“A perm!” She frowned.
That was her frown of intense disapproval. It infuriated him. “You don’t care enough about your appearance,” he said. “We both take the way we look for granted.”
“Speak for yourself, buster.” Marion turned on her side, pulling up the covers to her ear. “Turn out the light, okay? I’m going to sleep.”
Fred felt the disappointment of this statement keenly. He had his hand on his penis — it was already swelling. He had assumed they would screw. “Honey,” he said in a small voice.
Silence.
He breathed slowly, feeling the flutter of emotion as he inhaled. He knew, or part of him knew (the tiny, huddled creature inside who was frightened by people: terrified of their judgments), that to push her would mean an argument. But nevertheless, he repeated his plea. “Honey?”
“What?” This simple question was said in a tone so harsh that a man less committed to truth would have shrunk from answering.
Fred pressed on. “Are you angry at me?”
“I’m tired.”
He waited for more. Then: “You know, suggesting you change your hair isn’t an insult.”
“Of course it is!” Marion was suddenly animate. The covers were thrown off, she sat bolt upright, and spoke loudly, addressing the room as if it were full of listening jurors. “You’re always hinting that I should lose weight, change my hair, get a winter tan — what kind of idiot do you think I am? I know what—”
“Come on, come on, come on,” Fred had been saying, and went on saying while she continued.
“—that means. You’re ugly! You’re ugly! You’re ugly!”
“Oh God!” Fred covered his face. All the pain of his marriage, the simultaneous hurt of knowing her accusation was true, and that his desire for a more beautiful woman was wrong, and yet that somehow he was a good man, and that he did love her; all this, the confusing dissonant symphony of his relationship with Marion, played while she yelled at him; and yet one clear, cold voice in the auditorium whispered: I guess this means we aren’t going to fuck.
Smooth and inflamed, moist and comforted, intensely sensitive and yet inhumanly independent — David’s organ occupied Patty’s mouth. Her tongue, after an especially deep pass around his penis, played lightly round the ridge of his circumcision and wrenched moans from his stomach, enraging the thick vein that coursed like a swollen river from its purple base. And then she opened wide to swallow …
“Oh God …”
She had wondered what to do when this happened. She had never stayed this long for fear that the man might climax and — now it happened: her mouth filling with the stuff, the hot brew of nature’s quick mix.
Disgusted, she swallowed, almost choking because it felt so thick that she imagined her throat might be stopped up forever, cemented by semen.
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.