by gay walley
So she opted to say nothing.
“Duet, you only like to show your low number cards, don’t you?” he said, lying next to her, companionably.
“Yes,” she laughed. “Anyway I’m a little inhibited, shy, by nature.”
She wanted to tell him that shyness gets passed down in the dna. It’s not nurture, it’s nature. But she didn’t think he would be interested in the subject.
“Shy is good,” he said.
It was? What does he mean? she asked herself, as he took her hand under the sheets and moved her fingers onto him.
She began stroking gently, wondering, is he going to move his hand over onto my body? But he didn’t. He just lay there as she fondled him. She was glad. No scene yet. Maybe a selfish lover was the best choice for her, she thought. Certainly this backdrop of a comfortable bed and a view of the city was.
But then his hand suddenly began fumbling down her stomach towards her nether regions. And he found her vagina. He began rubbing her. Let go, she thought. Just let go, he is not going to move his hand beyond there. He only expects one vagina. He kept playing with her clitoris and she began to feel her body flush, and want to be filled. Her skin suddenly began to pine for him and then he rolled over from his side of the bed to enter her, and here, here he could have entered either opening, it’s nothing that bad, she kept telling herself, and he entered the one he had been touching. Both were warm and liquid, although he did not know it, and he moved inside her and, this this is normal, she told herself, and she began to enjoy him, although she was always so nervous the first time with someone, about her configuration, as her father called it, and whether she would frighten or sicken the man. But so far nothing bad had happened so she enjoyed the feel of his body, its compactness, its sturdiness. He was strong and as sure of himself in bed as he was out of bed. Back and forth, not kissing her, but silently one with her, both Oskar and Duet *were careful with each other, yet joined, something deep going on between them. Before long he came, and then rolled off her.
“That was wonderful,” he said. Which was sweet.
She nuzzled into him, quiet, as always.
They were tired, and as he began to fall asleep, he once again ran his hands over her body, over her breasts and over her stomach, and then down, and he felt her, and then he began exploring, and she quickly moved her hand down to catch his, and gently pulled his hand up and away to her face. He embraced her fingers, but not without a fleeting moment where he had the sense that she was formed, he guessed, a little differently.
Then he fell asleep.
Seven:
The next morning, he was still asleep as she quietly got out of bed, zipped up her skirt, pulled her blouse over her head, stuffed her bra in her bag, picked up her shoes, and softly left the bedroom to go home and get ready for work. She noticed he did not surreptitiously watch her get out of bed, nor reach out to say goodbye. No tender partings with him. He just stayed asleep. She wondered what kind of message he was giving her. Maybe none at all.
She picked up coffees on her way in for Paula and herself, said hello to one of the older officious elevator men who always held the door for her, and then pushed her hip against the office door, greeted Liliana, Diego, Sondra, the others and then shrugged her coat off and sat down at her desk.
“How was dinner?” she heard gleefully from Paula’s cubicle.
“Well,” Duet answered,”it went well.”
“Meaning?”
“I slept with him,” Duet said, with a smile in her voice.
“On the first date?” Paula asked mockingly.
“I’m a slut,” Duet replied.
“Evidently,” the back of Paula’s head nodded.
“And are you?” Duet asked. “Could you please turn around so I can see your guilty face.”
“Yes,” Paula exclaimed exultantly, swinging her chair around and lifting her arms to the sky. “It was fantastic. We laughed in bed. He held me. He was loving. He read poetry to me in the morning. He teased me. I am a goner. He called this morning already and was tender, made jokes. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
“Wow,” Duet said. Hardly like she and Oskar. Oskar didn’t even kiss her on the cheek, never mind the mouth. “What do you talk about?” Duet sipped her coffee, guiltily. Here she thought she was lucky and now she feels as if she is in a cardboard version of a relationship, compared to Paula.“I tell him everything because he asks questions,” Paula explained. Duet noticed Paula wasn’t as coutured as usual. More relaxed in just a skirt and plain t shirt. Not so uptight. So soon? “… About my family. About streets I’ve lived on. I do imitations of my parents. I tell him every detail of my life and he seems to love it. I even told him about the incest and ---“
“How was he about that?”
“Great. He listened and held me. He didn’t say anything and I liked that. No platitudes.”
“Why did you tell him so soon?”
“Because I want him to know me. He wants to know me. That’s why he’s so amazing.”
“Usually men get scared about emotional problems,” Duet said.
Paula laughed. “He’s not like American frightened men who get all terrified of anything real. He can handle life. He’s been through stuff. His family even fought against the Germans in Denmark. He runs a business.”
“He sounds too good to be true, “ Duet said. “He might have a wife back in Denmark.” And then she knew that was unkind. “I’m sorry Paula*. I’m sure that’s not the case.”
“I called the Masters about it and they say he’s the one.”
