“Oh, my dear Abigail,” I said when our lips separated, thus allowing us a moment to breathe, as if we were two whales rising above the surface of the sea in order to inhale oxygen prior to plunging back down. “I do indeed have great affection for you, a feeling which one might even designate as love, a word defined in the dictionary as ‘a profoundly tender passion for another person.’ I have been in this exact state of mind for—”
But Abigail did not allow me to finish. Her arms encircled my waist tightly and she pulled me toward her until our lips once again engaged.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. Her eyelids were fluttering, and her face betrayed a dreamlike quality. “How delightful!”
“Most pleasurable indeed.”
“I have never experienced a kiss before, Archer. Perhaps we can perform it again?”
Oh joy. Oh rapture! I was beside myself with euphoria, the likes of which I had not experienced since my parents presented me with a leather-bound edition of Remembrance of Things Past by Mr. Marcel Proust for my ninth birthday.
We strolled arm in arm toward my apartment, stopping periodically to engage in a passionate kiss, uninhibited by passersby. I felt as elated as a teenager, although as a teenager I had seldom been elated. When we arrived at my domicile, Abigail took my hand and led me into my bedroom, whereupon she pushed me gently onto the bed, which, to my great relief, was bedecked with freshly laundered sheets and pillowcases. Naturally, I had expected her to join me on the bed, but instead she politely excused herself and entered my bathroom, which, as good fortune would have it, I had thoroughly cleansed hours earlier in expectation of Felix’s arrival. From the bed, I heard the sound of water shooting through the showerhead, which was followed by the lilting tones of a song that Abigail commenced to sing in a voice only slightly off-key. At least half an hour elapsed before she emerged, her body completely unclothed. I lay upon the bedspread, as wide-eyed as a frightened owl at the sublime beauty of her physical person, and of a sudden my mouth became as arid as the Kalahari, although I have never in actuality ventured there.
“Archer, do you not intend to remove your clothing?” she said with a lustful half smile. “Did you think we were about to take a nap?”
How had I overlooked this obvious necessity? At her suggestion, I rapidly began to remove my trousers but stopped at the knee when I realized that I would first have to rid my feet of my shoes, which I then proceeded to do. I placed them neatly beneath a chair, folded my pants, and began to fold my shirt when Abigail, who was now sensually reclined on the bed, said, “Do you think you might do the folding business at a later time?”
“Yes, of course.” Recklessly dropping the rest of my garments to the floor, I approached the bed and lay beside her. We locked in an embrace and at once our eager hands flew about one another’s anatomy.
“I must warn you, Archer,” she said, interrupting our epidermal exploration. “I am a virgin.”
Of course, I knew this was untrue as she had certainly engaged in carnal activity with William Octavian Butler and perhaps others that may have preceded him, but of course she did not recall these events, for they had occurred prior to the onset of her delusion.
“I shall keep that in mind and be gentle.”
We then continued our sexual fondling with mounting fervor but in the midst of this she again brought the festivities to a halt.
“Archer, do you by chance own a condom?” she said. “I may wish to one day give birth to a child, but I do not wish to conceive it today.”
This gave me pause. “I believe I do indeed, my dearest, but, alas, I have not engaged in sexual activity for quite some time, and I fear that the expiration date of said items may have passed.”
As I had not planned ahead for this event, I was momentarily at a loss. “Let me see,” I said, reaching into my night table. I found nothing in the way of rubberized male birth control, so I excused myself and hied to the bathroom where I frantically pulled out drawers and opened cabinets but found nothing. In the midst of this fruitless exploration, there was a rather ill-timed knock at the door.
“Who the devil might that be?” Abigail said with some irritation.
“I do not know,” I said as I continued to rummage through my medicine cabinet. “I most certainly shall not answer it.”
“Excellent decision.”
But the rapping did not cease and in fact grew louder so, with a growl of annoyance, I threw on a robe and opened the door. It was Felix. He appeared to be quite perturbed.
“Felix, although it is always a pleasure to see you, this is perhaps not the best time to—”
“Where have you been, Professor? I came by half an hour ago but nobody answered the door.”
“My deepest apologies, Felix,” I said. Thereupon, in a soft voice, I offered him an abbreviated version of what had transpired between Abigail and me and within moments his face made the transformation from anger to joy. He slapped me on the back several times and shook my hand, offering me his congratulations.
At that moment, Abigail called from the bedroom, “Archer, what’s taking you so long?”
“I shall return shortly, my dearest.”
Felix winked at me and turned to leave, but as he was about to depart, I stopped him. “Felix, do you perchance own a condom of recent vintage that I may borrow?”
“Yes, I do, my good friend,” he said with a laugh. “But a condom is not really the kind of thing a person borrows. I sure the hell don’t want it back. You may have one to keep.”
“Perhaps two? It has been quite some time since—”
“Two it is!”
“Please, make haste. My damsel awaits!”
