Hot Flashes

by Raskin, Barbara;

  “Listen …” Norman says, searching for but unable to remember my name. “I’m going to turn this off.”

  He moves toward the television once more, but I reach for Sukie’s remote control and, the minute he turns off the set, I turn it on again.

  “Good Lord, Norman,” I say in what I hope sounds like an anguished cry. “I’ve got to see this. I’ve got to.”

  And once again Norman relents.

  Finally, like a sleepy reptile, Handsome Hubby’s penis starts coming awake, stretching, yawning, and sleepily shaking its head while opening its cyclopean eye. When the organ reaches its full, impressive growth, the Fantasy Lady tries, like a sword-eating swami, to swallow it. The camera zooms in and follows the intrusion of the mushroom-like head of the cock down the Fantasy Lady’s throat.

  Norman is profoundly embarrassed.

  “Oh God,” he groans, looking at me venomously. “Why are you doing this at a time like this?”

  He reaches out again to hit the stop button, but I instantly restart the film.

  “How do I know this is your movie, Norman?” I ask, as the slim blond wife arrives in her hubby’s fantasy to station herself behind him. There she begins licking his wet buttocks and low-slung scrotum, which dangles between his legs like a poorly packed, unevenly distributed shoulderbag purse. Eventually she swivels around to join the brunette on her hubby’s front.

  “Well, I can tell you what’s going to happen,” Norman says confidently.

  “Well you could guess that, Norman. Anyway, that just proves you’ve watched it, not that you own it. This might belong to Sukie’s”—I have to pause before uttering the word—“estate. I mean, these cost a lot of money, don’t they?”

  But now Norman is watching the screen, suddenly transfixed, and his voice evaporates from the heat of his own suppressed emotions. By now the slim blond wife, who has turned out to be a psychiatrist, is at her office. On the other side of her desk sits a visibly uncomfortable, awkward young male patient whose problem is his inability to achieve orgasm. Our lady shrink instructs him to unzip his fly and allow his lazy organ to hang out.

  “Now do this,” she says, showing him how to roll up the sleeve of his penis. “Now do this,” she says, showing him how to slide it back down again. Diligently the young man works the glove of his penis back and forth until his organ grows to monstrous length. Then the doctor gets horny and, lifting her skirt, shoves the crotch of her panties aside so she can stroke her labia. The mutual masturbation continues for a long time, but Norman, gentleman that he is, waits with professional courtesy until both his colleague and her patient come before turning back toward me.

  “I know you’re doing this for some ulterior motive,” he snarls. “I think you’re trying to embarrass me.”

  “Norman,” I chide. “why would I want to do that? I simply wanted to see an adult movie for once in my life.”

  Now, with a certainty he hasn’t displayed before, Norman presses the rewind button and stations himself between me and the set.

  “I just don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish,” he says sourly, “but I can certainly understand why you and Sukie were such good friends.”

  Then, with great deliberation, he ejects the video and, holding it firmly in front of him, marches resolutely out of Sukie’s bedroom for the last—if not the first—time.

  We have known numerous Normans in our times. Indeed, some of us even married Normans. After the 1984 TV debate between the Vice-President and Geraldine Ferraro, Jane and Barbara wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal in which they said George Bush had reminded every female American viewer of her first husband.

  Wrong.

  George Bush might have reminded Jane and Barbara, who are both Christians, of their first husbands, who were both Gentiles, but the ethnics among us, myself included by marriage, were originally married to men more like Norman Mailer than George Bush. Many insecure Depression Babies married Nice Jewish Boys who turned out to be disappointingly one inch too short all over.

  But we are onto men now. Actually, we have been onto men for quite a while. We always knew what they expected when they empaneled an all-woman jury. They were wrong. We always knew what they expected when they said, “Hey, wouldn’t a cup of coffee taste great right about now?” They were wrong. Barbara H. said power was an aphrodisiac. She was wrong. That wasn’t power. That was expensive after-shave she was smelling. The whole L.A. Airport smells like that.

