She removed her mouth, despite a protesting groan from David, and gulped to get it down. Her fears had been foolish, because all of it was easily ingested. She looked at David and felt delighted with her results. He lay there, his gray wool pants and jockey shorts twisted at the knees, his red penis dwindling in the open air, glistening wet. His head was thrown back as if he had been caught in that position by an audience.
But her pleasure was short-lived when she took a second look at his shriveling member. She had assaulted him because she wanted to make love, to touch and sweat and make contact, and to forget everything that had failed and was failing in her life. She was horny. She had felt in her thighs and in her dry thirsting mouth that she wanted love: she had seduced David so that he would satisfy her, but the drooping flag of manhood before her eyes wasn’t encouraging.
His eyes opened. Only a little at first. They looked sleepy, drunk, and happy. Their happiness infuriated her. She had to make clear that the fun wasn’t over yet. She stood up and, looking him in the eyes, she pulled her pink cotton top up and over her head, pulling her arms through quickly. Her nipples were thick and pink-red. Her white breasts were mapped by veins, and they stuck out in the air as if held by invisible strings.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice hoarse and yet small and innocent like a child’s.
She unzipped her pleated beige pants, hooked her underpants with her fingers, and pulled off both layers in one motion, steadying herself with first one hand and then the other against the couch. She looked smaller naked: sleek and white like a boy, despite her large breasts, narrow stomach, and widening hips that poured her like champagne into the graceful stem of her legs. She got on top of him and he ran his hands up and down her, happily. She was like a stone washed and polished by the sea; his fingers ran over her back, her buttocks, her legs, as though making an assessment. Beneath her, she felt his penis harden again, and that heartened her. She liked him a little more and kissed him, forcing his mouth open with her tongue and exploring inside like a probe.
He began to turn her over, gently flipping her, so that she was under him, lying lengthwise on the couch. He kissed her neck and traveled down her collar to her breasts. That was predictable and irritated her: men enjoyed her breasts far more than she enjoyed their enjoyment.
But he surprised her, kissing her nipples only once and then proceeding south, his lips touching her lightly, raising her skin so that the sense of body was widened—she could feel her legs and stomach yearn for touch. He arrived at her belly and curved his tongue around and into her navel. That made her gasp: her belly rolled in, tickled and wounded delightfully by this invasion.
His hands had gripped her thighs, she noticed, squeezing and massaging, his thumbs rubbing inside toward her vagina. Each pass opened her legs more—he seemed to be leaving the couch, or, at least, hovering over it—and his fingers began to brush her pubic hair. He would notice that she shaved and trimmed herself so that the bush made a neat V, easily accessed, to encourage just what she hoped he was about to do.
But he resumed his whispery kisses of her stomach and breasts and neck, whooshing over her body with unexpected variations so that she wriggled away at the same time that her hands pulled his head toward her. Just when she felt his teasing would make her insane, he stopped. Her body was instantly angry, sure that he meant to betray the promise of this prelude.
Her legs were pulled wide apart, confirming her fear, but then—ecstatically—she felt his teeth scrape the insides of her thighs. She closed her legs, surprised, but quickly opened them invitingly. He accepted with his tongue and mouth. His hands went under her, squeezing her buttocks and raising her hips so that she was offered to him like a feast.
His mouth kissed her there: she felt warmth rise and suffuse her belly as his tongue and lips pressed, kneaded, and tickled. Her hands clung to his hair as if steadying herself. She was in continual motion, a thoroughbred trembling at the gate.
She heard herself moan, but nothing now felt conscious or determined. She was in pieces, floating on a sea of movement and sensation, rolling with the waves as he penetrated with his tongue, making regular passes over her clitoris.
For a moment she worried that he would stop before the climax. Men had done this much and quit when she most wanted them to go on: her fingers tightened their grip on his hair and she forced a moan, pushing his head into her genitals as well, so the message would be clear. This spurred him. His hands raised her buttocks even more so that her head and neck were firmly against the couch, and her vagina open to the air and to his investigations. Now he licked and touched and mouthed all over. Her thighs, her lips, swallowing her juice and bits of her hair, eating her with devoted passion.
