“Hello?”
“This is … this is Bill.”
“You’re early,” she said. “Call back in five minutes.”
He hung up. They hadn’t finished chopping up the last one, he thought, but this time the fear really did seem ridiculous. In her hello there was the harried tone of a shopkeeper juggling customers, bored with the work—despite all the rhetoric, he knew she was just a whore. She’d do what he wanted. In any event, she certainly wouldn’t really hurt him.
Now the wait was unbearable because he was eager. He called back in three minutes. She was in control now. “I’m in 684 West Twenty-Third, next to the florist behind you about twenty feet.” He had noticed the building, suspected it of being likely. “I’m in three A. See you in a minute.”
He hung up and walked quickly, not meeting anyone’s eyes, into the building and stood in its tiny vestibule, looked at the intercom system, none of the apartment buzzers supplied with names, and rang three A. The buzz back was instantaneous. He moved quickly to open the locked door and bumped into a man with a horrendously guilty look in his eyes who quickly brushed by him and out.
That was her last customer, he thought, and, getting into the small elevator that was right there, having left off the guilty man, he recalled what he could of his face: pale, unshaven, the eyes worriedly not meeting his, a miserable, hunted look. It made him feel better. And as he rode up, he wondered why. All his reactions were the opposite of what they should be. But nothing about this obsession, and his pursuit of it, had ever made sense. Except now, walking down the narrow hallway, past, to his surprise, a laundry room (what the hell was it doing in a common hallway on the third floor?) and up to a quite ordinary door, at last he felt it was over. He would know now, and even if his fate were to be a terrible one, the awful wondering, the constant doubts would be gone. He rang the bell gladly.
Fred sat up in the bed, feeling foolish. He had finally moved toward Marion on the couch and started to kiss her. He had tried to put a lot of movement and passion into it, but it felt fake, and Marion saved the moment by smiling. “I think we’d better just get into bed,” she said. “We’re not strangers.”
He had undressed in the bedroom, their old bedroom, unchanged from when he had last slept there, while Marion disappeared into the bathroom. He wondered whether she was planning something, going to come out in some sort of sexy nightgown. He hoped not. It would seem pathetic, just like his maneuver on the couch. Whatever their situation, they certainly weren’t courting.
She didn’t. She came out in her robe, naked underneath, walking to the bed and shedding it before quickly crawling under the covers and snuggling into his arms. “What were you doing in there?”
“Putting in my diaphragm,” she said. “I didn’t want to stop to do it later.”
He had always complained about the effects of breaking off foreplay for the sake of contraception, so this too was another sweet attempt on her part to make things between them amicable. To improve on the past. It was their enemy. All the things they had done and the way they had done them were to be avoided. He felt the weight of her head on his chest heavily. The task semed too great.
He shook off this feeling, moved her head away, and again began kissing with mock passion. She went along this time, brushing a leg against his penis while he pressed his upper thigh against her groin. After a while the self-consciousness passed, he felt aroused, and she seemed to be also. He began to hope again that it might work.
He threw the covers off them. The lights were still on— she had usually insisted they be turned off and he realized that the fact they weren’t was another concession to him. He looked at her body. She kept her eyes closed, her hands urging him to return. He looked at her belly, her flabby maternal stomach, her thick bush of hair. It was the body of a real woman, not the models of magazines, but the real comfortable female form of nature. He loved it. Staring at it in the bright light, leaning down to kiss it, moving his hands under her soft substantial buttock, feeling the warmth and give and pliancy of her fat felt good.
She was tensing against his investigations, embarrassed (he realized for the first time) by her body, assuming he didn’t want it. But he did! He kissed and moved back to look, seeing things he had never noticed, feeling her sex, utterly different. Soft and warm. Home. He wanted to be inside her. Kept safe inside. No longer fighting the hard ungiving world.
