by Norma Klein
“How does this work?” he said, trying to unhook it.
“It hooks in the front.”
He unhooked it and began stroking my breasts. “That’s more like it.” I could feel through his jeans he was hard already.
“Listen, I thought we were going to watch that movie,” I said, flushing.
“We can do both,” he said, reaching down to unzip my jeans.
“Joshua!”
“Why? You can’t do two things at once?”
“Not that.” I felt awful, that he would even want to.
“Hey.” He tilted my head up. “I was just teasing . . . it’s not on till nine.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“The study . . . my room’s a mess.”
Joshua’s room is always an unbelievable mess. Even Deel’s room, which Mom calls a “disaster area,” looks neat by comparison. His father’s study is really a big room with a fireplace and a big modular sofa that could seat around twenty people. I could tell that unless we fucked first Joshua wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the movie. He’s like that. If he gets horny, he can’t concentrate on anything. At first he tried to go slow, stroking me all over and kissing me, but then all of a sudden he began moving back and forth fast. His mouth was open on mine, hot, and he had his hands under my ass. “Oh, Rust,” he gasped. “Oh, oh—” Joshua really gets carried away when we fuck. Sometimes I almost feel scared, like he’s in a trance or something.
The bad thing is that I can’t get an orgasm when we fuck. I know you’re supposed to, but I can’t. Maybe I worry about it too much. But afterward when Joshua takes me in his arms and kisses me and strokes me, then I can do it. Maybe it’s partly because then he’s calm and loving, and I feel relaxed and good, whereas when we’re actually fucking, it’s like he’s a different person almost. I don’t make a lot of loud, groaning sounds like Joshua when I come. Joshua says I purr. He says I sound like their cat when you stroke her on her back a long time and she purrs and purrs.
Afterward he lay with his head propped up, leaning on his elbow, and stared at me with that intense expression he has.
“I’m scared,” he said.
“What of?”
“The movie . . . it’s opening in eight weeks.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I’m going to lose you,” he said dolefully.
“What do you mean?” I said softly. “No, you’re not.”
“You’re going to be surrounded by all these guys; older guys, suave, rich guys who’ll buy you champagne.”
“Joshua, come on . . . Think what a terrible person I’d be if that kind of thing mattered to me.”
“They’re going to feed you some line,” he said, ignoring me. “They’re going to tell you you’re gorgeous. They’ll have penthouse apartments, they’ll have coke in silver snuff boxes, they’ll have Japanese houseboys who’ll serve you pheasant under glass with seedless green grapes—”
I giggled. “Joshua!”
“Here I’ll be forlorn, mooning over your picture in the paper, going up to people at parties saying, ‘I once knew her, I once fucked her, she was once lying right in my father’s study staring at me with her big werewolf eyes.’”
“I’m going to love you forever,” I told him, putting my hand on his neck.
He melted. “No, you’re not, Rust.”
“I am, Joshua . . . why don’t you believe me?”
“Nobody loves anyone forever . . . especially at fourteen.”
“Juliet did.”
“No one in real life.”
“You’ll probably find some other girl. You’ll probably get together with Pamela.”
Joshua fucked with three people before he met me. Pamela was one. She’s in boarding school now, but she writes him these long, single-spaced letters and sends him copies of her poems in first drafts. She’s even had poems published in magazines. I saw her picture. She’s really tall and has a big nose and bright blue eyes. She looks like a better-looking version of Deel. Her parents were friendly with Joshua’s and they used to fuck in her parents’ roof garden in Scarsdale with all these plants and tropical birds all around. Joshua said one of the toucans shat on him once while they were doing it, right on his back.
He also once fucked with some girl at a party. They did it right there, at the party, under a big pile of coats. He didn’t even know her name till afterward. Her name was Georgette and he said she had great breasts. She went to Brearley and she’d already fucked with ten people. Evidently she liked to do it at parties. Anyway, they never saw each other again so I don’t feel so jealous of her.
