Loving Women (47 page)

Gotta surprise for you, she whispered hoarsely.

Yeah?

Hope you like it.

She dropped the cigarette in the sink, and then she pressed both hands on my shoulders, pushing me down. I kissed her breasts,
taking each in my mouth with the cloth of the sweater between me and her nipples and breathed hotly on her. Her voice sounded choked and she pressed again more firmly and then I was on my knees in front of her and she lifted her apron delicately and there in front of me was the surprise.

She had shaved.

Every last hair was gone and I was facing her beautifully formed cunt, which was very pale, looking like those perfect pubic mounds I’d seen on the classical statues in the art books. Except that this wasn’t art made by hand from marble, bronze or polished wood. This was packed with muscle and blood, and it was in front of me now as I kneeled before her, and I thought the word
cunt
, and saw the crevice clearly defined and tightly shut, thought
cunt
again, saw no evidence of clitoris or entry to the dark channel within and whispered loudly, like a prayer for mercy from the position of worship:
Cunt
.

Eden took a small step to the right, braced against the sink, gripped my head with both hands and pulled me to her.

It was as if I’d never been there before, the hairless lips suddenly parting, slippery under my tongue, the opening at once tighter and wetter. I put my brow against her pelvic bone and pushed hard, pressing her now against the cold metal sink, while playing delicately with my tongue in this new bald place. Almost from the start she was trembling and moving, her legs straight out, drawing up on the heels of those red shoes, the legs hardening and locking, then loosening, then hard again. She eased away, then squatted hard against my tongue, pulling fiercely on my hair, as if trying to suck me up into her, the nude wet cunt demanding more and more tongue, her voice rising and shuddering, until she was suddenly completely crazily coming: tearing away the apron with both hands, then yanking again at my hair, pumping forward, then slamming her hard hot bottom against the sink, standing on the heels of her shoes, until she seemed to rise over me, twisting straight up and screaming. And then flopped forward.

Exhausted.

Panting.

Limp. With her belly pressing against my head, her hands holding the back of my belt, her cheeks spread loosely against the sink. I blew gently against her hairless curves and clefts. And then she shuddered again and slid away and rolled onto her back on the
polished floor. She lay there with her eyes closed. I entered her without undressing.

I never want this to end, she said, bathing my raw left hand in Epsom salts, as I lay on the bed where she had placed me, drained and empty. Never. Never, never.

Neither do I, I whispered.

And I know, she said, I shouldn’t oughtta be saying that. We’re here. We could be here lots of nights. I want it never to end. Even though, well, you know …

Don’t say even though, I said.

She said nothing.

I
want us to last forever, I said.

She rubbed my hand in the warm water, but she was looking at the wall.

We
won’t
last forever, you know, she said gently. One fine day, you gonna meet a girl your own age. Probly younger. And she’ll want to go to Paris with you and help make you a painter, and all that stuff, like you say you want. And she’ll want to have kids and so will you. And she’ll want to meet your
friends
and read the books you’re reading and see you at
breakfast
every day of her life. You’ll see her like she just came into this world, all beautiful and sweet and fresh and new. And you’ll fall in love with her. And then you’ll feel bad because you won’t know how to tell
me
. You’ll walk around in a fog, you’ll pick fights with me, you’ll see the lines in my face for the very first time and the way my titties are droppin and you’ll see my kids go off and have kids of their own and you’ll think that it’s very strange, you being with a damn
grand
mother, and so you’ll screw up your courage and come to me and tell me you love another woman. And maybe you
will
love her and maybe you
won’t
, but in the end, you’ll go away.

I won’t, I said (the words still clear and fresh in my ears now). I swear it, Eden. I won’t
ever
go away. I won’t
ever
leave you.

Please don’t say those words, she said. I hear them words in every rotten movie.

I said, my voice rising with the panic, I don’t know any other words. But I
gotta
say them. Especially to you. I mean them.

You mean it now, she said calmly, but you won’t even remember what you just said to me … When it’s time to move on.