  We have done lots of things for lots of men. We have scored for men, lied for men, cheated for men, passed bad checks for men and moved pre-Columbian art for men. We have looked up to men and gone down for them. We have worked with, under and out for men; we have worked some men over. We have put men up and put them down; we have put up with them and been put out by them. Constantly, throughout our lifetimes, we’ve carried on about men—about carrying on with them and about carrying on without them. Although Florence claims a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, lots of us identified with the Little Mermaid who died in her effort to dance for her prince. She, of course, landed on her tail just as we usually did.

  While our sisters married CPA’s or orthodontists, we married the medical students who, during the sixties, became shrinks who wore lovebeads or a single shark tooth on a leather thong around their necks and eventually ran off with female patients much more neurotic than we. If we married law students, they could never pass either kind of bar and if they did, often became alcoholic public defenders or public-interest advocates. The poets we loved wouldn’t marry anyone and most of the Ph.D.s in psychology whom we dated ended up in Haight-Ashbury on one side of the couch or the other.

  Those few of us who were virgins on our wedding nights, had no basis for making any sexual comparisons. What does a cherry know about the pits? As virgins, we were too ignorant and insecure to trust our own instincts, especially since our husbands insisted they were great lovers—conveniently confusing their pussy-lust for talent. Those of us who were not actually virgins, but who withheld our sexual favors from men who wanted virginal brides, realized—only too late—that our first lovers were the best. However, we stayed married and eventually, over the years, discovered that our first lovers were the only guys who never showed up at class reunions.

  Although Sukie had told me about Norman Naylor with great wit and much laughter, I knew he had hurt her feelings when he said she was too moody and too much trouble to see any longer. When she had replied that she had never wanted to be anything but friends, he said he didn’t have the time or the temperament to be “just friends” with any woman. Sukie had also said that Norman was enormously cheap and was always afraid she’d want buttered, for a dollar more, rather than plain popcorn at a movie. She said that he insisted on autopsying movies to death, scrutinizing the product of every noseblow into his grungy gray handkerchief as if trying to locate the live virus responsible for the common cold, and drove like someone we would hate driving behind.

  None of us any longer bothers to try impressing men like Norman. It was Sukie who said that if you leave the t out of outrage, you have “ourage” men. No longer do we twist ourselves out of shape for ourage men. Nowadays, when we rendezvous with either old or new ourage lovers, we no longer bother to apologize for—or even identify—the various scars on our bodies, let alone our souls. We assume that most ourage men have had enough experience to be able to distinguish between appendix, hysterectomy, cesarean and fibroid surgery scars designed and cut with care for wear with bikinis. They also have personal familiarity with stretch marks, although they sport theirs in different locales than ours.

  Since we grew up believing that physical fitness meant brushing our teeth twice a day and eating something from each of the Four Basic Food Groups we are not in great shape.

  However, though fat, flab, veins and wrinkles now mar our bodies, we believe these are offset by our sexpertise, which can be defined as maintaining a good sense of humor while assuming weird positio
ns. Along with our muscles, our expectations have relaxed. We no longer freak out when men call us by the wrong name, and we never expect multiple sexual encounters from the same man in the course of a single evening.

  Several years ago, we made a policy decision not to listen anymore when ourage men use adjoining bathrooms, since the sound of their urine has changed considerably over the years and their streams have become much slower starting, less steady and markedly weaker than ever before. Indeed, the infrastructure of our male peers has begun to resemble that of our aging family homes where corroded pipes are taken for granted.

  Needless to say, their hair (both kinds) is as gray as ours. Maxine, who until she was forty-three thought all pubic hair was black, finally escaped from the sexual shtetl in which she had been segregated and discovered that Wasps have totally different color schemes. Also she learned that she wasn’t the only person in the world guilty of leaving a stray gray question mark stuck to the side of a bathtub after a long soak. Nevertheless, because of the paucity of special agents in our skewed (some say screwed) sexual economy, Maxine came to believe we must forget the old American adage about a chicken in every pot and share the few male resources available. In other words, some of us have taken up with other women’s husbands.

