The Collected Stories of Diane Williams

by Diane Williams

  To her, of course.

  And they both saw what they should see when I observed that they did not want to look at each other.

  There was the scent of a charred lamb chop, but there was no indecency in this fact, either.

  It was then that I saw a body with a slender neck, a darting head—when the door blew open.

  13

  I SAW IT ENTERING

  I saw it was dressed.

  The man raised his voice—crying out to it, but no answering voice came back to him.

  It was necessary now for me to be reassuring. I was curious, too, and intrigued by the suddenness of its entry. But I was certain we were all still safe here.

  Within less than an hour, I promise you, this visitor was capable of feelings and was wishing to steal back to its own people.

  I could have touched it—the newcomer was so close. Its face was somewhat adorable.

  But, for all that, this creature, in my opinion, had barged into a trap.

  14

  YOU SHOULD HAVE

  SEEN WHAT I SAW

  Its profile is remarkably like my mother’s and you should have seen what I saw.

  This thing was not much larger than you could manage to see.

  The man went to clutching at it while the dearie was holding its palms together, trying to keep its chin up.

  15

  IT WAS A GOLDEN STRUCTURE

  I knew that I would have to make proper use of this radiance. It was a golden structure—brighter than any of my daydreams.

  With my step-by-step intervention, especially that all concerned should keep on breathing in their fashion, I tell you that the woman thought to place in front of it a small dish of condiment.

  “I think I’ll sample a bit of this,” it said.

  Oh—but oh, oh, oh.

  Choking, having done so, it declared, “I have been killed.”

  16

  HE SAID, “LOOK! HERE’S

  SOMETHING! THIS MAY BE VALUABLE!”

  “A little of that goes a long way,” the man said.

  He gave it something to drink.

  “Have a glass of this,” he said.

  And eventually this substance proved to be soothing.

  Mentioning that it would return again soon, this dream-come-true was able to disappear gracefully back into its origin, but not before the three of them had achieved a certain sense of society with one another.

  And while it had seemed that the darling had actually put a toxin into its mouth, in fact, this had not been the case.

  And so then the old house seemed snug again to me and the man was whispering—but he was not whispering to me!

  He was unbuttoning, unzipping, pushing everything down.

  When he throws his arms around the woman, he does not know when to let go of her.

  He should never know absolutely.

  So far, he has made some correct judgments.

  He was taking off the woman’s old shoes, even though she was telling him, “I’ll take it off.” They are the kind with laminated leather inserts and fabric laces.

  You know.

  17

  “DO YOU WANT TO HELP?”

  SHE ASKED

  She is behaving as if she is a pleasant woman.

  She says, “There is a way you can help me.”

  He said, “Oh, no, not this time!”

  Who would have thought he would be braver than he usually is?

  He goes back along a corridor into the bathroom, and she follows him. They are just like ordinary people—and it’s not funny!

  He is emptying his bowel into the toilet in front of us!

  This event has gotten her strangely worked up.

  Let me say that the scent of this man is fantastic, distinctive! It is nutty and sweet.

  The linens—the towels in the bathroom—are not stained, but there is a blot of something awful in the sink.

  He asks, “You look sad. Are you sad?”

  18

  HE SAID, “OH, NO, NOT THIS TIME!”

  She is not sad.

  She is nice.

  At some point soon, she will be down on her back, with her knees up against her tits.

  The man tries to remember what to do next.

  “Don’t forget whose idea this was! It was my idea!” he says.

  Nothing too fancy. That’s the beauty of it! And the murmur of peaceful waters starts up somewhere else, while thick foliage is being crushed underfoot.

  She fingers the hair on her head, which to her is stiff and dry—and she is right, it is, it is.

  This sparse, messed-up hair on her head, her legs, that most unsightly site between her legs would soon be prodded and disturbed.

  Where’s peace?

  The greatest feeling of satisfaction, the way to deepen the experience for her, would be not to let her legs move very far apart, or, in fact, to go ahead and let her legs do that.

  But for now, his twitching—his very best flesh—is in her fist.

  19

  HE DID NOT KNOW IF HE

  SHOULD BE THINKING

  In a moment, out beyond, in a not so thickly wooded place, a flying thing is buzzing around an ultrasexy flower. Here, too, is the sloping wall of a cavernous pit, with a post at its center—many feet long—which has been sharpened at the exposed pole for one of us.

  This is the way of things, as the man glances at their food. He checks to remember a skillet peach dumpling, a folded rug, or folded food.

  20

  WHAT IS THIS?

  Neither of them is bored with either of them.

