"Think about it, Susan, just think. We're two people who have found each other in a world full of people who are searching and searching and finding nothing. I'm not saying that I'm the only man in the world for you. Almost everything in life can be turned into mathematics, even love, because it's all probability.
"Given all the qualities we have that brought us together, there must be 'at least a few dozen other men in San Francisco who you could love the way you say you love me. Figuring a population of eight hundred thousand, there must be about sixty or seventy thousand men in the right age bracket for you. So all you have to do is find one of those few dozen among the seventy thousand, and you've got it made. And if you dated ten guys a week for the next twenty years, your chances would still be zilch of finding a man for whom you could feel the way you feel for me.
"Of course, you could always compromise. You could find somebody who was close, somebody with whom you could be reasonably happy. And that's all we can ask in life, to be reasonably happy, right? But if you did that, if you didn't find the perfect replacement, you'd still spend the rest of your days thinking about me and about what could have been, wouldn't you?
"Christ, Susan. I'm asking you to live with me, and if things work the way we both know -they're going to, I'm asking you to marry me. I'm proposing to you."
I couldn't think of any more to say. We watched the lights accentuating the foaming white of the ocean swirling about the base of the rocks. The sound of her chair sliding back on the wooden bar floor grated at my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. "Good-bye," Susan said quietly.
I didn't turn to watch her leave.
The weeks that followed were hell.
For the first time in my life I felt really depressed. There was a sense of loss that kept with me constantly, devouring my insides and gnawing at the wall of well-adjusted solidarity that I had so painstakingly built for myself. I sat in class and watched Susan gallop around the room, fresh and challenging, seemingly unperturbed by my presence, except for possibly being a bit snappier with the kids.
As for myself, I never raised my hand, never spoke, never offered an opinion. I suddenly became the class dummy, turning in written work, coming and going. I tried to catch Susan's eyes, to tell her with mine how much I hurt, but she refused to look, even for an instant. I filed in and out of the room, passing her at the desk as though she weren't there. On my papers I made no personal notations, although once I wrote, "We're both committing suicide but we're too stupid to lie down and be buried." But I tore it up.
If the days were bad, the nights were agony. I asked Terry to come sleep with me several times, not because I wanted sex so much but because I didn't want to be alone. We would fuck and talk, -and I would find myself lapsing into long periods of silence, my thoughts in Susan's apartment a block away. Terry said that she still loved me, and gave me such comfort as she could, but I couldn't accept it. I didn't want to start with her again.
The sex that had seemed so satisfying months before was now empty and sterile. When Terry wasn't around I raided the bars or picked up clucks at the club. I performed like a fucking machine. That's what they all used me for anyway, wasn't it? I might just as well be honest with myself. All those stupid broads, it wasn't my great character or charming personality that made them keep calling me back, keep ringing my doorbell. All they wanted was what hung between my legs and a few good orgasms when they were horny. It wouldn't have mattered to them if I had been the hunchback of Notre Dame. They came to get it off, to use the fucking machine and come back again some other time, when they felt the need of physical release that their old men or their fingers couldn't give them.
Drop a quarter in the slot and insert, girls. I got so detached and mechanical that I began to feel like the machinery in the old song:
There once was a maiden with twat so wide that she could never be satisfied so they fashioned a shaft made out of steel and on it they put a great, big wheel
Around and around went the great, big wheel in and out went the shaft made of steel Until at last, the poor maiden cried I do believe I've been satisfied
But the fucking machine wouldn't tarry a bit in fact, there was no way of stopping it It tore the poor maiden from asshole-to tit and the whole damn thing blew up, blew up
And the whole damn thing blew up, in shit.
Like the machine, I felt that I was about ready to blow. I did what Mora had trained me for, I serviced. The body under me might be humping and bucking, impassioned fingernails raking my back and arms, erotic screams of release piercing my ears, it made no difference; I felt nothing. It was like fucking life-sized plastic balloons in the shape of women.
I wandered aimlessly into the Tenderloin, picked up a •John, led him to a remote men's room, and beat the shit out of him. Then I spent an hour in the shower trying to wash off my guilt for making the poor jerk suffer for my frustration. I saw Susan once at the symphony and once at the club, each time with a different man, and each tune I burned with impotent rage and jealousy. She didn't even miss me, I thought.
Our separation had dragged out to seven weeks and I was at the breaking point, starring glumly out the window at four in the morning when the door buzzer sounded. I didn't think much about it. It had happened before that some chick, bombed out of her mind and horny for a screw, would decide to crash my place for the night. But that night, and from then on, I wanted none of it.
I pushed the talk button. "Who is it?"
There was a short silence. "It's Susan," said the voice.
Chapter 5
When I heard her voice, her name, I felt the adrenaline surge through me.
At this hour of the morning? Maybe she was in trouble. Maybe she 'had locked herself out of her apartment. Maybe,
I pushed the button to open the downstairs door. I was naked, and the only thing handy to put on were my judo pants, draped over the back of a chair, I opened the front door, my heart beating wildly as I heard her mount the cement steps, closer and closer.
And then she stood in front of me, wearing a robe and street loafers. Her smile was twisted, almost apologetic. Her eyes at last reflected mine, showing the hurt, the anguish, the longing that had been in mine for weeks. Her cheeks were shiny with fresh-wiped tears.
"I can't," she said, her voice breaking. "I can't do it anymore. I'm so tired."
I opened my arms and she came to me slowly, sliding her arms under mine and around my back. Her face was next to mine, soft hair against my cheek. Harder we tightened our hold on each other, and harder, and harder, until we shook from the strain of it, and she was pressed so tightly into me that my organ, swollen against her leg, hurt because it had no place to rise.
We stood there and rocked.
And then I took Susan's hand and led her inside, through the living room and into the bedroom. And we got into bed, she hi her robe and -I in my judo pants. And she lay light in my arms, all soft and warm.
And I stroked her back and her hair and kissed the side of her face, nuzzled into my neck.
And my thigh was between her legs.
And she began to move against me.
And she said. "I'm sorry, I have to, I have to."
And I said, "Please, I want you to."
And she moved faster and harder, holding tightly and breathing hot and sweet in my ear,
Breathing hot and sweet and holding tightly.
And I could feel wet on my leg through the thin cotton of my judo pants, where her robe had parted down the front.