“My innocent flower. But taking it as an hypothesis that you conquered your stage fright and brought Melanie Melontits home to bed, we would have missed out on all this delicious intrigue. Do you remember that biker?”
“Of course. I don’t remember his name, but I remember him.”
“I don’t think he had a name. I brought him home and we had a marvelous trio, in spite of the fact that I couldn’t wait to get the little devil out of the house. Boys like that are divine to fuck but they shouldn’t be allowed to speak. ‘Duh, duh, um, far out, duh, outasight, duh.’ Marlon fucking Brando sans talent. If I become very very rich some day, Bert, I intend to subsidize a foundation dedicated to removing the vocal cords of motorcycle boys. I wish you would write all of this down. I don’t need a pianist, damn it, I need a Boswell. All this sparkling wit lost to the ages.”
“You’re outrageous.”
“I suspect I am. But you do remember Hell’s Little Angel, don’t you? Now if we’d had such a much with dear Mrs. Jaeger, we’d have missed all this. Hunger makes the meal, lover. And her time shall come soon. Count on it.”
It was over a week before he managed to run into Melanie again. He was very busy, performing at night and rehearsing another play afternoons. Ultimately he did encounter her again, once again meeting her on the street.
“Ah, the fair Melanie,” he said. “Here, let me carry that for you.” He took the package from her without waiting for her reply. “There we are. Now lead, kindly light, and I shall follow.”
“My car is just around the corner.”
“Scarcely far enough.” His eyes caught hers. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee first. I have to carry this awkward bundle more than a few steps in order for the task count as exercise. And my doctor is always telling me to get more exercise, so you’ll be performing a medical good deed.”
“Well—”
“It’s perfectly safe, you know.” Once again his eyes did their trick of running up and down her body, then fastening directly upon hers. “Nothing bolsters a woman’s reputation like keeping public company with an obvious faggot. And, come to think of it, there’s nothing better for a faggot’s public image than being seen in the company of a stunning young woman. Come. We shall talk in present tenses. Do you know that song? ‘Chelsea Morning’? Joni Mitchell?”
“I don’t think so.”
He took her to the Raparound, held a chair for her, sat down opposite from her. It was a weekday morning and the tourists had not yet begun to flood the town. There were a few regulars having breakfast and conversation at the Raparound, and Warren greeted them briefly, then ordered two coffees from the waitress.
He squared his shoulders, folded his hands on the table in front of him, and beamed smartly at Melanie. “Well,” he said. “Well.”
“Well what?”
“Just well.”
She started to say something, then waited while the girl put cups of coffee before them. Then Warren lifted his cup in a toast. “To the possibilities,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
She worried her upper lip with her tongue. Again she was about to say something, and again he didn’t give her the chance. He began pitching small talk at her, theater gossip, various presumably amusing anecdotes. He was quite good at this, and before long he worked past her reserve and she was involved with the conversation at hand.
As she was finishing her coffee he said, “The final curtain is at eleven seventeen tonight. By eleven thirty I’ll have my clothes changed and my makeup removed. I’ll be at the Barge Inn a few minutes after that to pay my respects to your worthy husband.”
“I don’t—”
“At midnight I’ll ring your doorbell.”
Her tongue teased her lip again. He decided that the gesture was indescribably sensuous. She said, “You must be thinking of someone else.”
“Au contraire. I’m thinking of you.”
“I don’t know what this is all about.”
“Don’t you?” He did a number with his eyes again, then broke it off with a wide smile. “We’ll go to the Inn in Carversville,” he said levelly. “I believe you’ve been there. A friend of mine plays piano there. I believe you’ve heard him play. He plays other things beside the piano.”
She watched him, waited him out.
“His name is Bert,” he went on. “He lives with me. We enjoy living together. We enjoy sharing things.”
She was nodding, taking it all in.
“Sometimes we share a meal, or an evening in New York, or a bed. Sometimes we share a person.”
“I don’t—”
“Of course you do.”
“What I mean is why me?”
“Why, there are several reasons,” he said. “One is that I’ve attained an erection just sitting across a table from you. A rather dramatic one, actually. If you’d care to put your foot in my lap you could reassure yourself on that point. For another thing, I—oh, my. I didn’t expect you to do that.”
“You suggested it.”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“Do you like this? Yes, you damn well like it. I could get you off with my toes.”
“You are full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“I have very limber toes.”
“You do.” He took hold of her foot and stroked it “I think we should stop this.”
“I think I’m getting as hot as you are. I thought you were supposed to be a faggot.”
“Nobody’s supposed to be a faggot. It’s not something you prepare for at a trade school. No, by George, that’s precisely what it is, come to think. I’ll come by at midnight.”
“No. I’ll meet you there.”
“The Carversville Inn.”
“Yes, I know. Warren? How did you know?”