  She wanted to keep on seeing his helike face.

  So do I.

  “What is this?” he says, indicating.

  21

  AT FIRST, SHE SAW

  NOTHING UNUSUAL

  “Is it a door to a secret room?” he asks her.

  She shuts the door to the broom closet and puts on those brand-new slippers that are not characterized by a rear opening and have an almost complete lack of a heel.

  She says, “You are my favorite person. How do you like that?”

  She is warning him with such confidence.

  At first, she saw nothing unusual.

  A few shoots of dark hair on her belly can be seen on her belly.

  The door to the kitchen stands open, where fragile porcelain, of various cherished colors, is streaked with a fricassee and a small figure from another world needs my permission for a taste of something. I signal—to show that this will be okay.

  “Don’t forget whose idea this was!” the man is saying to the woman. “Mine, you thief!”

  “We can speculate,” she answers.

  Nearly naked, she is being pulled by her arm and I can hardly stand up or even keep sitting here any longer—and then the man’s trousers fell down around his ankles again.

  And she feels weaker, weaker, weaker, weaker.

  Perhaps the secret concerning sexual intercourse, which she does not know, has made her secretive.

  22

  IMAGINE!

  “Were you here?” the man was asking of somebody.

  What if he was asking me?

  “I just have to know!” he was saying. “Were you here this time?”

  I do not know what more to say—so I could have stopped myself from speaking.

  Why don’t they just live and live here? He doesn’t even have to answer the phone!

  He told her, “Sit down.”

  I think it was for sex.

  She pretended to sit.

  He was afraid. He drank some cold beef tea. Everything about the tea was unbeatable. It was the best tea.

  Why could she not leave well enough alone?r />
  I wanted to believe that she has an elegant mind. But she just doesn’t.

  She watched him watch her. This is what is keeping her aroused—her pigeon-blood, cushion-shaped gemstone.

  I just love that knickknack.

  The man tries to do what he should do next.

  The telephone is ringing.

  And, even though I do adore almost any racket, I always think that this kind is tiresome.

  I was hankering for my own home a thousand times.

  Both of the woman’s hands were on one of her knees. They had torn the blankets and the pillow from the bed.

  Then themselves.

  23

  SHE WILL TAKE A BIG BREATH

  I found out what she was supposed to do next: enjoy the experience.

  She says, “Thank you.”

  I’d never say some of the things she brings herself to say.

  “But—I don’t believe it,” he said. He said, “I don’t believe it.”

  Neither one of these people is the one who gives me a reason to live on when there is no other reason. It is somebody else!

  Any day this woman will be down on her back, with her knees up. She will take a big breath. She will be encouraged when he plugs up her awry anus with his straight penis.

  24

  DID HE STAND UP JUST

  TO LOOK AROUND?

  Yes, I could see that there had been a willingness in her to feel herself split in half and there is a part of a walnut clinging to its smashed shell in the waste bin.

  “What are you doing?” she asks him. He is on the toilet with his elbows on his knees. Then he leaps up.

  It is just terrible to see him this way, yet I do have a fondness for this place because of the stuff strewn all over it.

  25

  IT IS JUST SUCH AN

  UNPOPULAR THING TO DO

  Even in this bathroom there is a skinning knife!

  Will she miss it here as much as I do when I go away?

  Did the man stand up just to take a look about and to let his thing be seen?

  She says, “Wash it.”

  They really haven’t had much privacy. But they have so much time on their hands!

  And I do, too!

  “You take your time,” a kind gent said once so sincerely as he labored to provoke me with his caresses, for heaven’s sake.

  A big brute stood by us to keep up our morale.

  I did not think I knew either one of them. But nearly everyone I know resembles someone I have known or someone that I know.

  The men, the woman, the children are just unfamiliar enough to me so that I do not mind telling any one of them to take as long as is necessary—even if it is just such an unpopular thing to do—to take forever to come.

  26

  I COULD DO THAT

  When you are inside of me, this is not unlike my reaching down into a barrel or a big pail for something which I want, which is out of my reach, but the barrel needs to be knocked over onto its side.

  I could do that.

  I graze the back of her hand with the tail end of his penis.

  This time at least, I am not waiting for matters to be made clear.

  27

  I BEND DOWN

  But everything was what I hoped it could be, when I sat down on top of him, having put his impressively distinct member up inside of her.

  And I told him that nobody could fill her shoes.

  I would have sat up late, by the fire, every night, so horribly worried about this fact. But that was in the old days.

  So, in the afternoons, if the weather is acceptable for this work, we will think more about you.

