noisy enough about it, that night they were truly loud; I got the impression that they had moved to the country because their sex life was too high in volume to be conducted within city limits. I lay there listening to the two of them and wanting them both, and woke up no longer listening to them but still wanting them.
I got up after Harry and before Priss. I wrapped up in a robe of hers-my bathrobes were all still somewhere out West, none had found its way into the one suitcase I brought along. I went into the kitchen and had breakfast and made a pot of real coffee. Priss always made real coffee sooner or later, but had instant coffee first at breakfast. Quel dreary-the only time I really care about coffee is first thing in the morning, and that’s the one time it’s hard to get a cup around here that tastes half decent. (Other than that, it’s a great hotel.) So I fixed my own coffee, I did, and I magnanimously poured a cup of it and carried it and a glass of orange juice to Priss’ room. I held the coffee cup so that the fumes wafted under her nose.
She opened her eyes and said, “Owr worgle breel.”
I handed her the cup, but she didn’t reach for it. I held it and she sipped at it.
“Rowrbazzle,” she said.
“Good morning.”
“Erghh.” She sipped more coffee, yawned, reached out and fumbled at the bedside table. She was reaching for her cigarettes, but in the process of getting them she knocked the alarm clock onto the floor.
“I always do that,” she said. “You would think I would learn but I don’t seem to.”
“Your one imperfection.”
“That and my excess of modesty. This is the best coffee I’ve had in ages. Did you make it extra strength or something, or is it just the delight of breakfast in bed?”
“It’s real coffee.”
“At this hour? That’s almost sinful. Oh, orange juice, too. You know, some day I’m going to start buying oranges and having freshly squeezed juice every morning.”
“Beautiful.”
“But I’ll never do it. I would have to be awake for hours before I could bring myself to squeeze an orange, and who in the hell wants to drink orange juice at five in the afternoon?”
“You used to like screwdrivers at school.”
“Some of the things I liked then I’ve lost my taste for.”
“But not all of them.”
“Yes, too true. Don’t look at me like that.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Damn you, Rho, you can get me hot with your eyes. It’s the most fantastic thing. I feel absolutely naked.”
“Well, you absolutely are. Do you think that might have something to do with it?”
“Maybe. Just think, in six more days it’ll be Wednesday again.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re not going to wait, are we?”
“Noway.”
“I suppose Harry’s Out Back?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He just about never comes in before noon.”
“I know.”
“What time is it?”
“About nine.”
“He could come in, though.”
I took off my robe.
“Oh, you devil. Why did you have to do that?”
“I was beginning to feel overdressed.”
“We agreed to wait until Wednesday.”
“I could die of frustration by then. I heard you fucking last night.”
“Oh, you actually heard us?”
“Of course I heard you. I was alive and in Massachusetts. Which means I heard you.”
“I guess I may have gotten carried away.”
“You should have been carried away. By white-coated men. I want to get in bed with you.”
“Not in this bed.”
“Why not?”
“This is the bed Harry and I sleep together in.”
“I figured that out all by myself, doll.”
“Well, uh, I don’t know.”
“Actually that part of it appeals to me.”
“Really? For God’s sake, why?”
“I’m strange. Oh, how nice, there’s dried come all over the sheet. Not entirely dried, either. This is really turning me on. Come here.”
“Oh.”
“Wow.”
“I guess we’re not going to wait until Wednesday.”
“It’s always Wednesday. In the hot pants of the soul it is always three o’clock in the Wednesday.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Rhoda. Oh, God.”
“Ah, Priss.”
“But we can’t be in this bed. No, serious.”
“Why?”
“If Harry does come into the house he could walk in here.”
“But he doesn’t come in before noon.”
“Who knows that he never will? Once in a great while he gets hung-up or runs out of cigarettes or decides he’ll die if he doesn’t have another cup of coffee. But if he comes into the house and we’re in your room with the door shut he won’t know we’re both in there, he’ll just think I’m on the toilet somewhere or in the basement feeding clothes to the washing machine.”
“So that it doesn’t starve?”
“Of course. Sometimes I think of every household appliance as just another mouth to feed. Another thing-”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
“Mmmm. I always thought I hated making love in the morning but it seems I was wrong. Another thing is I’m sure if you stay here you’ll shed like a puppy dog. Curly auburn hairs in our bed might be something of a tip- off.”
“Uh-huh. So if I should flutter my lashes at you and say, ‘My place or yours, dahhhling?’ the answer would be-”
“Your place, dahhhling.”
“Right on.”
At lunch I knew something was up. Of course the speculative glances I was getting from Harry didn’t necessarily mean he knew anything. They might simply be his way of telling me that he still couldn’t wait to get me in bed.
I couldn’t wait either. But I was a little afraid of what one relationship might do to the other.
All of this damned concealment! That morning we had worked to make sure that Harry wouldn’t find out about what we were doing, and I was already thinking about what I would do with Harry and how I would keep it from Priss. In retrospect, it’s hard to believe we cared so much about such stupid secrecy, especially since in a chamber of our minds each of us wanted it out in the open, needed it to be out in the open.
After lunch, perhaps an hour or two after lunch, I drifted back into my room. I think to change a garment or
