Girls (12 page)

And yet, in the end, it was not glorious Hector, but craven Paris who killed him.

You have been walking the crowded streets of Cairo, eating a handful of dates one at a time, looking for quality rugs. You have been riding horses in the Andes and come into a village for a lunch of fried guinea pig,
papas fritas,
and Fanta. At dawn, a Sherpa has been slowly driving you out of town in an open Jeep to head up to the monastery in the mountains. You have left a meeting in Tokyo and been stepping into your limousine.

In all these places a pair of teenage girls has walked past wearing less than they should be. In all of these places you have turned your head to follow them. In all of these places you have looked up from them and met the eyes of another man. And in all of these places you have smiled at each other with absolute understanding. In all of these places it has been this that you could share with other men.

In the chariot race in the
Iliad,
Eumelus says nothing about his bad luck, it is Achilles that takes pity on him of his own free will. But in the Aeneid, Eumelus’ analog complains that he was robbed by fortune and deserves a prize anyway, which he gets.

Likewise in the
Iliad,
Menelaus says he will take care of Antilochus’ cheating himself and Antilochus, afraid of Menelaus, immediately gives him the prize he won unfairly. But in the
Aeneid,
when the opponent of Antilochus’ analog complains of cheating, that opponent is given a special prize because of his complaint, allowing Antilochus’ analog to keep the prize he won unfairly.

Back when we only had one car you had to drop me off at my job on the way to your job. And everyday you would kiss me good-bye at the same stoplight two blocks away from my building. You knew you couldn’t kiss me as I got out of the car. Someone might have seen.

The earliest known use of the word “cunt” in its modern form and meaning is in 1230
A.D
. In that year it appeared in Ekwall’s
Street Names of the City of London
as part of the name “Grope Cunt Lane.” It is not difficult to imagine what trade was plied there.

The origin of the word, however, is something of a mystery. Prior to this use it appears only in Medieval Latin in the form
kunte,
which has led some scholars to speculate it came into the language from Old Norse since it resembles an Old Norse word in form. However, there is no equivalent to the word in Old Norse.

It therefore seems much more likely that the word is a Norsification of the Latin word
cunnus,
meaning “female reproductive organ” (the Latin word
vagina,
which we adopted as a euphemism for the unmentionable
cunnus,
actually meant “sheath for a weapon”).

The origin of this word is not in doubt nor particularly interesting. It comes from the Greek word
kuo
of the same meaning.

However, once we realize this, what does become interesting is Homer’s coining of the term
kunopis
or “dog-faced.” He uses this term only in reference to women, to Helen in particular but also to others, both gods and mortals, and it is clear from later usage that the term was intended to imply shameless, reprehensible, deceitful behavior. What is interesting about his use of this word is that it is compounded from the female form of the word for “dog,”
kuon. Kunopis
was a pun. It meant “with a face like a dog” but it would also make listeners think of the female reproductive organ. As a “writer,” he could not have chosen a more perfect word.

But he also could not have foreseen that so long after his death, because his work had become so familiar to both the later Greeks and the Romans after them, this whimsical association he had made would carry on. So it was that even after the word
kuo
had become
cunnus
in Latin and the word
kuon
had become
canis,
even after it was no longer a pun, Latin authors still referred to women as “dog-faced.”

And once we understand this, we can solve another supposed etymological mystery. The derivation of the word “cunning.”

Again, it is speculated that this word comes from Nordic roots, in this case from the Anglo-Saxon verb “to know,”
kunnan,
and again this seems unlikely. After all, the vixen knows nothing but is no less cunning for her ignorance.

So we look more closely and what do we find? That in Old English, “cunning” meant “to have had sex with,” as in “I had cunning of her.” And that the first recorded usage of the word “cunning” in English occurs in 1325 in
The Proverbs of Hending
where it is used in the epigram, “Directly equal is the cunt to cunning. . . ” When we look more closely we find that once again the more likely parental candidate is
cunnus.

And is it really so hard to imagine the origin of the words “cunt” and “cunning” is one and the same? Words that appeared in English usage at a time when anyone literate would have become so by reading the classics in Latin? Is it so far-fetched to believe both words are derived ultimately from the word
kuo
and its Homeric associations? The one meaning the internal female genitalia; the other meaning sly, crafty, skillful in deception?

And perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that at the time of the appearance of both of these words, at the time when the shift was being made from written Latin to written English, there is evidence that the word “dog” maintained its associations with cowardliness and worthlessness (1325
A.D
., Coer
de Leon
). Perhaps this would be less credible if we did not have this evidence that in the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries
A.D
., “dog” still carried the same implications it did to Homer, possibly because of Homer.

And perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that today we still use “dog” to mean both “ugly woman” and “something that performs below expectations,” if not for the fact that we still use “bitch” when, supposedly unaware of the redundancy, we mean “cunning cunt.”

And perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that the word “pussy” (as an alternative to “cunt”) was first coined not only by a woman, but also at the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement. Perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that so many women dislike the word “cunt,” if not for the fact that so many women prefer the word “pussy” but never seem to know why. Perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that after 3,000 years without a voice, the word women have spoken for themselves means “cat” and not “dog.”

You have one friend that’s a woman. You’ve known her for years. For a long time she was your enemy — you were in engineering, she was in marketing. You used to go home sometimes and your wife would just have to look at you to know “that fucking bitch” had done something else.

But then you both left and started your own companies and almost forgot about each other until you bumped into each other at the Four Cats in Barcelona.

You were eating alone at one of the tables on the balcony or the mezzanine or whatever they called it in CataluÑa, looking down through the railings, and you saw her come in. And you watched her sit down by herself and you finished your bisque but no one joined her so in between courses you went downstairs and walked up to her table and said, “This is a coincidence.”

