It seemed to me that I could taste Prissy on him. Impossible of course, I had heard him in the shower, he took a shower every morning, it was just in my imagination, but I thought I could, and I thought of him plunging simultaneously into my mouth and into Prissy’s cunt, as if his cock could magically be in two places at one time, in two people at one time, and I sucked him, I sucked him.
Robert Keith Dandridge always wanted to be sucked, and I was not that bad a wife, obliging him in that respect most of the time whether I wanted to do it or not. I almost never wanted to do it, and I almost always did it, but one thing I did was that I always made him indicate he wanted it. I never of my own accord dove down upon his prick. Not that it never occurred to me, but that I never had wanted to let him get the idea that this was something I wanted to do for its own sake, because it frankly wasn’t.
I was supposed to be reasonable good at it, I had in fact been told by boys and men who seemed in a position to know that I was reasonably good at it, and I was obviously good enough at it so that Robert Keith Dandridge never tired of that aspect of our life together, however tiresome he (like I) may have found the rest of it. But however good I might be at it, I did not like it with Robert Keith. Not even a little. The only thing I almost liked about it was that when I really did not feel in the mood for his weight on top of me I could give him a quick sucking and make him come that way and be spared a regular screwing. So it was now and then the lesser of two evils, and that was the best that could ever be said for it.
Not so with Harry. With him it was my idea, all my idea, and I really wanted to do it, and I did it, and had some hard-to-understand oral orgasm just as he had an easy-to-discern penile orgasm, and my throat muscles worked out of their own accord and I swallowed every drop, which again was something R.K.D. used to beg me to do (why should he care, the idiot?) and which I had never once done.
God knows why I had never done it before. For you readers who have never considered the problem at length, be advised that it solves the age-old question of how to dispose of a mouthful of love without soiling the carpet or running tediously for the toilet. Also it’s almost all protein, and good for you. Also it is a very loving thing to do, and men seem to appreciate it, and you for it.
I swallowed, and I sighed, and sighed again, and kept his now-softening penis in my mouth, unwilling to let it leave me. I began to be conscious once again of more than his penis and my mouth. I felt the hard earthen floor under my knees, and his hands in my long hair, and the cool air on my face and the backs of my hands.
I sensed something. A presence.
Rather neatly, I thought, without letting the now completely soft penis slip out of my mouth, I tilted my head slightly back and raised my eyes slightly up.
And saw my lover Harry’s handsome face.
Ah, yes. My lover Harry’s handsome face was turned to the side, and my lover Harry’s sensual mouth was fastened to the breast of (surprise!) my lover Priscilla, who had taken off all her clothes, and who was cradling Harry’s head in one hand and had the other hand in my auburn tresses.
I looked at her, too numb to think or feel anything, and she smiled, she beamed, she glowed.
“I knew you would be together,” she said. “I drove a half mile and then came back. I left the car down on the road. I looked in the house, and you weren’t there, and I knew you would be back here.”
I started to say something, God knows what, but there was this cock in my mouth, and it seemed to be hardening again.
“Let’s go inside now,” Priss said. “There’s more room. And we can all be together now. I think that would be very nice, to be all together, all of us.”
PRISS
I saw that cartoon. I knew.
I never told you this, did I? Not wanting to seem too calculating. Better to heed Lady Macbeth’s advice: Look like the innocent serpent, but be the flower under it.
Believe me, I did that one on purpose, Harry. It’s not always stupidity, you see. Sometimes it’s a playful attempt at humor.
I saw that cartoon. I don’t know how Rhoda could have entered the room and almost left it without seeing it, because I noticed it while walking past the room, noticed it from the doorway, and went in at once to have a look at it.
I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.
And another thing I knew was that we all had to be together soon. That Harry and Rhoda had to have each other, and that I had to do what I could to facilitate this. And also that I then had to let them know that I did not object. Because in certain ways I was the crux of this matter. At the present time I was at the whatever-it-is of a triangle. The Ajax? Oh, fuck it. I was at the top of the triangle, the only one involved with both of the others. So it wasn’t really a complete triangle yet, it was like a tent, an Indian teepee, with Harry and Rhoda at either side and lines running from them to me, at the top. But there was no line across the base, no line from Harry to Rhoda, and that line had to be drawn so that the whole mass would have geometric stability.
I find it convenient to think in these symbols, and only hope they are not too much a part of my private vocabulary to make sense to you two. Or to the others, the readers.
Readers?
So I decided to scheme, to put Harry and Rhoda together. I never mentioned this later. Maybe you both already knew. I don’t know. But if I have learned one thing from this book-writing experience it is that we are all of us more calculating than we have willingly let on up to now. Even in our most open moments there are aspects of motivation, thoughts, ideas, privatenesses, that we shield from one another. I don’t doubt that this is emotionally essential. Otherwise one simply gushes and bleeds all over the place. Well, that’s what this is for, isn’t it? Not merely to make us all rich and famous, guest spots on television and our pictures in all the papers, but also and more truly to give us that chance to gush and bleed, but to do it on paper, neatly, antiseptically. Aseptically? I can never remember the difference, and can’t believe it’s too important. To gush and bleed, however. To bleed like the innocent flower, and gush like the serpent under it.
(I feel more than a little giddy. Rhoda began writing the last chapter early in the afternoon and was still at it at dinner time. She wouldn’t stop, took the typewriter into the other room while Harry and I sat down to one of my less successful shots at stuffing a veal breast.
(She finished typing shortly after we finished dinner. We were drinking brandy when she sauntered into the kitchen, face flushed, eyes glassy. She said, “Do you suppose either or both of you might feel like taking me to bed?”
(I said, “You’ve written yourself into a state.” She agreed that she had. Harry said that there ought to be a cure for that sort of thing. We went upstairs, the brandy bottle in tow, and we drank and petted and drank and foreplayed and drank and balled, and somewhere along the way I lost touch with what was going on, which may have been apparent to the other two, or may not have been.
(I felt shut out. I felt as though all of the interaction was happening between Rho and Harry, and as though I was a party to it all in the same way and to about the same extent as the bed we happened to be balling on. My role was thingish rather than personal. I didn’t resent this, I don’t think, nor did I feel that I was being shut out by anyone but that it was an effect on my own inner mood.
(This is not really rare when the three of us are together. One person may be less in the mood than the others, less sexy, and may thus get less involved. There’s nothing really wrong with this, I don’t think. Whoever is in that kind of a set can simply go through the motions, or play Watchbird, or even leave the room.