  The feminist party line on sleeping with someone else’s husband is fuzzy. Basically, we could never decide whether we were committing adultery if our lovers were married but we were not. We were always unclear as to whether both parties had to be married to commit adultery, or whether an innocent single woman could be found guilty by association.

  The adultery question continues to plague us. As we all know, for the past four years Joanne has been having an affair with a married man who visits her from six-thirty to seven-thirty every morning while supposedly jogging in Central Park. We consider this harmless since it keeps Joanne happy and her lover away from marriage-hungry younger women who can only hear their biological clocks ticking. Joanne maintains that she is helping her lover’s wife maintain the status quo and that she should be commended for her altruism. Needless to say, we have been unable to settle this issue to everyone’s satisfaction. On this question there are two camps—and one is full of camp followers.

  Although it used to be that we could forget our troubles by sitting in a bar until an appropriate stranger (someone with whom we could talk and feign or feel love for a finite period of time) finally appeared, we admit that that is no longer feasible. Nowadays it takes far too long to meet a man imaginative enough to see our appeal through the veil of our years. As Gracie’s George said recently, “It now takes all night to do what I used to do all night.”

  We have finally acknowledged that we can no longer hang around an ocean marina, looking slim, tan, and mysterious, until some Special Agent docks his yacht, comes ashore in faded T-shirt and cutoffs, and engages us in a conversation so crackling with sexual static that he impulsively invites us to sail off to Micronesia that very afternoon aboard his boat with his all-male, deeply tanned crew for the next six weeks.

  Although we did not necessarily like all men all the time, we loved being with some man most of the time; we loved being with men for the same reasons we loved going to movies. Both offered us quick trips out of our own heads. Men could modify our moods, unleash our ids, enlarge our egos, and suppress our heavy-duty, overdeveloped consciences. Men and movies offered delicious excursions out of ourselves; like enabling legislation, they helped us get from one place to another.

  After lifelong addictions to passion, for which we would gladly sacrifice sanity and security in pursuit of some momentary thrill, it is difficult to forget that search for the quiver that quickens life. So we continue to hunt for the Perfect Lover, who will provide us with an escape route from inferior realities, through the old tried-and-true, trial-and-error method, despite our decreased patience and diminished faith.

  When I start downstairs, I see Elaine and Norman standing together at the front door. Elaine, now wearing a fresh cotton dress, is holding a large box and she looks up at me with a surprised but easy smile. The sour expression that so often stains her face has evaporated and she looks lighter and brighter than she has in years.

  I quicken my descent, avoiding Norman’s eyes.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We’re going to the funeral home,” Elaine says, flashing some of her old conviction and competence. “I put together an outfit for Sukie—a blouse and the paisley suit.” She pauses. “I’d been planning to take a taxi over there this afternoon, but now Norman’s offered to take me.”

  Her smile is like an old friend I haven’t seen for a long time.

  I turn, shamefaced, toward Norman. But he shows no sign of a grudge. Either he missed the point of my performance upstairs or he is actually rather good-natured. There’s even an outside possibility that he has some professional perspective that remains operative despite his personal foibles.

  “How nice of you, Norman,” I say, genuinely moved. “How … very nice.”

  He nods at me but then turns to touch Elaine’s arm and propel her forward.

  “Then we’re going to the police precinct to tell them about Sukie’s car,” Elaine continues hurriedly. “I found her insurance policy with the serial number and everything. And after that we’ll go over to the Post and drop off the funeral announcement Joanne wrote.”

  “Gosh, Elaine,” I smile, truly impressed by her renewal.

  Then, I lean against the smooth silky banister as I watch them walk outside talking animatedly to each other.

  CHAPTER 14

  When the doorbell rings late that afternoon, we know that it’s Mr. Smilow. I look at the faces around me, realize I am the unanimous choice of a welcoming committee, and reluctantly go out to open the door.

