Health club after work today. I skipped aerobics and did 20 minutes by myself on the Nordictrak. I put the leg meter up to 8. Then I did free weights. Then I did another 20 minutes on the stair-stepper with the climbing attachment. Then I did crunches. Then I went for a massage.
I didn't care who did it. I never request. I don't want to get too attached to anyone in particular. Except I did say I wanted
a man. That's my only requirement.
I stripped and lay down. I put a towel over my ass and kept adjusting it like a tablecloth. Then I closed my eyes.
I didn't open them when he came in. I listened for the door to close and his footsteps approaching me.
“Hi,” he said. “I'm Rolph.”
“Is that spelled like the therapy?”
“Thanks for asking. Most people call me Ralph. It's R-o-l-p-h. Rolph. But I thought therapy started with a t. Or t-h to be exact.”
I opened my eyes. All I could see of him was from nipples to knees. Some of them wear white pants with a belt and a t-shirt. Some of them wear tank tops and bicycle shorts. Rolph was in the latter category. His shorts looked like he'd stuck a turtle down the front. Or maybe it was his brain. (Why do I get so sexist when I'm getting a massage!)
“I'm Clara.”
“Hi, Clara.”
“Hi, Rolph.”
“Oil?”
“No thanks. Use my sweat.”
“Just my preference.” But I could tell from his voice he wished he could smear me with something lemony.
He put his hands on my shoulders. His doubts flew away. “You're right. No drag. No friction. Hard butter on a warm plate.”
As he moved around my body, he kept naming things. On my shoulder blades he said, “Tight scapula.” On my joints he said, “Let's unfreeze that synovial capsule.” On my arm he said, “Strong humerus.” And on my face he said, “Nicely defined zygomatics.”
I couldn't stand it any more. I said, “Please work on my sacral vertebrae.”
“First the thoracic.” He sounded a little testy. I guess I had invaded his territory, which only happens to be my own body.
So he worked his way slowly down my back. There was little pain. I'm supple and I don't resist. Besides, I concentrate on the towel. I see it and my ass beneath it and his hands moving toward it. I want him to lift it off me, but he won't. They never do. You have to do that yourself. And I won't. But when he reaches the valley of the shadow of ass I rise from the table. It never fails. I can feel my pubic hair release the vinyl like velcro.
“Coccyx,” Rolph explains. For the first time he doesn't have a hand on me. We've lost contact. I've made him nervous.
I lower my ass. The towel shifts. He can see me.
He moves the towel back up very daintily. Without touching my skin. I am very disappointed. But I still leave him a big tip. And when Johnny hugged me when I got home I reached behind me and put his hand down right where Rolph refused to touch. “I had a massage,” I say. “Oh, good,” says Johnny and he sticks both hands right down the back of my tights.
I was reading A Room Of Your Own again and stopped to read this to Johnny: “Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”
“What do you suppose she means by the figure of man?” he asks.
I pointed. “That.”
Tonight I had my best chance ever to tell Johnny my real name.
We were sitting around after dinner. Johnny pushed all our dishes to one end of the table. The bones from our lamb chops made question marks on our empty plates. The loft smelled like somebody had put rosemary on our pulse points. We weren't listening to music. We were listening to the wind. And to the sleet tapping messages on our huge windows. “Hold each other tight tonight. Keep each other warm.” Johnny put out a thick hunk of Parmagiano Reggiano and opened a bottle of Amarone. The label was handwritten. I thought how lucky I was to have handwriting no one can read.
Johnny watched me take my first sip. I always love it when his eyes are on my lips. When anyone's eyes are on my lips. I feel transgressed. There's no other part of my body that arouses me so to have someone stare at it.
“It's bitter,” I tell him.
“That's where its name comes from. It's also high in alcohol. You should sip it slowly. It's meant for a night like this. Chill. Blowy. It's meant for contemplation.”
“Of what?”
He tapped his glass against mine and took his first sip. “Whatever.”
“God?” I asked him.
