Cape May

by Chip Cheek

  “No, my belle,” Clara said. She lay close to them on her side, her back to the fire, head propped on her hand. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We’re all in it together.” She reached out and ran the back of her fingers over Effie’s arm. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  “Very nice.”

  On his way back from the bar Max turned out the end-table light. The big den was dark all around them, but the fire was warm and bright. When Vic Damone finished singing, there was only the wind outside and the crackling of the fire. Things seemed to have become serious. Max was telling them about certain problems with his novel (the U.S. airman on leave in Italy, the torrid affair with the woman in Tuscany), a problem of diction, specifically: there were no words in the English language to capture the immediacy of their actions and emotions. He thought it was because Anglo-Saxons had so thoroughly cut themselves off from sexuality. Max’s points had a tendency to become complicated when he was drunk, and Henry only partly followed them. He was drunk too, and at the same time alert, his heart beating strongly, his armpits sweating. Effie sat up to sip her drink. She looked down at her breasts and adjusted them, leaned back, and seemed to admire the firelight shining on her bosom. “I told you,” she said over her shoulder, “you’re writing a love story.”

  “No,” Max said. “It’s just a game for them. It’s not love. They’re both traumatized, you see. By the war. They’re trying to forget themselves. What I’m trying to get at is the act, the intensity of it, which I think is profound, but it’s almost impossible to express.”

  “What I’ve read is beautiful,” Clara said. Max was leaning back with his ankles crossed and she was rubbing her toes lightly over his bulge, and with a primal longing Henry saw that he was hard under his briefs. It was angled to the side, threatening to pop out of the top.

  “Whatever you say,” Effie said. “It’s a love story.”

  Max laughed. “Okay. How so?”

  “I just mean it’ll be advertised that way, whatever you have to say about it. I mean I haven’t read it, so don’t listen to me. But I bet you’d be best to focus on the love stuff instead of all that other mess.”

  “All that other mess is the point.”

  “Well,” Effie said, and let it go at that, leaning back, shaking her hair out behind her, rubbing her legs together over Henry’s lap.

  “Women like to feel,” Clara said dreamily. “Men like to see.” She dropped her head back to look at Henry. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He felt flummoxed. “I don’t really follow, honestly. I think I like both.”

  They had another round, and settled into the subject of love and sex. Max said love was multifaceted—part involuntary desire, part empathy, and part something willed, like a code of ethics. Effie laughed at him and said he was very smart, wasn’t he. Clara said love and sex had nothing to do with each other, and that she’d had sex, maybe her best sex, with men she despised. Max said that wasn’t true, she adored him. They were both shocked, and then delighted—Clara was delighted—to learn that Henry had been a virgin until about two and a half weeks ago. No, Henry said, he would not describe it. Effie said there were certain things that were none of their business—but then she smiled, as if to invite them to ask again. She said there was no prohibition in the Bible against enjoying sex, none that she knew of. God had given them these bodies, and they were meant to feel.

