“How about a drink?” he asked, holding her back as if to study her face but simultaneously separating their bodies.
Be very careful, the director of Coco’s cerebral civil-defense shelter cautioned.
“Were you at the library,” she asked, “or doing interviews?”
“Both.” He was being wary. He draped one arm around her shoulder, but it was more to control her enthusiasm than to excite it. “Tell you what,” Suede said. “I’ll make us some drinks if you rustle me up a sandwich and bring it upstairs.”
His voice was silvered with skepticism, suspicion, and caution.
What was he afraid of, Coco wondered. Was he afraid of her because she was afraid? What had changed, or what was different about her now, that he had sensed instantly? Had she overwhelmed him by exposing her excitement? Had she seemed assaultive rather than seductive? Did her breath smell?
“Sure. I’ll make some sandwiches,” Coco said, turning toward the kitchen. And that was when she felt the sting of his hand as he spanked her, swiftly, encouragingly, on the buttocks—like a coach sending a second-string player into the ball game—a go-to-it-fellow sort of pat. She turned around, trying to look composed, and then realized that Suede’s aloofness had increased in direct response to her need for him.
He started up the stairs. “And dig up your peace pipe, honey, so we can finish up that dope I brought.”
“Oh, you still have some?” Coco murmured, pleased at the prospect of a prop for their passion. Then she ran back to the kitchen.
But standing alone in the huge shadowy room, watchful and anxious lest a mouse suddenly scurry out of nowhere, like some neurotic dread slipping loose from her unconscious, to slither in a dark flash past the corner of her eye, she felt her composure slip away again. With shaking hands she began to hunt through the cupboards for some forgotten delicacies, some leftover provisions from an imitative Georgetown French-style dinner party. Compulsively she knocked over cans of Campbell’s soups and Del Monte kernel corn, hunting for buried treasures—olives or kippers or pâté.
Why, Coco wondered, never pausing now in her hurried, harried hunt, am I doing this when there’s a perfectly fine Hebrew National salami in the Frigidaire? Down on her knees, beneath the oven, kneeling like a supplicant in front of an open tabernacle, half-drunk and high from the backwash of violent emotions, she reached far back behind the paper plates and paper toweling for a can of anchovies (could they spoil?) and a tall thin jar of artichoke hearts that she had forgotten long ago. Finally clutching her newly excavated treasures, Coco rose unsteadily to her feet.
She felt feverish and disoriented, on the edge of an uncontrollable episode of screams. Don’t do it, post-libby warned. You’re okay. Hang on. Hang in.
But standing at the bread board, her fingers peeling icy slices off a frozen miniature pumpernickel bread she had chopped loose from the glacial wall of the freezer, her soul began calling for Dr. Finkelstein, crying out that she wasn’t pretending any longer that now she really was feeling hysterical and in need of help.
Efficiently she inserted a can of pitted olives into the electric can opener and instantly the Sunbeam Pandora released a horrid frieze of freaked out females who began to march through Coco’s head in a Dantesque parade of tragic women culled and collated from flicks and literature. Coco saw Mrs. Stone freaking out in Rome and then the gorgeous Ann Bancroft having her Pumpkin Eater breakdown in the major appliance section of a London department store. The memory of Peter Finch’s audacious adultery while his wife was having a hysterectomy made Coco shiver as she laid out some cheese just as Edith Vanocur suggested in the Post’s Food Section and arranged the little anchovies exactly like poor, heartbreaking Ramona who had tried so hard to trap Moses Herzog with her curried shrimp.
Oh, no, not me, Coco insisted. I am above such devious devices, such dirty deceptions. But hadn’t Neil Klugman loved Brenda Patemkin a little bit more because of that extra Frigidaire down in the basement filled with fresh fruit? Coco’s hand faltered around the tight cover of the capers jar as a parade of betrayed actresses ran across the stage. Coco saw Ingmar Bergmann and little Giulietta Massina cringing tragically as Anthony Quinn strode away from her in La Strada, and Shelley Winters sink beneath the water so Montgomery Clift could make it with Liz Taylor. Was Coco Burman going to forsake her own glorious destiny to stand at the bread board in the kitchen cutting canapés for a supercautious gentleman who was lolling around upstairs in the living room waiting to be served and then serviced?