She seemed relieved when he entered her. She hugged him to her gratefully. The ease of her body seemed designed for him, from the glove of her wet vagina to the soft pillows of her breasts. To be inside her forever in this blissful peace was all he wanted, all he wanted from life and the world; acceptance and comfort; a place to be, nothing more, just be, without effort or pain.
Marion urged him with her hips. He began to move. He felt reproved by her movement, assumed she had been displeased by his stillness, his willingness to remain parked inside. He moved. Withdrew and pressed back in hard. She liked that. For all her gentleness, she liked him to move hard and fast. Had said so in therapy in fact, complained (to his astonishment) that he liked foreplay too much, that she liked to screw vigorously.
She had tried so hard—shouldn’t he? He pushed himself, pulling out and then slamming back in, each time harder, surprised that she liked the force, and never reacted with pain, even though it felt to him that their pelvic bones must be bruised and battered by now.
And the itch had begun. The restless tickling yearning of his penis, desperate for more and more sensation while he felt its liquids gather and hope for escape. He tried somehow to restrain it despite the powerful tease of moving out and then quickly into the softest, most desirable home in the world. When he felt the cool air on his balls and most of the length of his penis, only the head peeking inside at the warm fires, the longing to return was overwhelming. And then the relief, after the collision of their privates, the sweet relief of complete docking in the harbor was so quickly taken away by her desire for more and more and more …
He started to come without warning. He tried to cut it off, freezing his movements, but she pulled at him, and the liquid dribbled out of him guiltily, guests skulking out early from a party, hiding their escape from the host.
The fuel was gone but she wanted to continue. He pushed in and out, praying he would stay hard. Suddenly everything felt uncomfortable. Her substantial thighs pressing against him were hot and irritating. Her big belly and wide hips seemed too crowded to penetrate. Each time he tried to press farther in, they seemed to frustrate him, the goal of her pelvic bone receding. I’m losing it, he thought, listening to her breathing to judge if she was near climax. He reached down with a hand to infiltrate it in the traffic jam below and speed things up, but she angrily grabbed his hand and moved it away, putting her hands on his ass and pushing him in at her, irritably.
He pushed. He pushed. There was no goddamn way past all the flesh and hair. Everything was awkward. No place to rest his head: having to hold the upper part of his body up, as though he were exercising, not making love.
She began to moan. They were choked sounds—coughs repressed at a concert. Quick, short sounds increasing in frequency. He gathered himself for a final effort and pushed in hard—feeling nothing, the bottom half of his body numb—but she did let out one long last satisfied moan. The tension in her body evaporated and it was over. Thank God.
By the time Lois called back, he knew. After her hello, * he made the accusation immediately: “You’re in love with somebody else,” he said coldly.
“Uh … yeah,” she agreed,
“All right,” he said. “Good-bye.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, and laughed. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“I’m not hanging up. But I’m not kidding.”
“You can’t blame me!”
“I’m not blaming you.”
“You dumped me. You didn’t even call to say you were dumping me!”
“I didn’t dump you. Jesus Christ, what a phr
ase! I needed time to think. I told you that.”
“Oh, I see,” she answered sarcastically, challenging him. “And now you’ve figured it out?”
Well, she had him there. He was dead wrong, as wrong as a human being could be: his position was illogical, arrogant, deceitful, probably insincere, certainly selfish. “Who is he?” Tony asked. “How serious is this?”
“Uh … what do you mean? What do you—I’m not gonna report to you. What’s the matter with you? I really expected you to have …” She stopped.
“What? Have more class?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Guess again, honey. I’m just as stupid and mean as everybody else.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she answered.
This was a mistake. Probably she had just begun a romance. It could fall apart, fail to move beyond dating, he might even be able to break it up—there were lots of possibilities. The nicer he acted about it, the more points he would have racked up for the day, the inevitable day, when she would seek more adventure, and he would be back in the game. It happened to everybody, to every relationship, to every marriage, it would happen to her and this guy. How could he be a major writer and be so inept at dealing with people? He knew them inside and out. “I’m jealous,” he said quietly, convinced this was a lie, a manipulation. The silence on the other end told him he had finally come up with the right approach. “I’m still in love with you.”
