by Julia Scott
ELLEN SUSSMAN is the national best-selling author of four novels, A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons, and On a Night Like This. She is the editor of two critically acclaimed anthologies, Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave and Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex. Her website is EllenSussman.com.
When I was around forty, I wrote a novel about a happily married woman who tumbles into an affair of passion. I thought it was good, really good. So I was delighted when my agent sold it in Germany, for lots of money. But not in any other country, for some reason. For many years I thought that the Germans were just more sophisticated than everyone else.
This scene depicts the heroine doing some last-minute grocery shopping when she encounters a strangely seductive man who can’t stop looking at her avocados. What could be sexier?
Looking back, I wonder if I created a new genre: vegetable erotica. The Affair was my first published novel. I thought I had written a great novel, not a supermarket harlequin romance. It’s only now, years later, reading this with fresh eyes, that I think: Cover up those strawberries! Don’t undress that cellophane! You won’t find a beating heart there or anywhere else, that’s for sure.
—E.S.
Jessa passed the carts at the front door, passed the hand-baskets even—she only needed strawberries. There were very few people in the supermarket—it was too late for the moms and too early for the late-night stragglers.
A man was choosing avocados. Jessa stopped when she saw his hands, watched his hands turn over an avocado, reject it, choose another. His hands held the avocado for a moment and then he brought it to his nose. She looked up.
He was watching her.
“Am I in your way?” he asked.
She was surprised to be caught. She had felt invisible. “No. I’m sorry.” She was about to move on and then she said, “Do they smell?”
“Here,” he said, stepping toward her, holding it under her nose. She took a breath and smelled his hands.
“This one’s ripe,” he said, smiling. “You can have it.”
She shook her head and he took his hand, the avocado, his smell away.
“I need strawberries,” she said.
He was not tall, but his face was arresting; she liked his beard, his strong nose, his deep-set eyes. She liked his hands, remarkable hands.
“Do you play piano?” she asked, looking at his hands.
“No,” he said, still smiling. “Only avocados.”
“I need strawberries,” she said again and finally she turned away.
She found them, rows of little crates, bundles of huge, bulbous strawberries pushing their way out of their cellophane covers. She stared at them stupidly and knew that the man was at her side now, was watching her choose.
“I know,” she said. “I should smell them.” She didn’t look up but felt his arm against hers.
“No,” he said and his voice was deep but very sweet. “You have to look at them. Closely.”
He lifted the cellophane cover of one of the baskets, undressing it. He picked up the basket and brought it close to Jessa’s face. She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them and saw strawberries.
She looked at him.
“I like your blouse,” he said.
“You mean my breasts,” she said.
“Those too,” he told her.
“I don’t usually dress like this for the market.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I’m at a party. A dinner party.”
“Are you having fun?”
“Not very much.”
He put the strawberries into her hands. She felt his fingers touch the edges of her palms.
“And you?” she asked.
“I’m having a great deal of fun,” he said.
“Not now,” she said. “Before. Before you came here.”
“Before I came here I put my wife to bed early because she’s got the flu and I decided I wanted an avocado.”
“That’s all. Just an avocado?”
“I want more than that now,” he said.
“Would you like strawberries?” she asked.
“I would love strawberries,” he said.
“Here. Take these,” she offered, handing him the crate. But his hands were still there, next to hers, and it was as if she was putting her hands in his.
“We can share them,” he suggested.
“I’m married,” she said.
“I know,” he told her.
“Our best friends are over for dinner and I just ran out for strawberries.”
“Come with me for a walk.”
“No,” she said.
She looked at his eyes—were they gray or green?—and she turned away, toward the rows of strawberries, of tangerines, of lemons. Every color looked too red, too orange, too yellow in the sharp fluorescent glare. When she looked back at him he was smiling.
“You’ll come with me,” he said.
“Do I look like a woman who would do what you tell me to do?”
“No,” he said and his fingers touched her wrist. “I like that too.”
*
After cereal and toast and conversation about homework, a dinner meeting, Rosie’s lost sneaker; after the girls left for school and Roger left for work, Jessa walked into her bedroom to shower and dress. But she found her blouse on the floor, her transparent blouse from the night before, and when she picked it up and held it to her face, she smelled the stranger.
She took off her nightshirt and held the blouse in front of her. She looked in the mirror. Now she could see her breasts, the curve of them, the soft slope of them, the nipples darker, harder, more insistent. She could see everything through the thin material of the shirt—she could see the man’s hand choosing her breast the way he chose an avocado, taking her nipple to his mouth the way he tasted a strawberry. And through the sheer fabric, she could see the beating of her heart.
HEATHER DONAHUE
COPING
HEATHER DONAHUE starred in the film The Blair Witch Project, and has appeared in many films and television shows since, including a guest role on the sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. She is author of the memoir Growgirl: The Blossoming of an Unlikely Outlaw, about her time as a medical marijuana grower.