Wouldn’t it be better to take her children and follow the circuitous path of Lowry’s Consul through the labyrinth of Cuernavaca, pursuing Death rather than die a spiritual death slicing green olives very carefully in order to keep the slippery pimiento safely intact? Still—and she was working more quickly now—what was wrong with making a late dinner look appetizing? What did it matter if the Columbia Road W.L. Local struck her name from their membership list or if Kate Millet and Germaine Greer conspired to off her? What did it matter if Joyce Carol Oates or Joan Didion or Sylvia Plath (in sheer spirit form from her deep sad grave) or Doris Lessing or Grace Paley or Anais Nin (oh, how she would shudder) or Allison Lurie or Lois Gould or Sandra Hochman or Sue Kaufman, who certainly got there first with The Diary of a Mad Housewife, or Edna O’Brien or Alix Kate Schulman vetoed Coco’s name if it were ever put in nomination for membership in that Mighty Living Tradition? And wouldn’t they have Just Cause if it were known that Coco made zesty little hors d’oeuvres as an aphrodisiacal offering before the main (inter) course—so pathetic and paltry a spirit was she?
Could there possibly be any other self-respecting, compulsively ambitious Female Writer who would stoop to such depths? Could there possibly be any other authentic artist who could be so insecure, so identityless, so frightened, so hysterical as to concentrate on getting the pâté right to the edge of the rims of the garlic rounds, so that some slobby man would spend the night. Was Coco reverting to type—trying to demonstrate that she had time for details like Mrs. Silverman (whom Coco was firmly exiling from her mind, repressing, dismissing, disregarding) doing up a Youth Aliyah or Book Review Club luncheon? What was the meaning of all this—all these party favors and was it sexual favors? So she wouldn’t have to work, to think, to be?
Shouldn’t Coco, right away this very night, instead of balling Suede, reread dear dead Warren Miller’s The Way We Live Now and simply translate it, transpose it into female key, take that tragic hero and try, with the grace of God, to create his counterpart, the flipside-female version of that man.
It was with a heavy tray that Coco went back upstairs.
But when she was finally seated, in a spaced-not-to-scare-Suede location on the couch, with the elegant platter centered on the coffee table, companionably close to the highball glasses and airmail envelope filled with dry hash-laced marijuana, the children (please dear God) fast asleep upstairs safe in their beds (would she now have to install a latch lock on the living-room door so there would be sufficient warning if someone was going to burst in?), Coco felt an almost uncontrollable groundswell of sensual love for Suede, for his handsome, indolent, self-assured body, legs outstretched in penis-swollen khaki trousers, offering Coco total oblivion and escape from her soulful sadness. For physical passion was the best alternative to psychic pain, indeed, the payoff for the hideous fear that had enveloped her during the long hours of waiting for Suede to return so she could purchase mindless oblivion in exchange for her body.
But she had to wait even longer. It was almost one o’clock before Suede could unwind and adjust to the freedom that alarmed him more than danger. After all, hadn’t he gotten laid even when there was a blood-daddy, a support-providing husband living on the premises? There was certainly no reason for him to be ecstatic about Gavin’s strange, unexpected absence. But, finally, after Suede had downed three Scotches, eaten a huge submarine on half a loaf of warm (yes, she had turned on the oven in that breathless, airless tomb of a kitchen) French bread,
sloshing a tomato so that it squirted on the carpet (Coco made no move to wipe it up, thereby guaranteeing an eternal red spot right next to the couch), he finally began to relax a little. He turned an the stereo, rolled some joints, and began smoking. But his creased, handsome face still looked rather exclusive, and he spoke only occasionally, careful not to sound promising about anything.
