“Ruth-Anne?”
“If you need to cancel, please call forty-eight hours in advance.”
It was definitely her.
“Would it be possible to talk now? A phoner? I’m in the midst of some complicated new feelings.”
She was silent.
“I guess I can wait until tomorrow.”
“We’ll see you Thursday the nineteenth,” she said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I described tapping into Phillip’s lust, his overwhelming appetites and aggressive explosions that convulsed through me. Ruth-Anne seemed unsurprised, as if I were late to my own party.
“Right. And perhaps we don’t even need to call it Phillip’s lust? Maybe it’s just lust.”
“Well, it’s not mine. These just aren’t the kinds of things I would think about, on my own, without him.”
“So you don’t find it arousing when she attacks you?”
“Everything she does to me, I pretend I’m doing to her, as Phillip.”
“I see. And how does Cheryl Glickman feel?”
“Me?”
“Yes, what do you feel?”
Me, I thought. Me. Me. Me. Nothing specific came to mind.
“Are you masturbating yourself to orgasm?”
I smiled at the floor. “Yes?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yes. I am. But that’s just, you know, behind the scenes.”
Ruth-Anne nodded as if I had just said something very astute. Maybe I had. I wondered if I was her favorite patient, or at least the only one who could talk on her level.
“Can I ask you something that’s a little bit related to this?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Remember when you called yesterday, about my appointment with Dr. Broyard?”
Her face changed.
“Well, I’m not sure I should keep seeing him — it might feel funny now.”
“Funny how?”
“Not funny, more like uncomfortable. To see you in your receptionist role. And him. Now that I know.”
She stared at me for a long time and I wondered if I was her least-favorite patient.
“Well, it’s up to you,” she said finally. “But I believe you’ve missed the forty-eight-hour cancellation window.”
CLEE THOUGHT HER PINK BOXERS covered her but they didn’t. If she was sitting cross-legged I could see the edge of her dark blond pubic hair and sometimes more. One morning I saw a flash of labia, pink and hanging loose. Not the tidy, concealed meat that I had been imagining. With this new information Phillip had to go back and redo all the sex he had already done. He really wanted to see her anus, though he wouldn’t have called it that. I reread all his texts but didn’t find a word for it. I went with pucker. I’LL ADMIT IT, he might have written, I WANT TO RAM MY STIFF MEMBER INTO HER PUCKER.
When he was mentioned at work, usually in terms of fundraising, I felt a shiver of invisibility — not that I was him, but it was strange to hear him talked about so freely.
“Phil Bettelheim’s donation was on the smaller side this year,” said Jim, “but it’s only June, he might give again. Has anyone walked him through the high-risk outreach initiative?”
We hadn’t spoken since I gave him my blessing; I guessed he was busy actually doing all the things I was pretending he was. The thought gave me a sad ache, and even this ache was arousing. I felt so close to him. It could never be proven, but I suspected we were becoming stiff at the same time, possibly even ejaculating in unison, the way women’s menstrual periods sometimes become synchronized. I wondered where Clee was in her cycle.
“Cheryl.” I looked up. A face so like and unlike hers. “How’s my daughter? Is she behaving?”
“Oh yes,” I said, too quickly. “Absolutely.” Suzanne crossed her arms, waiting. She knew everything.
“Be honest. I know how she is.” She looked me dead in the eye.
“She watches a lot of TV,” I whispered.
Suzanne sighed. “She takes after Carl’s mother — not a ton up here.” She tapped her forehead. For an uncomfortable moment I felt almost protective of Clee.
“She’s more instinctual,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “But thank you. Carl and I are thinking of some way to repay you. Not — I don’t mean money.”
HER COWLIKE VACUOUSNESS DIDN’T REALLY bother me anymore. Or it didn’t matter — her personality was just a little piece of parsley decorating warm tawny haunches. Clee was bouncing up and down on Phillip’s stiff member every day, many times a day, and at first it seemed he would never get tired of creaming in her puss winged by the dark blond pubic hair. But now, ten days later, I had a problem. He wanted it just as much, even more, but it took longer and longer to get there — sometimes as many as thirty minutes. Sometimes never. I tried unusual positions, new locations. One fantasy involved Ruth-Anne observing the intercourse, admiring and applauding with clinical approval. It was so unlikely that it worked, for a short time. But the smallest thing could stymie Phillip’s release.
Clee’s foot smell. Before it was the least of my problems; now it was a real turnoff. Phillip sometimes put plastic bags on her feet, trapping in the smell with rubber bands just so he could become stiff.
Cream in my puss, she begged. In me! In me! her puss whined, through aching mushy lips.
Not until you get your feet taken care of, he barked. I know a chromotherapist who specializes in this, best on the west side. Tell him I sent you.
I waited for a neutral moment to bring it up, then I plopped down on the arm of the couch. She was slurping ramen from a cup.
“Good stuff?” She stopped eating and frowned distrustfully. We hadn’t exchanged unscripted dialogue since Kate’s visit. “First of alclass="underline" peace. Okay?”
She furrowed her brow and looked at the V my fingers were making. I had no idea what I was doing.
“Okay,” I continued. “We live together, we are sometimes… physically close?” My voice rose to a question here; it was an insane thing to say given that I plowed her many times a day as Phillip. But I meant the fight scenarios. She nodded, putting her soup down. She was listening with an almost disconcerting level of attentiveness. I fingered the Post-it in my back pocket.
“Look, I don’t want to be too forward here, or say something that you’re going to take offense to.” Clee shook her head like No, no, I won’t be offended.
“I can speak candidly, then?”
She actually laughed, and her mouth broke into a smile, a real smile. I’d never seen that before. Her teeth were huge.
“I’ve been hoping that you would,” she said, now pressing her lips together as if there was an ocean of other smiles and more laughter on the other side and she was trying to hold it back for just a few more seconds. She nodded for me to go ahead, to say it.
My hand had been waiting for its cue and I watched with a distant horror as it came forward with the Post-it. She peeled it off my palm and studied Dr. Broyard’s address and the date of my appointment with soft, quizzical eyes. Thursday, June 19, tomorrow. There was nothing to do but continue with the plan.
“The situation with your feet — the odor, I mean—”
I’d never seen a face change shape like that. It dropped: every feature fell. I hurried on.
“My friend Phillip swears by Dr. Broyard for athlete’s foot. When you get there, tell the receptionist I sent you — I’m giving you my appointment.” I pointed at the paper.