  He is wearing a wide-ribbed blue seersucker suit with a white shirt upon which, right above his heart, he’s pressed his panama hat as if acknowledging the national anthem before the start of a sporting event. As a fight promoter and gambler, Manny Smilow mixed it up with many of Chicago’s diverse elements, and his semi-legit life, as described by Sukie, had tinted his basically decent character with a tinge of corruption.

  Since Manny Smilow has taken a Northwest Airlines Chicago-Vegas gambling junket once a month for the past twenty-five years, he has a vague Vegas tan, the variety acquired by walking between casinos during the daytime. His stubbornly black, naturally wavy hair succeeds in covering his skull, and a raunchy racetrack squint elongates his eyes. It is obvious this man has scanned the heavens many times to see if some game was going to be rained out.

  Beside him stands a woman whose face, and particularly the set of bags beneath her eyes, identifies her as his sister. She was once very good looking, and a scent of sensuality still clings to her, suggesting she had relied heavily upon her handsomeness to get through life. Now her body looks like the “before” shape that shadows a newly reduced figure in a diet-pill ad.

  Her hair is totally disciplined and “done.” Educated waves hug her head, and palette-platinum locks mingle with naturally light strands for a highly stylized “frosted” look. She is wearing a dark cotton sleeveless sheath with a matching, long-sleeved jacket draped over her shoulders—a perfect hot-flash fashion.

  Shifting her handbag so as to extend her right hand to shake mine, she says, “I’m Rosetta, Sukie’s Auntie Rosetta. This is one of the greatest shocks of our lives. We lost Clara, Sukie’s mother, only five years ago. A problem with the heart; she went quickly. But I’m afraid this is too much for my brother. It’s been a terrific shock. Manny’s just holding on. No parent should bury a child, regardless of age. It’s not in the natural order of things. This is out of order.”

  Mournfully, I agree with her by bobbing my head.

  Rosetta is now inside the foyer, beckoning her brother to follow.

  “Hello, Mr. Smilow,” I say, extending my hand again. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Darling, I recognize you,” he says, “but I’ve fo
rgotten the name. The shock …”

  “I’m Sukie’s friend Diana Sargeant—I mean Satz. I mean I was Satz when we met once here in Washington, but that was a long time ago. I live in New York. I was … the one who called you.”

  “Of course,” he agrees, inspecting me from top to toe. “And I know you’re Sukie’s friend because you’re a real looker. All Sukie’s girlfriends are good lookers. Ten years younger than your age, you look. That’s why I never understood why you all didn’t find more happiness. That’s what I’ll never understand. Should’ve been better men around to take better care of all you fine women.”

  He is inside now, blinking in the diminished light. Finally he begins walking toward the kitchen with Rosetta and me in his wake.

  “We’ve got lots to talk about,” he says, pushing open the swinging door.

  Inside, they are waiting for us—Elaine, Joanne and Norman—seated sedately around the table.

  “Okay.” Manny Smilow nods as he registers all the faces. “Okay, so I knew my sugar plum had enough good friends she wouldn’t be left alone now. She was always good to her friends. Plenty of money I gave her to lend her girlfriends when I had it. When times were good. A couple times I paid one girl’s tuition at Chicago University because my Sukie asked me to.”

  “Please sit here,” Norman says to Rosetta, leaping out of his chair in a way that acknowledges the past history and present prerogatives of a well-preserved Jewish princess.

  Joanne disappears and returns with two more chairs from the dining room so we can all sit around the table.

  Mr. Smilow takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair before sitting down. His eyes are a pre-cataract blue, so that even though he isn’t crying, he appears tearful. His mouth is bent into what seems to be a permanently broken smile, as if he had been interrupted long ago by a stroke that flash-froze his features into an eternally crestfallen expression. However, there is another angle from which he looks more cheerful—more like the kind of guy who would buy a round of drinks for anyone congenial enough to sit at the bar instead of a table.