“Monkey drops?”
“The pheromones, Walter.”
You were already rifling through the drawer of Van’s night table. A vaguely pornographic poster above the headboard advertised something called Equus Special Blend: two women with airbrushed, lava-colored bodies caressing a man-sized vial of iridescent goo. I studied it for a while, trying to figure out why Van could possibly have had it framed, then recognized it as a poster for his company. The vial was sweating angrily and so were both the women. A banner of digital-looking text across their genitals proclaimed:
YOUR. TIME. IS. NOW.
“Your time is now,” you said quietly. You were standing at my shoulder, gazing up at the poster with a look that I couldn’t interpret. “Isn’t it always?”
“If that were true, Mrs. Haven, my cousin would be out of a job.” You sighed, and I realized — too late — that your expression was one of melancholy. “I only mean that, in this case, ‘your time’ is a reference to getting a girl — I mean, to finding somebody to—”
“It’s always now,” you said. “It’s never then.” You seemed to be speaking only to yourself. A second wave of jealousy broke over me, even more overpowering than the first. My sense of predestination was gone without a trace.
“I’d rather not talk about time, if you don’t mind.”
“Why not?”
“If you really want to know, Mrs. Haven—” I hesitated, at a loss as to where to begin. “You might say that time is my family curse.”
“Time is everyone’s curse.”
“That’s a popular misconception, actually. Without progressive time — that is to say, without what physicists refer to as the ‘thermodynamic arrow,’ life as we experience it—”
“Put a cork in it, Walter,” you said, pressing the thumb of your right hand against my lips. Your left hand held two vials of brownish liquid. I was gripped by a new sensation then, one that I’ve always hated: the feeling of life imitating advertising. The mimicry wasn’t perfect — you weren’t sweating or lava-colored, and you had your clothes on — but it was close enough. I took one of the vials from you, squinted at it a moment, then pulled out the rubber stopper with my teeth. A smell of grease and toffee filled the room.
You gave a tipsy-sounding laugh. “What’s your next move, Walter? What are you—”
“My time is now,” I said softly. I knocked the little vial back like a shot.
For the space of a few seconds I felt nothing: my sense of propriety stirred in certain of the remoter furrows of my brain, but that was all. Almost at once, however — with astonishing speed, at any rate — a warmth began to muster at the bottom of my spine. My eyes had closed at some point without my noticing, and I quickly lost all awareness of the room, of the party, even of the fact of you beside me. Purple and crimson and cinnamon-colored shapes began to creep across my sight, and behind or below them were other shapes, less abstract, more carnal, squirming and writhing together in patterns and rhythms that brought a prickling flush to my skin. I felt exalted, singled out by obscure and erotic forces, ready for anything as long as it was filthy. I have no clear sense of how long this condition lasted, Mrs. Haven, or how obvious my voluptuousness was to you. With every passing second I became more deliciously aware of each fold and recess of my body, more physically greedy, more depraved. I took in a deep and languid breath, held it as long as I could, then decided I was ready to have my way with the cosmos, beginning with you.
When I opened my eyes, you were staring at me as though I’d just swallowed a tooth.
“You’re not supposed to drink it, Walter. It’s a musk.”
By the time I’d fully grasped what you were saying the voluptuousness had drained away completely, rushing out of my body as if it couldn’t wait to escape, leaving me baffled and self-conscious and alone. For the blink of an eye, I was able to savor a feeling of mortification as acute as my arousal had just been; then, without the slightest transition, I was lying facedown on the corkwood floor.
“Walter? Come in, Walter. Are you alive?”
Your voice was all breath and no sound, the voice of a panicked conspirator, and I wondered, considering my position, how I was able to hear you at all. Then you spoke to me again, and your lips brushed my earlobe, and I realized you were with me on the floor.
“I hear somebody coming, Walter. I think maybe it’s time to get up.”
“Why are you lying down, Mrs. Haven? Did you take a shot, too?”
You cursed under your breath and rolled me over. I opened my eyes with reluctance. You were floating above me like a kind of cherub, but also like a creature in a lithograph I’d once seen, a gargoyle hunched over a woman in the throes of a terrible fever.
“I love you, Mrs. Haven.”
You pursed your lips at that, looking more prim than I’d have thought possible, and patted me very gently on the cheek. “That’s nice of you, Walter. How soon are you going to be sick?”
“That isn’t important. I want to—”
At that moment my cousin reeled into the room, leading a sniggering young man by the collar of what appeared — from what I could make out — to be a uniform of the merchant marine. The two of them grappled for a while at the foot of the bed, taking no notice of us whatsoever, butting foreheads like amorous elk. I’d never seen my cousin behave in this way, though I can’t honestly say I was surprised. Something about Van has always brought late-night nature programming to mind.
“Hello, cousin,” I groaned.
Van gave a slight jerk, as though he’d been stuck with a pin; the boy closed his eyes and flopped onto the bed. You sat up and arranged your hair and dress.
“Jesus, Waldy. What are you doing down there?” Van squinted at us for a moment. “That can’t be Richard Haven’s fucking wife.”
“This man is ill,” you said politely.
“What have you got to say for yourself, Waldy? You’re sick? Is that true?”
“It will be soon,” I managed to reply.
As I write this, Mrs. Haven, it occurs to me that our romance was bookended — set in parentheses, as it were — by visits to the toilet to be sick. You waited just outside the bathroom door, chatting cordially with my cousin; I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror (scruffy brown hair in need of a cut, startled-looking gray eyes, general air of defeat) and resigned myself to the inevitable. Our illicit encounter, such as it was, was over. Our desert island had been colonized.
Van was gone when I finally emerged, but you were just where I’d left you, leafing through an Equus Special Blend brochure. I stood beside you sheepishly, steadying myself against the wall, waiting for you to acknowledge me. When you did I knew at once that it was over.
“I have to go,” you said flatly. “The Husband is waiting. I told him that I’d left something upstairs.”
“That something being me.”
“You don’t understand the chance we’re taking, Walter.” You looked suddenly tired. “He has a possessive streak — a nasty one. If he starts to suspect—”
“I’m not afraid of him. Let him come up.”
Your reply was a yawn, which was what I deserved. It’s typical of my cursed nature that I discounted the fact that you were risking your marriage — and most likely far more — by waiting while I threw up in the bathroom. All I cared about was that you’d soon be gone.
“Mrs. Haven, I feel it incumbent on me—”
“You talk funny,” you said. “Like an actor playing the part of a college professor. I’m not sure I like it.”
“I come from an odd family. Let’s blame it on them.”