Shevlin had hung a calendar on the wall alongside the bunk bed. It was from Goddard-Riverside, a social service effort, and each page bore the amateurish art of a different senior citizen, with the artist’s name and age listed. Children noted their age on their letters and drawings, the Carpenter had noticed, and so did the elderly. I know this is rubbish, they seemed to be saying, but consider how old I am. Isn’t it remarkable that I can even hold a brush?
The calendar was hung to display the current month, August. Soon it would be time to turn the page, and the Carpenter did so now, to have a look at September’s masterpiece. It was the work of Sarah Handler, who was eighty-three, and it showed a bowl of round objects, which the Carpenter took to be apples.
He picked up a red marker and circled a date. Then he turned the calendar back to August.
twenty-eight
He had a surprisingly good day at the keyboard. He’d anticipated trouble, having so utterly rearranged the furniture in his life. For months — since whatever happened with Marilyn Fairchild, incredibly enough — he hadn’t had sex. Aside from various cops, Maury Winters, and that rummy of a PI, he hadn’t had anyone in his apartment in longer than he could remember.
Add in the fact that he’d just quit smoking and it seemed likely that the words would slow to a trickle, or dry up altogether. Instead, they poured down in buckets.
He’d finished for the day, showered and changed, and was sitting at the window when she showed up right on time. They went to Mitali’s for Indian food and he told her the patch was helping.
“But it was tricky getting it. You need a prescription for the thing, can you believe that? Every newsstand or deli will sell you all the cigarettes you want, but if you want to quit you’ve got to see a doctor. I went to this little drugstore on Bleecker, I don’t know how they stay in business, and I slipped the guy a hundred dollars.”
“You had to schmear him to sell you a patch?”
“I told him he’d be saving me time and money, and doing me a big favor. He looked around, like somebody might be watching us. I wonder if any of the guys in the hip-hop outfits are selling patches in Union Square. If not, they’re missing a good thing.”
Walking back to Bank Street, she slipped her hand into his.
The jazz station on the radio, with the volume turned low. She said the same thing she’d said yesterday. I’ll do anything you want. You can do whatever you want with me.
For answer, he drew her close for a kiss, put a hand on her bottom and pulled her loins tight against him. He was hard, but that was nothing new. He’d been that way in the restaurant.
She said, “Anything you want. And whenever you want, except for Tuesdays and Fridays.”
“Shrink appointments? Personal trainer?”
“Sex,” she said. She raised her eyes to his. Her gaze was open, unguarded. “I’m going to tell you about Tuesdays and Fridays,” she said, “but I want you inside of me while I tell you. Can we do that? No, from behind. See how wet I am. I’ve been like this all day, I had to masturbate, I couldn’t help myself. Now you’re nice and wet, you’re wet with my wetness. Now take it out and put it in the other place. Yes, yes. I want you in my ass. Oh, yes. God, you’re big, it feels wonderful. Now don’t move, don’t thrust. Can you do that, John? Can you just stay like that?”
“I can try.”
“Oh, God, don’t move. Oh, I can’t hold back, I’m going to come. Oh. Oh. Don’t move, please don’t move. Is that all right? Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, I love you. I do, you know. Don’t say anything. Can you just stay in me and not move and not say anything? Yes, you can. Oh, you’re an angel. Now I have to think where to begin. Maury Winters, your lawyer. The last time I saw Maury he took me to a fancy French restaurant. We had just ordered dessert when he went to the bathroom, and while he was gone I got under the table, and when he came back I sucked him off.
“It was very exciting. I always love doing that, but I especially liked two things, surprising him like that and doing it in public. No one could see us but it was entirely possible someone saw me get under the table, and I know there were people who saw me get out.
“At least one, and that brings us to the man I see every Friday night. I won’t tell you his name, but I’m going to tell you everything else. I love you, John. I love your cock in my ass. I’m going to tell you everything.”
She talked for a long time. She didn’t censor her speech, didn’t check it in her mind but let it flow out unimpeded, as if she were an open faucet and the words were water. Sometimes she would feel disembodied, lost in space, and then the hard bulk of him inside her would bring her back, and she would tighten around him and go on.
She told him about Franny, although she didn’t use his name or identify him beyond saying he had been a public official, a man used to exercising authority. She told him about the boys, Lowell and Jay. She told him about the man from Connecticut and the man from Detroit. She told him about Reginald Barron. She told him about Chloe.
She told him about her toys. She told him about the times she spent by herself, and what she did, and what fantasies she used.
She told him she felt alive, as she had never felt before. She told him she worried sometimes that she was crazy, that she was out of control.
When she had run out of things to tell him she lay still and felt him still hard inside her, felt his hand resting lightly on her hip, felt his mind touching hers. She felt that she could almost talk to him without words, that her mind could speak silently to his. Almost.
Aloud she said, “Do you hate me, John?”
“Of course not.”
“Am I disgusting?”
“You’re beautiful.”
“But does it disgust you, what I do? You could make me stop. I don’t want to stop, but I would do it for you.”
He was silent for a moment, but she wasn’t afraid of what he would say. She could feel his mind, so gentle against hers, and she knew what he said would be all right.
He said, “It’s what you do, Susan. It’s who you are. It’s your art.”
Something broke within her and she felt tears stream down her cheeks. “Oh, my darling,” she said. “Oh, lie still, lie perfectly still. Don’t move. I want to do this for you.”
And she tightened around him, tightened and relaxed, tightened and relaxed, milking him, milking him, until at last he let out a great cry and emptied himself into her.
“If I’d had any idea what it would do for my sex life,” he said, “I’d have quit smoking years ago.”
“It must be the patch.”
“Jesus, no wonder you need a prescription.”
Showers, cups of tea. She was holding one of his books, Nothing but Blue Skies, studying the dust jacket photo. She asked when he’d shaved the beard.
“The night we met.”
“Seriously?”
“I was trimming it,” he said, “and that’s hard to do when you’re in a hurry. And I thought, oh, the hell with it, and the next thing I knew it was gone. I didn’t intend it to be symbolic, not consciously, anyway. But I must have, because I’d had it for years, and out of nowhere I’d just landed this ridiculously huge contract, and zip, no beard. If you want I’ll grow it back.”
“It’s a handsome beard,” she said, “but don’t grow it back. I like being able to see your face. What you said before, that sex was my art. That may be the most beautiful thing anybody ever said to me. It made me cry.”