Then there was Marjorie who was a mother’s helper for a family Joshua’s parents knew at East Hampton. Joshua’s parents had a house there one summer and this girl, who was in college, used to come over and use Joshua’s parents’ pool. He said she was skinny, but very friendly, and one day the two little kids she was looking after fell asleep and she asked Joshua if he wanted to go inside and have iced tea. He said she gave him a can of iced tea, and then she took her clothes off. Right there in the kitchen! She just took them off and then she asked if he wanted to see her room. He said he did. After that they fucked every day till the end of August when his parents went back to the city. She went to college in Colorado and said she’d write to him, but she never did. He said she really liked sex. I feel jealous of her, too. I feel jealous of Pamela because they used to talk about poetry and philosophy a lot, and other serious things, and I feel jealous of Marjorie because it sounds like she was more into sex than me and maybe fucking with her was more fun. Joshua said she always used to pounce on him. She liked to do it on top of him and all sorts of ways. He said she was a fun-loving person. She had her own horse at that college she went to.
“You know the reason Mom was so uptight about the thing with you?” Joshua said. “Last weekend Tommy was in and she found all this stuff in his drawer, coke, letters from girls. She really hit the ceiling.”
Tommy is Joshua’s older brother, not the one who’s traveling around Europe—that’s Neil. Tommy goes to this fancy prep school that Joshua’s father went to, Andover. He’s extremely handsome, almost like a movie star. He has really long, thick, dark eyelashes, and full lips, and a kind of slouching, brooding expression that evidently drives girls wild. He deals in drugs. Whenever he comes home on vacation, he gives Joshua whatever he wants.
“What did the notes say?”
“Oh stuff like, ‘My night with you was so wonderful,’ ‘I’ll never meet anyone like you . . . you’ve broken my heart.’ All that. How come I don’t get notes like that?” he said wryly.
“Do you want to?”
“Sure.”
“Should I write you one? I can if you want.” I took a piece of paper from the drawer, and a red Flair pen. I began to write. “Dear Joshua . . .” I looked up at him, smiling. “Now what?”
“‘I’ll never meet anyone like you,’” he said.
“That’s certainly true,” I said, writing.
“‘I love every inch of your sensational body,’” he dictated.
“Okay.” I wrote that.
“‘It’s incredible that such wit and charm could emanate from one person.’ . . . Um, let’s see. ‘Without you, life wouldn’t be worth living. I want to keep fucking with you forever.’”
I wrote it all down. Then I folded up the paper and gave it to him. I leaned over and kissed him. “It’s all true,” I said.
Joshua frowned. He bit his lip. “Rust, what I really want is—I want you to get older, but not different. I want you to grow, but not away from me.”
“Anything else?” I said.
“I want everyone to want you, but I want you to only want me.”
“Greedy.”
He laughed. “Of course.”
“You want everything.”
“Definitely. Why bother wanting less than everything?”
“Do you still want to watch the movie?”
He looked at the cloc
k. “Oh, Christ, I forgot . . .” He turned on the set. We lay in the nude, watching. They sent up tons of heat in Joshua’s apartment. It’s usually 85 degrees. I know because there’s a thermometer in Joshua’s mother’s bedroom. We lay on our stomachs and every now and then Joshua would reach over and start stroking my ass, but he still kept watching the movie. Movies mean as much to Joshua as sex, which is saying quite a lot. I guess one difference between him and me is that he likes to analyze every movie he sees, to figure out why he liked it and what was wrong with it, and how he would have done it if he’d been the director. I tend just to like things or not. Joshua says I’m too easy to please. He says I like everything. That isn’t true. I didn’t like Star Wars and I didn’t like Carrie. There’re lots of things I don’t like.
After the movie we heated up some leftover pizza they had in the freezer and ate it in the den. Joshua had beer and I had Diet Pepsi. I’m not fat, but I don’t want to be, ever, so I weigh myself every day. We have a digital scale and you have to kick it before you weigh yourself. After you kick it, it says 000. Then you step on. You can step on fast or slowly. I haven’t figured out which way makes you weigh less. I weigh myself six times. Usually I get around three different weights and I pick the one I like best. Since I’m five-five, I think 115 is the best.