A few moments later, with condoms in hand, I returned to the bed where I struggled with trembling hands to pry open one of the packages. Once appropriately outfitted with said item, I proceeded to engage in feverish copulation with my beloved Abigail. As there is no way in which to describe this act without mimicking lurid passages from a genre of fiction known as erotica, I shall abstain. Suffice it to say, nearly every muscle in my body ached by the time our bout of carnal gymnastics had reached its climactic conclusion. To my relief, two aspirin tablets dispatched my discomfort.
Bliss, the likes of which I had never experienced, overtook me, and those I encountered on campus observed that I appeared to have a perpetual smile on my face. One day, I found myself skipping to class, a form of childish propulsion that caused an emanation of laughter from several students and members of the faculty who passed me on the quadrangle. Engaged in reveries, I toppled off my newly refurbished bicycle four times and collided with foliage twice. I informed several people of our budding romance—Constance, Eliot and Sandra, Balthazar, and my parents—all of whom were more than pleased upon hearing the news.
Abigail and I spent every night together, which required us to transport ourselves from one apartment to the other. This commute soon became tiresome. After some discussion, we decided that she would relocate to my somewhat larger apartment, a suggestion that I immediately perceived as somewhat problematical due to the vast number of novels that I possessed. It was Mr. Williger who constructed an elaborate locking system that would prevent anyone other than myself from opening the cabinet doors and this solved the predicament.
As my mattress was a single twin size and thus too small to comfortably accommodate two bodies, I purchased one described by the merchant as a queen size, though I doubted it was meant exclusively for female monarchs. Fortunately, neither of us was beset by the plague of snoring, so we slept quite soundly in each other’s arms. I only introduce this topic because my former wife, Amanda Archer, née Blackstone, possessed a snore that resembled the cacophony produced by a dozing plow horse, not that I have ever been in the presence of such an animal during its slumber. Yet, I would imagine that after an arduous day of pulling a plow th
rough hard soil, a horse of this sort would sleep quite soundly.
But I digress.
One night, Abigail suddenly awakened and switched on the light beside our bed, thus waking me as well. She sat up, whereupon she drew her knees to her body and placed her arms around them.
“Is something amiss, my dearest one?” I said as I placed an arm around her shoulders. She then rubbed her eyes with her charming little fists.
“I had the oddest dream, Archer. I can make no sense of it.”
“Was it perchance a nightmare?”
“No, not really. It was not unpleasant at all.”
“Pray tell, my dear,” I said.
She hesitated for a moment. “It was most bizarre, my beloved. I dreamed that I was a foreign lady of some sort, a Russian I think, and I believe there was a man who had a racehorse as well.”
I waited for her to continue. “And…?”
She frowned pensively. “I’m afraid I do not remember anything beyond that, my darling.”
Before responding, I gave the matter some deep thought. I most certainly did not wish to explain from whence this dream had likely originated, lest it upset her in the same manner in which my previous revelation had done so many weeks ago. I merely voiced the opinion that her dream was indeed quite odd. And so, after a moment, she switched off the light fixture and we both lay back down and continued our slumber.
Chapter Twenty
To my considerable surprise and overwhelming gratitude, it was Felix who was kind enough to lend me the necessary capital with which to make my purchase. Constance accompanied me to the appropriate place of business, which was located in the magnificent downtown area of Syracuse. After much vacillation, I settled upon an item of exceptional beauty and was somewhat taken aback and highly amused when Constance successfully convinced the merchant—a garrulous, unkempt gentleman by the name of Seymour Oukenblitzen—to reduce the price by one-third. She accomplished this magical feat of persuasion by carrying on a rather flagrant flirtation with the old gentleman.
But once again, I became tragically analytical and therefore, per my usual tendency, indecisive. Several seemingly perfect opportunities arose, yet I found myself unable to perform my appointed mission, for I was not entirely certain of its outcome. Alas, we had never discussed it. Perhaps Abigail considered our affiliation to be no more than a casual romance? Perhaps her feelings were not of sufficient depth for us to venture to the next stage. Or was I simply overcome by senseless apprehension? And so, once again, I dillydallied. I knew, however, that it would have to take place without too much delay because Mr. Oukenblitzen’s business establishment had a thirty-day refund policy.
One day prior to this expiration date, I escorted Abigail to an overpriced restaurant in the nearby township of Frickenhausen, where we consumed various foodstuffs, piled into lopsided towers or presented upon plates striped with colorful sauces. The portions were miniscule, their flavor dominated by garlic, and when dinner had concluded, I felt my appetite to be barely diminished. Our waiter—a humorless and somewhat arrogant fellow, who unnecessarily introduced himself as Joseph—informed us that a particular dessert with an unpronounceable French name was, in his words, “to die for.” When I asked him whether he would be inclined to rescue said dessert from a burning building, thus risking his life for its preservation and possibly dying in the process, he snorted and walked away. Following dinner, I desperately wished to follow my unfulfilling gourmet repast with a Twinkie but was unable to locate an establishment in the area that stocked them.
Fortunately, I had imbibed a glass of wine during our repast and the consumption of said liquid had succeeded in stimulating in my person a degree of boldness and daring.
