by Tracy Quan
Strange demands? Thing that he wants her to do? I wrote back immediately.
What is this THING? Let’s discuss in person.
3
The Ballad of East and West
SUNDAY EVENING, 3/18/01
This afternoon, a pilgrimage to my sister-in-law’s shrinking Carnegie Hill condo. Her once-spacious two-bedroom has been completely transformed. As we entered, there was a whiff of baby powder in the air but no sign of the twins themselves. Or their father.
Elspeth held a finger to her lips, and told Matt, “Your niece and nephew are finally asleep. And so is Jason!”
She, however, was showing no signs of fatigue. She placed our present—still in its shopping bag—next to a box of disposable diapers.
“You went to Bambini! I love their clothes! But I’ll wait till Jason gets up before we open it.”
Two high chairs with gingham-covered seat pads stood next to the foyer closet. A Peg Pérego stroller built for two was blocking Matt’s access to the living room couch. I pushed the crowded vehicle cautiously to one side. The front unit was harboring a blanket covered with appliqu袠ducks and daisies. In the backseat, more baby presents, decorated with pink and white ribbon, were jumbled together, waiting to be opened. In the storage area below, I spotted a large diaper bag designed to match the gingham seat pads.
“This carriage is huge! How do you manage?” I asked.
“Oh, I had the mommy biceps before I was even pregnant,” Elspeth said. “I call it the baby Hummer,” she added proudly. “Want some herbal tea? Or”—she gestured toward the kitchen—“I could fix you a cappuccino with steamed breast milk.” Snickering at her younger brother’s discomfort, she changed the subject, sort of. “Yams are the culprit! Everybody’s eating yams twice a week for the betacarotene but you end up having twins because of all the plant estrogen. Well, Jason and I were planning on having two, anyway. Nancy, I want to show you something. This is right up your alley!”
She returned seconds later with a square box.
“I want Bridget and Berrigan to learn Spanish; Jason thinks they should be learning Japanese.” The box was decorated with words and numbers in various languages. “How’s your schoolwork going?”
I flinched inside. I haven’t actually attended a class yet, but I’ve been carrying around my French textbooks just to get Matt accustomed to my new alibi.
“Oh…kind of rusty,” I said hesitantly. “But I’m determined to make a go of it.”
“Nancy plays these tapes at night. I can’t understand a word.” I felt Matt’s arm on my waist. “She’s studying for the…DALF?”
“DELF. Eventually. Not yet. I have to get up to speed conversationally.”
“Well, they say that learning a language will increase a baby’s IQ. What are you working on these days?” Elspeth asked. “I’m still waiting to see the acupuncture book!”
“Oh that”—my voice trailed off—“was nothing but problems! I’m waiting, too.”
Elspeth thinks—or I hope she thinks—that I do some freelance copyediting. Last year, I convinced Matt, Elspeth, and my own family that I was toiling over an illustrated guide to acupuncture. Since there’s no hope of the book actually materializing, I’ve decided that the author is having a personal crisis that prevents him from finishing the final chapter.
“Well, my part of the project is done,” I told Elspeth. “And,” I said, with more conviction, “I feel like that part of my life is done. I’m ready to focus on something else. So I’m just working on my French. No distractions.”
When Matt and I met, he assumed—quite wrongly—that my family was paying my rent. I concocted a few slacker gigs to generate income for those extras that a moderately supported adult would have to buy for herself. It wouldn’t make sense to pretend I’m rich. (What if he tried to marry me for my money? The complications would be embarrassing for both of us. Not that Matt is the type who marries a girl for money. But still.)
Now that we’re married, I can’t fall back on freelance editing. He would surely expect to see me carrying around a manuscript from time to time. Poring over a stack of papers. So I announced a career transition and became, instead, a student at the French Institute on East Sixtieth Street, a student who aspires—one day in the future—to pass the DELF and become a translator.
Matt finds my fuzzy career plan quite plausible. For some reason, when Elspeth starts asking questions about it, I can feel the moisture rising on my skin.
