Rhapsody. The leads were Elizabeth Taylor and Vittorio Gassman and another young well-known actor at the time whose first name was John. She suggested they go to it. “So, what movie would you like to see?” he said when he picked her up — they’d talked about going to one when he called her up for the date — and she said “First things first — this is a family ritual,” and she brought him into the living room and introduced him to her parents and younger sister and the live-in housekeeper. He didn’t think he’d like the movie when she described what it was about — a conservatory and music competitions — but wanted to please her, and ended up loving the movie because of the music in it. He’d never before heard any part of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto and Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto, he thinks it was, or maybe it was Rachmaninoff’s second — both were his favorites for a couple of years, the Rachmaninoff a while longer — and a few days after he saw the movie with this music, he bought long-playing records of them. He played them in his bedroom so much that his father came to the door and said “Do you think you can play something else, and lower?” “You ought to be happy I’m listening to this kind of music — I’m the only one of my friends who does,” and his father said “I am — we all are. This is a big change for you, but you’re busting our eardrums. Turn it down now.” He was sure that buying the records and listening to them so much had nothing to do with his feelings for Frieda or anything else with her, other than that he probably never would have seen the movie if it hadn’t been for her and maybe not got started listening to classical music so early. After their cab pulled up in front of her apartment building and he pulled out his wallet, she said “Will you at least let me pay for this ride? I do have money, you know.” He said “No, tonight everything’s on me, not that I’m trying to give the impression I’m a big sport. Can I see you to your door?” and she said “It’s not necessary. I know my way home from here.” “Think we can go out again sometime?” and she said “Call me and we’ll see. You might change your mind by tomorrow and not think it such a wonderful idea,” and she kissed her fingertip, put it on the middle of his forehead and went to her building. So far, he thought, as the doorman opened the door for her and said something and tipped his cap, it seems to be going okay. What’s with the finger on the forehead, though? He’ll wait a few days, or just two, at the most three, even if he doesn’t think he’ll be able to hold out that long — he’ll want to know — before he calls her. Doesn’t want to make her think he’s too eager. But maybe that’s a good thing with her. She’s different in almost every way, so who can tell? He walked home, which was approximately — for how do you measure it, he thought: Eighty-first to Seventy-fifth and three, no, two long sidestreets and two medium-length ones and the much shorter one on Seventy-fifth between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway — fifteen blocks away. Did Gwen, he thinks, when he first saw her at Pati’s party, remind him of Sharon? Doesn’t think he thought of the resemblance and similarities till now, hard as that is to believe. Length and color and texture of their hair, though Sharon’s a bit coarser. Was that because she shampooed less? She said shampooing your hair every day or every other day, as most women do, injures if not kills the hair follicles, so she did it no more than once a week and a lot of brushing. He forgets how often Gwen shampooed, but he doesn’t think it was more than twice a week, and also lots of brushing. Blond eyelashes and eyebrows, where you had to look closely to see if they even had them. Sparse pubic hair, although it might have only seemed sparse because the color was so light. Lots of differences too, of course. Both liked to make love and usually let him do it when and how he wanted to. “Can I come in from behind?” “Sure,” both would say, maybe in different ways, and get on their knees. “Could you be on top this time?” he’d say, and both, in different ways, would say they don’t mind, and he’d get on his back. Both let him know early on in their relationship that anal intercourse wasn’t something they’d ever let him do, so don’t try. He asked Sharon why, “not that I ever thought of doing it with you or any other woman,” and she said “Because that’s where my shit comes out of. And no anus, no matter how meticulously it’s wiped and washed, is ever entirely clean.” He didn’t ask Gwen what her objection to it was, but did say “Not to worry. I never did it that way and don’t plan to. If you ever do find me approaching or touching or even penetrating that hole with my prick or finger or any other part of me, it’s because the room’s dark or I’m a little sloshed or very sleepy or both and I’m not conscious of what I’m doing, and it’s a complete mistake.” He now assumes her objection was for the same reasons as