It had seemed back then, groping in cars, burning for sex—her too! she had wanted it as badly as she wants this boy now—that taking them in her mouth was a less intimate act than the real one. That it was somehow all right; that it didn’t count. And even though now she knows better, knows it is much more intimate to swallow someone’s come, that it does, indeed, count, she kneels on top of the coiled hose and unzips Justin’s cutoff jeans—no underwear! His penis springs out at her, beautiful, young, hard. A pale blue vein pulsates across the length of it; Marjorie takes all of him in her mouth, and it is as if she is a young girl herself, a teenager in someone’s white Impala, kneeling on the dusty floor, swallowing every inch of them.
Justin comes in such a loud burst, shooting warm come into her mouth, grasping her head between his hands so that he is even deeper, forcing his come down her throat. It is bitter, lovely. When he finally slides from her mouth, he kneels too, on the hard cold floor, and kisses her for the first time, as gentle as a baby.
BONNIE AND TED have invited them for dinner. This is the night, Marjorie supposes, that Bonnie will tell them the good news. But ever since the morning she first went into the garage with Justin six weeks ago, Marjorie has felt disembodied. She waits for him to arrive on Wednesday and Saturday mornings; she watches from the little window over the kitchen sink as he weeds and clips and mows. By the time he arrives she is all ready for him—a dress, her sandals, and nothing underneath. Marjorie is forty-nine years old and she has never done anything like this. She has been a faithful wife, a good mother, a friend and neighbor others rely on. As summer wears on, she has even helped the woman next door, now almost obscenely pregnant, search for this oldest daughter, Jessica, who hides in small places and will not talk.
Still she meets Justin in the garage, goes to the dark cold corner, and does things with him that she has not done since she was young. She and Gary, who always have had a good solid sex life—even now, married twenty-seven years, they make love once or twice a week. Even now, there are surprises, like that night on the patio.
But there is nothing like this, with this boy, except what she had when she was young and passionate, the hands everywhere, in and out of holes, the desperate licking, as if they could actually literally devour each other. And then, this Saturday morning, she finally took him inside her house and inside her, right upstairs on Bonnie’s childhood bed, with the white eyelet spread bought at Bloomingdale’s, and the frilled canopy that made Bonnie believe she might be a princess.
And now here is Marjorie, in her navy blue summer slacks and striped boat neck cotton sweater, her crotch filled with the ache that good long sex leaves with you, sitting in her daughter’s living room at the beach house with an ice cold martini, chewing on cashews, listening to Gary and Ted discuss their morning golf game. She had forgotten what young boys were like, how they stayed hard so long, and could make love twice in the same morning, growing hard again so quickly.
“How is that gorgeous thing?” Bonnie asks Marjorie.
Marjorie holds her breath.
“That god that Daddy hired for the yard,” Bonnie says.
“He’s off to college,” Gary answers. “Phong’s son is going to take over next week.”
“But that can’t be,” Marjorie says, with too much enthusiasm so that they are all staring at her, confused. “I mean,” she stammers, “he isn’t bright enough for college.”
Gary shrugs. “Just the state school. But he’ll be living there. Besides, you don’t like him. Mother thinks he’s going to steal something. Or murder us.”
Ted and Gary laugh, but Bonnie is studying her mother’s face and frowning. Marjorie recognizes the bloated blotchy skin of early pregnancy.
“I think Mother has a crush on this boy,” Bonnie says finally. She eats the olive out of Ted’s martini and sits back, self-satisfied.
“Absolutely,” Marjorie says, coolly. “Every morning when he’s finished with his work, I take him inside and make love to him until Daddy pulls up from golf. He’s delicious actually.”
Only Gary laughs. “That’s a good one, old girl,” he says, slapping her knee.
Ted and Bonnie look at each other, embarrassed.
Then Ted refills all the drinks and stands, raising his own martini glass, his initials TBC etched into it, and says, “Well, then. It seems time for a toast.”
He’s practically bursting with his news. Marjorie feels smug, satisfied. She already knows their news, and she has secrets of her own. Good ones, she thinks, still feeling the sting of Gary’s playful slap.
“A toast,” Ted says, “to the new, about to be grandparents.”
Gary looks shocked. His cheeks redden. “My God,” he says, then shakes Ted’s hand with ridiculous enthusiasm, as if, Marjorie thinks, fucking is something to be congratulated.
“Here’s to me then,” she says. At first, downing the cold martini, she is smiling at her own little joke. But suddenly, from nowhere, she finds herself crying. Sobbing, really. Unable to stop, to catch her breath, to do anything but stand there and cry.
MARJORIE DOES THE unthinkable. She waits for Justin to come loping up the street and, before he can disappear into the garage to get the lawn mower, she calls him inside, in a too loud voice—those new people seem to be everywhere, all the time.
“Justin!” Marjorie says. “I need some help with the air conditioning system. It’s making an odd noise.”