“Matt and I were thinking…” Elspeth began.
Before I could stop myself, I flashed a nervous glance at my husband. I wish he would stop “conferencing” with Elspeth behind my back!
“Christopher’s coming to dinner next week—you know, the surprise I’m throwing for Jason.” Her voice dropped and she made a warning gesture in the direction of the master bedroom. “Let’s invite your friend Allison!”
“Allison?” I squeaked. “Why—um—why Allison?”
Matt and Elspeth looked surprised.
“Why not?” Matt said.
“Matt keeps telling me she’s single and great looking! And Chris is a catch,” Elspeth added. “Didn’t you meet him?”
I felt my throat drying up as I recalled my brief encounter with Chris at one of Elspeth’s parties. Before taking maternity leave, Elspeth was a prosecutor. When I met Chris, he had just started working with her in the Special Prosecutions Unit of the Manhattan DA’s office.
“Tall? Dirty blond hair?” Elspeth was saying. “He just bought a sailboat. Does Allison like to sail?”
Allison is indeed single—and better looking than most—but her eligibility for mating with Chris ends right there. Inviting her to Jason’s surprise birthday event would certainly have an impact—a disastrous one. For all kinds of reasons, I am determined that Allison must never come within five hundred feet of Elspeth and Jason’s apartment. And now that Allie has been promoted to media czar by the Council of Trollops, one thousand feet sounds even better.
“Allie,” I said, casting my inner net for answers, “is seeing someone.”
“Are they engaged?” Elspeth asked
“They just started dating but she—”
“That settles it. Don’t tell her about Chris. We’ll invite her and see what happens! There’s no pressure. If she’s not engaged to this guy and they just met?”
“Let the best man win,” Matt suggested. “I think we should invite her. What if they hit it off?”
“What does Allie do, anyway?”
“Do?” I repeated numbly.
Elspeth sat on the love seat, quizzing me with one eye trained on the passageway to her bedroom.
“She’s—uh—temping,” I said. “And thinking about getting a social work degree.”
Elspeth cocked her head to one side and gave me a wide-eyed look. Jason had appeared in the living room doorway, shortcircuiting any further discussion of the guest list. Or my best friend’s occupational history.
I’ve never been happier to see a man in my life!
MONDAY, 3/19/01
This morning, as he dressed for work, Matt tried to reopen the possibility of inviting Allie.
“I wish you would let me decide what’s best,” I replied petulantly. “Elspeth doesn’t know Allie the way I do. And I wish you wouldn’t discuss it with her.”
“Why does it bother you so much?” He was standing in front of the mirror, straightening his tie.
“Aren’t there any single women in your office? Chris is not Allison’s type.”
“How does this look? And how do you know?”
“I just know. It looks, hmmm. Even better than I expected.” I got out of bed in just my panties and embraced my fully clothed husband. He’s wearing the tie that I gave him the other day, purchased with my illicit earnings. I could feel my nipples responding as I pressed my bare skin against a crisp cotton shirt, a silk tie. I was surprised to feel so aroused just seconds after being annoyed with him. Matt pushed me away gently. Holding my s
houlders, he kissed the side of my neck.
“Not now,” he said. “But later…”
I began sliding to my knees, but he blocked my descent. “Honey, I know this seems counterintuitive but I have to ask you to stop.” He pulled me closer. “I have a meeting with a very important client. Try to understand.”
One of his clients is interfering with our sex life? I guess there’s a first time for everything.
I gave him a tender smile—and accepted my raincheck obediently, determined to save my pleasure for Matt.
But, this afternoon, during a session at Jasmine’s apartment, my body misbehaved.
Jasmine, under pressure to deliver some “real” action with a girl, had lowered my bra to expose my breasts. Harry, her favorite client, was rubbing his erection against my thigh, urging Jasmine to “get Suzy” (that’s me) “nice and wet.” Her fingertips caressed my nipples and she closed her eyes. Jasmine hates getting too close to another girl’s body, but she’d rather do the hated thing with a girl she likes. An excited-sounding moan (hers) was followed by a wet flicker—Jasmine’s tongue reluctantly touching my breast. I couldn’t hide the fact that my nipples were hard. This fresh tingle, spreading quietly through my flesh, reminded me of my early-morning encounter with Matt.
