“That’s right,” I said. “I’ve given up on monogamy.”
“You hungry?” she said. “I could make you some breakfast. You don’t look healthy.”
My stomach felt like it didn’t want food in it. “You don’t play hard to get,” I said. “How come?”
“I’m so good at being hard to get that nobody gets me,” she said simply. “Let’s go get in bed before we lose our nerve. I don’t want to talk about it.”
She had the right idea. If we had talked any longer we would have lost our nerve. We went right up to her bed, leaving my nest under her tree. She had a huge bed with a purple bedspread. We undressed as quickly as we could and got under the covers, scarcely giving each other a glance. Jenny was shivering. I felt embarrassed. Neither of us could think of a thing to say. We were much too shy to play with each other. After about two kisses we tried to make love. It very nearly didn’t work. It was like neither of us had ever done it before. We were terribly awkward. The covers felt like they weighed tons. I was almost too weak to cope with such covers and Jenny’s body too. Jenny kept her eyes shut. Fortunately I didn’t give up, or become impotent. Technically the basics worked. Things got smoother. It wasn’t the summit of anything, but after a while we had actually made love. Jenny opened her eyes. Doing it hadn’t been any fun, really, but having done it made us both feel immensely better. Somehow we had triumphed over shyness and separateness. We could never be quite as separate again—at least that was how I felt. I couldn’t understand why Jenny was so inexperienced. It was like she had never been touched. But she was Jenny Salomea, the man-eater. I asked her about it.
“You’re supposed to be very tough,” I said.
“I am tough,” she said. “That’s why I never sleep with anybody. I’m so tough men are afraid to try me. It just makes me worse. If I can scare them I don’t want to do it with them anyway. You were my only hope. I cried myself blind when you left. You’re too foolish to be scared of me. You were the only one around foolish enough to try and care about me.”
Since we had done it I thought we might be comfortable enough to look at each other. I kicked the covers back, but Jenny wasn’t that comfortable. She shut her eyes. I covered us up again. She didn’t look tough at all.
“I’ve been shy all my life,” she said.
I had almost forgotten how much I liked to be in bed with women. I wasn’t shy. I felt happy and kind of horny. We kissed for a long time. Jenny hadn’t been kissed much and was sort of delicate about it. We twisted around and got more and more comfortable. The bedroom window was open and we could smell the nice hot Houston morning. I could see the squirrels in the tree. Finding out how inexperienced Jenny was made me admire her terribly. It must have taken great nerve, that time she came to see me. She didn’t even know how to kiss. I was determined she should get some happiness. I was feeling very refreshed. I wanted to make love for several hours. I couldn’t think of anything nicer than whiling away the morning getting Jenny more comfortable with sex. The fact that I wanted to make love again really took her by surprise.
“Are you sure?” she said. “Sammy usually waits eight or nine months.”
I had gotten completely unembarrassed and was a lot smoother about things. Jenny enjoyed herself a little. She was a long way from knowing how to really enjoy herself, but she wasn’t hopeless. She just hadn’t had any practice. I was slow and easy. Once in a while I looked out at the squirrels, while I was being slow and easy.
Suddenly an incredible thing happened. Something made me look around just in time to see it. Jenny had her eyes shut and sensed nothing, but I sensed that another person was there. I looked over my shoulder and there was Sammy Salomea. Unfortunately I was just in the process of letting myself come. I couldn’t stop. Sammy was a short man. He wore a neat blue suit and his red tie had a large knot. I only saw him with part of me. Most of me was with Jenny. Sammy had a large bucket in his hands. I think it was a laundry bucket. It was so large he had to struggle along with it. He wasn’t a big man. I supposed he must be carrying a vat of acid or something, to destroy the bodies with. Before I really had time to get scared I got doused. It was too bad Jenny wasn’t coming too. It would have been an unbeatable sexual experience. The contents of the bucket were warm soapy water. Half water, half soap suds. Sammy made a perfect heave. In an instant we were both absolutely drenched. I wouldn’t have thought he could get so much warm soapy water in a bathtub, much less a bucket. I was nonplussed. It was considerate of him to warm the water, I must say. Cold soapy water would have been awful. As it was I was able to enjoy the last second or two of my orgasm. There was no reason not to. No man who would think to warm the water could be going to kill us. Besides, I couldn’t help enjoying it. A flood of warm soapy water is kind of nice. Only the circumstances were bizarre.