And now the earthquake began! She was spun off into the universe, heat searing her insides, the air thinning, and deep within, the core of desire glowed and hardened, pulsing with the need to escape the prison of her flesh.
From her came sounds of agony and joy. Her eyes opened and she saw the yellow sprinkler pipes bounce in the air as she heaved with the expulsion of passion.
“Oh! God, God, God, God, God.” she said to the sprinklers as she bucked against the merciless pressure of his tongue, darting in and over and away, with an irregular but relentless pace. She was free! She was free! She was free!
“Don’t get me excited,” Betty whispered into his ear.
“Mmmm.” Tony was swimming. He moved to a silent rhythm, taking his strokes into the hidden stream, the warm river within his wife.
“You promised,” she whispered.
Tony knew she was lying; she wanted an orgasm. He made sure he angled his behind up, under, and in, so that the pelvic bone would do its job. This was a familiar and effective choreography in their marriage: like any good dance routine, technique dominated, but the magic would come at last and transform the careful movements into inspired grace.
“Uhhh,” she let out, and he knew it would be soon. His hands lightly touched her sides as he ran them up, gripping her armpits with his thumbs, and squeezing as if she were a doll. This worked for him—his thrusts deepened. He was really in the ocean now, stroking mightily toward the shore of release, sweat bursting from him, his limbs stretching with every move, his back arching, his head bobbing and surfacing like a dolphin at play.
He pushed his hand down between his member and her hard knob to emphasize the point. For a moment this interrupted their dance—and then she lifted, from the hips, off the bed, and they united, sweating, groaning, their mouths open and yearning, as they took their long sweetly agonizing swim together, thudding on the sand as one, exhausted by their happy exercise.
“Oh, you’re crazy,” Fred complained. “That’s just bullshit.”
Marion reached past him and pulled the clock radio toward her. The force of the cord coming up made the night table teeter.
“Jesus!” Fred grabbed the table to steady it.
“It’s two-thirty. Fred. I have to be up at seven.”
“I don’t know how you can sleep—”
“I never have any trouble sleeping.”
“I don’t mean that. I’m churning inside. You think I don’t find you attractive when all I want is to make love—”
“You don’t want to make love. You want to come inside me.” She slammed the clock radio back down and stepped over him, out of bed.
Fred stared at her as if he had been slapped. “What are you saying?”
Marion left the room.
He paused a moment to consider whether it might be safer and saner if he didn’t pursue what had already become an ugly marathon of miscommunication. But he was juggling in his mind a variety of tormenting thoughts: did she mean he was lousy in bed? Maybe she didn’t want to have sex as often as he? Maybe she didn’t love him anymore? What was it? For Fred, this was as maddening as not being told who committed the murder in a suspenseful thriller. He got up and followed Marion.
He found her sitting on one of the kitchen chairs
placed beside a window that caught a partial view of the East River. The musty glow of New York’s streetlamps provided a silhouette of Marion. Her face looked tight, as if she were holding back tears. He noticed this, but it only spurred his desire to interrogate her. For Fred, great emotion in another person was like a bone to a trained retrieving dog; off he went, his hind legs powering him forward through thickets of dialogue to find his marrow of truth.
“Honey, let’s talk about it,” he said. His attempt to say this calmly made his voice whiny.
“Fred, I don’t feel well. I want to be left alone. Can’t you do that?” She turned to face him and he got a look at her staring eyes, big with welling tears.
He sighed. He told himself to turn around and go, but his feet felt flat and glued to the floor. The oddest thing was that he still had his erection, though it didn’t feel pleasurable at the moment. “I love you,” he said.
She snorted with disgust and helplessness.
“What’s wrong with that! I can’t relax if you’re not happy. I have to know what’s bothering you. It’s eating me up inside.”