My nipples are a little too independent. They can’t be told what to do and they don’t want to hide. The pleasures of my pussy are more discreet: they can be obscured by my outer lips. But I can’t tame the visual evidence of a tingling nipple.
As the pleasure grew more intense, I grew more quiet and didn’t mind listening to Jasmine’s fake sound effects. Harry was removing my panties, convinced that Jasmine’s mouth was on its way to the place where I now had my finger. But she stayed firmly on my left nipple. As I touched myself, I kept hoping she wouldn’t suspect me of enjoying her tongue. I wondered if I might even get away with coming, but Jasmine was just too near. She would be horrified if she figured it out!
I turned toward Harry—he was already wearing his condom—and got into a sluttish kneeling pose. Jasmine’s hand was at the base of his cock, guiding the head into my mouth.
“She’s ready for your cock,” Jasmine told him. “She’s wetter than she’s ever been.”
When Harry was finished, he offered a half-baked apology for being premature. As he always is!
“I didn’t give you girls enough time,” he said. “You were just getting warmed up.”
“But I think Jasmine got off.”
“Sure did,” he said. “You have quite an effect on that gal. You’re dangerous together!” Jasmine, now out of earshot, was listening to her telephone messages while Harry dressed. A Town Car was waiting downstairs to take him to his office. When she had closed the door behind him, she apologized for the girl-on-girl action: “These guys get spoiled by other girls and there’s only so much you can do. Or not do.”
Jasmine looked vaguely disgusted, not with herself but with the sorry state of the sexual marketplace. But I was impressed by how little she had gotten away with.
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “It’s just business. And he’s still an easy date.”
“And I raised him!” she said happily. “I got him up to five. This is yours.” She handed me a thick stack of new-looking twenties. “But”—her tone grew darker—“the girls today have no control over their customers! Our guys are trained. These New Girls don’t even know what that means. Harry’s never been a runner,” Jasmine mused.
A runner rarely sees a girl twice—until he’s forgotten her, at which point he can be talked into seeing her under a new name. That’s not Harry.
“But they all stray now,” she said. “Even a regular like Harry. Have you seen what some of these websites are like?”
“No.” I shuddered. “I don’t think Harry would go online. Do you? He’s so…old school, you know?”
He looks like one of those semiwired senior execs who gets a young assistant to open his e-mail, print it, and type a response! Would a guy like that go shopping for lesbian sex online?
“Well, if he’s gonna pull that stuff, I’m glad you’re here. You, I can count on. Once I did a date with Eileen, and she practically had her tongue up my snatch! That girl’s a degenerate at the best of times.”
“I’m sure Eileen was just trying to be helpful—”
“Gratuitous muff-diving is not helpful! Why does any girl do that when it’s not being requested?”
Jasmine’s cell phone interrupted, giving her the last word.
What can you learn about a girl from the way her phone rings? Not, um, how often it rings—I mean the ring she has chosen to announce her callers. Allison’s phone is playing a lot of Brahms lately, because she read on some website that he practically lived in a brothel. (Well, his name was Johannes.) Jasmine’s phone goes off like a smoke detector.
“Allison’s postponing our lunch,” she told me. “She has a customer.”
“You’re kidding. She was so…”
“…psyched about our meeting!” Jasmine agreed. “But she’s practicing some fiscal responsibility for a change. Putting business before boyfriend was never Allison’s default setting.”
It’s Jasmine’s, though. And I sometimes wonder, What’s it like to be Jasmine’s boyfriend? She must have had more than one. She positions herself as such an authority on relationships, but I know very little about her love life. And she claims she has never “shacked up” with a man for longer than a weekend.
“So what about this guy?” Jasmine was saying. “This boyfriend of hers. Sounds like he might be trouble.”
“She says they’re in love.”
