I crossed over to the park side and cycled back to the west end of the park, where there’s a broad paved entrance. I circled around there, just inside the park, killing time, doing figure eights and slow U-turns, testing the slow-speed stability of the bike. I’ve rebuilt this bike about three times. I went slower and slower, until the bike was motionless, balanced in a perfect track stand. I held it for a minute or two, then pushed off into another series of U-turns, dodging pedestrians. There was a hot-dog vendor standing there watching me. He’s got the good ones, with the onion sauce, the sauerkraut, and the pickle relish, but I don’t eat crap like that anymore. When the kitchen is cleaned up, I prepare my own food — brown rice, vegetables, tofu, yogurt. I didn’t get around to cleaning the kitchen today, just closed the door, but I’m going to do it next. It’s good that I’m beginning to get the place cleaned up. I haven’t brought anybody home for a long time, because it was such a mess. Since the last one, I just haven’t bothered. The last one was this woman I met on the 104 bus. I sat down beside her and she just came home with me. The one before that was when I was making a long-distance call and needed some help from the operator. The operator turned out to be this woman with a great voice. I got to talking to her and I talked her into coming to my apartment on her lunch break. Can you believe that? I just wanted to see if she would really come. I can’t remember now which was which, they both left the same way. Just gathering themselves up, rolling over to the side of the bed, feeling around for their clothes. They looked like they forgot already. I really resent that, when they just get up and go. After all, I give full measure in bed. Oh, yeah, it’s more than just performance with me.
I headed back downtown and wasted some time leaning against the iron gate at the subway. I was across the avenue when I saw them come out of the restaurant. They walked a few steps on the sidewalk and then turned to face each other. I couldn’t tell if they were talking or not, it didn’t look as if they were. Damn it, what were they going to do next? Logically, he should go back to his office and she should go shopping or to a movie. Isn’t that what suburban ladies do on their day in town?
What’s-his-name, George, turned and started for the near corner, and she watched him walk away. I started crossing the avenue, knowing that neither one of them would notice me at this point. She crossed her wrists in front of her, pulling her jacket tight. Then she turned and started for the far end of the block, heading toward Fifth.
I came up behind her, passing her the first time, just glancing around, keeping close to the sidewalk. It was then that I saw that her eyes were full of tears and she probably couldn’t have seen me anyway. I circled back and came by her again, this time calling out.
“Hey. Hey, Mrs. Talbot. Mrs. Talbot?”
She brushed the tears away quickly, almost as if she was just brushing her hair back. I had passed her again by now. I turned around and cycled down the sidewalk, stopping beside her. “Hello, Mrs. Talbot. I thought that was you.” I smiled at her. “What are you doing in town?”
“Oh, it’s—”
“It’s Nick. Remember me?”
“Of course I do. How are you?”
“Fine. Wait a minute.” I got off the bike and turned it to face the direction she was walking in and fell into step beside her. “Where are you heading?”
She flung up her hands, with her elbows pressed in to her waist, in that funny angular movement I had noticed before.
“I don’t know.”
“Come home with me,” I said.
She looked at me, dry-eyed now and alert.
“Let me make you a cup of tea, I’ve got some Celestial Tea at home. We can walk up through the park. I live just up the avenue, between Lincoln Center and Central Park West. It’s really nice in the park today. Come on.”
She came.
She was all right in bed. She really was. I was surprised. I mean, I had thought about fucking her, but I hadn’t thought about her, how she would be. She really was there for me, holding on to me, patting and stroking. I loved the way she touched me. I asked her later about that, how it was that she was so good with her hands. She said she thought she had learned how to touch people from holding her children, that she had not known before.
You’re probably wondering what we talked about, coming up through the park. Nothing much. I pointed out the moon and the sun to her, they were still there. I sang a Provencal song about the moon. I told her I liked her hair. I told her I was an orphan. I told her that story I always tell, that I remember when I was four or five years old my father used to tie me up in a blanket and throw me over his shoulder and go for a walk. I’d peer out at the world... people would say, “What have you got in that sack?” And my father would answer, “My fortune.” Women always like that story.
When she got too excited, she tried to hold us both back, literally dragging me back by my hair, my shoulders, finger by finger, to slow us down. Also, she had a way of suddenly opening her eyes and looking right at me when something good was happening. I noticed all the things about her that made her different, and I began to find out how to make them happen. And I knew that Screwbosky must have noticed, too, and worked at it, too.
It is a point of pride with me to do this well. Anybody who does something really well tends never to do it less than well. That’s one reason I finish so little. If it’s not going well, I won’t do it.
She kept her eyes closed a lot of the time. I guess to concentrate on what she was feeling. I began to stroke inside, moving easily and deep. Her legs flew apart then, and she flew apart inside, too, opening in front of me and I followed, moving past bands of flesh and rings like chine into a snug space beyond. I can do this... oh, about five or six minutes before I have to shift to something else.
With my hands, I stroked her thighs along the outside, and directed her by touch to press her legs together under me, so that she would grasp me as tightly as possible. Her flesh moved with me as I moved, the outer membrane sliding with me, the deeper flesh less yielding, and then meeting the blank warmth of that far wall. I took her head between my hands and turned her face up to mine. I kissed her until she fought for breath, and finally we both moaned, open-mouthed, and I felt a thrill of pleasure shake my ass, as rare a thing for me as completing one of my designs. Rarer.
And yet, when it was over, she sat on the frame of the waterbed and dressed herself, pantyhose and pleated skirt, and a shirt with a ribbon at the neck. I wanted her to lie down and talk for a while. I wanted to question her about Screwbosky. She had glanced at the poster, passing through the living room, but had made no comment. I wanted to ask her if she had ever suggested any words to Screwbosky for a song, and if so which ones they were. I wanted to ask if he was as tall as I am. If he was as good in bed.
But she was combing her hair, and already thinking ahead, of the trip across town, of the train, of dinner; as far as I was concerned, she was already taking the roast from the oven. I pulled her back over onto the bed. I didn’t care whether she went or stayed, but why couldn’t she stay for a few minutes? She stretched out next to me. I jiggled the waterbed. I once saw someone put a baby on its back on a hard surface, and it lost its equilibrium in the same way. She adjusted her body with little jerks. “Come back on Monday,” I said.
“Monday...” She really had not thought ahead to another meeting.
I could see that she had thought this was just a lucky fuck — no consequences, no guilt, no connection at all to her life. But now that she did think of going to bed with me again, her eyes narrowed on her calendar, probably stamped with the name of a suburban bank and hanging with the train schedule beside the wall telephone in her kitchen.