaches and lay on the couch for a couple of hours, watching television while Ruth finished ironing. When the late news came on he turned the set off: news bored him. He straggled lazily into the bedroom to undress, and found that Ruth was there ahead of him, sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing hand lotion into her hands. She had her shoes off and was barefooted. It seemed to the coach that she looked younger than a woman her age ought to look: her ankles were slim, and even her face looked young. He didn’t know it, but she had managed to sustain her favorite fantasy all the way to the bedroom and was pretending to herself that she was undressing in Sonny’s room. All the coach knew was that she irritated him. She went to the closet to hang up her dress and even the lightness of her walk irritated him. He sat down in the rocker to pull off his sweaty socks, remembering that she had mentioned Jacy and Duane.

  “Who was it you seen with Jacy?” he asked, stirred by his dislike of the girl.

  “I didn’t get a good look at the boy,” Ruth said, a little surprised. “It was Sonny Crawford I think.”

  The coach grunted. He stood up, emptied his pockets onto the dresser, and pitched his pants through the bathroom door in the general direction of the dirty-clothes hamper. It was a warm night and the room seemed a little close to him. He threw up a window and stood in front of it a minute, idly scratching his testicles and enjoying the nice south breeze.

  After a minute he stretched out on the bed, but for some reason he couldn’t get Jacy Farrow off his mind. It was little twats like her that ruined young athletes, so far as he was concerned. If it hadn’t been for her, Duane would have come out for track and they might have won a track championship. As he lay on his back, still scratching himself, he thought how nice it would be to hump a little rich girl like her until she got so sick of it she would never want to see another boy, much less bother one. That would be a smart piece of coaching, but hard to bring off.

  While his thoughts were running in that direction he happened to glance over and notice Ruth—or at least he noticed half of her. She was undressing behind the closet door, but the strong breeze had blown the door open a bit wider than usual and Ruth was half exposed, the line of the door bisecting her body. The coach saw one leg, one breast, one shoulder and the side of her head as she turned and reached into the closet to take her gown off the hook. Ordinarily the sight of Ruth’s body gave him a feeling of mild distaste: his own mother had stood five-eleven and had worked just as hard as men worked nearly every day of her life. Nothing seemed more pathetic to him than a skinny woman, Ruth especially, but when he glanced at the closet he was not thinking of Ruth at all but of Jacy Farrow. He was thinking that if he ever got Jacy into the right corner he would pay back all the little pusses who had kept his boys stirred up over the years. The thought of administering such a lesson had him a little excited—his underwear developed a sizable hump. Ruth stepped out from behind the door, lowering the gown over her body, and the coach looked at her again. Something told him he would never get Jacy into the right corner, but Ruth was right there and she was just like a girl anyway. She had kept him stirred up at one time—if she hadn’t he would have stayed a bachelor and had the money to take some real hunting trips. He could have gone to Alaska, even. She deserved a prod as much as Jacy; no woman who had done a proper day’s work moved as lightly as she moved.

  Ruth’s mind was still elsewhere—she was unaware of the state her husband was in. It was not a state she had expected him to be in again. She sat down on the bed with her back to him and rubbed her calves a minute before stretching out. While she was sitting there the springs squeaked and Herman got out of bed; she supposed he had forgotten to go to the bathroom.

  “Turn off the light in there, please, when you’re done,” she said. Light from the bathroom made a bright patch on the floor of the darkened bedroom.

  Then she turned to lie down and noticed with a start that Herman was not headed for the bathroom at all. He was at the dresser, his underwear bulging out ludicrously. The sight stunned her, as it always had: all their married life Herman had announced his arousal by going to the dresser and rummaging in the sock drawer until he found the prophylactics. While she watched he found a package and strode into the bathroom to make himself ready.

  She knew that she was supposed to use the time while he was in the bathroom to prepare herself for wifely service, but she suddenly felt as if her whole body had become stiff as a plank. She had been thinking how nice it would be to spend a whole night in Sonny’s room, but when confronted with Herman’s intention all thought seemed to leave her. She merely lay on the bed, not thinking at all.

