But is it empty? It does not always seem that way. It seems — oh, I don’t know.
But I have to write about Susan.
I bathed and depped and perfumed. Depped — the word I have been using inside my head. Used a depilatory on my legs and armpits. Went to him, clean and hairless and sweet to smell. He opened the door, looking quite dramatic — tight black pants, a black silk shirt, a scarlet ascot.
“Come inside, Jan.”
In the living room, Susan is sitting on the couch. The teenybopper, fluffy blond hair, a quietly beautiful little girl face. She looks toward me and tries on a smile.
This rattles me. We have always been alone together in this apartment, Eric and I. I know there are other people in his life, as there were others in mine, but all our meetings have been one-to-one. I look at Susan and am unable to speak to her, nor can I speak to Eric. I wait.
He takes my hand, leads me to her. “Jan, this is Susan. Susan, this is Jan.”
We manage smiles.
She is very lovely, at once innocent and knowing. I wonder what she might have been like at twelve, when he first had her. Or what she might be now if he had never entered her life. Or her vagina.
“Each of you,” he says, “is a gift for the other. I trust you will enjoy your presents.”
I look at him. He turns, walks to the door.
“I have an appointment,” he says. “Good-bye.”
He goes out. The door closes. Again the fancy that it is a dungeon cell door swinging irrevocably shut. I look at the closed door, gaze at it and beyond it for a time, then sense the girl’s presence. I turn, and she is standing a few feet away from me.
She says, “Don’t be afraid.”
“Afraid? I’m not afraid of you.”
“I thought you were, you know, uptight in general.”
“I suppose I am.”
“What he wants—”
Harshly, “I know what he wants.”
“For us to make love.”
“I know.”
“You’ve never been with a girl?”
“No.”
“That’s pretty weird.”
“And you have?”
“Well, like I’ve been with Eric for almost three years now. That’s a long time to be with someone like him. Catch me — someone like him. I guess there isn’t anyone like him, is there?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Anyway, three years. Almost three years. I guess there’s not much I haven’t done, you know, in that length of time.”
She extends a hand. I draw away. She frowns, hurt, puzzled.
“I just wanted to touch you.”
“I don’t like to be touched.”
“Oh?”
“I’m — this wasn’t my idea. The two of us.”
“I know.”
“It was Eric’s idea.”
“I’m hip. So?”
“Well — we don’t really have to do anything.”
“He would want us to.”
“We could tell him.”
She shakes her head slowly. “You’re what, thirty?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“To be that old and still be uptight about things. And you’re so pretty.”
“I’m not.”
“I’d love to look like you.”
“I’m too thin. Skin and bones.”
“Beautiful skin.”
“You can almost see the bones through it.”
“Oh, come on.”
I light a cigarette. As I take it from my purse Susan says, casually, that there is grass if I want it. Not today, I tell her. She nods agreeably. I offer her a cigarette, as an afterthought almost. She says that she doesn’t smoke. “Except grass, see. No tobacco. No cancer trips for Susan.”
“That sounds sensible enough.”
“Sensible. Look, Jan. Let’s sit down, have something to drink, talk a little. You’re afraid to know me. We look at each other and your eyes run away. You won’t look at me.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid.”
“That we’ll ball?”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“And that I won’t like it.”
“Bullshit. You ever do anything with Eric you didn’t like?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you lived through it, right? No agony, no sweat. What you’re uptight about is you’re afraid you will like it. You have a head full of labels.”
“Of what?”
“Labels. You ball me and you’re wearing a label that says dyke. Total bullshit. Everybody is supposed to swing every way there is. Otherwise it wouldn’t feel good. And you even know all that, I can tell you do, but you’re trying to block it. The hell with it. We’ll sit on the couch and look at the fire.”
I am blocking. On the couch, the girl at my side, the fire glowing on the hearth, I make myself think long enough to see what I am doing. I am all tied up inside myself.
I think of David and Arnold. Of the openness of the three of us tangling together in love. Of watching one of them suck the other. Of the naturalness of this, of how my own mind took this in without blocking.
I can accept it for men. But for women—
I am afraid of it.
Susan takes my hand. Her own little hand feels so plump and soft. I experience the momentary impulse to yank my hand away but this is largely reflex, there is nothing unpleasant in the contact of her hand with mine.
“Jan.”
“Yes.”
“This is crazy. I almost feel like I’m the lady and you’re the girl.”
“I know.”
“You feel the same?”
“A little.”
“I’ll get us a drink.”
“That red stuff?”
“Eric left a bottle of it in the kitchen. He said we might want it.”
“I don’t know if I do.”
“Makes it easier.”
“I don’t know. What is it, do you have any idea?”
“He never tells me things like that.”
“Well, he’s a secretive man. I don’t know him at all.”
“Maybe no one does, Jan.”
“You probably do.”
“Hardly. Like in a way he’s the God that made me, do you know what I mean? I mean, what was I when I met him? Nothing. A little kid. I didn’t know a thing. Eric created me. But—”
“Yes?”
Tentatively, “Well, see, Jan, with all of this there’s still a part of me he doesn’t touch at all. You know, like, inside my head there’s still me, and it’s me and it stays me. I am not great at taking words and making sense out of them—”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“And I’m glad. I thought, oh, that some day there wouldn’t be any of myself left.”
“No, you always have yourself left.”
“Good.”
“He never takes that away.”
“Good.”
“Listen, that red stuff, maybe I ought to get it.”
“Susan? Do you want to make love to me?”
“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”
“I mean, do you want to? Not that Eric wants us to, forget Eric, but what you want. Is that what you want?”
“Well, yeah. Sure. Right.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yeah. I would do it anyway if he said to do it. I jump when he says frog.”
“So do I.”
“So does everyone.”
“I know.”
“But I want to, yes, right, sure I want to. It is so great with a girl. It is so much better.”
“Better?”
“In some ways. Yes, better in some ways. Clean, it’s the cleanest thing in the world. Oh, wow.”
“You keep surprising me, Susan.”
“Only it helps if you love the girl. I think I love you a little, Jan.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I only say what I mean. That’s one thing, I never put anything on. I want to kiss you, Jan.”