(1987) The Celestial Bed (22 page)

With greater rapidity his fingers massaged her clitoris. A sound escaped her lips, and her strangled words broke the silence. ‘Oh, my … my, don’t - don’t stop!’ Then her voice cracked, ‘Keep going!’

His massaging became more intense, but so did his own desire for an orgasm in her hand.

‘Ohhh!’ she cried out, and as she did so, her torso arched and shook, and her fingers gripping his penis tightened hard around it.

At once, all desire to have an orgasm ceased within him. Involuntarily she had applied the squeeze technique.

‘I’m coming,’ she choked out.

He nodded dumbly in their self-imposed darkness. ‘Good,’ he heard himself starting to say. ‘Good,’ and was grateful to her that she had accidentally prevented him from letting go.

When they both sat up, eyes open, she was instantly apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, Paul. I couldn’t help myself.’

‘You did absolutely nothing wrong. I think Dr Freeberg would agree it was beneficial for you, for your therapy. You loosened up, let go — ’

‘Fully,’ she filled in. ‘First time.’

‘ - and that can only be helpful.’

She looked down at him. ‘You didn’t get much pleasure out of it.’

‘All that I needed. It was, after all, a non-demand exercise.’

In his mind, he questioned the surrogate use of non-demand. He supposed the usage was technically correct. It meant the man did not have to perform, could just absorb pleasuring, as well as give it back, with no sexual demand on him. This time he had wanted to respond, and been able to, in a sense. It was something he must talk out with Freeberg. But then he realised that it was nothing he need discuss. Because deep inside, he knew, that while it had been Nan’s hand pleasuring his penis, his mind had fantasised that it was Gayle Miller who had been stimulating and exciting him.

He saw Nan strapping on her gold watch. ‘A gift from Tony,’ she said, ‘for my birthday he forgot about. I’ll have to leave soon. He’ll be home for dinner.’

‘This early?’

‘He likes to eat early, watch some television, and go to bed. I hate to go to bed early.’

‘You mean because you hate what happens when you go to bed. What are you going to do about it tonight?’

‘I’m going to try to fight him off.’ She hesitated. ‘Paul, I’ve still got ten minutes before putting my clothes on and leaving. Do you mind if we just lie here together?’

‘That would be nice.’

After they lay back against the pillows, Nan turned her head to him. ‘Paul, would you hold me? I mean, put your arms around me.’

‘I’d like to.’

He slid an arm under her bare back and embraced her closely, letting her protruding breasts flatten against his chest.

‘You’re wonderful,’ she whispered, ‘the most wonderful man I ever met. Don’t get upset if I kiss you. I’d like to kiss you.’

He brought her face to his, and pressed his lips to hers, and meant to keep it at that. But her moist mouth had opened, and her tongue darted out, into his mouth, searching for his tongue. When

the French kiss was done, he gently pushed them apart as she whispered, ‘I really adore you.’

He could not answer, because this worried him.

Shortly after, she hastily dressed. Examining her hair and features in the mirror, to make sure there were no tell-tale signs, she carefully combed her hair and made up her face. During this she spoke only once.

‘What do we do next time, Paul?’

He swallowed. ‘Penetration. First attempt.’

She smiled down at him. ‘It’ll work,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it will.’

With that, she left the bedroom.

Nan returned to the house minutes before Tony Zecca arrived from work.

The dinner was already on the table when Tony lumbered off to take his ritual pee and wash his hands before dinner. She went into her own bathroom to soap and wash her hands, and came back to join him across the table.

He was already in his place, gorging himself on a rare steak like a cannibal. Picking at her own dish, she cast him a covert look that mingled both distaste and fear.

‘You’re giving me a lot of trouble, babe,’ Zecca said, chewing hard on his steak, then halting to clear a hiccup with a swallow of beer.

‘How?’

‘By being fucking absent all the time. I hired a cashier and wound up with a fucking prima donna. You’re costing me a goddamn fortune with all the part-time help I got to hire to replace you while you go running off to some goddamn doctor. The new girl at the register, the spic, is worse than the nigger one.’

‘Costing you what?’ she said, her annoyance surfacing. ‘You pay them almost zero. You’re using slave labour.’

She hated him, among other things, for his vicious references to blacks and Hispanics.