  They didn’t finish the next round. They were destroyed. But Henry had the feeling they were all, like himself, acutely alert, focused on the same obscure object. They had come to this point deliberately. Max moved behind Clara and held her—she was cold, she said—and eventually he was kissing her shoulder and running his hand over her stomach, and after a while, he slipped it into her underwear. Effie found this funny. Henry couldn’t take his eyes away. He saw the feathered edges of her pubic hair, which was light as wool. Clara hoped they weren’t embarrassing them—they were just fooling around. Effie said it was a free country, they could do what they wanted. Henry didn’t mind, either. They spoke softly. It was just a little fooling around. It was exciting. They could watch. They could watch each other. They were flickering shades, bare skin in the firelight, half illuminated. The dark made it all right. Max leaned back on his elbows and Clara pulled his briefs off. He had a large, thick penis, bronze in the light, an upward curve to it that struck Henry as diabolical. The balls of a horse. Clara stroked it. Henry and Effie watched. Effie opened her legs, and Henry pushed her underwear aside at the groin. He hadn’t felt her in so long. Her prodigious hair, her plump labia. She was soaked. He rubbed her where Alma had liked it, and she sighed, closed her eyes, clutched the cup of her bra, opened her eyes again to see. Clara’s head was down in Max’s lap, and he was kneading her back, concentrating, silent. They were all silent now. She’d freed her breasts, and they hung heavily from her. She was on her knees, her hips and thighs within Henry’s reach, and Henry longed to touch her but held back. He wouldn’t cross that line by himself. Effie was closer to Clara’s head, and while Henry rubbed her she looked down on it as if in pain—until she reached her hand out and pulled Clara’s hair away from her face, so she could see, and a tormented look came into her face, and she sighed deeply. That was the line. There was no turning back. It was the look on her face, so transfixed and free of self-consciousness. Henry took his hand away from Effie and reached for Clara, her great expanse of skin, to touch her soft thighs and hips, to feel if her underwear was damp like Effie’s, and in the next instant, it seemed, she was facing him, up on her knees and surrounding him. She reached down and drew his cock out from his boxers and stroked him. Effie, beside him, was oblivious, her head thrown back. Max was behind her, kissing her neck, pulling the straps off her shoulders, moving his hands down to cup her breasts. Henry, Clara said. Her breath was hot in his ear. Henry. Do you mind this? He didn’t mind it. He wanted it. Her breasts filled all the space in the room. He gripped them. He sucked her nipples. He reached between her legs, into her underwear, and felt a vast, dense carpet there, felt her open, wet, on his fingers. He breathed in the scent of Chanel—and suddenly came, and looked down to see a glaze over her fingers. She whispered, Oh, baby, stroking him still, oh, you came, I made you come, and she smiled, and kissed his lips. Just don’t stop. I’m not through with you yet. He wasn’t going to stop, he said. She drew away from him and pulled his boxers down, he freed himself from them, and she bent down and enveloped him with her mouth. He was stunned, and in ecstasy. Effie’s underwear was stretched tight between her knees and Max’s hand was down below, lost in shadow. One of her feet was pressed against Henry’s hip, and he felt her toes grip his skin. Henry saw them as if from afar, as if they had nothing to do with him. He felt a dull ache, like longing, when he saw her reach back and put her little hand around Max’s cock. And then Clara nudged him onto his back and got on top of him, sat up and straddled him, her breasts looming, and covered his stomach. She was warm and slick. She brought her groin to him and he filled his mouth with it. She was tart from the long day. He turned her over and sank in, buried from nose to chin. She was bottomless. She couldn’t hold still. She rolled him over again, lay on him, wanted to feel his skin all over her. Straddled him again, and reached behind her to feel him. His erection was indestructible. She slid back onto it. Oh. Oh, Henry. There you are, finally. She moved her hips back and forth and in circles. He pushed up into her. Oh, she tilted her head back, oh, oh. And he closed his eyes, lost in her, imagining he could float forever up into her generous body, until after a time he heard Effie softly crying, and brought himself up to his elbows to see. She lay under Max a few feet away, her neck arched back so her face was almost upside down—eyes closed, lips parted—and she drew her knees up as Max’s hips slowly undulated between her legs. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, his hand ran up her side and over her breast, and he seemed to smother and overwhelm her. They were half-moons and lighted curves. They were a riddle Henry couldn�
�t work out. He was mesmerized. Effie dug her fingers into Max’s back. He wished she would look at him, but she was nowhere near him. Clara pulled his attention back to herself—Oh, Henry, you feel so good, baby—and he gripped her savagely. She fell forward and put her weight on her hands, and between her breasts he watched his silhouetted cock pump up into her groin. She got down to her elbows and breathed into him, Oh—oh, you’re going to make me come, and he sank his teeth into her shoulder, trying to concentrate on the feel of her all around him. But all he could hear was Effie’s breath, her whimpering and panting, noises he’d never heard her make before. And he couldn’t keep himself from looking. Max held the backs of her knees. She clawed the rug. If only she would look at him—to say, I’m here, I’m with you. But all the world, including Henry, seemed to have fallen away from her, and there was only her body, and Max’s. Clara, breathing heavily into his ear, asked if he was okay, and he said he was fine, he only needed a minute, and she sighed and slumped beside him. And he watched as Max turned Effie over and brought her up to her knees. Saw the thick, bronze cock slide into her from behind. Heard her bellowing into the crook of her arm. Watched until, at last, he groaned and pushed forward, bent her spine and then flattened her onto her stomach, lay heavy on her back, groaning still, moving his hips as if to burrow himself entirely inside of her, and when he rolled off, finally—withdrew his curved, evil-looking cock—she was splayed out on her stomach, and the insides of her thighs shone wet in the firelight.