“No you’re not,” she said, but there was a lot of emotion in the voice, what sounded like relief and pleasure.
“Yes I am,” he answered very softly. “I’m glad you’re happy, though. Are you getting married?”
“We’ve only been dating for two months, Tony,” she answered self-deprecatingly. How amusing this game was— now she was minimizing the seriousness of her commitment, just as he had once played down his marriage with Betty. “Life is a performance,” his mother had said countless times, only moments before entering a party. Standing gloriously in her fluffy white mink, Tony dressed neatly and conservatively in gray flannel pants, a white shirt, a gray cashmere sweater, a red tie, and a cute little blue blazer, his hair a little long the way she liked it, just before ringing another door to enter another show-business party. Squeezing his hand and smiling brilliantly, “Life is a performance,” she’d say, her rich voice making music of the words, the syllables stretching and moaning like a lover in ecstasy. When he was very young the phrase was magic, an incantation that summoned up a mother he loved and admired Her gloomy and scary moods were gone at those parties, she was funny, a little dangerous sometimes, but fast, fast, fast, catching people with their ideas down, showing up the pompous and the self-righteous. Later, in adolescence, he realized the sentence was desperate, a tiring athlete hoping to have one last good game. Indeed, the quick wit had slowed, the years of drinking slurring more than simply the words: the new faces blurred into the old, the politics of the sixties merging oddly with positions of the fifties, attacks and defenses losing their accuracy and cleverness, the fast talk now merely garrulousness. That made her seem more right than ever: life was a performance. People began to have less patience with her acting, and the invitations came less frequently, and then so did the parts. The same loss of muscle tone and quick reactions were happening to him, witness the blunder at lunch with Hilary Bright and this conversation with Lois. And he didn’t have his mother’s valid excuses: the blacklist, a monster for a husband, a career crippled, an addiction to drink. The truth was he didn’t have his parents’ virtues: his father’s ability to command, his mother’s brilliant talent; he only possessed their faults: his father’s arrogance and impatience, his mother’s vanity and weak nerves.
“I love you,” he said.
“Then why the hell did you stop seeing me?”
“I was scared.”
“Of what, for God’s sake? Hurting Betty? How do you know she’d even miss you?” Lois groaned at herself. “Oh God, it’s starting.” She sounded wounded. “I hated this the most about our affair. It turned me into a shit. I don’t even know Betty. She’s probably a wonderful woman. I’ve got somebody else now, Tony. And I’m glad. God! Am I glad!”
“I’m happy for you too.” He swallowed. Something about this defeat was appalling. It was so fucking unexpected. Lois was an option for him, not a human being capable of hurting him. “I’m sorry I called,” he said.
“You haven’t left her, have you?” she asked, blurting it out, scared and excited.
For the first time he felt better. She still wanted him. She had given up, gotten involved to reassure herself, probably by now almost convinced the new relationship was more than mere compensation.
“I guess you haven’t,” she said after a pause.
“I don’t love her,” he said. His stomach contracted on the words, like a poison hitting his system, shriveling his strength and well-being. “I know that now. I love you.”
“Well—” she began, and there was a choking noise. “It’s too late,” she let out, and now there were tears. “Too late,” she mumbled through them, and hung up.
Betty looked energetic and concentrated as she flipped through the rack of dresses. She stopped at one, frowned, pulled it out partially, and angled it so Patty could see.
“Are we getting that old?” Patty asked.
Betty smiled and let it go. “There’s nothing here.”
They walked outside into a glittering day. After the dark, cool interior of the store, the sun was blinding. Betty turned from it suddenly and stumbled into Patty. “Whoa,” Patty said, holding her up.
Betty looked at her and smiled. “Can you imagine spending your life doing this?”
