“Huh?”
“Don’t make me repeat the question. It’s too embarrassing.”
“What do I like about you?”
“Are you, well, interested in me?”
“Um, sure. Sure I am.” I returned the joint and he took a long, deep hit.
“Bobby, have you ever slept with a woman?”
“Oh. Well, no. Actually, I haven’t.”
“Do you ever think you might like to?”
He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. The stones sang “Ruby Tuesday.” I said, “Come here. Put that marijuana down now and just dance with me a little, all right?”
Obediently, he took one more hit and put the joint in an ashtray. I opened my arms to him. He walked in. I tried not to feel like a spider; a ravenous old creature who preys on the reluctant flesh of not-quite-bright young men. I skated over the feeling as best I could.
We swayed in a loose circle. He was a fine dancer, which helped. He wasn’t awkward or uncertain; his body didn’t appeal to mine to show him the rhythm or the next move. Dancing, a little stoned, in one another’s arms, we were neither relaxed nor excited. As we danced we could have been a brother and sister practicing for romances of the future but also attracted to one another, attracted and guilt-ridden and slightly mournful over the hopelessness of this ordinary but charged and subtly dangerous contact. Brother and sister, practicing.
He smelled clean and woody, like fresh pencil shavings. His back was solid as an opera singer’s. He said, “When you went to the concert, did you stay long enough to see Hendrix?”
“Hmm?”
“At Woodstock. Did you see Jimi Hendrix?”
“Sure I saw Jimi. We got to be very good friends. You come here with me, now. I can tell there’s not going to be any smooth or sophisticated way to do this.”
I stopped dancing and led him to my bedroom. He didn’t quite participate but didn’t resist either. I left the light off. I closed the door and said, “Are you nervous?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t be. This is just for fun. This is just because I like you. There’s nothing in this world for you to be nervous about.” I unbuttoned his shirt, and helped him slide it off his shoulders. His shoulders were damp and ticklish with hair.
“I’m not, you know, in very good shape,” he said, though by then I’d seen his bare chest a hundred times.
“I think you’re lovely,” I said. I took off my blouse and dropped it on the floor. I never wore a bra. I put his hand on my left breast.
“These are below par, to tell you the truth,” I said. “You’ll be with other women who have a lot more going on here.”
“I don’t think about other women,” he said.
“You’re too much, you know that?”
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing. Not a thing. Come on now, get undressed. Old Clare’s going to show you a few tricks.”
We took the rest of our clothes off quickly, as if the real tenants might get home at any moment and find us using their apartment. When we were naked I took him in my arms again and kissed him, with more concern than passion. His breath was hot and a little strong but not foul. It was carnivore’s breath.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “This is the most natural thing in the world. You might even like it.”
“I do like it,” he said. “I think I do.”
I guided him to the bed, and had him lie down. I’d never before been so completely in charge. If this was part of the aging process, I didn’t mind it. There was something agreeably frightening about running a fuck.
Bobby lay naked across my bed. His cock slumped softly against his thigh—a purplish one, circumcised, large but not enormous. He had a surprisingly sparse little muddle of pubic hair. I could hear the sound of his breathing.
“Everything’s okay, sweetheart,” I said. “Just relax, I’ll take care of everything.”
I knelt on the mattress beside him, and massaged his chest and belly. He looked up at me uncertainly. “Shh,” I said. “Don’t do anything, don’t think about anything. Your big sister’s gonna manage fine, just close your eyes.”
He closed his eyes. I bent over and flicked at his nipples with my tongue. I’d never done anything like this before. He was so big and inert. My sexual career had generally involved forceful people who wanted me, who went after me with obscure imperatives of their own. I did what I could to feign an older woman’s serene competence. As subtly as possible, I checked his cock for signs of arousal.
“Clare,” he said. “Clare, I don’t know if—”
“Shh. Hush. I’ll tell you when it’s time to speak.”
I kissed my way down his stomach, took his limp cock in my hand. It was like a rubber toy. I had to stay mindful of its sensitive humanness. I put it in my mouth and worked it around slowly, lapping the underside with my tongue. I took plenty of time. I tickled and stroked with my fingertips, ran my tongue around his scrotum, and nipped gently at his thighs. I forced myself not to hurry. Other men had had wishes, ways they liked things done. Helene had instructed me on every move. No one had ever abandoned himself to my care like this before. I mouthed his cock and thought of myself as a whore in a movie. A smart triumphant whore who always puts on a good show. I pulled at his pubic hair with my teeth, licked the violet tip of his cock. And finally it began to stiffen.
Then I let myself work harder. I took him into my mouth again and worked him up and down, up and down until my neck started to ache. I played my hands along his rib cage and gently pinched his nipples. I could feel his breathing quicken. I heard him softly moan, a fretful little cry like a dove’s. I myself was aroused. Not intensely, but with the ticklish queasiness I remembered as a girl, when I’d first started thinking of large, powerful bodies that wanted control and resisted it.
When I thought he was ready, I got up and straddled him. The look on his face surprised me. He was flushed and panicky, not pleased as I’d expected him to be. Still, I smiled reassuringly. I knew this was no time to lose our momentum. I said, “Ready?” Without waiting for an answer, I worked myself into position and slid his cock in.
Something wasn’t right. His face was so raw and terrified. Still, I kept up. There was no backing out now. I didn’t think of my own pleasure. I rose and fell, rose and fell. I whispered to him, “Sweetheart, you’re doing fine. Oh, yes. You’re doing wonderfully.” It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say. It was what I heard myself saying. I stroked his chest. His face was shiny with sweat. I reached over and smoothed away a bit of hair that had gotten plastered to his forehead.
And suddenly, unexpectedly, he came. I felt the spasm. When he came he let out a wail of such agony. He might have been stabbed in the gut. It was an awful sound; inconsolable. I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and crouched with my knees pressed in against his rib cage, waiting for the wail to stop. There was a span of thick, echoing silence. Then he started weeping, openly and extravagantly as a baby.
I reached over and touched his face. His cock was still inside me. I knew we were lost to one another in some permanent, irremediable way. Now he was a mystery. I lay down beside him and told him it was all right. I told him everything was all right. He stroked my hair with heavy, flat-handed swipes. He said, “I never. I never thought I would.”
“You did,” I whispered.
He pressed his chest against mine. I could feel the heat of his tears. He didn’t say anything else. He fell asleep in my bed and I let him stay there, though I couldn’t get to sleep myself. I lay beside him for quite a while, inhaling his large sweaty essence and asking myself what exactly I had gone and done now.
JONATHAN
THE NIGHT of the day Arthur the theater critic went to the hospital, I traded histories with Erich. We had never talked about our pasts, beyond the broadest details of place and family temperament.