  Did I already tell you about the bugleweed that climbed up over the log?

  Now the weed heads for the mossy bank, for shade that is too shady for any grass. It is twisting itself up beside a brownish material, climbing up over the log, all because I intend to bend down.

  I bend down. I am hearing the rain. I am expecting the best for you because there is more to come.

  28

  YOU WILL SEE ME

  You will see me not stop being a visitor who could cause a difficulty to such an extent that we would have to handle the ensuing catastrophe, which is ticklish—get some other people to try to get me to pay attention to us.

  For example, my mother is a woman who believes my father is more powerful than I am.

  My usual rule about building a life or a vase is that it must be slightly tapered.

  Most objects require form, don’t they?

  Small rarities, which are strongly made, well braced, pasty, jellylike, soupy enough, or that are the right distance apart, will increase in size.

  One day, when I walked along the street, I saw my brother carrying a chair.

  One of the ears of the chair and the top of rail of it, of the chair, were scratched. A stile was scratched. The apron of the chair was scratched. One of the finials of the chair had broken loose, was wavering. A joining looked well joined.

  My brother had the chair hoisted over his head.

  I am not saying there was anything more to this since there was no weather, no water, no barren plain, no rill, no cleft, nor any hillock for as far as my eye could see, and the central peak is so far off.

  My brother is somebody I am shy with, who is my idea of a friend, although I hate the nature of everything he is.

  If I say that he is really my brother, then I could say nothing is wrong with me except for the aches and pains.

  He put the chair on the sidewalk.

  “That’s a very nice necktie,” I said. “Do you always wear that necktie? You always have on a nice necktie. Is it the same necktie?”

  “No, this is a different one,” he said.

  “You look wonderful,” I said. “I can’t remember you looking as good as you look.”

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  His little girl tugged on the back of his shirt. She was chattering. She—she wants to tell me everything she can think of which is more interesting than anything that you or I could ever think of.

  There is a cure for everything.

  29

  I SHOULD BE CARRIED OFF

  Considering my increasing interest in, and my knowledge of, the most distant future, I should be carried off for a rendezvous to a place that has an undulating surface, which is inconceivably swampy along the coast—to a life I might not ever think of, where there can be some volcanic activity, some full understanding of human health and disease.

  The largest city there, which is located in a cultural and medical center, has a great deal of quarried pink quartzite, which I know I like. There is a lake there, too, far above water level, in a sunken volcanic crater. Camellias bloom at the lakeside among live oaks, and azaleas. This is where the temperatures and the humidity have combined to produce the newest conditions.

  I still intend to meet up often with you. You listen through thick and thin. You urge me on. I thank you. I thank you. It is high time to give you a complicated sentence.

  If you think I will never see you, you are wrong.

  30

  BUT IT ISN’T URGENT

  I will see you!

  At this time, I am staying with friends and it is difficult to get into the bathroom. My sister never says, Don’t run the washing machine at all hours.

  My sister, my husband, they should offer me a drink.

  “Let’s have a drink,” my sister says.

  If it had been urgent, I would have told you that it was urgent. But it wasn’t urgent.

  My sister asked my husband if he would go to the market to get us something to consume.

  He said, “Eat this.”

  She did not say, Could you go now?

  He ne
ver went off.

  No major detriment to life or to property otherwise occurred. But I learned a lesson I will never forget.

  31

  AS IT TURNS OUT

  I will encourage myself to lead a more up-to-date way of life, in a rarer atmosphere, where something in the world is really wanted or needed.

  People either like me or they don’t. Nobody is ever completely persuaded or enthusiastic, though.

  Many of those who have thought that they enjoyed my company have not, in fact, been charmed, as it turns out.

  I think that they pretend to be in dreamland, which is rather romantic.

  Heaven all around us, I am fond of saying.

  My husband gave me something which demands something. He said, “See?”

  I put it on.

  He said he had paid for it.

  I wear it, paying for it, too.

  32

  AND NOW

  This is the happiest day of my life, even when I remember this day.

  I start for home.

  I say to myself, “Never for as long as I live will I forget this happiness!”

  Am I not an important person on my way to do something very important for evermore?

  And it seems too strange a coincidence that I should get so distracted by you on this day. Did I carefully plan it that you would show up?

  I confess I have always prayed that you would be my friend, even though you are a fucking dirty Jew sort of person.

  We are as friendly as I have ever been with anyone.

  I can talk to you solemnly. You seem to listen, calmly, as I offer you my home, my protection, my love for the rest of my life.