  He felt sick, suddenly. He drew away from Clara and got unsteadily to his feet.

  “Where are you going, baby?” Clara said.

  “I need to go to bed,” he said. He started for the stairs, not bothering to search for his clothes, stumbled into an end table, found the banister, and made his way carefully up. He was going to be sick. He felt his way into the upstairs bathroom, closed the door, didn’t bother finding the light. Avoided his ghoulish reflection in the mirror. Fell onto his knees and vomited into the toilet.

  He lay on the floor for a while in the dark, waiting for the nausea to pass. The tiles were cold. He expected someone—Effie—to knock and ask him what was wrong, but no one did. His little Effie, his wife: he didn’t know her anymore. What she’d done, what she’d let him do to her. It was one thing for Henry, but for her, his wife, his girl. A lady. He should have stopped it before it started, he should never have let it go so far. But he didn’t know himself either. A degenerate with no fixed center. Less than a man. Only yesterday he’d been professing his love to Alma, promising that he’d run away with her, and no sooner had she left than … He wished she hadn’t gone, that they had run away together. But that was only because he wanted to erase himself.

  Out in the upstairs hall the fire faintly revealed the balcony rail, and he turned away from it and felt his way into the guest room. Fell onto the bed. She wasn’t there. Her absence turned his stomach. He slipped under the covers, and he was still awake when, sometime later—he didn’t know how long, but he was relieved—she came into the room. She sat on the bed in the dark and was still for a moment. She must have been dying of shame. He listened for her crying, for her to call his name—he wasn’t sure he would have answered—but she only sighed, finally, and lay down. He turned his back to her and lay as far away from her as he could.

  Twelve

  When he woke, she was gone, and the room was bright. He had no idea what time it was.

  The night swiftly asserted itself. It settled like ice in his stomach.

  The wardrobe stood open and empty. On the ledge of the bay window lay Effie’s suitcase, and on the floor below it, his own. So they were leaving. At the foot of the bed, on the corner farthest from him, clean clothes had been set out for him.

  He heard voices down on the patio. Clara’s laughter. He got up from the bed and went to the window, covering his groin, pointlessly, with his hands. They were all sitting together at the round table by the pool. Max and Clara. And Effie. It was sunny out, but they were dressed for the fall. Effie wore her cashmere sweater. She was nodding at something Max was saying, her expression mild. The scene confounded him. How comfortable they all seemed together.

  He dressed and went quickly downstairs and out to the patio, thinking vaguely that he would catch them out. It was a brilliant day, cool under the sun. Clara was standing in one of her bright sundresses, a shawl over her shoulders, gathering plates from the table, and when she saw him she greeted him warmly. “Henry, dear. There he is.”

  “Hey, boo,” Effie said.

  He stopped before the table. “What’s going on here?”

  “You’re leaving us, apparently,” Clara said, let out a mirthless laugh, and headed toward the patio door, carrying the plates inside.

  “How are you faring, Hank?” Max asked. The sight of him was loathsome. He was slouched in his chair, smoking a cigarette. He wore khaki shorts in spite of the chill, and Henry saw—would never be able to unsee—the bulge at his crotch.

  “What’s this about?”