Joshua’s skinny. He’ll never have to worry about getting too fat.
“Are you staring at me because I look too fat?” I looked down at my belly. It did look puffed out a little, maybe from the pizza.
“Uh uh.”
“I gained two pounds,” I said nervously, “but I think I can lose them again. I might fast Monday.”
Joshua began squeezing me, my stomach, my breasts. “No, I like it. Those are two terrific pounds . . . Tat, come here.” He likes to fuck with me sitting in front of him. He likes me to wrap my legs around him. Then he goes into me and we rock back and forth, sitting up. He ran his hands up and down my back, my hair, my ass. “God, you feel so good,” he murmured. “What’s that perfume?”
“Honeysuckle . . . I got it from Mom.”
“Umm . . . oh wow!” Suddenly we lost balance. We rolled over onto the floor. Joshua’s penis came out of me. He pushed it back in again, hard, all the way.
“Wait . . . that hurts, Josh.”
“I’m sorry. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.” But in that position, where I’m lying on my back, he can’t seem to go slow the way he does when we’re rocking together, so it was over pretty quickly. When we were done, he flopped over onto his back and rolled his eyes back, like he was fainting. “Wow, that honeysuckle really did me in. Hey, did I really hurt you?”
“Only a little.”
“Should I kiss it and make it better?”
“Okay.” But as he started to, I said, “Josh?”
“Yeah?” He lay there, looking up at me like a cocker-spaniel puppy with his big brown eyes.
“The thing is, do you wish I was like Marjorie?”
“In what way?”
“About fucking. Being more . . . fun-loving.”
“You’re fun-loving, Rust.”
“More wild or whatever.”
“No, you’re good, Rust.” He looked at me earnestly. “You’re the best.”
“It’s just I’m sorry that I can’t come while we do it. I try, but I just can’t.”
“You will, don’t worry.”
“Will I?”
“Sure.” He began kissing me between the legs.
“Do you mind about it, though?” I closed my eyes.
“No . . . except I want you to be happy. I want to make you deliriously happy.”
I smiled drowsily.
“No, I mean it. I want you to be so happy that it’s like nothing else ever was.”
“Is it that way for you?”
He nodded.
That makes me feel so good, that I can do that for someone. I like making Joshua happy. It’s the best feeling.
Chapter Six
Daddy’s birthday is on Saturday, October 27. I made him a collage calendar just like I used to. I love making collages. What I do is trim things out of magazines and move them around till I get an idea. Then I paste them on and draw connections with black India ink, figures that hold the design together. I like using 11-by-14 smooth white heavy paper; it has a good feeling to it. On the corner of each page, I paste a little month from a calendar.
Daddy used to want me to be an artist. I guess it was because when I was little I loved to draw. He’d take me around to art galleries and say to the owners, “Someday my daughter’s work will hang here.” I guess he was half joking, but it made me uncomfortable, even then.
I like it that Daddy is so proud of me and thinks I’m so terrific, but sometimes I think he overdoes it. I feel that with my acting too. Daddy used to act some in college and summer stock, and when I first got the part in Domestic Arrangements, he was ecstatic. But then he wanted to go over my lines with me every night and tell me how he thought I should say them. The thing is, he wasn’t the director and I didn’t want two people telling me what to do. But also, I wanted to figure it out myself. Mom says it bugs her when Daddy lectures at her. She says he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it; he just likes to tell people what to do . . . that’s why he became a director. I think it hurt Daddy’s feelings when I told him I didn’t want to go over my lines with him. I told him Charlie had said I shouldn’t, but I think he knew it was partly me.
Daddy’s first wife, Dora, was ten years younger than him, just like Mom is. Mom says Daddy has a Pygmalion thing with women. He wants to take them as shapeless lumps of clay and mold them into some ideal image. I think he wants to do that with me too, a little. But I don’t want him to. I want to figure out how I want to be myself.