It was late April and snow flurries had afflicted the area three days prior, but this night was clear and unseasonably temperate, so Abigail and I strolled hand in hand along the streets, admiring the stars that shone in the sky, this being the usual place for orbs of this type to perform their illumination.
On our journey through the restaurant’s parking lot, I noted that my slight inebriation, and the boldness that had accompanied it, were beginning to dissipate. An empty parking lot had certainly not been my first choice of romantic locales, but no more than ten feet from the location of my vehicle, I impulsively fell upon bended knee before Abigail.
“My goodness! Are you all right, Archer?” she said with some alarm. “Did you fall down?”
“No. I performed this lowering of my body on purpose.”
“Why?”
“I must ask you an important question,” I said.
“Can this not be done without the knee bending?”
“Yes, of course, but I wish to be formal. This is as I had rehearsed it.”
“You rehearsed this?”
“I did indeed. Many, many times.”
Following a search of my pockets, I extracted the small blue velvet box from my tuxedo. Of course, by this time, Abigail knew what was about to transpire. Her expression bespoke a great tenderness that was tempered by a hint of amusement.
After a few moments of fumbling, during which I nearly dropped the box, I managed to open said velvet container, whereupon I displayed its contents before her.
Abigail put a hand to her mouth. “Oh my!” she said. “It’s wondrous, Archer, I am nearly blinded. Look how it sparkles!”
“I specifically requested one that sparkles.”
“I believe you are about to ask me to marry you.”
“Quite correct,” I said. “How did you perceive this?”
“You must admit there are more than a few clues. The knee bending, the ring… But are you aware that you are kneeling in mud?”
“Yes,” I said. “But never mind that.”
“Okay. Please proceed then.”
I took both of her hands in mine and cleared my throat. “Abigail Bird,” I said. “I, Ishmael Archer, have loved you dearly for quite a long time. Longer even than you may know.”
“As have I, you,” she said.
I wished to say more regarding the depth and duration of my love for her, but a chill wind had suddenly arisen from the east. To add to this unpleasantness, the knees of my trousers were indeed quite caked with mud and I could feel the stain spreading northward, so I abbreviated my proposal and said, “Abigail Bird, will you have me, Ishmael Archer, as your husband?”
“Yes, of course! Of course! A thousand times, of course!” she said with great excitement.
“Then you will have me?”
She laughed. “Did I not just say that?”
“I suppose you did. I just wished to confirm it.”
And then, with no further ado, I slipped the ring upon the correct finger and noted with some considerable delight that it fit her digit perfectly and would therefore not require adjustment.
“Now, please do stand up, Archer,” she said.
“Excellent idea.”
As she had suggested, I rose to my feet and fruitlessly attempted to brush the mud stain from my trousers, an exercise that only succeeded in making my hands muddy as well. Without placing my dirty hands upon her, Abigail and I then embraced, whereupon she promised to launder my soiled garment, although I explained that this was not necessary and that I would be glad to perform this tedious task myself for it was I who had created the stain. As they were rented tuxedo slacks, she then suggested that it would be wiser to deliver them to a dry cleaner, and I agreed that this would be preferable. Following this controversy, our lips met and I perceived that her breath reeked with the odor of garlic, but I suspected that mine did as well. For a moment, I contemplated the idea of pinching my nostrils shut but this would be less than romantic and severely complicate the process of breathing.
Garlic aside, this was the most memorable moment, the climax, as it were, of the story of Ishmael Archer.
/> It was a magnificent summer day that produced a fragrant breeze and a cloudless sky that an unimaginative author would likely describe as either azure or cerulean, possibly even sapphire, beryl, ultramarine, lapis lazuli or just plain blue. Wildflowers of assorted colors had sprouted in the meadows of the foothills and the ice packs had melted from the peaks of the Adirondacks. Dean Altschuler and Sandra, both of whom were delighted for me, had been kind enough to insist that the event and subsequent festivities take place in their enormous backyard. Fearing that there might be precipitation, they had leased an oversized canvas tent under which a number of round tables were placed. At their insistence, a wedding photographer and a person known as a DJ had been employed, although I was loath to suffer through stilted wedding photos and dancing. Abigail and I were married on a scenic bluff twenty feet away from the tent, an event that was accompanied by the college’s chamber ensemble, which played a romantic Bach concerto with surprising competency. A retired Methodist minister by the name of Horace P. Elderberry officiated. I had never met the gentleman—apparently he was a friend of the Altschuler’s—but thankfully he did not invoke the name of the deity once during the ceremony. I had chosen Eliot to be my best man; Sandra, who Abigail had befriended, acted as her bridesmaid. Following the ceremony, we strode down a makeshift aisle between the seated guests, some of whom stood up to shower us with uncooked rice pellets, a pagan practice that, as I later discovered, had originated with the Egyptians and was meant to ensure that the newlyweds enjoyed luck, prosperity, and a successful crop, although I had no intention of taking up agriculture. As we ducked this starchy attack, Abigail squeezed my hand tightly. She looked utterly glorious in her wedding attire.
Strange Courtship of Abigail Bird Page 25