And now the earthquake began! She was spun off into the universe, heat searing her insides, the air thinning, and deep within, the core of desire glowed and hardened, pulsing with the need to escape the prison of her flesh.
From her came sounds of agony and joy. Her eyes opened and she saw the yellow sprinkler pipes bounce in the air as she heaved with the expulsion of passion.
“Oh! God, God, God, God, God.” she said to the sprinklers as she bucked against the merciless pressure of his tongue, darting in and over and away, with an irregular but relentless pace. She was free! She was free! She was free!
“Don’t get me excited,” Betty whispered into his ear.
“Mmmm.” Tony was swimming. He moved to a silent rhythm, taking his strokes into the hidden stream, the warm river within his wife.
“You promised,” she whispered.
Tony knew she was lying; she wanted an orgasm. He made sure he angled his behind up, under, and in, so that the pelvic bone would do its job. This was a familiar and effective choreography in their marriage: like any good dance routine, technique dominated, but the magic would come at last and transform the careful movements into inspired grace.
“Uhhh,” she let out, and he knew it would be soon. His hands lightly touched her sides as he ran them up, gripping her armpits with his thumbs, and squeezing as if she were a doll. This worked for him — his thrusts deepened. He was really in the ocean now, stroking mightily toward the shore of release, sweat bursting from him, his limbs stretching with every move, his back arching, his head bobbing and surfacing like a dolphin at play.
He pushed his hand down between his member and her hard knob to emphasize the point. For a moment this interrupted their dance — and then she lifted, from the hips, off the bed, and they united, sweating, groaning, their mouths open and yearning, as they took their long sweetly agonizing swim together, thudding on the sand as one, exhausted by their happy exercise.
“Oh, you’re crazy,” Fred complained. “That’s just bullshit.”
Marion reached past him and pulled the clock radio toward her. The force of the cord coming up made the night table teeter.
“Jesus!” Fred grabbed the table to steady it.
“It’s two-thirty. Fred. I have to be up at seven.”
“I don’t know how you can sleep—”
“I never have any trouble sleeping.”
“I don’t mean that. I’m churning inside. You think I don’t find you attractive when all I want is to make love—”
“You don’t want to make love. You want to come inside me.” She slammed the clock radio back down and stepped over him, out of bed.
Fred stared at her as if he had been slapped. “What are you saying?”
Marion left the room.
He paused a moment to consider whether it might be safer and saner if he didn’t pursue what had already become an ugly marathon of miscommunication. But he was juggling in his mind a variety of tormenting thoughts: did she mean he was lousy in bed? Maybe she didn’t want to have sex as often as he? Maybe she didn’t love him anymore? What was it? For Fred, this was as maddening as not being told who committed the murder in a suspenseful thriller. He got up and followed Marion.
He found her sitting on one of the kitchen chairs placed beside a window that caught a partial view of the East River. The musty glow of New York’s streetlamps provided a silhouette of Marion. Her face looked tight, as if she were holding back tears. He noticed this, but it only spurred his desire to interrogate her. For Fred, great emotion in another person was like a bone to a trained retrieving dog; off he went, his hind legs powering him forward through thickets of dialogue to find his marrow of truth.
“Honey, let’s talk about it,” he said. His attempt to say this calmly made his voice whiny.
“Fred, I don’t feel well. I want to be left alone. Can’t you do that?” She turned to face him and he got a look at her staring eyes, big with welling tears.
He sighed. He told himself to turn around and go, but his feet felt flat and glued to the floor. The oddest thing was that he still had his erection, though it didn’t feel pleasurable at the moment. “I love you,” he said.
She snorted with disgust and helplessness.
“What’s wrong with that! I can’t relax if you’re not happy. I have to know what’s bothering you. It’s eating me up inside.”
“Fred, I worked all day to cook a huge meal for your friends—”
“They’re your friends too—”
“If you must know, they’re not friends to either of us. It was like doing business tonight. This evening wasn’t any more fun than a business lunch. I get plenty of them during the week. Goddamm it, I just don’t feel like making dinner to help your career and then spreading my legs to top it off.”
Fred’s mouth opened in the middle of Marion’s speech and remained so for several seconds afterward. She had begun to cry while she spoke, and now, biting her lips to try to stop, she was sobbing. He felt as if light had illuminated the dingy room where he stored his marriage. Everything she said sounded so right: she had given a name to what had made him uneasy about the party: both his motive for having it, and everyone else’s for coming, disgusted him.
“Honey,” he said, deeply moved. He went to her, knelt by her chair, and put his arm around her. She’s so smart about people, he thought. “You’re right. But you’re wrong about why I wanted to make love. It’s ’cause I felt so lonely and crummy about the way things went. Everybody was ugly and trying to get at each other. I can’t believe people are so competitive.”
She put her head on his shoulder and wept heartily. There was no one else with whom she could be this unhappy. And Marion believed that was the best one could hope for. Unless, of course, you had a face and body and temperament like Patty’s.
“I wanted to make love because what we have is so different,” Fred said. “We don’t need that kind of shit. I just wanted to hold onto something real.” She cuddled into his arms now, beginning to slide off the chair. Her weight felt cumbersome and he pulled her up, leading her toward the bedroom. “You should go to sleep,” he said so earnestly that one would imagine she had been keeping herself up.
He put her to bed tenderly, remaking the bed and tucking her in so that she was cozy. She kissed him — her wet face lubricating their lips — and urged him onto the bed. “Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“No. You know me.”
“Don’t stay up too late.” She kissed him again, gratefully, like a wife greeting a husband feared lost.
“Un-huh,” he said, pulling away. He took her hand and put it on his erection. “You keep getting me excited.”
“I’m sorry. I’m too tired. Tomorrow night?” She removed her hand.
“Sure. I’m sorry about tonight. I won’t do this again.”
“No,” Marion said, hugging him. “It’s not your fault. We have to do this stuff.”
Fred sighed and rolled off her. “It drives me crazy. Paying dues.”
Marion laughed. She nodded at his penis, arced to the heavens.
Fred smiled proudly. “You turn me on. I can’t help it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her lower lip beginning to tremble.
“Hey, hey,” and they hugged again. After a while, he turned out the light. From her breathing, he knew she was falling asleep. He felt good. They had really broken through tonight. She had been resenting sex with him because she felt it was part of the jobs of her life. That was fascinating, he thought. He knew there was a novel in it: that kind of misunderstanding was what kept couples apart. People were too embarrassed to admit it; that’s why so few novelists wanted to take the subject on. What had happened between them was really touching, he thought. His erection had begun to shrink several times, and somewhat thoughtlessly he had stroked himself until he was flying at full mast again.