Deel said she’d make the Dobos Torte if I made the praline cheesecake. We both worked in the kitchen all Friday afternoon the day before the party. Luckily we have a big kitchen. The praline cheesecake recipe is from Mom. It’s an old southern recipe. What’s good about it is it has brown sugar, and anything with brown sugar is good. Plus it has pecans chopped up into it. When it’s done you rub maple sugar over the top, sort of massage it lightly. Everybody always loves it, Daddy especially.
Mom fixed up our terrace with balloons that had “50” printed on them. She tied them to the railing, but one got loose and floated away. We don’t have a great view from our terrace since we’re on 87th and Riverside, but it’s nice being up high. In the summer we eat out there and Daddy plants tomatoes.
Mom told Daddy about the party Saturday morning because she didn’t think he’d like it if it was a total surprise.
“Happy birthday, Daddy,” Deel said. We both came into their bedroom. Deel gave him her present first. It was a new book of Cartier Bresson’s photos.
“This is really lovely, Delia,” Daddy said. He was sitting up in bed, his hair a little rumpled. “It must have cost a fortune.”
Delia smiled. She’s very good about money. She saves a lot. Over the summer she worked at Fortunay’s, a soda fountain near our house, and earned over four hundred dollars.
Then I gave him the calendar I’d made. Daddy looked at each page carefully. He smiled at a lot of them. “I love it, Tat,” he said, hugging me. “It’s wonderful.”
I was glad Daddy didn’t get more excited about my present than Delia’s because I knew she’d be jealous then.
Mom gave Daddy a work shirt to wear on the terrace while he’s gardening. It’s navy-and-white striped and ties in front. Daddy tried it on. It looked funny, sort of like he was a nurse; it had big pockets. “I’ll feel very Tolstoyan,” he said. He kissed Mom. Mom always says she wants to zap up Daddy’s wardrobe. She gives him violet turtlenecks and funny ties with eyes on them; he doesn’t always wear them.
After breakfast Mom told Daddy about the party. She’d been afraid he might not like the idea. He’s not so much the party type. He doesn’t mind small parties with people he really likes, but he doesn’t
like big parties with swarms of strangers, the way Mom does. Mom says she always thinks she might meet someone who’ll change her whole life. Daddy says but has she ever met such a person, and Mom says no, but that doesn’t mean it’ll never happen. Anyway, for Daddy’s party Mom invited fifty people since that’s how old he was, but they were mostly people they’d known a really long time.
Charlie sent Daddy a telegram, which arrived at noon. It said: “Come on in, the water’s fine.” Daddy said what he meant by that was that Charlie was fifty already and it wasn’t so bad.
“You don’t look fifty, Daddy,” Deel said.
“Not a day over forty-nine, huh?” Daddy said, crunching on a stalk of celery.
“I think you look forty,” she said.
“Forty?”
“Yeah, really . . . Lucia’s father is forty-two and his hair is all gray, all of it.”
Daddy’s hair is only a little gray. “Well, that’s hereditary.”
“It’s your personality that counts,” she said. “You act young.”
“I do?” Daddy said, surprised.
“I don’t mean in a bad way,” Deel said. “But you have a playful spirit.”
“That’s true, I do, don’t I?” Daddy said. “Why are you smiling, Tatiana, sweets? You don’t think I have a playful personality. You think I’m dour and mean.”
“No,” I said, laughing.
“She thinks I’m an ogre,” he said. He made this sad face he used to make when we were little and he used to entertain us telling us stories.
I went over and kissed him. “I don’t, Daddy, really.”
Mom and I decided to wear our Laura Ashleys. Mom’s is made of a material called lawn, which is a very fine cotton. It has a high neck and long sleeves ending in lace. Mine is dotted Swiss with puffed sleeves and a sash that ties in the back. Deel would never in nine million years wear a dress like that. Even on fancy occasions, like this, she just wears a newish pair of jeans and maybe her Indian silk shirt. That’s as fancy as she ever wants to be.
When Mom and I came into the living room, Charlie had arrived. He’s Irish and he dresses in a funny way—bright green ties and tweed slacks with lots of colors in them. “Visions of loveliness, coming at me from all directions!” he said, staggering backward. “I’m in a dream . . . is this West 87th Street?”