“The L-Word. On the second date? Whatever! As long as the guy goes first.”
“God. Allie wouldn’t use the L-Word first—would she?”
“It’s possible,” Jasmine said. “If she did, we’ll find out. Look, is this guy some kind of bedroom freak? Did she tell you anything?”
“Just—there’s something she’s not ready to do! I’m kind of worried.”
The thing that has no name!
Is Lucho pressuring Allie to quit the business? Even though she’s a spokesperson for the Trollops’ Council? Or maybe he’s going to the other extreme and trying to have a threesome with one of us? Does he want to hide in the closet while she turns tricks? That’s the problem with telling a guy you’re in this business. If he doesn’t want you to quit, he thinks you’re a one-woman fantasy fulfillment center. In fact, if a boyfriend knows you’re hooking, it doesn’t matter whether he accepts or rejects it. Either way, he’ll cause trouble and make impossible demands.
It’s the wrinkle, not the war, of the sexes. Allie joined the hookers’ movement thinking she could eradicate this wrinkle, but you can’t reconfigure the male animal with a manifesto.
THURSDAY, 3/22/01
Well!
I don’t know if Lucho qualifies as a bedroom freak, but he’s making some very unsettling requests. Creating a bit of a lifestyle crisis for Allison.
Today, over thin-crust pizzas at Petaluma—veal salad for Jasmine—Allie came clean about the source of their first quarrel. Which made no sense at all to Jasmine.
“Isn’t he from Brazil?” she asked. “Personally, I thank the Brazilians for teaching us how to wax! As far as I’m concerned, less is more! He should be glad you’re taking an interest in his cultural heritage.”
I had to agree. When I think back to how things were before pubic hair got Brazilianized! It was like being preliterate. Memories of underdevelopment can be elusive—especially in matters of style. I can hardly believe we were once so naive about our lower parts. These days, even if you let your hair grow, it won’t look simple and carefree—instead, it’s like you’re taking a stand, refusing to wax. It now seems quite natural to be hairless.
But Lucho has other opinions.
“He’s from Colombia, not Brazil,” Allie explained. “Bikini waxing isn’t part of Lucho’s heritage! He lived in Paris for ten years—”
“Paris!” Jasmine interjected. “No fucking wonder! I bet they’re still doing the ‘natural’ look. Well, now he’s in Manhattan. This is Brazilian territory!”
“—and his mom’s Lebanese. She met his dad when they were studying in Geneva, and they moved to Bogot?before he was born. His dad is a fifth-generation Colombian. There is nothing…Brazilian about Lucho, but he does speak some Portuguese,” Allie added. A dreamy expression took over. “I’ve never known a man like Lucho. He makes love to me in five different languages and he’s totally supportive of everything I want to do!” She paused. “Well, everything but the waxing. Would you grow your pubic hair back for a man?”
I was at a loss for words. Matt would never take the liberty of tampering with my pubic hair. He might make suggestions about redecorating the apartment, but redecorating my pussy would be out of the question. Like trying to redesign my essence.
“Not a chance,” Jasmine said. “My clients like it this way. And it’s cleaner. This guy has some nerve!”
“He says I’m the love of his life! Why does he want me to change?”
“Maybe he’s just experiencing culture shock,” I suggested.
“This is what happens when you start messing around with someone from the Upper West Side.” Jasmine stabbed a piece of pink veal with her fork. “If he prefers going down on some unwaxed bohemian, let him stay on the West Side! He knew you were an Upper East Sider before you even met. What does he expect? Of course you’re gonna wax!”
Allie began nibbling the pointy end of a pizza slice. Her eyes widened with dismay as Jasmine continued.
“This is not culture shock. It’s the ultimate clash of civilizations!”
“But I want this relationship to work!” said Allie. “And you’re being totally divisive. Escalation is not the way to resolve—”
“You’re from two different worlds,” Jasmine insisted. “And he’s trying to impose his values on you. I did not invent these divisions.”
“I don’t think this has anything to do with him living on the Upper West Side.” Allie flashed a worried look at me. “Does it?”
