30 Pieces of a Novel (66 page)

“Two
, you showed no signs of loneliness or need for another woman in any capacity since we met, as far as I could make out, as we'd for the most part been compatible, lively, conversational, stimulating, and supportive—oh, I detest that word and have always shunned it in my conversation and writing, so I don't know why I used it now—with each other. And our sex life together had been, and seems to be to this day, despite the romp and minus the month after it—at least for me and for you as well, from what I could tell—frequent, sufficient, and robust. Three—‘robust' is a word better used for economics, but you know what I mean—three, you said in your original explanation that you knew from the start when you let her into the room and she made a romantic move to you that having sex with her would be wrong, a breach of faith and so forth, not to say—which you never spoke about then but both of us should have seriously considered and later taken a test or two for to resolve the possibility—that you'd risk getting a viral infection or disease, and some of the worst ones were floating around then and the most dangerous one was at its peak,” and he could say, “At the time … at the time … I really can't quite come up with a reasonable justification or pardonable excuse right now why I didn't think of that at the time. It's possible I never thought I'd get anything from her but disappointment during and after the act and acrimonious mail a few days later documenting her disappointment, she seemed that physically fit and careful and clean and of course all charged up to do it, so easily let down when it didn't meet her expectations and because of the nonviral risks she took in aggressively bedding me.” “And four,” she could say, “you said you didn't find her attractive and that she was in fact somewhat overweight, over made-up, and doughy,” and he could say, “I don't remember saying that. From what I can remember,” and he could shut his eyes briefly—no, that would look too much like reverie—“she was fairly attractive by just about any man's idea of good looks—considerably so. Nice face, nice age and shape, nice teeth and low-keyed hair, smart, sparkly, moved gracefully, lots of laughs and devil-may-care, though came on as too saucy and sexy—I squirmed a bit at that but let it pass and didn't show my squirms expressively for reasons I might go into later. Usually, though, saucy provocative women, through behavior, gestures, makeup, dress, voice, and the words they use—and I don't mean by that ‘aggressive women'—appear silly to me and end up dampening and often freezing my fantasies and, before I hooked up with you, my ardor. And what's with this doughiness? Muscular butt, dancer's legs, trapezist's chest, cheerleader's waist, swimmer's back—I'm only repeating hackneyed descriptions I might have read somewhere or even wrote myself, and I forget the one about hips but know it has a horsewoman in it. She
was
short, but that never put me off and it can sometimes make a woman seem sort of doll-like and performable if her body's also compact and slight. Was I drunk? No, I wasn't, as I know I told you. Just a bit tipsy, but you're not going to see me fall back on that time-eaten excuse. I
was
sleepy, but
there
too, and I'm not even certain—I'm only assuming I did because she never said I didn't and seemed the type that would: the accusations and letter never came—if I completed the act or even got started doing it, which if I didn't then forget the possibility of infection and disease and taking tests, as I've been unwaveringly faithful since S and we did nothing but touching without open cuts or soul kisses, and she a lot more than I—I can't even say for sure I did that except where she placed my hands. As to why I let the saucy sexy stuff pass: what I wanted most was to get her out of the room fast as I could, and not just to get to sleep because I was so tired but to avoid prolonging what I didn't want to get involved in originally. So I didn't want her getting miffed at my gestures and remarks and possibly building it up into a scene—‘You tin highbrow and finicky prick and so-called man of the people who keeps his nose in the air' and stuff like that—which also might be why I went through with the sex in the first place, if I did: I saw, after a while, because she was so fired up and unrelenting and confident, that I had no other way of getting rid of her. No, that doesn't work or even make sense, I think, not that I'll try to reprise the last line to see if it did, but maybe one of these will, because believe me I've had a long time to think about it. The truth is I did it because, if you recall, and if you don't, please take my word—at the time we were short of cash, in fact, strapped, which is something you'd have to remember, being the one who does the tax returns for us—and she said she'd add another six hundred to my reading fee—she had that much power—besides finding it kind of exciting at my age to be compensated, and for so large an amount, for my sexual services for a first time. Of course when I didn't perform up to snuff or even penetrate, if I didn't, or even get into a position to—it had to be one of those or she was just lying to me—she went back on the offer but was unable to kill the original reading fee. The room was so depressing and I was feeling lonelier and more estranged from things than I had in years, maybe because I was away from you for the night, which wasn't that unusual an occurrence, so probably also because of the depressing room and my sense of worthlessness after such a lousy reading and my dumb responses in the Q-and-A, that I felt somewhat suicidal, and she by throwing herself at me and comforting me in various ways, like