  When Herman came out he switched off the bathroom light, so that the bedroom was dark. He lay down heavily and without hesitation rolled himself onto Ruth, only to roll back a moment later, chagrined.

  “What the hell?” he said. “You done asleep?”

  In her paralysis Ruth had forgotten to do what she was supposed to do on such occasions: lift her nightgown and spread her legs. Those two actions were all that Herman required of her in the way of sexual cooperation. She raised her hips off the bed and pulled up the gown, and when he was satisfied that the obstruction had been removed the coach rolled back onto her and after a couple of badly aimed thrusts, made connection. Once he struck the place he went at it athletically.

  Ruth clenched her fists at her sides. Her chest and abdomen felt crushed, but it crossed her mind that she had crushed herself. What was crushing her was the weight of all the food she had fed Herman through the years, all the steaks, all the black-eyed peas, all the canned peaches. It was particularly the canned peaches: she had never until that moment realized how much she hated them. It seemed to her that pyramids of cans of slimy peaches piled on her abdomen. After a moment the weight became intolerable and she moved a little, to try and ease it. She moved from side to side and stretched her legs, to try and escape it. Herman sweated easily and his sweat was already dripping down her ribs, but what bothered her was the weight of the cans. As she kept moving, trying to lighten the weight, she became aware of a distant pleasure. She began to writhe a little, in order to adjust the weight of the pyramid and intensify the pleasure—she flexed her legs and raised the lower part of her body a little, trying to get the weight right on the throbbing nerve.

  Her movements annoyed the coach a great deal. When he started he had not even been thinking of her, but of Jacy, and thinking of Jacy had been very enjoyable. At first Ruth had acted perfectly decent, but just when it was getting nicest she began to writhe and wiggle and even started going up and down against him. The coach was too surprised and outraged to speak, and anyway he had got to the point where he needed to hold onto Jacy in his mind. He tried to beat Ruth down with his body, so she would be still again, but his efforts had the opposite effect: the harder he tried the more she moved. He couldn’t slow her down at all, and he couldn’t stop himself.

  For a minute, with pounding heartbeats, they were running a hundred-yard dash with each other on equal terms. Neither knew how close the tape was, neither was sure of victory, but the coach crossed first. He recaptured Jacy for a second and desperately burst across, gasping with exhaustion and pleasure. Ruth was just at the turn. The weight was terribly sharp for a moment and then the coach’s heavy surge burst the pyramid and left her gasping, free of all weight.

  For his part the coach wanted badly to be gone on his side of the bed. Quickly he withdrew, but to his amazement and shame Ruth would not let him. She grasped him, put him back, would not have him leave, and he was too tired and surprised to fight. Except for the working of their lungs the two were still. In time, when their breath became quieter, the room was totally silent. The coach did not try again to withdraw, for fear he couldn’t. When he did in the natural fashion he quickly rolled onto his side of the bed.

>   Ruth was away, in a misty, drowsy country, but even there she felt a little worried and a little sad. She had not meant it and could not understand how she had done it, given Herman something she thought was only for Sonny. It was as if her body had betrayed a trust and responded to the very man who had neglected it most. Perhaps she was not safe, not even from Herman. Hearing his exhausted breathing in her ear she had had a moment of sympathy for him as a person. She had felt for him a little bit. Perhaps she was no longer safe from anyone?

  The coach knew good and well he wasn’t safe. His body wanted to sleep, but his mind was far too agitated. He would never have imagined his own wife would grasp him: it was something worse than shameless. He didn’t want to remain in the same bed with her and considered going to the couch. Still, Ruth was the one who had beslimed the bed: she ought to go. The messiness of the female body had never been more offensive to him. If he even moved his leg he touched a wet spot. Disgusted, he got up and went in the bathroom to clean himself. The bright light made him blink.

  When he came back to bed, Ruth was dozing. She knew he was offended, but it didn’t touch her. She felt pleasantly sleepy and had overcome her mild distress at being suddenly accessible. If Herman was going to insist on his connubial rights, then all the better that she could finally enjoy it.

  The coach stood over her in the dark, mad, but vaguely uneasy too. He had never dreamed Ruth had such wildness in her, and he was not sure how to get at her.