It had been years since she had done this, and this still fit, the knurl scored in the wood, the abrading layers in her clothes, her skin beneath, the prickliness of her hair, how it felt again as she imagined again how it had been before, how always before she believed she felt even the grain of the quartersawn oak. Coming this way, she never made a sound. No one should hear. It was as if Susan was somewhere else, and this Susan, who was coming, was here but not conscious of pressing against the smooth wood, that turned, rippling whorl. With her hands on the post, she steadied herself, forgot she was there. She hardly moved, only pressed deeper into the infinitely complicated template of the wood, subtly molding each organic edge, fitting into the scooped-out shell of her past.
BLACK-EYED SUSAN
Susan, naked but for her glasses. She keeps them on. Sometimes wears an adjustable black elastic athletic band attached to each earpiece to keep them in place. She lets me slide the rubber loops onto the curving plastic, cinch them tight with the tiny slides. She puts on her glasses like goggles, reaches behind her head and snugs the buckle tight. Her glasses. The frames. Black plastic frames for the top halves of the lenses, silver wire rims below. Silver rivets at each top corner and at the temples. The delicate clear plastic pads resting on each side of her nose. Men's glasses. The glasses of the Johnson administration. NASA glasses. Vince Lombardi glasses. Colonel Sanders glasses. Malcolm X glasses. “I want to see,“ Susan says. I like looking at her naked, naked but for those glasses. She lives in one city, and I live in another. We don't see enough of each other. And when we do see each other we are more than likely. We like to meet in hotel rooms, motel rooms either here or there. The smaller the room the better. More mirrors then, designed for the illusion of space. She sits on the sink counter, her back against a mirror, looking over my shoulder as I stand in front of her between her legs. She is looking into the mirror on the closet door behind me. I look into the mirror her back presses against, see my back, my ass flexing. See Susan, her chin on my shoulder, looking into the depth of the mirrors reflecting back and forth. Susan, Susan, Susan, Susan. I sit on a chair. She sits on me. She tells me what she sees in the wall mirror since I can't see. I take the elastic strap between my teeth. I pull it tight. I gnaw on it. On her hands and knees she angles a hand mirror between her legs. She watches me go in and out behind her, above her. On her back with me on her, she hovers the hand mirror above us. The silver of the mirror pools between her legs. As I lick her, I see the mirror fog and clear. Fog and clear. She catches sight of us, shadows reflected in the blank screen of the television. We are unfocused ghosts from another channel bleeding through. I watch her watch herself on the screen. I watch her as she comes. She doesn't close her eyes. I see myself focused on the surfaces of the lenses of her glasses as she comes. I see through those transparent images, my refracted face, its contrasts of planes and angles. I see through the lenses to the other smaller versions of me, motes, floating on each glossy pupil's black concave dilation.
SUE BEE
Susan, you call. Your husband is out of town, your kids in bed. I walk over. All your neighbors have cut their lawns. The evening steams. There is that chorus of locusts, a hatch this year, the sibilant sawn to fricative and back, the z's spent to s's. The s, s, s, s. You are sitting on the front steps, drinking from a cold bottle of beer. You touch my arm with it and lead me inside where it is cooler. The dinner dishes are still stacked on the counter, with the spice tins, the pepper mill, the spent mix boxes, the flour jar open, the pans and skillet in the sink, a very slow drip from the faucet. “The place's a mess,“ you lisp, “and I'm a little drunk.“ You don't want to go upstairs. The kids are restless in the heat. You want to fuck in the kitchen, half-clothed on the table, the chairs. On a whim you grab the almost empty plastic bear of honey, pull the cap free with your teeth, the nozzle sweet between your lips, and turn it on its head. Kissing me, you wait forever, for the honey to run down, coating the inside. You squeeze its belly, run a bead of honey along my cock, smearing it with your fingers, then spreading it with your tongue so that it coats the whole length. It takes hours to work my cock inside you. A drop of water collects on the lip of the faucet. A dew of honey clings to your hair. You rub your clit, tease your hair stiff, then lick your fingers and smell the resin of the rosemary, the tupelo, the tulip poplar, the alfalfa, the clover the honey was made from. We can hardly move, my cock caught fast deep inside you, our mouths stuck to each other, sucking the honey coming to our lips. We are still there. Why move? The children never wake up. The dishes are never done. Your husband never returns. The grass never grows again. The trees are studded with hundreds of cicada shells. All the bees are fossilized in amber. That drop of water trembles on the lip of the faucet always about to fall.
SUSIE Q
“Susan?“ I hear him whispering in the corridor. I have a roomette on the Lake Shore Limited from New York to Chicago. He is riding coach on the Boston section. In Albany, the two trains hook up, the electric power blinking on and off as the cars are shunted back and forth in the yard. The old Pullmans creak as they are eased into each other, a shudder ripples through the cars as they couple, then again when the new engines pull the slack out of the train and accelerate into a curve sweeping out onto the bridge over the Hudson.
He is looking for me. We arranged this meeting. We haven't been lovers for years, though we stay in touch by phone, postcard, e-mail. This is for old times' sake.
“Susan?“ he says. “Susan? Susan? Susan?“ he whispers as the train reaches speed outside of Schenectady. Now it is dark outside, and the tracks are running through a cut, the high banks a sheet of black smeared here and there by a smattering of luminous trash reflecting the moonlight. I have the shade all the way up. I've turned out all the lights except the dull blue night-light near the floor. The little fan whirs above the door. I love the old pre-war cars with their stainless and gunmetal painted steel, the coarse orange brown fabrics smelling like old theaters. The nickel-plated hardware of the vents, switches, and fixtures gleams in subtle shadows. And I love the ingenious efficiency of the space, the way the sink folds into the wall, the pocket doors and the cubbyholes for glasses and jewelry, the racks for luggage, the disappearing closet, the secret compartment for my shoes that has another access door in the corridor for the attendant who will shine them overnight and return them polished in the morning.
“Susan?“
“In here,“ I breathe. I have already unfolded the bed, collapsing the chair with its complaining springs and hauling the mattress, bedding, and pillows from the hidden drawer behind the once upright seat. I've done this already naked as it is almost impossible to undress once the bed is in place. So I undressed while the train rocked by West Point, folded my clothes away. I put in my diaphragm while balanced precariously with one foot resting flat on the clever scissored armrest of the lounge chair and my butt, cold, propped against the mirror affixed to the inside of the sliding door. I tried not to think how I looked as I eased the diaphragm inside me, past the ingenious folds of my vagina. It expanded into place, foreshadowing the contraction and expansion of the roomette I then set about to transact.