“About you? Oh, intuition.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“I’ll meet you there between twelve and twelve thirty. It will be his last set. We can have a drink and then you can come home with us.”
“What’s his name?”
“My piano player? Bert. Bert LeGrand.”
“He has nice hands.”
“Yes, I rather fancy them myself.”
“He has very nice hands,” Melanie said. “Yes, I remember his hands.”
After he had paid the check and carried her package to her car, Melanie got into the little Alfa and sagged behind the wheel. She was trembling uncontrollably with a mixture of excitement and fear. Both emotions had begun shortly after Warren took her to the Raparound, and she felt she had held them both nicely in check. Now, alone, she could give in to them, could hardly avoid giving in.
She started the car. Instead of driving home she headed west on 202, pushing the little red car hard, using it deliberately as an outlet for what she felt. She turned around just short of Doylestown, the greater portion of her anxiety spent in the act of driving. She felt the sun on her face and hands, the wind in her hair. At a stoplight she fished a cigarette out of her bag and pushed in the dashboard cigarette lighter. The light changed. She crossed the intersection. When the lighter popped out to announce its readiness she lit her cigarette, then shook the lighter absently like a match and flipped it over the side of the car.
She had gone almost a mile before she realized what she had done, and laughter immediately overwhelmed her. She had to pull off the road, she was laughing so hard.
When Sully came home for dinner she told him about it, and broke up again recounting the episode.
“You must of had your mind in the clouds,” he said. “I can just picture that. You didn’t go back and have a look around for it?”
“No chance. I don’t know exactly where it was, and it’s all high weeds at the side of the road.”
“Well, they don’t cost much to replace. You can tell him the heating element burned out.”
“Why not tell him I threw it away?”
“Because it’s bad enough I know you’re a n
ut, you don’t want the whole world to know. I heard of a guy doing that with a Zippo lighter. Borrowed the lighter off a friend and then threw it the hell out the window. I wasn’t there to see it but I can picture it in my mind clear enough. What were you doing up around Doylestown?”
“Just driving around.”
“That’s what the car’s for, I guess. Just driving?”
“What else?”
He looked at her, then looked away.
“I’ll be going out tonight,” she said.
“Oh?”
“For a drive.”
“For a drive,” he echoed. “You be home by the time I close the joint?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, a late evening, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“Just gonna see what you come up with, huh?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
“I have a date.”
“A date.”
“Yes.”
“Who’s the lucky—”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Tell me now.”
“No.”
He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Very softly he said, “You cunt.”
“Do you want to go upstairs?”
“Not now.”
“When I come home, then.”
“You fucking cunt.”
“Are you going? You didn’t have dessert.”
“I don’t want any.”
“Sully—”
He turned in the doorway. “I didn’t mean to call you that. It’s just—I’ll wait up for you, baby.”
“I like it when you call me a cunt.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“Good.”
The evening crawled and she could not make it hurry. She washed the dinner dishes, then went upstairs and took a long soak in the tub. The hot water baked the tension out of her muscles but new tension had taken its place before she had toweled herself dry. She wrapped herself up in a terrycloth robe of Sully’s and sat in front of the television set without paying any attention to the program on the screen.
Cunt.
That was what she was. Perhaps it was what she had always been, although it did not seem to her that this was the case. It was true that she had always enjoyed sex. She could not remember when she had first become aware of the difference between little boys and little girls, but as long as she had been aware of this difference she had been enthusiastically in favor of it. An attractive girl, an outgoing and popular girl, she had been the frequent recipient of sexual overtures from an early age. She had found all aspects of this enjoyable, from kissing games at children’s parties to fumbling adolescent petting and beyond.
But it had always been an easy enjoyment, a carefree enjoyment. This compulsion that she had found within herself was new, and although it brought her great pleasure it also frightened her. She was afraid of both what she herself was becoming and what might happen to her.
Sully was hard to understand, so very hard for her to understand. Everything she did was ultimately for him, and he knew this, but his immediate reaction each time was one of loathing and bitter contempt. You fucking cunt. She sensed that he had to despise her for what she did, that this was a part of the magic that flowed between them. So far his rage was always quiet and smoldering, never harsh and violent, but how could she be sure it would never change its form? He was a big man, a powerful man. He had always been beautifully gentle with her. If he ever turned violent, she was certain he could kill her with a single blow of one of those heavy hands.
The thought of dying beneath Sully’s rage chilled her, but she could not really make herself believe it was more than a fraction of a possibility. Thus it bothered her less than the question of the sort of person into which she herself was evolving.
Or was that really it? She frowned, challenging herself. She was becoming a swinger, a sexual experimenter, and this did not bother her in and of itself. On the contrary, she was surprised how easy it was for her to accept these changes in her own attitudes. As long as she and Sully were content with the pattern of life they led, nothing else really mattered much to her. She had no friends, and since she had married Sully she had never been unpleasantly conscious of the absence of friends.