But it turned out it wasn’t. After she eyed you suspiciously and you dispensed with formalities about health and marital status and children you discovered you were both there to give a bid to the same company, a company that had told you both they weren’t looking at anyone else yet. And she said “son of a bitch” and you said “motherfucker” and you had them bring the rest of your meal to her table and you noticed you were attracted to her even though by now she had to be at least fifteen years older than the girl you fucked the night before you left New York, you noticed that, in fact, you had been attracted to her all those years before but had never wanted to admit it could be anything more than a “hate fuck.”

And you talked and compared scars and apologized to each other, both said you hadn’t understood where the other was coming from back then but that now you did because you’d both had to deal with problems from all the departments. And you would have shared a bottle or two of wine except that you drank scotch and she drank vodka.

And afterwards you didn’t bother to exchange cards because you’d known how to reach each other all these years if you’d wanted to and you walked out to your cars and as the crisp night air hit the two of you, you restored the conversation to its appropriate formality now that you were departing, you asked, “So where are you staying?”

And after she told you she looked at you and said, “What?. . . What?”

And you said, “Those idiots — they recommended the same place to me — that’s where I’m staying!”

And she said, “You’re kidding!” and you both laughed when you were supposed to be saying, “Good luck — maybe I’ll see you in the City sometime.” And when you were done laughing for some reason you looked at each other like a couple of high school kids on a doorstep and there was a pause and for some reason you leaned in to kiss her and she didn’t stop you but she didn’t respond either but then her lips began to purse but then she pulled back and said, “No, no — bad idea.”

And you weren’t even disappointed, you just stood up again and shrugged and said, “Yeah, you’re right.” And you said good-bye and as you walked over to your car you said, “Good luck — maybe I’ll see you in the City sometime,” and she said, “Maybe — you too,” but then before either of you got in your cars she said, “You know we might as well share a car.” And you said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right” and then you both looked at each other for a moment waiting for the other to come over but in the end it was her that dismissed her driver. And on the ride back to the hotel neither of you said anything, you had said all there was to say for just then.

But when you fucked it was no good. It took you a long time to come and you weren’t sure if she came at all. She was still in great shape, her skin was still smooth for the most part, you really only thought about her age when you saw her hand around your cock. And it wasn’t for lack of skill, when she blew you she looked at you as she deep-throated you, caressed that spot just behind your balls, had long trails of saliva running from her mouth to your cock. It was that you both produced condoms and you wore the one from the box you had, not the one from the little metal case in her purse. It was that when you pulled out of her from behind and tried to turn her over on her back, her hip pushed back against your hand and she said, “Don’t stop.” It was that she thought she was fucking you and you thought you were fucking her.

And then, after she left your room to go back to hers to sleep, you didn’t see her or hear from her until you called her office on a whim a few months later and played phone tag with her for a couple weeks and eventually had dinner on the Upper East Side. And at first neither of you was sure why the other had come but you were the one who had made the first call so it was up to you to make the crack about your “unsuccessful merger” as soon as possible and then you both knew why you were there and suddenly had plenty to say and had a perfectly pleasant dinner that ended with you accepting her invitation to “bring someone” down to her restored deco penthouse in South Beach over Labor Day.

And that weekend turned out to be a lot of fun because right after you arrived the girl you had brought said she wanted to get a new swimsuit right away but you didn’t feel like going because you wanted to have a drink first so your host said her boyfriend wouldn’t mind showing your girlfriend where to go and the two of you sent the two of them off and as soon as the door closed you had looked at her with one eyebrow raised and said, “Enrique?!” and she had looked at you the same way at the same time and said, “Tiffany?!” and then you both laughed although this time it wasn’t like a couple of high school kids on a doorstep. That weekend turned out to be a lot of fun because when you went out to dinner and the waitstaff assumed the two of you were married and that Tiffany was your daughter and therefore, because of his skin color, Enrique was her boyfriend, you both thought that was funny too although if you hadn’t both had someone to share it with it would have irritated either of you. That weekend turned out to be a lot of fun because Sunday night when she said to you, “I think Enrique fucked Tiffany this afternoon when we left them alone,” you said, “I don’t care, do you?” and she said, “No, I don’t care — I thought you might.”

And after that you saw her as much as you saw anyone and you learned as much about her as you learned about anyone. You learned that she dates as many young boys as you do young girls although she’d never let them dress her, or read anything they recommended, or let them decide where they were going for the weekend. You learned that even though she dates as many young boys as you do young girls, she wouldn’t consider marrying any of them any more than she’d consider marrying her scuba gear or her favorite squash racket or any other toy. You learned that when they ask her for something she says, “Maybe,” not, “Of course.” You learned that when she calls an escort service she also specifies that they be as young as possible but that for her it is nothing more than an aesthetic choice, she simply prefers having sex with younger men or, as she puts it, “If I’m going to drive a car just for the pleasure of driving a car, that car better be mint. . . .” You learned that when she wants to indulge herself, she takes mineral salt baths, she treats herself to a day spa. You learned that “pampering” herself makes her feel “100 percent better,” “reborn,” “like a new woman,” “like she can breathe again.”

And if you continue to remain friends, if you manage to avoid butting heads over a client at some point, if you can avoid stabbing each other in the back (an event which has always seemed inevitable enough that while you tell each other what you do you never tell each other what you want), if you can do that for long enough maybe eventually you will learn that those times when there’s no one else in your house or apartment and you say “thank God,” and pour yourself a scotch and sit in the media room and watch a DVD, those times are the same times she sits in her empty dining room and forces herself not to cry.