It was a great shock to Jenny, of course. Propriety required that I pull out but I didn’t. I had just come and I couldn’t see what good pulling out would do, anyway. We were certainly caught. I think for an instant Jenny thought I had burst. I hadn’t. I was snugly buried in her, and I stayed that way. She looked at me through the water and the soapsuds, deeply puzzled. Then she noticed Sammy. Immediately they began a domestic scene.
“Oh, Sammy, you horse’s ass,” she said. “Why did you do that? Look at my bedspread. Do you know what that bedspread costs to clean?”
“Listen, Jenny,” Sammy said, “what you two are doing is not very hygienic. I saw you the first time you did it. If you had showered, that would have been that. But you didn’t even remember to shower!” He was very indignant.
“Oh, shut up!” Jenny said, wiping soapsuds out of her eyes.
“Honestly,” Sammy said. “He has several days’ growth of beard. Why didn’t you insist that he shave? Where are your principles?”
“I was getting fucked, Sammy,” Jenny said. “Why are you standing there talking about principles? This is private.”
“I’ve done what I can for you,” Sammy said. “I have to rush. I see you forgot to buy dental floss again.”
He picked up the empty bucket and left. Jenny and I, soaked and soapy, lay exactly as we were, recovering from whatever it was we had been through.
“Poor guy,” Jenny said. “He’s flipped out several times, and I can’t find him a nut house he likes. It’s put a lot of new pressure on me.”
Being soapy was kind of sexy, but it didn’t do us any good. My penis went into retreat. We got towels and went out on Jenny’s sundeck to dry off. I was in a new life again. Jenny had really lovely legs. I remembered them from our badminton games.
“Where are you going to live?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Live here if you want to,” she said. “We have lots of rooms. Sammy won’t mind, as long as you keep clean. You’ll have to shave, is all.”
Her face seemed young—her body too. She was just unused. She had nicely rounded shoulders.
“You have to help me get to be normal,” she said, smiling at me.
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just get a room somewhere close. It would be bad for your reputation if I lived here.”
“Okay,” she said. She fed me a good breakfast. We sat on her woodblock and necked and ate and necked. Then we went out in her yard and I gathered up my nest.
“Seeing you under that tree this morning was the happiest moment of my life,” she said.
I almost wished she hadn’t said it. It was probably true. My responsibilities were getting constantly more complex. I told Jenny again that I had to go. She let me go, but her eyes were shining and her face was very alive. She skipped back to her house.
I got in El Chevy, feeling odd. I didn’t know what life was coming to. Suddenly I felt I had to call Emma. I called her from the nearest drugstore.
“I knew you were back,” she said, when she heard my voice. “When you coming by?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “How are you?”
“Why don’t you know?” Emm
a said. “What’s wrong with you? I’m dying to see you.”
“I may not be the same,” I said. “I may have changed forever.”
“That’s just bullshit,” Emma said. “You quit saying that. How could you ever change?”
“I’ve had a lot of problems,” I said.
“You shouldn’t have married her,” she said. “It could have ruined your whole life. Why don’t you come by? Flap’s gone fishing with his dad. They won’t be back until Sunday.”
“I might come by before my party. I have to find out where Sally is, first.”
“Why don’t you want to come and see me?” Emma said. Her tone was odd.
“I do,” I said.
“No you don’t. If you wanted to you would have come already. I’ve been expecting you for days.”
I sighed. There was no use trying to fool her. All I knew about it myself was that I was saving her for emergencies.