Oh, dear, Coco thought. She had almost forgotten that terrible novel by the lady who started the Pussycat Society. What was the name of that book.… I Was Never a Princess? That was a whole other terror trip, But Coco had time to think because she had to keep her distance even after she too smoked a couple of joints, so that the tops of her thighs began to melt into liquid sexuality. And though she was getting stoned, feeling herself drifting away from public cautions and private concerns (semi-aware of a heavy constipated feeling starting to develop in her stomach), she remained uncomfortably conscious of the subtle loss of power that she was undergoing. No longer was she dallying in seventeenth-century opulence with an adulterous lover. Instead she was engaged in a serious, self-conscious eighteenth-century episode best expressed in rhymed couplets so uptight and constipated was the experience. She was now forced into trying harder, like a second-class car-rental corporation (notice the hearts of artichokes wilting and drying up like her own heart upon the platter), while she manipulated her way through the shoals of singledom. Even with momentary reprieves of drug-induced somnolence, she was still aware of every limp word and gesture that yesterday would have seemed sweetly insignificant and that now was serious, portentous, ominous, and threatening.
For despite the drinks and the joints, Coco was nagged by concern over the lastability of her foot, underarm, and vaginal deodorants, the danger that the heaviness in her stomach might possibly (God forbid) cause gas, and a growing compulsion to test the quality of her breath by blowing into a cupped hand and sniffing the odor before it escaped through the cracks between her fingers, so she would know whether to run to the bathroom and squirt some Binaca on her tongue.
Suede will stay with me, Coco promised herself. Don’t be afraid. He’ll hang in until I get my bearings. When Gavin hears he’s still living here, he’ll get nervous and come back home, but in the meantime it won’t look too bad, because Suede was staying here before Gavin split, so it will look pretty kosher, not that little Sarah’s mother would approve. (But what if some of the neighbors hadn’t noticed Suede around before they heard that Gavin was gone? Would they stop letting their children come over to the Burmans’ so that her children would lose not only their father but also their friends? Oh, please, dear God, don’t do that, Coco telegraphed heaven.)
seventeen
But when Coco’s anxieties became intolerably acute, she pushed the coffee table away from the couch to give herself more operating space and reached behind Suede for some matches. Then, instead of retreating back to her own turf, she went through an elaborate charade showing that her accidental proximity had unexpectedly triggered her passion. She slumped over, with a portentous moan of surrender, letting her head fall against Suede’s shoulder. Then she eased one hand down onto the khaki crease which was really a firmly packed bunch of genitals. Beneath Suede’s pants was a fascinating nearsighted one-eyed creature who had two loose knapsacks with hard shifting kernels inside—unfastened and unanchored, like Hamster Treets hidden inside the soft cheeks of Jessica’s fat-faced gerbil. Coco had great admiration for penises, because she appreciated any highly centralized organization, and an organ that federalized local and regional feelings into one single appendage was admirable. Such administrative control was comparable to having a terrible case of the flu—concentrated in the second joint of the fourth finger of the left hand. An inveterate organizer and compulsive list-maker could hardly help but be impressed.
And now, because she was out of it, drunk, drugged, stoned, spaced, and sleepy, she felt totally liberated, justified in the laying on of hands, no longer responsible, no longer psychologically needy, legally treacherous, or socially suspicious. Drunk, she could not possibly be a threat to any man’s individual freedoms or civil liberties. Now she was home free … oleoleolsome-freedom.
“Uhmmmmmm,” she said, and that meant: It’s all off the record now, deep background only, no strings, ties, credits, debits … nothing. She pressed against Suede until he finally flattened out his body, and then she rolled halfway on top of him, partially to anchor herself on the narrow couch that was floating unmoored around the universe and partially to press home her points.
Slowly Suede’s mound began to stir, moving and spreading beneath the fabric of his trousers. Coco could feel the thickening, flattening, hardening process beneath her hand, but she couldn’t reach or capture the still-undefined shape. Heady, high, and unhampered, she succumbed to her urge to liberate the slack testicles uncomfortably bunched up inside the jockey shorts waiting to lurch free instead of remaining imprisoned in the crowded, congested, odoriferous crotch.
“Let’s go into your room,” Coco gasped against the side of Suede’s face. The children would never ever stumble into the guest room, and Coco needed the space and security of a bed, because now she was tripping through a valley of heavy sensuality. Messages emanating from her mind were, being instantaneously translated into flesh. The very center of her consciousness was sinking into the dark murky regions of her lower body which was straining and salivating for penetration—yearning and aching to be opened, pried, parted, divided, entered, filled, and stuffed.