I enjoy provoking him. Provocation is important in a wife. Before I met Ike I went out with a criminal lawyer who told me I provoked him. I told him I didn't know what he meant. He told me that in the law provocation means something said or done that leads to murder in hot passion and without aforethought. “You want to kill me for something I've said or done,” I asked him. “Something you haven't done,” he says. I not only never fucked him. Or touched him with so much as a nail clipping. I wouldn't even see him again. He tried to break down my door one night. Then for a while he left strange messages on my machine: “If I can't have you nobody will” sort
of thing. Finally I called him back and told him “nobody will.” He made me promise, so I did which was no big deal because I didn't think anybody would, and he told me if anybody did he would sue me. So sue me Sigh (which is how I used to spell his name in my mind even though I knew it was Sy which is short for Seymour) A few other guys who I refused tried to force me but I always escaped by finally getting them to touch themselves. I talked them out of having me. But there were times when I thought about Sigh and his “provocation” and thought I might die. Not that I think Johnny would ever kill me. But I love to provoke him to the same kind of hot passion. I don't want rage. He never gets angry at anything anyway. I just want murder turned into lust. I want to be desired as much on the day I die as I was on the day we married. Who doesn't.
“I wish there were a God,” he said.
“Why?”
“So we could have something or someone to blame. The absence of God puts the burden squarely on ourselves. Most people can't live with that.”
“So what do they do?”
“Pretend to believe.”
“I believe.”
He looked at me as if I'd suddenly become more precious. Then he poured me more wine. “Your God is an It, as I recall,” he said.
“Of course.”
“What's an It?”
“Something that sees.”
“Sees what?”
“Everything.”
“And ⦔
“That's all. It just sees.”
“It doesn't do anything? It just sees?”
“To see is to know.”
“So what does It know?”
“Everything.”
“What does It know about me?” He pounded the side of his wine glass against his chest.
“It knows you hate It. You hate It and don't believe in It at the same time. But don't you seeâyour hatred makes God real.”
“You're right,” he said. So much for provocation. “I wouldn't hate what I don't believe in. God the Father. I'm always afraid He's going to abandon me, so I disavow Him. Perhaps that's why I didn't speak for so longâto confront silence with silence. But He's so very hard to rid oneself of.”
“Try mine,” I said.
“God the camera.”
Johnny laughed, but I nearly spilled my wine. How does he know these things about me.
He filled my glass quarterway. “You clarify things for me,” he said. “Have I ever told you that? With an a. Clarafication. You make everything clear. Perhaps that's why I married you. That. And this.”
I let him take me to bed. And the whole time, as he lay atop me with my lips at his ear, I wanted to say I am not Clara but instead it was his name I called.
When I handed Johnny the van Meckenem engraving and said Happy Valentine's Day, he closed his eyes and then buried his face in his hands. “But I don't have anything for you. I didn't know it was Valentine's Day. I've never celebrated Valentine's Day in my life.”
Should I laugh or cry.
“Didn't you exchange valentines in grammar school?”
He lifted his head. “Actually, I did.”
“And didn't your mother ever give you a valentine?”
He smiled. “Yes, she did.”
“So what's the problem here, John?”
He takes both my hands. “I forgot I had a life before you.”
“Well, you've made me forget the life I had before you. And that's the best Valentine's present I ever got.”
“May I have it?”
I know he's not referring to my gift. It's still on the table, wrapped. “Have what?”
“The life you had before me.”
“If you can find it,” I say. “In the meantime, open this.”
He does. I watch his face. I wonder if I know him well enough yet to know if he really likes it. He stares at it intensely. “Teach me how to see it,” he says.
So I tell him all about it. And that's his true gift to me: opening his mind to let mine in.