I wrote “Coping” when I was eleven, and in sixth grade. In the interest of the TMI version of twenty-first-century honesty, I did later go to therapy in California for a total of four weeks with an incredibly hot therapist. I finally ended the therapy by saying, “You know, I kind of feel like you’re my ear hooker and I want to have more respect for your profession.” He looked a lot like Jordan in the story you’re about to read.
This was written for a class assignment, circa 1985. It was carefully bound and preserved by my parents.
—H.D.
GLEN DAVID GOLD
NOUS
GLEN DAVID GOLD is the author of two novels, Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside. His essays, memoirs, and short fiction have appeared in McSweeney’s, the New York Times Magazine, and the Independent UK. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I lay the blame for “Nous” at the feet of Philip Glass. In the summer of 1979, I was living in a New York apartment. I was sixteen. My radio got only one station after midnight, from some university (NYU? Columbia?). One night, I thought the radio had gotten stuck somehow on the same couple of measures. But then, no, the driving piano and synthesizer and sax and whatever else was trapped in there had changed. Then it changed again.
Half-awake, I couldn’t tell how long had passed. It was a nightmare. I hated this music. But then I needed to know what it was. Ten minutes later, it was still going and like a lot of high school hates, I realized I loved it. And out came the pen, unfortunately. I remembered a class about the three parts of Platonic lo
ve—and so I wrote “Eros” and “Thumos,” salutes to passion and the desire for the intangible. Neither one of which is nearly as terrible as the third poem, “Nous,” which describes “mental desire.” The poems were published in Symposium, the literary journal of the Thacher School.
When the music ended, I learned I’d been listening to “Dances No. 1 and 3” off of an as-yet-unreleased tape by Philip Glass, and I had a poem in front of me that I just knew was my ticket to being a part of the creative avant-garde.
I cringe particularly at the “pons more alluring than mons” line, because I thought that marked me as above all the lust stuff. Once I finally got acquainted with one of those mons things, all that high moral crap flew out the window. I don’t even know what a “hazelrod harlequin” is, but it sounds like a piece of melty candy and I wouldn’t let it anywhere near a mons.
—G.D.G.
NOUS
The Bright pink sweetmeat in the melancholy grey voice, She is.
Ringed with Rhinestones
Rare as Radium
Is the elegant beauty
Lover . . . love her apple of your sweet eyeteeth
Aorta becoming more than areola
Pons more alluring than mons
Her harmonious contour attracts only after she as.
Hair of liquid gold, a sun’s brightest day, the majesty of
Lion’s price—
Skin of polished cedar, yet soft as sea foam—
Iris of breakfast sky, pool velvet and doe’s tail—
A Hazelrod Harlequin.
Oh, god-goddess—it hurts.
So beautiful—so dangerous.
Gelt upon Love upon Pain upon Pain upon Pain
The masque on Beauty of BeautyUnderneath—
A painful, festering wound
Wrinkled and Pink
To heal, you require cure—
Her, to fill the fleshy caverns of the heart and minds.
SUSAN STRAIGHT
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS
Straight and her future husband.
SUSAN STRAIGHT has published eight novels, including the Rio Seco trilogy: Between Heaven and Here, Take One Candle Light a Room, and A Million Nightingales. Highwire Moon was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001. In April 2014, Straight received the Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times. Her short stories have appeared in Zoetrope, the Ontario Review, the Oxford American, the Sun, Black Clock, and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Family Circle, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, Harper’s, the Nation, and other magazines.
I was almost fourteen, one day older than my best friend, Tami, and we’d met some guys who were high school seniors. Nobody broke my heart, but someone broke hers, and then I decided to be heartbroken too. So I wrote this poem for us, on the rebound.
I wrote twelve poems, some worse than others. This one might be the worst. I thought everything had to rhyme, clearly, and it made Tami feel better. A few weeks later, I met my future husband on a school bus trip to the Los Angeles Zoo, where my classmates were so obnoxious to the primates that our freshman class was kicked out of the zoo. Seriously.
On the bus ride home, he and I started talking. The photo was taken when we were eighteen, and I was a freshman again—at USC this time.
—S.S.
LAURA FRASER
RASPY ROMANCE
LAURA FRASER is the author of the memoirs An Italian Affair and All Over the Map, as well as a long-time journalist and the recent cofounder and editorial director of Shebooks, which publishes short ebooks by women.
When I was sixteen, my friend Sallie was addicted to bodice-ripping romances. I teased her about it—especially since I had to write her Great Gatsby paper because she’d been too busy reading Love’s Tender Fury. I told her romance novels were so trashy even I could write one. So, for her seventeenth birthday, I did.