‘They steal from me, from the register,’ he growled, chomping at another piece of steak. ‘They’re all goddam crooks.’

Look who’s talking, she wanted to shout. She wondered how he’d ever survived Vietnam. She didn’t mean how he’d survived fighting against the Vietcong. She meant how he’d ever escaped being killed in the field by one of his fellow infantrymen, black or

Hispanic, that he’d abused with his racist remarks. But maybe when they had all carried equal weapons, he had kept his mouth clamped shut and his attitudes to himself.

‘They’re not all crooks,’ Nan managed to say.

‘What in the hell do you know? Anyway, thank Christ that’s coming to an end tomorrow. You see that you’re back on the job at nine sharp.’

T can’t, Tony,’ she said.

‘What?’

T have an appointment with the doctor.’

‘Goddamnit, no way!’ he roared, slamming his open palm on the table, making his empty plate dance. T told you that you could go to that fucking doctor one more time - one more shot — and that was today.’

‘And I told you he has to see me for a week or two more. I told you that.’

‘Not on your life!’ Zecca bellowed. ‘Why is that fucker dragging you out to see him every day? To pile up more bills?’

‘Tony, stop it. I won’t have that kind of talk. This is one of the best gynaecologists in the profession. He has to see me a week or two more — he’ll decide how much longer tomorrow - I’m still not in shape - ’

‘Meaning you can’t get in the sack with me tonight and do what any normal woman does?’

T can’t help it, Tony. I have to wait until I’m cured. I’ll ask the doctor - ’

‘No, you won’t,’ Zecca interrupted. ‘Me, J am the one who’s going to ask this doctor of yours why he’s fucking me around, and how long he thinks he can keep crapping me. When you take off to see this doc of yours tomorrow, I’m driving you. I’m going in with you to find out what that cocksucker is up to. What time you going in?’

Caught off balance, she spoke the first thing that came to her head. ‘Ten - I have an appointment at ten tomorrow morning. Tony, please don’t embarrass me. I mean, your coming in with me — this is a woman’s doctor for female complaints — maybe sometimes he sees a man and wife, but we’re not married, you’re not my husband - ’

‘How the hell will he know?’

‘I told him when I started. It’s on my application. I’m single -‘

Zecca was on his feet. ‘Not tomorrow, you’re not. Tomorrow you got your boyfriend with you. I’ll see you at breakfast, and we’ll go in to see your fucking doctor together. Now no more ifs and buts. Get your ass to bed and get some rest. I’ll let you off the hook tonight, because I’m saving myself for tomorrow night. Because tomorrow night I’m going to fuck you until your ears bleed.’

After he left the table, Nan pushed her unfinished food aside, and sat shivering, wondering what she could do.

Only when she had trudged into her dressing room, and changed into her nightgown, did the answer come to her.

He was already in bed when she reached her side. She crawled under the blanket and lay there, trying to think it out. Once he fell asleep, he would sleep like a log and not awaken until daybreak. She lay very still, waiting for him to sleep.

In ten minutes, fifteen, whatever time had passed, she heard rasping sounds beside her, and knew that he was snoring and would not awake until it was light.

But just in case, she must do what was to be done silently and quickly. Almost without making a sound, she turned back the corner of her blanket, and slipped out of bed. Ignoring even her slippers, she padded softly on her bare feet to the bathroom, shut it, left the light off, and made her way to her dressing room beyond, where she turned on a green-shaded dim lamp.

She found her suitcase, unlatched it, and set it open on her dressing-table bench.

With determination and haste, she dressed, then she began to gather together her sparse collection of clothes — the few blouses, skirts, dresses, belts, hose, shoes, undergarments — and packed them into the single suitcase. Inside one pair of shoes, she checked to see if the money was still there, her small savings from her cashier’s job and from what she had been able to save from her household shopping allowance. The total sum hoarded would not carry her far, or for any length of time, but it was enough to survive until she found another job. Then she closed the suitcase.

One act left. Tearing a sheet of paper from her scratch pad, she scribbled a hasty note to Tony, thanking him for all he had done for her but insisting that she had to leave to pursue her life on her own. Tony’s determination to interfere with her visits to her physician had been the last straw, an invasion of privacy that she

could not accept. She wished him well, and was sorry it had come to this, and good-bye.