  “I packed our things while you were sleeping,” Effie said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No,” he said. “Are we going home?”

  “There’s the ten o’clock to Philadelphia tomorrow morning. We could stay in a hotel, but I thought we might as well go back to the cottage, if it’s just for a night, and save us the money. Uncle George would never know.”

  He was confused. “Were we going to talk about this?”

  “Do you want to stay here?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Not if you don’t want to.”

  Max pushed his chair back and stood up. “I’d better go in and help Clare,” he said, and Henry watched him cross the patio and go inside.

  “How are you feeling?” Effie asked.

  He didn’t know. He was in a fog from sleep. There was a sharp ache in his temples, and he was dying of thirst. But he said he was fine, and pulled a chair out to sit down. There was no way to talk about what they’d done. “So we’re going home,” he said.

  She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. “We can call our folks from the station tomorrow. I can’t face it today.”

  He didn’t need to ask why they were leaving. What disturbed him was how calm she seemed. She sat with her legs crossed, elbows up on her armrests. She was wearing her knee-length skirt, her sheer white stockings, and black pumps—her travel attire.

  “What day is it?” he asked, and she laughed wearily.

  “It’s Friday,” she said.

  The air had a sharp edge to it when it stirred, and he noticed, with surprise, that the trees in the backyard, the birches, and even the chinaberries and shrubs, had lost most of their leaves already. It had happened overnight, or it had happened gradually and he hadn’t been paying attention. Henry’s insides were churning. He looked down at Effie’s stockings, the kind young women and girls wore back home at church, and the image of her from last night seemed impossible, like a nightmare.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked softly.

  She tipped her head back and sighed. “I feel like I could sleep for six days.”

  It wasn’t the answer he wanted. But then he had no idea what answer he wanted.

  * * *

  Henry brought their suitcases down. He’d been surprised to learn it was almost three in the afternoon.

  Max was working—or hiding, Henry thought—back in the study. Archly, Clara had put on a Johnny Mercer record, and to Henry’s shock she was fixing herself a gin and tonic. You had to muscle through it, she said. You had to face the enemy head-on.

  The big living room seemed open and clean, and no sign remained from last night. Effie must have gathered up his clothes at some point and put them into his suitcase.

  Clara called down the hall for Max—“Maxie, they’re leaving us now”—and Max appeared, smiling, in his shorts and T-shirt and wool cardigan. So easy and carefree. Henry couldn’t get away from him quickly enough. They gathered at the edge of the foyer, and for
an uncomfortable moment, no one said anything.

  “I think you’re being ridiculous,” Clara said, finally, to Effie, and Effie smiled.

  “You can think whatever you like.”

  “You’re still a child,” Clara said. “I should have understood that.”

  Effie turned toward the door. “Let’s go, Henry,” she said, and Henry, bewildered, took up their suitcases and, because he couldn’t bear to be impolite, said, “Thank you for having us.”

  Clara laughed. “Darling. The pleasure was mine.”

  “Katie Scarlett,” Max said, as if Henry weren’t standing there beside her, “I hate for you to go this way.” And when Effie looked back at him, holding the screen door for Henry, something fluttered across her face—a little tremble of feeling, which Henry couldn’t read.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.” And they went out.

  * * *

  They walked down the street to the cottage without saying a word. Effie’s expression was dark. She never looked at him. They stepped up to the porch, retrieved the key from the hanging pot, and let themselves inside. The musty smell of the place was like a whiff from another time. Henry set their suitcases down at the foot of the stairs. Effie dropped her pocketbook, sat heavily down on the couch, and rested her head in her hands.

  “Could you bring me the aspirin, Henry?” she said. “And a glass of water?”

  He stood by the coffee table and watched her. He would never be able to erase it from his mind. How she’d been with him. How she’d bellowed like an animal. She looked up, pulling her hands down her face, making basset-hound eyes.

  “Henry, please. Aspirin.”

  “Don’t you think we need to talk?” he said.