“I don’t know why I don’t want to,” I said. “It isn’t because I don’t want to.”
It seemed to reassure her. “I know you want to,” she said. “Why don’t you then?”
“I have to be in order first,” I said. “I can’t even explain. Do you want to come to my party with me?”
“No,” she said.
“Why not?” I was surprised.
“Flap would get jealous.”
It had never occurred to me that Flap could get jealous of me.
“Come on,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes I do,” she said, in a small voice. “I can’t come with you. That’s all.”
It made me feel even odder. I suddenly wanted to see Emma. Maybe she was in trouble. She didn’t sound so bouncy.
“Can I come tonight then? After my party.”
“Yes,” she said. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.”
“Good luck with Sally,” she said. “I hated you for marrying her.”
“The universe in general disapproves of me,” I said. “For that, and many other things.” I was a little bitter. Why hadn’t anyone spoken up sooner?
“I don’t disapprove of you,” Emma said. “I didn’t say that. I’ll cook you something when you come. You haven’t really changed,” she added, in a more satisfied voice. “If I’m asleep when you come, bang on the door.”
I hung up and went out into the hot April afternoon. I was sort of up against it. I could fiddle around looking for a room to live in, or I could go confront Sally. I didn’t want to do either one, but I was getting tired again and I didn’t know how much longer I’d have my wits about me. I got back to El Chevy and went to the address Godwin had given me.
Sally was there. As usual, she had been napping. As usual, she hated being awakened. She was wearing a loose, sleeveless dress. I had never seen anything like her stomach. I thought it was large when I had shoved her in the bathtub, but it was nothing then to what it had become. Her stomach amazed me. Sally leaned against the doorjamb, trying to stop yawning long enough to frown. Her hair was tangled and her face a little puffy from sleep. Her stomach almost split her loose dress, it was so big.
“You can’t talk to me,” she said. “You must be out of your head. You could be put in jail for being here.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I came home because you were having the baby.”
“I’m having it, all right,” she said. “I had pains this morning. It’s none of your business, though.”
“It’s my child too,” I said. “I came to see if I could help.”
“It’s not yours,” she said. “It’s mine.”
For some reason, seeing her stomach changed things. I wouldn’t accept the words she was saying. The stomach was not Sally. It had a roundness that wasn’t Sally. It lived of its own, attached to her. It shook a little, when she moved.
“You better fuck off,” Sally said. “Daddy’s coming. I’m going to the hospital. You’ll never see my baby.”
“It’s just as much mine,” I said.
“No,” she said. “It’s in me.”
“Who put it there?”
Sally shrugged. “I fucked a lot of guys,” she said. “You’re not important.”
“Sally,” I said. “I was in Austin yesterday. I think I broke Geoffrey’s neck. I threw him off a roof.”
“Good,” she said. “Then maybe they’ll put you in jail, where you belong. I think you’re a sex maniac anyway.”
“You’re utterly illogical,” I said.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’ll tell them you’re a sex maniac. I’ll really make them put you in jail. You’re not going to see my baby. You couldn’t be a good father.”
“I came home to try,” I said.
I wanted to try, too. The baby would soon be alive, like Jenny was alive, like Emma, like Jill. I hadn’t realized that. I had only thought of it as a picture of an embryo, like I had seen in books. Seeing Sally’s stomach changed things.
“You married me before I knew what I was doing,” Sally said. “You ought to have to go to jail.”
“Shut up,” I said. “I found you living with one queer and sleeping with another. You did screw Geoffrey, didn’t you?”
“Why not?” she said. “He’s a lot cooler than Godwin.”
“I hope I broke his neck,” I said. I meant it.
“You tried to murder me, too,” Sally said. “You ought to go to prison for life. I don’t want this baby to know he has a criminal for a father. He’s going to have a respectable life.”
I was dealing with a mad person, and I was just making the future more impossible than it already was. I decided to back off.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m not going to bother you. I didn’t come to fight. You have the baby, but I’ll keep in touch. You might need money.”