“Come on,” Coco moaned again. One of Suede’s hands was moving in a small monotonous motion on her thigh and involuntarily her attention shifted toward the area of action. Would he move his hand? Were his fingers, ever so slowly, moving a little, a trifle, higher, more inward toward the opening of her emptiness? And now—if she were truly liberated—if she were really ready to practice the preachings of the Columbia Road Women’s Liberation Local Consciousness Raising Club, she would say very primly, “Would you please stick two fingers up my hole?” But she couldn’t. And it was becoming clear to her that eventually the local would have to set up an information bureau to hand down guidelines, or a public-relations department to issue policy and press statements, because no individual citizen was ready to accept personal responsibility for making public-pubic statements on behalf of herself or a provisional government.
But Suede, being a cock-jock, just kept rubbing her thigh, which worried Coco because each year her upper legs were dimpling into deep lunar-type craters, large enough now to warrant exploration by a spaceman, and she knew Suede could feel the flabby flesh quiver beneath his hand. Meanwhile her insides were becoming so ravenous that she began to moan from the desire to fasten the lips of her hairy mouth around the nipple of his penis, to suck it into her vaginal throat, and pull at his teat until it released its creamy white milk into her dry, thirsty womb. Though the breast trip was obviously dope-inspired, Coco was nonetheless surprised that she had overlooked the similarities, between the soft, rubbery prick, packed galore with thick rich life-giving cream and a nice boobie.
“Okay,” Suede said suddenly, “get up. Let’s go.”
Coco rose to her feet feeling the sweet bloated sensation of desire swimming through her pelvis and down into her thighs. Sexuality like a full bladder was gently pressuring and stirring all her inner organs, creating the same delicious sensation as a cultivated fingernail wedging its way between two teeth into the fleshy mound of gum, triggering pleasant nerve spasms for the practiced masochist.
“Wow,” Coco said, shaking her hair back from her face. She reached out toward Suede, but her hand didn’t connect, because he was farther in front of her than she had judged. All sense of time and space were out of kilter. Coco stumbled along, feeling the hallway carpet undulate beneath her and her heart begin to flutter when she reached the stairs leading up to her children. Then she began to run through Suede’s door way, to fall down upon the bed, jarring the congested fecal matter in her stomach. She rolled over, and sc
issored open her legs into gynecological position, and replayed remembering her last Pap test visit, when Dr. Morrison said, “Open wide and you won’t feel a thing,” and Coco, with post-lib gynecological daring, asked, “Aren’t you even going to kiss me first?” which made Dr. Morrison so nervous he rang for his nurse.
So even though she felt herself a bit overly exposed she shimmied out of her pants, envisioning the view from the bottom up, which Dr. Morrison constantly confronted, and tried to reassure herself that Suede, like all men, at these particular times didn’t mind the lack of aesthetics and for some mysterious reason were greatly taken by the disgraceful smile of those moustached lips.
Take me, Coco thought wildly. Uncertain whether she had spoken out loud she instantly amended her plea with a silent apology. I didn’t mean forever and I meant sexually—not legally. Someday soon she must learn how to refine her body language and thoughts so that men wouldn’t misconstrue her dishonorable intentions for honorable ones. She must reassure Suede that there were no conditions attached in tiny print to their physical contact.
Then Coco heard Suede begin to laugh and suddenly she felt her body crash. Was there danger in that laughter? Was something wrong? She opened her eyes. Next to the bed, Suede was undressing, unbuttoning his shirt and unzipping his fly, and then Coco saw the bald pink head of his X-L pushing its way out of the slit in his shorts—like the wigless head of Jessica’s Barbie doll.
“Hey, suck this a little while, honey,” he said.
Coco felt a sense of wariness and worry flood through her. Why did he want to do that? Was she going to lose her chance of getting that X-L nipple pushed past her lips and down the throat of her vagina—thumping, humping, pumping its hardness into her softness, defining her insides through the rude act of intrusion. Was she going to lose the clarification and realization offered by that huge cock erecting itself away from his body.
Loose Ends Page 20