Sharon’s, or it could be she let some guy do it to her once and it hurt. Actually, he now remembers Sharon saying once “Is this all I’m good for with you? I know it isn’t, but sometimes I’m not sure. But I’m not here ten minutes and you already want to drag me to bed? If you are intent on doing it, and you know I always give in to you because I know you’ll be miserable and petulant and other unfortunate behavior toward me, please be quick. In no way am I in the mood now and nothing’s going to make me, so you can skip all the preliminaries.” Maybe she didn’t say all that. Of course, she didn’t. He could never have remembered it from that far back, or even remembered it word for word if she’d said it two days ago, but she said something like it and he thinks she said it more than once. In fact, the first time she said it — this he particularly remembers because no one had ever referred to him in this way before — she spoke about what she called his “abject impetuousness,” which is a real problem in their relationship, she said, but not fatal. She said she hates doing something she doesn’t want to do, and hates herself for allowing him to get her to do it. Gwen, he still thinks, never said anything like that when the circumstances were similar. For instance, when he, all of a sudden and related to nothing that came before it, started fondling her. Usually both her breasts from behind and sometimes he’d sneak up on her and do this and a few times under her shirt and bra. Or he had that look that he very much wants to make love even if he knows it’s the last thing on her mind, and he can’t wait till later when it might be a better time for her. Or maybe he forgets. Almost thirty years together, she must have. If she did, he’s sure she put it in a way that was milder or gentler or more lighthearted or good-natured, or whatever the word he wants but can’t seem to come up with now, than the way Sharon said it. He even thinks he remembers Gwen saying, when he suddenly fondled her from behind, “What a goof you are.” “Goof?” he thinks he said, and he thinks she said something like “Yes; goof; you. It’s goofy, sneaking up and pouncing on me when I least expect it and frightening me, like some guy in his young twenties would do, not that I want you to stop the fondling part…just warn me,” and he thinks he remembers her turning her head around to the right, while he was still behind her, so they could kiss. And what about when either of them wanted to make love and he was the one who wasn’t in the mood for it or was involved in something else — writing, not reading — and didn’t want to be disturbed? Can’t remember Sharon ever doing that. That right? Thinks so. They either made love when he wanted to and she went along with it, not always happily, or when they were in bed, ready for sleep, had probably read awhile because each of them always took a book to bed — even when he just lies down to nap, though a little less so since Gwen died — and turned off their night table lights around the same time, though he usually read a few more minutes than she — didn’t want to read any longer, even if he really wanted to, because she might be asleep when he turned off his light and she didn’t like to be woken up to make love — and almost immediately turned to each other in the dark, if she wasn’t already turned to him expecting what was to come next, and started touching and kissing and other things to each other. If she drove to his place — they both lived in the Bay Area but about an hour’s drive from each other — she always stayed the night. With Gwen he was the one who took a book to bed. She once said she reads more than enough during the day — student papers and books and journals she reads for pleasure or class or research — and anyway she knows she can’t read five lines in bed without her eyes closing and book dropping out of her hands. So she just got in bed, and if he was there she said “Goodnight, sweetheart,” always “Goodnight, sweetheart” or “my love,” and he gave her a little kiss, she shut her light off or, if she was facing him, he reached over her to shut off her light, and pulled the covers up over her shoulders. Then, when he was done reading, he’d shut off his light and maybe start making love to her, or lie for a while in bed thinking about other things — maybe the book he was reading — before he thought about making love, and she then would start making love to him. He knows he’s contradicting himself here with some of the things he’s saying about Sharon and Gwen, but that’s because he’s remembering things — he thinks it’s because of this — he hasn’t remembered before or not for many years. Back to Gwen, though: there were plenty of times — he’d guess a hundred or so — she came into the room he was working in — here or in their first house or in the apartments in New York and Baltimore they once had or the cottages in Maine they rented every summer for more than twenty-five years—1979 to the last summer — and would say “Like to take a break?” Or “Excuse