She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them wide. She knew what it was.
What bothered her was the thought of other people knowing. What bothered her, what summed it all up, was that Warren Ormont had been able to approach her out of the blue with total assurance that she would be game for what he and his friend had in mind. She did not know Warren Ormont. And he did not know her. Yet he had known.
She positioned herself in front of her mirror and studied herself very carefully. She had examined herself in this fashion at other times in her life. When she got her period for the first time. When she lost her virginity. On each occasion it had seemed as though her face ought to reveal the changes in her body, and on each occasion she had sought such facial revelation in her mirror with no success. If there were changes they were all beneath the skin.
And now? Was there more tension in the corners of the eyes? Did the nostrils tend to flare? Did her mouth show a pout of petulance or lust or abandon? If so, she saw no evidence. Or was it in her walk, or her speech? If so no mirror could show it to her.
Either he had seen something or he had heard something, and in either case she was troubled. Of course the most obvious explanation lay in the fact that Bert must have noticed her weeks ago at the Carversville Inn. But she had gone there only once, and she had not thought her availability was quite that obvious. Even if he had reported that she had gone out looking for a man, why would that lead them to believe she was looking for far-out sex? Why?
It was this goddamned town, she thought suddenly. New York or Chicago or Los Angeles none of this would be a problem. There she and Sully could choose their friends and acquaintances from people like themselves. Or they could have no friends, could take their sexual pleasure with strangers and be utterly ignored by neighbors. But in a town the size of New Hope there was no such compartmentalization. Men with whom she slept would turn up at the Barge Inn for a drink, and she would run into their wives at the market or under the dryer. That added spice, but it also added an unmistakable element of danger.
Did everyone know? Was the whole town talking about her? Men did talk. You couldn’t expect them all to keep silent. Sooner or later it was inevitable that she would be talked about throughout the county. She wondered if she could handle that. She wondered if Sully could handle it. If worse came to worst, they could move, they had already discussed the possibility, but she did not want to move and neither did he.
And she certainly did not want to have to move.
She turned off the television set, went downstairs, fixed herself a cup of instant coffee. Then she made a pot of regular coffee so that it would be there for Sully when he came home. He would sit around drinking coffee and waiting for her while she played bizarre games with a couple of faggots. It seemed that making the coffee for him was the least she could do.
Faggots.
This puzzled her. She had never known a homosexual well, and she had always taken it for granted that a faggot was a faggot and that they only did it with each other. They were not supposed to be interested in women. But Warren had been unmistakably interested in her. She remembered the expression on his face when she had taken him up on his invitation to examine his erection with her foot. She had instantly kicked off her shoe and plopped her foot in his lap, and he had obviously never expected her to do so. His face, however, had shown surprisingly little of his surprise. Well, perhaps that was to be expected; he was an actor, after all.
Not even an actor could will an erection into existence. And that erection had been real enough, big and hard, warm when her toes gripped it.
She could have done him with her toes. The current that flowed between them then had been that strong. A
nd she remembered his hand on her foot. He had stroked her foot as any lover might have done. There was nothing faggoty in the way he had handled her foot. And nothing equivocal in her response to that handling.
She pictured Warren now, the eyes glinting at her through the rimless eyeglasses, the high forehead, the sharp hawk nose. She heard his voice in memory, caught all the special inflections, the campy mannerisms. Everything about him proclaimed his homosexuality, and it was absurd to imagine herself responding to this proclamation. And yet she had responded and could not deny it. Part of the response, of course, was excitement over the underlying kinkiness of the situation. But not all of it, for a part of it was a response to his very definite masculinity.
There was so much she did not know, not merely about herself but about the way people behaved in general. So very much she did not understand.
Had Sully ever done things with another man? Earlier the thought would have been laughable, but now she was not so sure. How could anyone be sure of anything? If she had learned nothing else, she had learned that there was very little you could be sure of. She tried to imagine Sully with another man. She tried to picture him on his knees before another man, with the man’s cock in his mouth. But she could not bring the picture into focus.
Sully was completely male, utterly male. And she herself was utterly female, and yet she was dizzy at the thought of having sex with faggots and had been unable to dismiss the idea of having sexual relations with another woman. She even had the woman in mind. Every time she saw Karen Markarian on the street a delicious shiver went through her body, and the few times they had spoken she walked away with the feeling that her desires were reciprocated. She had done nothing about this. She could not think what to do about it, or how to go about doing it, but the thoughts would not go away. Had Sully ever had strange thoughts like this about another man? Had he ever done anything about them? She pictured Warren again and began to imagine him in bed. She tried to bring Bert into the picture but could not manage it. She did not know what they would to do, or how, and although she could imagine all of possibilities, none of them had reality because of her own ignorance.