“Fred, I worked all day to cook a huge meal for your friends—”
“They’re your friends too—”
“If you must know, they’re not friends to either of us. It was like doing business tonight. This evening wasn’t any more fun than a business lunch. I get plenty of them during the week. Goddamm it, I just don’t feel like making dinner to help your career and then spreading my legs to top it off.”
Fred’s mouth opened in the middle of Marion’s speech and remained so for several seconds afterward. She had begun to cry while she spoke, and now, biting her lips to try to stop, she was sobbing. He felt as if light had illuminated the dingy room where he stored his marriage. Everything she said sounded so right: she had given a name to what had made him uneasy about the party: both his motive for having it, and everyone else’s for coming, disgusted him.
“Honey,” he said, deeply moved. He went to her, knelt by her chair, and put his arm around her. She’s so smart about people, he thought. “You’re right. But you’re wrong about why I wanted to make love. It’s ’cause I felt so lonely and crummy about the way things went. Everybody was ugly and trying to get at each other. I can’t believe people are so competitive.”
She put her head on his shoulder and wept heartily. There was no one else with whom she could be this unhappy. And Marion believed that was the best one could hope for. Unless, of course, you had a face and body and temperament like Patty’s.
“I wanted to make love because what we have is so different,” Fred said. “We don’t need that kind of shit. I just wanted to hold onto something real.” She cuddled into his arms now, beginning to slide off the chair. Her weight felt cumbersome and he pulled her up, leading her toward the bedroom. “You should go to sleep,” he said so earnestly that one would imagine she had been keeping herself up.
He put her to bed tenderly, remaking the bed and tucking her in so that she was cozy. She kissed him—her wet face lubricating their lips—and urged him onto the bed. “Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“No. You know me.”
“Don’t stay up too late.” She kissed him again, gratefully, like a wife greeting a husband feared lost.
“Un-huh,” he said, pulling away. He took her hand and put it on his erection. “You keep getting me excited.”
“I’m sorry. I’m too tired. Tomorrow night?” She removed her hand.
“Sure. I’m sorry about tonight. I won’t do this again.”
“No,” Marion said, hugging him. “It’s not your fault. We have to do this stuff.”
Fred sighed and rolled off her. “It drives me crazy. Paying dues.”
Marion laughed. She nodded at his penis, arced to the heavens.
Fred smiled proudly. “You turn me on. I can’t help it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her lower lip beginning to tremble.
“Hey, hey,” and they hugged again. After a while, he turned out the light. From her breathing, he knew she was falling asleep. He felt good. They had really broken through tonight. She had been resenting sex with him because she felt it was part of the jobs of her life. That was fascinating, he thought. He knew there was a novel in it: that kind of misunderstanding was what kept couples apart. People were too embarrassed to admit it; that’s why so few novelists wanted to take the subject on. What had happened between them was really touching, he thought. His erection had begun to shrink several times, and somewhat thoughtlessly he had stroked himself until he was flying at full mast again.
He couldn’t figure out how to plot a novel so that this lesson of marriage could be illustrated, and eventually he let his mind drift to the party. Abruptly, almost as if the image and sensation came from a different brain than his own, he vividly relived his profound excursion into Patty’s fluted mouth. A warm tickling in his penis, familiar and pleasant, began. He rubbed himself very quietly, thinking of how he could have reached down into her pink cotton top and picked one of those white melons, squeezing gently, lingeringly, rubbing her hard nipples …
He stroked without worrying … he took all of Patty in front of his bathroom door. Pulled her clothes off roughly, pushed his penis down her funneled mouth, drove into her pink vagina, without sentiment …
Marion moved!
His heart, already pounding from sexual excitement, seemed to close his throat, thumping with fear and shame.