me, I hope I’m not disturbing you, but would you like to take a break?” Doesn’t think he ever refused, other than if he was sick, and then he probably said something like “You know me, I’m always up for it, but I’m just not feeling that well.” But if he was feeling sick, would he be working? Depends how sick he felt. Or maybe he didn’t ever refuse her, even when he wasn’t feeling well, and he probably said something like — just to warn her—“Sure, or I’ll try. It might cure whatever’s ailing me.” Not that but something else. “Maybe it’ll make me feel better. If anything, making love with you would do the trick.” A couple of times he remembers her saying, after she came into the room he was working in, “I know you weren’t feeling well before. But do you think you feel well enough now to take a break?” Other comparisons and similarities? Sharon liked going down on him, Gwen not so much. Both of them, though, didn’t much like his going down on them, something he loved doing, but usually put up with it. Fact is, he thinks Gwen only did it to him — other than the times he couldn’t get or keep it up and she said “Maybe I can help”—when he pushed his penis near her face or swiveled his body around so his groin was near or over her face while he was going down on her and she felt it her duty or something to do it or just didn’t want to deal with him if he made a fuss. But he wouldn’t have made a fuss, so what’s he talking about? He doesn’t think he ever pushed either of them to do anything they didn’t want to at the time. To Gwen, if he saw she didn’t want to do it — she’d push his penis away — he would have said something like “I understand; maybe some other time.” He remembers even once saying “But you aren’t ruling it out forever, I hope,” and she said no and he said “Thank goodness.” Gwen had bigger breasts than Sharon, Sharon a narrower waist, slimmer tummy, thinner legs and smaller rear, more flat than Gwen’s round, and they were about the same height though Gwen, he’d guess, was about ten pounds heavier. He just now remembers the time Gwen was in a hospital bed at home — she slept in one for around two months — and he was about to turn her over on her back and sit her up and help her into her wheelchair then, he thinks, and start the morning going. Instead, possibly because he’d been thinking of making love to her before he even went into her room or it had something to do, which it never had before or else he hadn’t ever acted on it, with his exercising her legs and feet in bed and massaging her shoulders, he lowered the shades in his older daughter’s room where the hospital bed had been set up — Rosalind was living away from home and her bed had been temporarily dismantled — and unzipped his pants and took his penis out of both flies and stuck it through the bed rail — doesn’t know why he didn’t lower the rail and drop his shorts and pants, maybe because he didn’t want to give her the chance to say “What are you doing?” and pulled at it till it reached her mouth. She didn’t object. She even smiled, as if she thought his doing it through the rail was funny or from her angle it just looked funny. He did say, when he got it by her mouth, “Is it all right?” and she nodded. She kissed it a few times and maybe — yes, definitely; it only happened once like this and he remembers it clearly — put her lips around it a short while and then said, still holding it, “Why don’t you get in bed with me?” and he said “Wouldn’t the marital bed be better?”—he actually used the word “marital,” maybe the first and last time that way—“but we could do it here if you don’t want to be transferred so much. I’ve never done it in a hospital bed, have you?” and she said “Don’t be silly; come on, get in.” He took off his clothes, put the other bed rail down, turned her all the way over on her side so there’d be room for him, got in bed and stroked her from behind and probably kissed her neck and shoulders and back, said “Think we need any gook?” and she said “No, I’m ready,” and he lifted her right thigh a little — she was still a lot paralyzed on that side, which was why her doctor and physical therapist wanted her in a hospital bed: so her legs and back could be raised and lowered and she could be exercised better and there was less chance of her getting blood clots and bedsores — and stuck his penis in. After it was over for him he said “That was very nice; thank you,” and she said “I just wish it had gone on longer. But since I wasn’t expecting anything like this happening, I’m happy,” and he kissed her back and she kissed the air. So, anything he left out? Both: long graceful necks, bluish green eyes, Gwen’s with a bit of yellow in them, maybe just flecks; very pale skin that would burn under the sun, so they rarely exposed their faces to it without a brimmed or peaked cap on and a strong sun block for the other uncovered parts of their bodies that might burn, slender fingers that played Chopin and Schumann and Schubert and Brahms, and Gwen those short pieces by Satie: