The 1st Deadly Sin

Why do you ask?”

“Sam and I had this marvy idea,” Florence Morton said. “A natural,” Sam said. “Can’t miss.”

“There’s this health club on East Fifty-seventh Street,” Flo said. “It started as a reducing salon, but it’s not making it. It’s up for grabs now.”

“Good asking price.” Sam nodded. “And they’ll shave.”

“It’s got a big pool,” Flo nodded. “A gym with all the machines, two saunas, locker room, showers. The works.”

“And a completely equipped kitchen,” Sam added. “A nice indoor-outdoor lounge with tables and chairs.”

“The decor is hideous,” Flo added. “Hideous. But all the basic stuff is there.”

“You’re thinking of opening a health club?” Celia Montfort asked.

“But different,” Flo laughed.

“Totally different,” Sam laughed.

“For men and women,” Flo grinned.

“Using the same locker room and showers,” Sam grinned. “With nude sunbathing on the roof,” Sam noted.

Blank looked from one to the other. “You’re kidding?” They shook their heads.

“You’d take only married couples and families for members?”

“Oh no,” Flo said. “Swinging singles only.”

“That’s just the point,” Sam said. “That’s where the money comes from. Lonely singles. And it won’t be cheap. We figure five hundred members at a thousand a year each. We’ll try to keep the membership about sixty- forty.”

“Sixty percent men and forty percent women,” Flo explained.

Blank stared at them, shook his head. “You’ll go to jail,” he told them. “And so will your members.”

“Not necessarily,” Flo said. “We’ve had our lawyers looking into it.”

“There are some encouraging precedents,” Sam said. “There are beaches out in California set aside for swimming in the nude. All four sexes. The courts have upheld the legality. The law is very hazy in New York. No one’s ever challenged the right to have mixed nude bathing in a private club. We think we can get away with it.”

“It all hinges on whether or not you’re ‘maintaining a public nuisance,”’ Flo explained.

“If it’s private and well-run and no nudity in public, we think we can do it,” Sam explained.

“No nudity in public?” Daniel Blank asked. “You mean fornication in the sauna or in a mop closet or underwater groping is okay?”

“It’s all private,” Flo shrugged.

“Who’s hurting whom?” Sam shrugged. “Consenting adults.” Daniel looked at Celia Montfort. She sat still, her face expressionless. She seemed waiting for his reaction.

“We’re forming a corporation,” Flo said.

“We figure we’ll need a hundred thousand tops,” Sam said, “for lease, mortgage, conversion, insurance, etcetera.”

“We’re selling shares,” Flo said.

“Interested?” Sam asked.

Daniel Blank patted his Via Veneto wig gently.

“Oh,” he said. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. Not my cup of tea. But I think, if you can get around the legal angle, it’s a good idea.”

“You think it’ll catch on?” Sam asked.

“Profitable?” Flo asked.

“No doubt about it,” Blank assured them. “If the law doesn’t close you down, you’ll make a mint. Just walk down Eighth Avenue, which I do almost every day. Places where you can get a woman to give you a rub-down, or you can paint her body, or watch films, or get tickled with feathers. And ordinary prostitution too, of course. Mixed nude bathing in a private pool? Why not? Yes, I think it’s a profitable idea.”

“Then why don’t you want to invest?” Celia asked him.

“What? Oh…I don’t know. I told you-not my style. I’m tired of it all. Maybe just bored. Anyway, it puts me off. I don’t like it.”

They stared at him, the three of them, and waited. But when he said nothing more, Celia spurred him on.

“What don’t you like?” she asked quietly. “The idea of men and women swimming naked together? You think it’s immoral?”

“Oh God no!” he laughed loudly. “I’m no deacon. It’s just that…”

“It’s just what?”

“Well,” he said, showing his teeth, “sex is so-so inconsequential, isn’t it? I mean, compared to death and- well, virginity. I mean, they’re so absolute, aren’t they? And sex never is. Always something more. But with death and virginity you’re dealing with absolutes. Celia, that word you used? Finitudes. Was that it? Or finalities. Something like that. It’s so nice to-it’s so warm to-I know life is trouble, but still…What you’re planning is wrong. Not in the moral sense. Oh no. But you’re skirting the issue. You know? You’re wandering around and around, and you don’t see the goal, don’t even glimpse it. Oh yes. Profitable? It will surely be profitable. For a year or two. Different. New. The in-thing. But then it will fall away. Just die. Because you’re not giving them the answer, don’t you see? Fucking underwater or in a sauna. And then. No, no! It’s all so-so superficial. I told you. Those people tonight. Well, there you are. What have they learned or won? Maybe masturbation is the answer. Have you ever considered that? I know it’s ridiculous. I apologize for mentioning it. But still…Because, you see, in your permissive world they say porn, perv and S-M. That’s how much it means, that you can abbreviate it. So there you are. And it offends me. The vulgarity. Because it might have been a way, a path, but is no longer. Sex? Oh no. Shall we have another martini or shall we fuck? That important. I knew a girl once…Well. So you’ve got to go beyond. I tell you, it’s just not enough. So, putting aside sex, you decide what comes next. What number bus to the absolute. And so you-”

Celia Montfort interrupted swiftly.

“What Daniel is trying to say,” she told the astounded Mortons, “is that in a totally permissive society, virginity becomes the ultimate perversion. Isn’t that what you wanted to say, dear?”

He nodded dumbly. Finally, they got out of there. She was trembling but he was not.

6

He propped himself on his left elbow, let his right palm slide lightly down that silky back.

“Are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about this woman, Celia Montfort.”

Soft laughter.

“What do you want to know about ‘this woman, Celia Montfort’?”

“Who is she? What is she?”

“I thought you knew all about her.”

“I know she is beautiful and passionate. But so mysterious and withdrawn. She’s so locked up within herself.”

“Yes, she is, luv. Very deep, is our Celia.”

“When she goes away, unexpectedly, where does she go?”

“Oh…places.”

“To other men?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes to other women.”

“Oh.”