And not the least wonderful thing about the mussels is that they look like cunts. They really do. Inner and outer labia, and cunning little clitorises, and I always sense that each of them has a secret if you can only think of a way to make it open itself, but the secret must remain forever so. They make me horny, mussels do. Clams have a good deal more taste to them, but mussels have more charm, and are just more fun to eat.
Rhoda, you were more fun to eat than mussels.
Rhoda, I came deliciously, shivering, trembling, the instant I opened your thighs and put my mouth to you. I tasted you, I breathed you in, and without any preparation I quietly exploded and came. And yet my own orgasm, intense as it was, did not really matter much to me; it was as if it were happening to someone else who happened to share my body. (Like having dental work done on nitrous oxide-one feels what’s going on, but it has no immediate personal relevance.) Because the orgasm took place down there in my own loins, and I didn’t live there now. I lived in my head. I was a disembodied head, loving you with my mouth.
I was worried at first that perhaps you would not like it. A stupid fear. It was very important to me, though, that you like this, and I traced your secret parts like a palmist reading a hand, and caught your rhythms, and knew it was all right; it would always be all right.
College days.
It was the big game, it was homecoming week.
I can’t describe any more of it. I don’t really see the point, anyway. A couple of pages back I got myself so worked up that all I had to do was put one hand in my lap and touch myself for a few seconds and I came in my pants. Just like that.
We just didn’t leave that bed, but as far as who did what and with which and to whom is concerned, I don’t suppose it matters. Nor do I have that precise a memory for what followed. If you insist, Rhoda, I suppose I could sort of make things up to extend the scene when we put the final polish on the book. But I would rather leave it as it is.
We did at one point stop long enough to bring in cups of coffee from the kitchen and smoke a few cigarettes. And I said, “Well, I guess we still have it for each other, don’t we?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“No, it doesn’t. The only question is where we go from here.”
“Isn’t that up to you, Priss?”
“Why me?”
“Well, to be crude about it, it’s your house. Also it’s your life.”
“Why my life and not yours?”
“Because you’re the only one of us with a stable life. I could go in virtually any direction right now without disrupting anything. You’ve got a good marriage going.”
“So?”
“So you could decide that the best move all around would be for me to pack my suitcase and get the fuck out of here.”
“If you do, you’d better figure on taking me with you.”
“I’m serious, Priss.”
“I’m kind of serious myself.”
“Not really. You wouldn’t leave Harry. Christ, there’s no earthly reason for you to leave Harry.”
“I know.”
“So you could send me on my way-”
“I could never do that.”
“-or we could just see what happens.”
“You mean just keep on keeping on.”
“I haven’t heard that phrase in a while. Yes, that’s what I mean. We were never that exclusive about our love. We went on dating, we had sex with boys.”
“But what I had with you was always so special.”
“Yes, for both of us.”
“The thing is that I really love you.”
“We love each other, Priss. We always did.”
“Yes, we always did. And always will. This isn’t going to wear off, you know. I did think yesterday, it did occur to me in the car, it occurred to me that maybe this was something we were going to have to do just once in order to get it out of our systems. But that’s just not true, is it? I could have you forever and not wear out what I get from you and give to you.”
“And likewise I’m sure.”
“‘Likewise I’m sure.’ I wish I could do accents.”
“Just be glad you can’t do imitations.”
“He’s a sweet man, though, isn’t he? You like him, don’t you? And I know he likes you very much.”
“Yes, I like Harry. Of course.”
“Actually the two of you have a lot in common.”
“Now that’s the kind of line you always come up with that makes him fall on the floor laughing.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Well, the thing that Harry and I have in common is you.”
“Oh.”
“You nut.”
“Yeah. That’s me. There’s something I know that you don’t know, I think.”
“There are probably many such things, pudding.”
“Harry knows about us.”
“ What? ”
“Oh, wait a minute. No, not about us now. About us then.”
“You mean in school.”
“Yes, of course. You didn’t think-”
“Right, I didn’t think, I absolutely did not think at all. What I very nearly did do, though, is have cardiac arrest.”
“I’m sorry.”
“When did you tell him? That’s what happened, right? You came out and told him?”
“Uh-huh. Maybe a year or two ago.”
“You told him the whole story?”
“I didn’t tell him any story, really. Just that you and I had been lovers. I think I probably gave him the impression that we were less important to each other than we really were.”
“How did he feel about it?”
“I don’t know. You know, it was history. It was before I met him. He knows I screwed other guys before I met him and that never seemed to bother him.”
“But it might bother him having them over to the house.”
“Oh, he would never stand for that.”
“Whereas here I am-”
“Yes, that’s different. If you were a former male lover of mine he couldn’t stand it, but he’s very keen on having you here. Keen-there’s another word we don’t get to hear much from these days. Time has really turned inside out, hasn’t it? Today, I mean. I just know we’re going to get out of bed and find out that Eisenhower is President of the United States again.”
“Then let’s not get out of bed. But to get back to what you were saying.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you think he has any idea-”
“That we’ve still got it for each other?”
“And that we’re doing something about it.”
“I don’t really know. I think, this may sound weird-”
“Go on.”
“Just that I think it turns him on. The idea of us. From what I’ve read, it’s not exactly rare for men to react that way to female homosexuality.”
“You know who you just sounded exactly like? Dr. Joyce Brothers.”
“That’s been my lifelong ambition. An inarticulate Dr. Joyce Brothers, that’s me.”
“But I can’t see why this would turn a man on. I mean, if you turn it around and imagine yourself watching two guys making it together-”
“Ugh.”
“Right. I’d rather watch ice melt. I’d rather watch flies fuck.”
“Do you want to finish that coffee?”
“No, it’s cold.”
“Want another cup?”
“Not now. I want a cigarette, though. Priss?”
“What?”
“I wonder if-no, nothing. Come here, Priss.”
I wonder what I thought. About our future. Even about our present.
I suppose I thought, among other things, that this could be how we would spend Wednesdays. Once a week Harry had a day to go into New York and do whatever it was that he did there, and that could be my day to be a lesbian.
I am positive the world is full of housewives who send their kids to school and their husbands to the city and then get together and suck each other silly. I suppose this is healthier than mah-jong and less wearying than bowling and more satisfying than charity work.
But did I really think that this could go on undiscovered for any length of time?
I guess it maybe comes down to this-that I was at that time in that bed so present-oriented that I couldn’t take the future seriously. I was living in present time, and the present was time enough.