“Who does?”
“Our mothers.”
“They didn’t shop their whole lives.”
“No?”
“They changed diapers, remember?”
Betty laughed. “No, somehow I don’t think my mother did.” They walked on. Patty wanted to confess to her: get rid of this damn secret, talk it out, find an exit from the ridiculous mess she was in. Betty seemed happy these days, carefree. Patty was glad. She had grown much fonder of Betty, despite her wariness of the business situation they now faced.
“Things are going well with Tony,” Patty said.
“Oh?” Betty said, surprised. She glanced at Patty. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Aren’t they?” Patty asked. She was used to Betty’s moods shifting with the ups and downs of Tony’s life.
“Not for him. I feel good. I’m happy to be publishing your book. I got a good novel last week from Paul Yarmouth—”
“He’s a good agent.”
“—yeah, I think you should talk to him about representing you. Anyway, it’s a terrific, not very commercial novel by a journalist in Seattle, a reporter. Autobiographical novel about his sister’s nervous breakdown and his attempt to help her through it. Really moving book. I think I can get a contract for it.”
“Great.” Patty studied her. “That’s why we’re so happy.”
“That’s right, nurse. I’ve decided Tony’s life is his problem. I can’t give him what he wants.”
“What does he want? What do any of them want?”
“He wants to be famous. Sometimes I think he wants to be famous without having to do anything.” She brought a hand to her mouth, actually covering it for a moment. “I shouldn’t say that.” She checked with Patty. “That’s a horrible thing to say, isn’t it?”
“Not if it’s true.” This was her friend, she realized. This was the person who had done something for her only because she cared to help. Betty was cowardly, she was too prim, she was often abstracted, but she had given Patty advice, support, and a contract without even asking for a kiss, much less a blow-job. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”
“Oh, no. I’ve gotta keep going. This is the last day I can shop for two weeks. And everything will be gone by then.”
“I have to talk to you about something.”
“No �
�” Betty said, looking at Patty with dread. “You’re not having an affair, are you?”
Patty smiled at her, amazed. “How did you know? Am I that transparent?”
“Yeah,” Betty said. “You’ve been acting weird for months. First I thought it was because I was editing you. But I figured it out two weeks ago. You’ve been very hard to pin down for midday dates, and when I called yesterday and got David, he made a joke about how often we’ve been seeing each other. I haven’t seen you that much.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into it.”
“It’s okay.” She put an arm through Patty’s. “We have to stick together.” Amazing. A year ago Betty would have been disgusted and offended to have been used as part of an adulterous lie. “Who is it?”
“That’s why I haven’t told you. Who. You have to promise you’re not going to be furious—”
Betty looked funny suddenly, her eyes going blank, her jaw slackening, like someone shocked and fearful. “Maybe …” she mumbled.
“Maybe? No, you have to promise.”
She pulled her arm out. “I can’t promise!” she said furiously.
“What’s the matter?”
Betty stopped walking, put her hands in her pockets, and looked composed, though her eyes were dark with challenge. “Who is it?”
“Oh God,” Patty said, convinced she had made a mistake. After all, her affair with Gelb might affect Betty’s career, and Betty had so much prudery in her anyway that the likelihood she would disapprove was great. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You can’t stop now,” Betty answered. “Tell me.”
“Gelb. You have to understand. He propositioned me the week you were going to the ed board to transfer my contract. He told—”
“Gelb!” Betty finally said, squinting with disbelief. “Gelb?”
“Yeah, I know it’s disgusting. But he told me …” She babbled on about his telling her of his coming move to Garlands, her decision that she couldn’t make the same mistake twice, her conviction that it would help her book. Betty looked baffled and then bemused—unexpected reactions. She seemed relieved. Patty left out of her account that she felt herself becoming emotionally dependent on Gelb, drawn to his evil in spite of her better instincts, fascinated now with what used to disgust her.
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