Duet turned back to her desk. Maybe I’m a coward, she thought to herself. I don’t like to reveal anything about myself right away. But what’s wrong with going slowly? Duet, with her European background, somehow did not adhere to the post-modern Sarbannes-Oxley school of Let’s Disclose Everything about Ourselves Right Now school. Maybe it was because she felt her whole life had been a masquerade or maybe it was the influence of her European grandmother, Daisy. Daisy often talked about the seduction between men and women and how the seduction was the best part. “You don’t have to tell them everything. Let them learn slowly. Let there be mystery. For you, too. ”
But here Paula was getting intimate with someone by revealing every nook and cranny of herself. And he wants to know about her. Duet decided to focus on her screen and write an interview with Steve Slagle, the saxophonist.
Paula could see by the slant of Duet’s shoulders that Duet was hurt, so Paula walked over into her cubicle. “Hey everyone’s different. You’ll meet a great guy eventually too. Oskar sounds cool, but a little aloof. You need a husband.”
Duet didn’t know why but she suddenly had tears in her eyes. Paula was talking about longing. A longing that Duet usually pushed away from her mind.
Oskar didn’t call. It was noticeable. Well, this is the chance you take, Duet told herself that night as she was packing her pc and notes up. Happy endings are in the movies. Real life is painfully insecure. But, at the end of the week, she got an email. “Friday? Saturday? Sunday? Dancing? Dinner? Movie?”
It made her smile. She opted for Saturday.
She chose a movie at the Sunshine Theatre in the East Village and, once they settled into their seats, Oskar grabbed her hand and she loved that forthrightness. It was as if it had humor to it. The truth was she was happy with this distant man.
She knew he enjoyed being with her, too. She didn’t seem to have a lot of demands. Or, if she did, she kept them to herself.She knew Oskar had his own back story that kept him from wanting to be too intimate. She had the impression he had been hurt or mistreated by a woman somewhere and didn’t trust women. She could hear him: Women are unpredictable. They do what’s good for them, not the relationship.
But what she didn’t know was that he did not think like that at all. What he had wondered about was if there might be something unusual physically about Duet, although he had slept with a lot of women who had physical oddities. One with an over
sized labia. One who was anorexic. Ones who almost had no breasts, others who had almost oversized ones (must have been fake) and now that he thought about it, as the credits in the movie started coming up, the fake ones were cold to the touch. At least Duet’s breasts were real. Not that he cared one way or the other. He had learned from years of experience the way to handle women was just to roll with whatever happened. There was no controlling them.
But Oskar was not a guy who liked facts to pass him by, so when they got to Cafe Lucien after the movie for dinner (she always knew bistros, he liked that, she had her own mind, you didn’t have to work that hard with her) he put his arm around her shoulder. “Duet,” he said. “You still haven’t explained why.”
She was struck by how well Oskar ordered their meal in French. The tall young waitress in torn jeans and tight white t shirt from Toulouse seemed to keep hanging about their table.
Maybe she should* just do it. Tell him. Duet turned to him, sipped her drink, and began to open her mouth but found she couldn’t. She couldn’t explain why.
“Music,” she said. “My parents like music.”
That night in bed, she gave him another blow job. He was not that exploratory, she noted. He seemed satisfied with the way they related. He was not interested in getting to know her body. She didn’t realize that she was the one setting up that formula for making love, as a defense to protect herself. She didn’t realize that perhaps he was just following her lead, somewhere knowing that she wasn’t quite ready yet to be vulnerable. Or maybe she did and that was why she turned and slept on her side of the bed, and what it was, she decided, was that she was safe here.
She slept fairly well, with just his being there. He snored, but she was glad to hear the sound of it. She was not alone.
But, in the morning, she felt his hand on her waist. He began touching her. He wanted to make love, she could tell. She was having trouble waking up so his hands began moving over her, to arouse her. Down, down, exploring. She was half asleep and she thought, Even if he ends up screaming, let me take this five extra minutes of rest.
His hands were on her thighs, rubbing them and then, there they were, between her legs. Her hair. She was beginning to respond.
He pushed her legs apart…and then his hand started going over and over the area between her legs, as if he was reading a map in Braille. As if he had found a groove in a table and was exploring its shape and depth.
“Duet, “ he said. “I think….I think I understand.”
She swallowed. Here it comes.
“That is quite… unusual,” he said but, being a man of focus and a man of intentness about what he set out to do, he pushed himself into one of them. She turned her head to the slats of the Venetian blinds on the window.
She closed her eyes to try to feel comfortable and then, in an imperceptible second, he moved himself out of one vagina into the other.
And then he came.
“This, Duet, has rather interesting possibilities,” he said after, holding her. “It makes you…rather special.”
She smiled and cuddled in closer. He hadn’t jumped up screaming. He seemed to see positives in the situation. No wonder he was successful.
“Are you okay with it?” she said. “I know it’s a bit of a shock.”
“It is,” he said, lying on his back. “But there is only one problem.”
“Yes?” She looked at the streaks of sun that snuck in through his blinds. Don’t say anything that is going to make me want to jump from your balcony.
“Knowing this is going to lend itself to bad puns. It’s unavoidable. It would be asking too much of me to refrain.”
“If that’s all, I can survive it. So go ahead.”