Marion put her head on his shoulder, mumbled something, and her hand took his hard teased penis. Her cool fingers pulled gently at the head. She had known what he was doing all the time—and she approved! This was amazing, exciting in itself. She tickled him with her icy, delightful touch, and at last he splashed his belly with the warm white liquid, and felt his manhood shrivel in his wife’s hand while the vivid image of Patty’s body melted into sleep. Dark, cool, wet sleep.
CHAPTER 3
Gloria Fowler looks like a greyhound, Tony Winters realized with relief. He had been frustrated in his search for a description of her: he knew he would need one when telling the story of his meeting with her to his friends. Gloria was on the phone. She had swiveled to face the window on her right (its view of a squashed Sixth Avenue and an alley of glass skyscrapers was spectacular) so that Tony saw her long flared translucent nostrils in profile. The New York sun glowed a weary red behind her and lit her nose so that he could see minute veins. Her face was gaunt, each line sharply defined. Maybe she used to be a model, he thought. Her height, her thinness, and the tasteful, casual, and yet silken appearance of her long gray skirt, creamy white blouse, and knit sleeveless vest, all spoke of fashion.
“Bill, I think we can meet about it when the revisions are in—there’s no hurry. Yes! That’s right, enjoy the sun. Leave that to me. That’s what I’m paid for. Right, you didn’t know.” She smiled brilliantly into the phone.
She is beautiful. Tony decided, as if settling a dispute, while studying her mass of red hair (dyed? he wondered) that flowed up and back, almost as if it were startled off her head by a gusting wind. She hung up and the smile dissolved into an exhausted frown. She looked at Tony with resignation. “Actors!”
“Ah!” Tony raised his hand in warning. “Remember, my mother is one of that breed.”
“Oh, your mother’s a genius. Not one of these”—she gestured at the phone—“alleged stars.” Her smile reprised: high cheeks were raised like a curtain, revealing brilliant teeth.
“William Garth?”
“Yes, one of my clients is doing a script for him and, I’m afraid, the script isn’t quite right. Bill’s not getting any younger and I suppose he can’t be blamed for worrying over whether this writer can revise it properly.” Gloria reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table and swiveled again so that her profile was against the gray wall. “I’m blabbing this for a reason.” She paused, her big brown eyes resting on him appraisingly. This meant her body was twisted away from him, her angle haughty and forb
idding, rather as if she were on a throne looking over the pages for a potential knight. The cigarette—it was long, thin, and foreign—was placed in her mouth and lit in slow movements. She spoke while exhaling her first puff: “Have you done any screen-writing?”
Tony felt his buttocks tighten, his face freeze into a mask. He shook his head no, quickly realized that was an odd way to answer, and then said out loud, “No.” But his voice sounded young and tense.
“Just the plays.” She laughed. This made her hair seem particularly windblown. “Listen to me—“just the plays.’ I mean, of course, to say, your work has been exclusively for the theater?”
“I’ve written some short stories, but that’s all. Only my five plays.”
Gloria relaxed her queenly pose to lean forward. “Only? How old are you? Thirty?”
“Thirty-two.” He said this with genuine embarrassment. He felt young, too young, in her presence.
“And you’ve written only five plays?” she said, teasing.
“Well, you know, standards have been lowered. Shakespeare at thirty-two had written at least a dozen—”
“Oh, my God,” Gloria said, a hand covering her breast as if she were wounded. “You don’t judge yourself by that standard? Poor thing. I couldn’t bear to measure myself against genius—”
He knew this game. “I didn’t mean that, Gloria,” he snapped, surprising himself with his irritated tone. “I simply meant to say that writing five plays isn’t amazing, not that it isn’t an accomplishment. Of course I don’t compare myself to Shakespeare. Not unfavorably. Or favorably.” All this came out in a commanding though peevish tone. When he looked at her to see how she had reacted to it, he saw her smiling at him with a look of triumph and pleasure. He couldn’t understand why his response should delight her. He decided she must be trying to mollify him.
“Of course,” she said after a moment of gazing at him. “Were all the plays produced?”
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