“For the last two weeks I kept thinking about coming back here, jumping out of my gourd. Not just excited but also sort of crazy and sad and mean to everyone.”
And Tammy, who rolled into the driveway every morning at five o’clock to give Mike his private yoga lesson before his driver showed up to take him to the helipad so he could fly into the city, or to Teterboro, to his waiting jet.
“Abusive and whiny and selfish, didn’t want to do after-school pickup or read to them at night or cook anything or walk the dog. I didn’t want to come here, and I didn’t want to stay home.”
“I’ve been a nervous wreck, too.”
“I wanted to tell him.”
“Great idea.”
“I think he figured it out.”
“How?”
“He only digs me when I’ve got something to look forward to.” She wiped the corners of her mouth with a sleepy gesture. “Not just him. Strangers try to talk to me. Babies think they know me. The guy at the meat counter kept carrying my bags to the parking lot, directing traffic so I could pull out.” I pictured her, bouncing around the supermarket with an expectant, wide-eyed look, a broad-shouldered, pigeon-toed, six-foot-tall lady.
“Anybody else?”
“Then I get home with the groceries and this guy I barely know is trying to rip my clothes off.”
“I thought he was in Germany.”
“He left on Sunday.”
“I thought he was always too tired to want sex.”
“Not always.”
“Or distracted by work.”
“I was thinking of you the whole time, although you’re nothing like him.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Rips my clothes off, no kissing, bend over, no talking.” Even on drugs it hurt to listen. “I forget where he’d been, Wisconsin maybe. He got home early. I guess he was excited to show me how healthy his prostate was or something. It was awful.”
“Oh my God.”
“Finally, when I couldn’t get him off me, I told him about you.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being serious.”
“Not your name but I told him I was going away, which of course he didn’t remember, and that I was going to see you, which he didn’t believe, and it turned him on even more.”
“I guess that explains how he knew.”
“And when he finished he gave me a present.”
“How thoughtful.”
“He gives me stuff, trinkets or wads of cash.”
“But this actually happened, or are you kidding? I’m still confused.”
“Like jewelry, nice stuff.” She reached up and touched an earlobe. “Where’d they go?”
I had no idea what I’d done with her earrings. The bracelet had two dangly pieces with pearls knotted at the ends that clacked together.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Nah.”
“Well then, how much money would he give you, typically?”
“Like I robbed a bank.” I tried to imagine it. “Although fifteen percent of his business is in my name, so it’s my money, too.”
“But, like, give me a ballpark figure.”
“I don’t care.” She turned serious, although her eyes went in different directions. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried getting blitzed. It doesn’t work. I even thought about hypnosis.”
“It’s all right.”
“One day I’ll have something better, maybe not with you, but I will. You don’t have to come to Disney World with me if you don’t want to.”
“I do. I said I’ll go to Disney World!” I felt this wild state of believing, familiar and illusory but stronger than ever. She hugged and kissed me. I didn’t know whose drool was whose. She tried swallowing my face. I fought back as best I could. The first time in these dorms it had been innocent and authentic, an unpremeditated falling in love. But this time it was more ominous and bewildering. We smooched until our faces melted. I opened and pressed back her knees, kissing her ribs, the cool sveltish bones of her. She flung her head back and I smooched her belly, waggling two fingers slowly into her. I slid down, breathing underwater, and squished my tongue around and around. Her legs jolted and she heaved and wriggled. I had trouble breathing but it was good to shut her up with my tongue, to gag myself with her, to steer her long legs as they banged against my head. My tongue got tired and the muscles in my head ached, and cramped up, and turned to stone. I might’ve passed out but my tongue kept going. I felt her pulse beating against my lips, her body vibrating from her moans, her hips rising and me going up, dropping down, holding on, wrapping my arms around her.
“It keeps going!”
Then I lay there with my cheek on her stomach, catching my breath, listening to her breathe.
“Holy moly.” And a minute later: “Nobody’s gone down on me since college!”
She didn’t want to stop. “Hey, can you keep doing that while I do this?” She used her fingers on herself while I used my tongue. Her hips bounced, her knees cupped and clattered against my head, my arms wrapped around her, hanging on. “Oh, I need this in my life!” Then more noises, then gasping for air, then she cried while coming, just like last year, and pulled me up and wrapped herself around me.
“Oh, thank you, bunny.”
“Sure.” What the fuck? I wanted her to respect me, not call me “bunny.” Then I thought of Mike, a hundred pounds heavier than her, throwing cash or jewelry on the bed after he finished. Then I remembered the high school ex-boyfriend. In relationships, I read somewhere, men feared being humiliated, while women feared being murdered. Although it didn’t seem to be part of her, and really, I admired how she refused to let a bad thing define her, didn’t seem to be trying to heal some wound or deal with it in any overt or subconscious way. I admired that strength, the fighter in her, how she’d survived and moved on. Although maybe by refusing to deal with it, she got stuck reenacting it in some endless looping karmic nightmare.
A moment later I felt her good hand tugging on my ass, her foot curled around the back of my thigh, the tendon pulling and drawing me to her, her clublike appendage banging and scratching the back of my head. A trail of saliva ran down the side of her face. I wasn’t about to cut diamonds with this thing, but with some angling and shoving I found a way to squish it inside her.
“Is that okay?”
“Mmm.”