I did it! I got Mr. Labrovitz into bed! I've never seen a man so frightened. Even the boys back in junior high didn't shake as much as he did at first. He said, “I don't do this. I've never done this.” I said, “Don't worry. You won't have to do anything you don't want to. I just want to see your body.” That relaxed him a bit. And it was true. Every day he wears a suit to work and every day I want to break through that suit. Even if it is Armani and looks beautiful on him. I've never spent so much time with one man before. Except for my father of course. I really just wanted to see him. It was driving me crazy not knowing what was under there. He's my boss. How can I
go on working for him if I can't see him. So I invited him home. “Whatever for?” he asked. I lied. “My boyfriend wants to meet you.” He didn't seem to care about that. He wasn't interested in my life at all. “I'll take a raincheck,” he said. So I said, “I quit.” That got his attention. “You can't quit, Clara. I'm not tired of you yet.” “I'll quit if you don't come over.” So finally he came. And when we got here I gave him a glass of wine and told him to get undressed. He looked around. “Where's your boyfriend?” “I don't have a boyfriend.” That's when he started to shake and said, “I don't do this. I have never done this.” But when I told him I just wanted to see his body, he said, “That's all?” “Yes.” Because it was true. “Why?” “Because I like beautiful things.” Aren't I shameless. I couldn't take my eyes off him while he took off his suit. His shirt. Everything else. He kept talking the whole time. But his words couldn't stop me from seeing him. “I'm only doing this because you're appealing to the narcissist in me. And there's not anything in me but a narcissist. But you seem to know that already, don't you, Clara, you shameless thing you.” Now only his fingers were shaking, as they opened up his clothes. When he was completely naked, he held his arms out like Jesus and said, “Ta da.” His dick wasn't hard but it was pretty. I couldn't stop staring at him. He stopped talking. My room has never been quieter. Finally, after how long I have no idea, I said, “You look wonderful.” “Do you really think so?” “Yes.” “Inside every narcissist there's a pessimist struggling to get out.” “Well, he should be optimistic.” Isaac laughed. (My rule in life is: once you've seen someone's dick you're allowed to use their first name.) “Tell me what you see,” he said. “Pretend I'm sculpture. Something Greek. Greco-Jewish.” His arms were at his side. He rotated his wrists so his palms faced me. Then he stood still. He was no longer shaking. “I see green eyes. Long lashes. I see your nostrils moving. Nothing else is.
Your lips are red from the wine. The top one's mean. The bottom one's kind. Your neck is thick, but the sinews stand out, so it looks slender and strong. There's a pulse going in it, I can see it through the skin. Your shoulders have veins in them. Your chest is so tight it looks bulletproof. Your nipples are small and clean like a little boy's. And they almost point down because of the muscles in your chest. Your ribs make you look like someone's hands are holding you together and your stomach has those grids in it. Your belly button's a little white grape. You don't have hips to speak of. We used to have cheerleaders in junior high who wore kneesocks and short skirts so all you got to see of them were their thighs. I didn't go broadcasting it around, but I used to think those thighs were the most beautiful single things in the world. They were smooth and pale and strong and I used to long for them, I don't know what for. I thought I could stare at them for hours on end, but of course you never got to see them for more than a few seconds at a time. Your calves bulge out at the sides like parentheses. You have very long toes. And your toenails are pristine. Also, I like your hair a little messed up like that.” His eyes were closed tight. I supposed he was trying to see himself. “And?” he said to keep me going. “And,” I said, “I've never imagined a cock like that. It's very beautiful and very hard and pointing at yours truly.” “It's the narcissist speaking. Not the man. Can you understand that, Clara? I don't care for women. I don't like their equipment. On an intimate level, its aesthetics are off. On the other hand, to give the devil her due, the macroaesthetics are superb. I could look at you forever. Which is to say, at least a year. But I'm never going to touch you. Is that clear. And you're never going to touch me. I won't permit it. Do we understand each other.” It wasn't a question, exactly, but I said, “I understand.” I didn't tell him what I understoodâthat he is the perfect man for me. And my boss
all rolled up into one! We can be together all day every day and we can have sex with ourselves and he will let me watch him to my heart's delight. “You can take off your clothes then,” he said. “Not today.” “Are you sure?” “I just want to watch you.” “Watch me what?” “Put your hand on it.” There's no more beautiful sight than watching a man getting himself off. My breath starts coming in the exact rhythm as his stroking. I feel more connected through my eyes than if that thing was all the way inside me I guess. Just before he came, Isaac started saying, “Richard, Richard, oh Christ I'm sorry Richard,” and I said, “Now darling, now darling, now darling.” His semen gushed out just like any other man's. All those babies flying through the air. I got him tissues. It's not just gay men who get so fastidious right after they climax. “So who were you apologizing to,” I asked him. “This Richard because you're with me or me because you were thinking of this Richard?” “You. I didn't want your feelings to be hurt.” “They weren't.” When he was clean and dry he looked down at himself. “I feel funny.” “You look beautiful.” “What do you want from me, Clara?” “Nothing.” He reached down to get his underpants. But before he put them on he swiveled around on his heels so his back was to me and said, “So how come you never mentioned my ass!” Then he laughed so loud he couldn't hear me praise it.