saying a few nice things about my work that I never hear from anyone, including you—‘It invariably floors me and ultimately floors all the people I have to force, since they're more interested in movies and TV, to look at it too'—not that I'm trying to shove the blame on you, that she sort of saved me, you could say, so we should be grateful rather than resentful to her even if she did renege on the second six-hundred-dollar fee. I was drugged, I'm afraid, and for about a half hour I thought she was you and we were doing what we'd normally do in a hotel room, no matter how depressing the setting was, if we were free for a night from the kids. I was simply curious as to what another woman's nudity would feel like after almost twenty years and she was willing to take off her clothes and lie on the bed and align her body against mine so I could find out, and I guess one of us got carried away, though I can't remember that I was the one who did, and the other was swept along with it and away from the original plan. I was drunk, plain and simple, and you know I didn't want to fall back on this lame excuse but it's the truth—I didn't want to drink so much booze, especially since I knew how it'd affect my driving the next day, but ended up doing it eagerly for some reason, maybe because of one of the previous ones concerning depression and estrangement and crummy feelings about myself and so forth—and felt simultaneously woozy and sexy and didn't know what I was doing and hardly whom I was doing it with, and also so sleepy that I didn't even think any of the lovemaking was taking place. When I awoke after and saw her snoozing beside me I thought it was a dream and because I was still tired I went back to sleep, and when I awoke again she was gone without a trace and had even left her side of the bed looking unslept-in and I thought I'd imagined the whole thing, even the sexy dream. It was only during the drive home that it came back to me for real—that I'd had sex the night before with someone other than you—and I felt horrible over it but thought I'd keep it from you. I was afraid how you'd take it and what it'd do to our marriage—but then thought, No, tell her the whole truth, from start to finish, or at least all you know and can remember of it—since it's true that I was a little soused and quite tired during the hotel-room part of it, and that's what I did shortly after I got home that day,” and she could say, “Of course I'm glad you did tell me, though at the time I wasn't glad to hear it. But I knew even while you were telling me of the incident that it was better you got it out then, rather than conceal it from me. Something like that would almost have to come out eventually, either from a buildup of guilt or through some slipup, and then it would be much worse for me, not only because of what you'd be revealing but that you had kept it from me for so long, since we had grounded our marriage and relationship from the beginning on being thoroughly up-front and undeceitful with each other and anything noticeably less would be detrimental to us,” and he could say, “Maybe that's also why I decided to tell you right away—I'm almost sure of it,” and then she could say, “If you don't mind, there is one final thing I've never asked you regarding it and then I'll drop the matter for good, not even to joke or banter about or refer to it in the future. Have you heard from her since then? A personal or professional letter or phone call or fax inviting you to read there again or asking you to do what you can to reciprocate your visit by inviting her to lecture or read at your school for a comparable fee?” and he could say, “No, so she probably did see after I left and she had time to think it over how upset I was about what we'd done and what I thought it might do to you and our marriage, so she felt it best not to communicate with me again. And also because she might have felt guilty about it too—that she had obviously pushed me into doing something that for a long time that night I had done everything I could to show her I didn't want to do, besides having manipulated her way into my hotel room, because she knew I certainly didn't ask her in, and maybe even manipulated me to her school for a reading in the first place because of some bull that she liked my work, though that might be stretching it a bit,” and she could say, “Oh, yeah, I bet that's what she did; saw a photo of you on a book from about twenty years ago and said, ‘He's for me,'” or say, “Maybe that's so, you never know, I mean about her guilt and not communicating with you again, but from everything you said about her she didn't seem the type to feel much remorse over it or exercise that kind of self-control,” and he could say, “Well, I just wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and not set her up as a total predator, since both you and I agree I had to be partly responsible for it, but as you said, you never know.” He decides to take the longer way home. That'll add to the trip twenty to thirty minutes, barring tieups and unexpected heavy traffic, though those could happen on either road. He'll also stop at a rest area for coffee, maybe read there for an hour or so, even have a salad without one of their thick packaged dressings or something else simple and light; he doesn't know why—maybe it's because of the tacky fast-food atmosphere and strong smells of the fried food—but he hates eating at those places, though the coffee's never that bad. He wants to get home after the kids. They and some house chores—shopping, doing a laundry if one needs doing—can occupy his time for a couple of hours, and then he'll make dinner and they'll eat it and he'll read a book and the newspaper for an hour after and then say