“Well, as an example,” he said, with his arm touching hers, but not holding her, “you could say this is my first ménage a trois.”
“Not bad,” she answered, although she was thinking she doubted it.
“And,” Oskar said, jumping out of bed, “When you think of the crowds of people at Museum D’Orsay in Paris looking at the Origin of the World’s vagina, painted with all the depth and character of one of Audobon’s birds. ..And here you are doubly blessed. Think about that, Duet.”
Then he was briskly gone to the shower. She lay there for a bit, thinking. Well maybe it’s not so bad after all. I am unique, let’s face it. A double catch.. She swung her legs out of bed and began to dress. He was still in the shower when she had her coat on and she had to get back to her apartment to get dressed again for work. She left him a note.
“Your ambidexterity is impressive.”
Eight:
Duet waited at Penn Station for the $38 round trip bus to Boston to go to the sea. It was a long weekend and she wanted some quiet. All of this was very new to her. A man. A relationship.
She had rented a room at the Atlantic Inn on Cape Ann, the town where she had visited as a young woman, where she had known and loved David so long ago. He was still living there his Linked In message said but she wasn’t sure she was going to contact him. She just wanted a room overlooking the water and the fishing boats with their lit up masts that went out late at night. She had gone to the sea town as a child, with her grandmother, Daisy, who seemed to be cheerful by the sea, sitting on a lawn chair in the sun, with big white frame sunglasses like she was a movie star, and who would constantly say, “Why are Americans so fat?” Duet had loved their times together there, going out to dinner having lobster and fried clams. Young carpenters and poets would come to flirt with Duet at the table. Daisy would say, “They’re just boys, not men.” “ That’s because I’m a girl,” Duet laughed. “Maybe,” Daisy said grumpily.
Now, whenever Duet went back to the seatown, she felt whole, as if reconnecting to her inner self.Oskar, as much as he did not reject her, did not embrace her. He never called, and never emailed just to say he was thinking of her. She didn’t know if it was other women or he was not that taken with her but it seemed that he did not feel any compulsion to spend more than occasional dates with her. She enjoyed those dates with him, music, films, joking at dinner, so she always accepted. And they would make love, and he treated her body as if it was normal. Normal.
He even ventured to have oral sex with her and said it was like being a musician who switches from flute to sax, two different wind instruments. But she felt so embarrassed, she was unable to have an orgasm with either of them.
His curiosity about her anatomy was endless.
“Do you think you could have an orgasm with both of them at the same time?” he tossed off, while trying to motion down a waiter for another Dewars, after they’d just seen a French movie. “Would you say you have a g spot squared?”
She ignored him. “I suppose I could have an orgasm with both but it has never happened,” she eventually replied, fingering her hair nervously.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“What?”
“Play with your hair at dinner.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling like a teenager, and wondered about this obsession with perfection he had.
“Didn’t you ever masturbate with both at the same time, like an orchestra?” he continued.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“One orgasm was enough, I guess. Like the guy who said, he didn’t need to sleep with two women, because one woman is more than enough to handle.”
But this didn’t make sense to Oskar. He was a man who made as much money as he could. You didn’t deprive yourself. So if you could have two orgasms at once, why would you settle for one?
Oskar studied her with his businessman analytical gaze. “Maybe,” he said, “we can manipulate you so both go off, at the same time.”
She turned away and looked sadly out the restaurant window onto the First Avenue traffic in the rain.
“What’d I say?” he asked, defensively. “Just because your secret beats out Victoria’s Secret there is no reason to get upset.”
She turned back to him
and smiled drily, “Hard as this may be for you to understand, I don’t like being treated as a Cape Canaveral of sex.”
Now as she watched the cars on the other side of the highway fly by as the bus raced towards Boston, she was happy she had this new chance at love. Nothing earth shatteringly bad happened with intimacy with a man, just nothing had happened at all. She was having a perfectly fine romance with Oskar. He made love to her every night they were together and he sort of enjoyed, was turned on, really, by his choices.
Maybe she was the perfect solution to a financier. She has double assets, or should she say hidden assets. Still, she mused, Oskar was a little too relaxed about her spending a few days by herself by the sea. No, he said, he did not want to join her. Other men would have wanted to come with her for the adventure of knowing each other. He was content to keep her as an arm’s length sexual playmate, one that offered more unique possibilities than another.
Once she got to Boston, she took the Boston Maine railroad to Gloucester and then a $5 cab to the Inn. She checked in and she planned not to leave at all over the weekend. She would walk by the sea, to Good Harbor Beach, and round the Backshore. She would eat very little and she would read. She would rest. She would remember who she is.
She looked at her blackberry and there were messages from men who wanted to date her, men who were annoyed that she refused, messages from her mother, her father and work. She put the blackberry at the bottom of her suitcase, so it wouldn’t besiege her. She wondered if she really could stay away from it. Two days, just two days of cutting away, she thought, before quiet becomes an anachronism, a memory of how to spend time.
The sun was streaming in through the glass sliding windows, lighting up the sea rocks and the snow by the side of the road that snaked along the ocean.