10
Saturdays I usually quit work at noon, lunching either with Hymie Laubscher and Romero or with O’Rourke and O’Mara. Sometimes Curley joined us, or George Miltiades, a Greek poet and scholar, who was one of the messenger force. Now and then O’Mara would invite Irma and Dolores to joins us; they had worked their way up from humble secretaries in the Cosmococcic employment bureau to buyers in a big department store on Fifth Avenue. The meal usually stretched out until three of four in the afternoon. Then, with dragging feet, I would wend my way over to Brooklyn to pay my weekly visit to Maude and the little one.
As the snow was still on the ground we were no longer able to take our walks through the park. Maude was generally attired in a negligee and bathrobe; her long hair hung loosely, almost to her waist. The rooms were super-heated and encumbered with furniture. She usually kept a box of candy near the couch where she reclined.
The greetings we exchanged would make one think we were old friends. Sometimes the child was not there when I arrived, having gone to a neighbor’s house to play with one of her little friends.
«She waited for you until three o’clock,» Maude would say, with an air of mild reproach, but secretly thrilled that it had turned out thus.
I would explain that my work had detained me at the office. To this she would give me a look which signified—«I know your excuses. Why don’t you think up something different?»
«How is your friend Dolores?» she would ask abruptly. «Or,» giving me a sharp look, «isn’t she your friend any more?»
A question like this was meant as a gentle insinuation that she hoped I was not deceiving the other’ woman (Mona) as I had her. She would never mention Mona’s name, of course, nor would I. She would say «she» or «her» in a way that was unmistakably clear as to whom she meant.
There was also, in these questions, an overtone of deeper implications. Since the divorce proceedings were only in the preliminary stages, since the rupture had not yet been definitely created by law, there was no telling what might happen in the meantime. We were no longer enemies, at least. There was always the child between us—a strong bond. And, until she could arrange her life differently, they were both dependent on me. She would like to have known more about my life with Mona, whether it was going as smoothly as we had expected or not, but pride prevented her from inquiring too openly. She doubtless reasoned to herself that the seven years we had lived together constituted a not altogether negligible factor in this now seemingly tenuous situation.
One false move on Mona’s part and I would fall back into the old pattern. It behooved her to make the most of this strange new friendship which we had established. It might prepare the ground for another and deeper relationship.
I felt sorry for her sometimes when this unexpressed hope manifested itself only too clearly. There was never the slightest fear on my part that I would sink back into the old pattern of conjugal life. Should anything happen to Mona—the only threat of separation I could think of was death—I would certainly never resume a life with Maude. It was much more plausible that I should turn to some one like Irma or Dolores, or even Monica, the little waitress from the Greek restaurant.
«Why don’t you come over here and sit beside me— I won’t bite you.»
Her voice seemed to come from far away. Often it happened that when we were left alone, Maude and I, my mind would wander off. As now, for example, I would often respond in a semi-trance, the body obedient to her wishes but the rest of me absent. A brief struggle of wills always ensued, a struggle rather between her will and my absence of will. I had no desire to tickle her erotic fancies; I was there to kill a few hours and be off without opening any fresh wounds. Usually, however, my hand would absent-mindedly stray over her voluptuous form. There was nothing more to it at first than the involuntary caress that one would give a pet. But little by little she would make me aware that she was responding with concealed pleasure; then, just when she had succeeded in riveting my attention upon her body, she would make some abrupt move to break the connection.
«Remember, I’m not your wife any more!»
She loved to hurl that at me, knowing that it would incite me to renewed efforts, knowing that it would focus my mind, as well as my fingers, upon the forbidden object: herself. These taunts served another purpose too—they roused an awareness of her power to offer or deny. She always seemed to be saying with her body: «To have this you can’t ignore The idea that I could be satisfied with her me.»
body only was a most humiliating one for her. «I’d give you more than any woman could offer,» she seemed to say, «if only you looked at me, if only you saw me, the real me.» She knew only too well that I looked beyond her, that the dislocation between our centers was far more real, far more dangerous, now than it had ever been. She knew too that there was no other way of reaching me than through the body.
It’s a curious fact that a body, however familiar it may be to sight and touch, can become eloquently mysterious once we feel that the owner of it has become elusive or evasive. I remember the renewed zest with which I explored Maude’s body after I learned that she had been to see a doctor for a vaginal examination. What gave spice to the situation was that the doctor in question had been an old suitor of hers, one of those suitors whom she had never mentioned. Out of the blue one day she announced that she had been to his office, that she had had a fall one day which she had told me nothing about, and, having lately run into her old sweetheart, whom she knew she could trust (!), she had decided to let him examine her.
«You just walked in on him and asked to be examined?»
«No, not quite like that.» She had to laugh herself at this.
«Well, what did happen exactly?»
I was curious to know whether he had found her improved or otherwise in the interval of five or six years which had elapsed. Hadn’t he made any advances? He was married, of course, she had already informed me of that. But he was also extremely handsome, a magnetic personality, she had taken pains to let me know.
«Well, how did it feel to get on the table and spread your legs open—before your old sweetheart?»
She tried to make me understand that she had grown absolutely frigid, that Dr. Hilary, or whatever the devil his name was, had urged her to relax, that he had reminded her that he was acting as a physician, and so on and so forth.
«Did you succeed in relaxing—finally?»
Again she laughed, one of those tantalizing laughs which she always produced when she had to speak of «shameful» things.
«Well, what did he do?» I pressed.
«Oh, nothing much, really. He just explored the vagina (she wouldn’t say my vagina!) with his finger. He had a rubber over his finger of course.» She added this as though to absolve herself of any suspicion that the procedure might have been anything more than a perfunctory one.
«He thought I had filled out beautifully,» she volunteered, to my surprise.
«Oh, he did, did he? He gave you a thorough examination, then?»
The recollection of this little incident had been stirred by a remark she had just dropped. She said she had been worried about the old pain which had reappeared recently. She redescribed the fall which she had years ago when she believed, mistakenly, that she had injured her pelvis. She spoke with such seriousness that when she took my hand and placed it above her cunt, just at the ridge of the Mons Venus, I thought the gesture one of complete innocence. She had a thick growth of hair there, a genuine rose bush which, if the fingers strayed within striking distance of it, immediately stood on end, stiffened like a brush. It was one of those bushy things which are maddening to touch through a film of silk or velvet. Often, in the early days, when she wore attractive flimsy things, when she acted coquettish and seductive, I used to make a grab for it and hold on to it while standing in some public place, the lobby of a theatre, or an elevated station. She used to get furious with me. But, standing close to her, blocking the sight of my groping hand, I would continue to hold on to it, saying: «Nobody can see what I’m doing. Don’t move!» And I would continue talking to her, my hand buried in her muff, she hypnotized with fear. In the theatre, as soon as the lights were lowered, she would always spread her legs apart and let me fool with her. She thought nothing of it then to open my fly and play with my cock throughout