“I can marry Rick Leonard,” she said. “He’s got ten times as much money as you’ll ever have. He’s not sloppy and he wears good clothes. If my father saw how long it’s been since you had a haircut he’d really beat you up. You’re a disgrace to our whole family. None of us ever want to see you again.”
“None of us ever did, except you,” I said.
“They’ve heard about you, though,” Sally said. “They know how awful you are. Your book’s even supposed to be dirty.”
“Why’d you pick me to get you pregnant?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” she said. “That was an accident. I’m not even sure it was you.”
“It was me,” I said. “Nobody else you know could have made anything live in you. I happened to be able to love you, even if you were a bitch.”
“Listen, are you calling me a bitch?” she said. “I’m gonna call the cops and have them get you right now.”
We were locked in combat. I was tired of being threatened with cops. I was tired of being threatened, period. I felt strange. For all I knew I was coming apart. Sally’s look wasn’t blank. It was hot and insolent. I hated her so I thought my temples would burst. She hated me too. Her armpits were hairy. We stood a foot apart, only her belly between us. Suddenly she kicked at me and tried to slap me. I caught her wrist and held it.
“Get your hands off me, you fucking maniac,” she said. “Can’t you see I’m pregnant?” She wrenched free and stepped back inside. “You maniac,” she said again, and slammed the door.
I drove away. She probably would call the cops. I didn’t want to go to jail. I went to Hermann Park and parked under some trees and calmed down. It was hot and sultry and I dozed. When I woke, strings of traffic were passing. I felt tireder when I woke up than I had ever felt. I could no longer believe in sleep. It didn’t work for me anymore. It was like struggling with my eyes shut. If I had to struggle I would rather struggle with my eyes open.
My party was in two hours and I looked terrible. I was totally scruffy and had no place to clean up. It would be my first evening as an author. Up to then I had only been a writer, and I didn’t know if I could mak
e the change.
Rice was nearby so I drove over and cleaned up in the second-floor bathroom of the library. I tried to wash my hair, but I couldn’t get my head in the lavatory. All I did was get my hair thoroughly wet and soapy. Getting the soap off was very difficult. I put on my suit and to my dismay the zipper fell off. It simply came off in my hand. My crotch was unclosable. It upset me badly. How could I go to an autograph party with an unclosable crotch? My suit was in bad shape anyway. It had fallen down on the floorboard of the car at some point and had gotten terribly wrinkled. I didn’t have the poise to be an author, I didn’t think.
As I was going out of the library, my old clothes held in front of my crotch, I met Dame Juliana. Her bosom quivered with indignation at the mere sight of me. It had been in almost constant motion for years.
“Aren’t you ever going to mature?” she said. “You look worse than ever. We ordered your book.”
“Thank you,” I said. I always felt humble in her presence.
“Are you going back to school?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
She snorted and bustled off. It occurred to me then that I should have lied to her. Maybe she would have given me my key back. I could have lived a secret existence in the library. I could live on the fifth floor, amid the religion stacks. No one ever came there. I could sneak out at night and slink over to South Main and buy cheeseburgers. I had thirty-four thousand dollars in the bank in San Francisco. If I lived in the library it would probably last me my entire life. Probably now and then I could waylay a coed. It wouldn’t be a bad life. I could read the church fathers, or anything else I wanted to read.
But I hadn’t lied, and my crotch was unclosable. I went to a drugstore and got some safety pins. They weren’t very long, but they were the best I could do. I pinned myself up. I didn’t do a very smooth job, but I was too tired to be patient and effective.
In some respects, life hardly seemed worth living. My hair was unruly, the tie I had meant to wear had fallen out of the car at some point, and my crotch was like a pincushion. Outside, it was coming a thunderstorm. If Bruce had been there to see the spectacle I was about to make he would have resigned his editorship in disgust. I was probably a disgrace to Random House.
All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers Page 20