Raspy Romance, from a literary point of view, has a few problems. For one thing, there is no beach near Denver, where the hero, Brent Donovan, takes the raven-haired Mollie to proclaim the ardor of his affections while pressing his manhood against her. For another, it’s not quite clear what exactly happens on that beach when slowly, tenderly, they enact the promise of true love. At sixteen, the whole notion of sex—and “manhood” in particular—was vague, to say the least, and my imagination lurked in the great, confusing void between romantic comedies and my mother’s copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.
Some excerpts follow.
—L.F.
ONE DAY as Mollie finished a song at the tavern, she tripped as she went down the two rickety stairs to the stage. Her foot was caught between two slats. No one in the smoke-filled room paid attention to her cries. The clattering of beer mugs and shouts of the poker game were too loud to distinguish her voice from the squeals of drunken hussies.
Frustrated and in pain, Mollie’s foot throbbed as it was stuck between the boards. Then she felt relief when two strong arms gently pried the boards apart. Then he picked her up, carried her to the lobby, and set her on the couch, and propped her foot up on his lap. Mollie smiled gratefully into his deep blue eyes.
She was awed by his appearance, more distinguished, yet rugged and handsome than any man she had ever seen, even in England. He was tall and broad, though slim. The fine linen of his loose, embroidered shirt could scarcely hide the rippling muscles of his arms. His rich brown hair was feathered back to expose a tanned face with a determined and prominent jaw.
“You’ve got to be careful, miss,” he said tenderly as he looked at her ankle with concern. He laughed softly. “You’ll be fine, though. It doesn’t seem like even a sore ankle could slow you down,” he said, noticing how her compact little body squirmed on the sofa.
Mollie smiled at him. She chatted easily with him; his warm humor made him enjoyable to talk to.
“My name is Brent,” he said. “Brent Donovan. I’m from Denver, out here on business. Now do you think, if I helped you, you might be able to make it to dinner with me?”
[ . . . ]
Brent and Mollie walked slowly along the beach talking. They came upon a secluded spot, surrounded by trees. They sat down on a large rock, facing the moon over the ocean.
In the moonlight, Mollie appeared more enchanting than ever. Her face was silhouetted against the rock, surrounded by the darkness of her loose hair. Her eyes reflected Brent as he looked at her; his face was open and sincere. To Mollie, his was a face of unprecedented charm.
Brent’s large, hard body kept her warm, his sinewy muscles enveloping her and he placed his sturdy hands upon her waist. As he looked into her eyes, he leaned towards her, kissing her gently. She could scarcely feel the difference between the kiss and the wind brushing her lips. He kissed her again, and lingered. The moments passed, binding their love irrevocably.
He gathered Mollie in his arms, carefully laying her down on the soft, fine sand. His blue eyes were soft, in contrast to the hardness of his face. When he removed his shirt, Mollie caressed the smoothness of his chest and the broad expanse of his shoulders. He kissed her more passionately as the ruffled skirt and peasant blouse slipped off her body, leaving her in her sheer lace shift.
Softly he kissed her breasts, and softly his hand explored her warm, enraptured body. Trembling to his touch, she kissed him with fervor and felt his body responding. Then, naturally and tenderly, but with the ardency of desire, their bodies met. It was the celebration of true love.
THE END
(unless you prefer to use your imagination)
MELANIE GIDEON
LETTER TO MUSTACHE
(AFTER MICHAEL ONDAATJE)
MELANIE GIDEON is the author of the memoir The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After, an NPR and San Francisco Chron
icle Best Book of 2009. Her novel Wife 22 has been translated into thirty languages and is currently in development with Working Title Films.
When I was in my twenties, I was in a relationship with a man I’ll call Mustache. We’d been dating a long time and our relationship was on its last legs but neither one of us could summon up the courage to end it. It was one of those addictive, obsessive sort of loves. Lots of drama. Jealous rages. Everything life and death all the time.
So, while this drama was going on I had just discovered Michael Ondaatje’s novel In the Skin of a Lion. I carried the book around with me like a talisman. The novel was full of gravitas and, to me, unbelievably sexy and erotic. Short, lyrical sentences, fragmentary, almost like a poem. It was haunting. And I was not the only one who felt that way.
Anne Enright wrote in the Guardian: “There are certain books that should be taken away from young writers; that should be prised out of their clutching fingers and locked away until they are all grown up and ready to read them without being smitten. At the very least, they should have ‘Don’t try this on your own typewriter’ printed in bold across the front. In the Skin of a Lion is full of things that Michael Ondaatje can do, but that you probably can’t do, or can’t do yet. It is a highly contagious book.”
Contagious, yes. I ignored Ms. Enright’s advice; I did indeed try this on my own typewriter. So, circa 1986, Michael Ondaatje In the Skin of a Lion–inspired, I give to you—a love letter to Mustache.
—M.G.
On the road. By a river. Running through mazes of green. You are in front of me. I lose you.
Night. Foggy. On the road. By the water. It is warm. Muggy. Hard to see. Climb over hills. Through jungles. Into darkened shacks. Through windows. Searching for you.