he's tired from all the driving—some of the roads were congested and the trip took longer than he thought it would—and he's going to turn in early, and when she gets to their bedroom a few hours after he's shut off the light he'll be asleep, or pretend to be. He doesn't think he'll tell her what happened last night. No, he's definitely not going to, or doesn't think so. No “doesn't think so”; he isn't, he's sure. He hopes Sheila won't contact him again. She won't for a lecture or reading at his school, since she knows she hasn't the credentials for that yet—no first book out or scholarly following—and he for sure won't go out of his way to try and convince his colleagues otherwise. And he thinks he made it clear to her that he wouldn't be interested in sleeping with her again and that even seeing her again wouldn't be a good idea. “Why?” she could say, and he could say, “There'd be no point and it'd even be embarrassing to me and I don't want to say why it'd be embarrassing or go into the matter any deeper.” He still doesn't know why she wanted to have sex with him so much and pursued it the way she did. Aggressively, did he say? No, he only thought it, but he can't recall any woman who went after him more. Be honest, though: did he enjoy it? No, probably because he really can't remember most of it except that she had a nice body—much harder and somewhat slimmer than his wife's and she was a few inches shorter, though he can't picture her body, while he can his wife's—and chapped lips the few times they kissed. What else? Her long hair; the time she screamed when his arm was on it while she tried to move her head. Eye color, nose shape, large or small aureoles?—a blank. Teeth extremely white and even, he thinks. He thinks he thought, when she first greeted him at the hotel, She could be advertising those teeth and that smile, though he can't picture her smile either, while he can his wife's. He does remember getting on top of her—he thinks she said, “What're you waiting for, silly? Come on,” but with a nice smile, nothing snide or hard in it—but he doesn't remember any thrill at the end of the act. So did he enjoy it? There was a minute or two, when he was going in and just about all the way out of her and getting as much friction from it as he could, that he thinks he lost himself in the pleasure of it. But when his climax was coming—some thirty seconds away—he told himself, “Goddammit, what am I doing? Why in shit did I ever start in on this and then let it continue?” and opened his eyes and saw her with that dreamy look and her mouth parted just so and those teeth, and it sort of dissipated for him—at most, just a leak—and after it was over and he was lying almost flat on her and she was rubbing his back in a circular motion with one or two hands and saying something like, “You're long and wiry but heavier than I thought, so get off before you squash me,” he thought, It wasn't my fault, I'm almost sure of it, but still one of the worst mistakes I've ever made. But if I tried to explain it, who the hell would believe me? and rolled off her and wanted to excuse himself and go to the bathroom to think what next to do and how to get rid of her now, but she shut off the lights and said, “Let's nap awhile, you must be tired,” and put her arm around him from behind and her other hand grabbed his penis and just held it and she kissed his shoulders and neck several times and he fell asleep. So why sex with him? Loneliness, kids gone, only the animals to take care of, small town and college, few prospects, and, despite what she said, no romantic interests right now, not even someone solely for sex or to pursue for it. She pull this on other readers or lecturers she brought to the school for a day? He'll never know, so don't even think of it; or think of it but a lot of good it'll do you, for so what if she had? Probably most went for it a lot more agreeably than he, if there were any, and he thinks there were, and if one or two were able to stop it, he wonders how. She also must have thought he was a good mark for just one night: of an age where he might like a much younger woman, and his writing clearly stamps him as a hetero and possibly interested in outside sex, since there are so many guys having it in his prose, though that's ridiculous because she's aware as anyone that one doesn't have to have anything to do with the other and in plenty of cases and for many different reasons the writer might be writing about precisely what he's not and never experienced or would, and then he'd be home the next day and there'd be no complications or communication between them except for something related to the reading, perhaps: the check, if it doesn't come and he has to write her for it, or she writes him that it's going to be issued much later than she told him it would, and so forth. She make that clear to him regarding her? Sort of, but he forgets lots of what she said, and if she did say she hopes they meet again one day, which he thinks she did or something like that, it was probably out of politeness or habit. She also could have thought that all that stuff about this being the first time in twenty years for him was a bunch of bullshit, but how does that speculation help him decide if he's going to tell his wife about last night? It doesn't; he was only going back a few steps and thinking why she wanted to have sex with him. But she won't want to make anything more of it, if only to protect herself, if there was no other reason, so it's all perfect: silence on both sides. So she won't bother him, won't try to see or contact him again other than for the most practical reasons, or make any kind of stink, especially because there's nothing—now, this is useful—to be gained from it that he