With a piece of Sellotape, she affixed her note to her boudoir mirror.

Back at the bathroom door, her ear against it, she could clearly hear Tony’s uninterrupted snoring.

So far, so good.

Taking up her car keys and suitcase, she crept out of his house.

Once outside, she found that the night was chilly, but somehow more hospitable than the house.

Inside her secondhand Volvo, she started it, worrying about the noisy engine, and backed out of the garage and into the street.

Quickly, she drove away. Fast.

She was free, at last. She hoped. Freedom was frightening, but at least there was someone else who cared about her. She hoped.

In the kitchen of her small house, Gayle Miller finished preparations for the intimate dinner with Paul Brandon.

She was of two minds about the evening ahead. On the one hand she felt too pressured by haste, and would have preferred a more leisurely meeting. Seeing both Demski and Hunter in a single afternoon had been exhausting, although the progress made had been gratifying. After that, dictating two reports for Dr Freeberg had been time-consuming. She had rushed to a nearby supermarket to do her shopping for dinner, and then had busied herself preparing a meal she wished could be more sophisticated.

With her preparations for dinner done, she glanced at the kitchen wall clock. He wasn’t due for twenty minutes. Time enough to ready herself for him.

In her bedroom, she dressed with care. As a surrogate, she always underplayed the attire she wore for patients. It was her policy never to wear anything sexually provocative, lest the garments threatened her patients into believing demands were being made on them and they had to perform successfully.

But Paul Brandon was anything but a patient. He was an integrated human being, a man who functioned, a man she wanted to impress and excite, a man she desired very, very much. Therefore, for a private and personal date, she could behave as a female who might be in love.

Dress sexily, she told herself, and she did. A white low-cut silk

blouse that partially revealed her breasts not covered by her half bra. To this she added a short tangerine-coloured skirt, ultra-sheer hose because her shapely legs were flawless, and high-heeled brown pumps. She went easy on the cosmetics, maybe a bit more lipstick than usual. By the time she was completely groomed, the doorbell rang.

Paul Brandon arrived carrying a dozen long-stemmed red roses for her.

Thrilled and pleased, she accepted the bouquet, hugged him with one arm, thanking and welcoming him with a soft warm kiss. Leading him to a chair, Gayle had almost forgotten how truly attractive he was. He had the gaunt good looks of one of those strong silent movie stars who won the West. He was wearing a grey cord sports jacket, tieless maroon sports shirt, and well-tailored charcoal slacks.

‘Let me put these in a vase,’ she said, indicating the roses. ‘Then I’ll get us something to drink. What’ll you have?’

‘Whatever you’re having,’ he said.

‘I’m having Scotch on the rocks.’

‘Make that two.’

After she served him his drink, and held her own, she sank on the sofa near him.

‘You know, Paul,’ she said, ‘I feel we’re practically strangers. We’ve dined together twice and yet I’ve learned next to nothing about you.’

‘We didn’t exactly dine twice, Gayle. We had coffee and whatever in a fast-food place. Hardly conducive to any conversation in depth.’

‘You’re right. Well, at least tonight we’re alone.’

Brandon sipped his Scotch. ‘Tell me about yourself. Do you have any family?’

Gayle shook her head. ‘Not really. My father died when I was little. My mother is alive, but she’s in a nursing home and prematurely senile. I see her once a month to make sure she’s being taken care of properly. Then I have an older brother in Toronto. He’s a computer whiz.’

‘Does he know what you do?’

‘Oh, we’re very open with each other in our correspondence and occasional phone calls. He knows, and understands, and sees nothing wrong with it. Because he knows what motivated me to

become a surrogate. I told you about that before, about how the fellow I was going with suffered from sexual dysfunction and eventually committed suicide.’

‘I remember,’ said Brandon.

‘I’ve remained single. What about you?’

‘Me … I’m very single, too — deliberately so. I was married once …’

‘You were? What happened?’

Brandon shrugged. ‘A young actress in LA, originally from Oregon. Need I tell you more? Her real love affair was with herself, and her future. I’ll spare you the bleak details. Suffice it to say, she didn’t like sex in general, and I didn’t like it with her in particular.’