Then the words came pouring out of me, she lying beside me
now, her head on my chest, my hand playing with her hair, the smell of soap and cunt in the air, mixed with the thick scent of magnolias from the lake. I wanted her beside me for the rest of my life, I said, the two of us, Eden and Michael Devlin, and her kids too, and so what if she became a grandmother, what the hell difference would
that
make? I knew I couldn’t be a father to her kids, they
had
a father, a real father, but I could be
good
to them, and maybe
teach
them a few things, and show them good
books
and take them to
museums
and if we all went to Paris, they could learn French while
we
were learning French and we’d all be happy. If I couldn’t make money as a painter, and couldn’t live on the GI Bill, I’d get a
job
, any kind of work to bring in the bucks, lots of them, and feed the kids and Eden and clothe them too and raise them up right and save what was left and … I could paint at
night
and on the
week
ends. And then, hey, sooner or later I’d have a breakthrough and I could give up the job and paint all the time. I knew I could do it, with Eden beside me, helping me make my way in the world while I was learning my craft. I
needed
her (I told her). I
wanted
her. Now.
And
later. When we both were old.

I couldn’t stop myself. The words just kept coming, the foolish and pathetic words. The words of an eighteen-year-old boy who was far from home. She listened in silence, never moving; if anything, her body seemed slowly to stiffen. Then at last I ran down and finally I stopped talking. I turned to kiss her and saw that her face was wet with tears.

Nobody ever said things like that to me before, she whispered (she who had once forced me to tell her I loved her, in the woods beyond the railroad track). You damn crazy child.

I love you, I said, as if maybe she didn’t yet understand me completely, and as if that ancient phrase explained everything.
I love you
 …

She was silent. The insects droned. A loon made a crazy laughing sound.

I said, When your hair grows back—down
there
—it’ll be mine. That hair, that new hair, that fresh-grown hair: nobody in the whole world will ever see it except me.

And she laughed.

Oh, Michael, child, of all the people in the whole wide world, only
you
would ever
think
such a thing.

I smiled, trying to be cool. But I was embarrassed, pleased only
that it was too dark for her to see me blush. She had
laughed
at me!

But it’s
true
, isn’t it? I said. Nobody else will
ever
see it.

As soon as I’d said it, I was sorry. It was as if I were forcing her to say what I wanted so much to hear.

Who knows? she said casually.

I
want
it to be true, I said.

Then maybe it will be.

She was up on one elbow now, staring at me.

You ain’t a man
yet
, she said. But you’re gettin there, child.

I love you, I said one final time.

She sighed and touched my mouth with cool fingertips and said, I guess I love you too.

Chapter

54

From
The Blue Notebook

S
he lets me enter everything except her mind
.

Red Cannon was in a fight somewhere. When I saw him in the chow hall this morning, his hands were raw and skinned, but his face was untouched. Whoever the guy was, he never laid a hand on Red. Sal said the gouge on the base was that Red beat the shit out of some cracker down at Trader Vic’s. After Red finished beating him senseless, the Shore Patrol came. They were all friends of Red’s, so when the cracker came around, the SPs beat the shit out of him too. Will I have to fight Red some day? I have to admit, it scares me; Red is a man, tough and hard, and there’s something dead in his eyes, like he’s seen too many people die. I don’t know if I can go up against that kind of man knowing I might have to kill him if it looks as if he’s going to kill me. I guess if I ever fight him, I have to get off first; can’t give him time to get set, to gather up all his craziness and anger and hatred. Take it out of him real fast. Still, it’s scary
.

E.: a stubble returns. She says it’s itchy
.

Stories about Dodgers going to Los Angeles in newspaper clippings sent by my father. Horace Stoneham is mumbling about taking the Giants. The majors won’t let one team go because it wouldn’t be worth all the cost of flying out there on the road to play one team. So the Giants gotta go with the Dodgers. Possible, they could both be gone: just like that. Next year, year after. O’Malley wants the big television bucks, the papers say. Can’t believe it. In the papers here, the sports news is all stuff from Associated Press (that’s where Caniff worked when he first came to NY, drawing cartoons). The
Los Angeles
Dodgers? Sounds ridiculous
.

But
…

Great pictures by a guy named Titian in a book MR owns. You can see the figures glow. All old cardinals and popes, with cruel faces; but the glow, like gold, comes off them. How does he make that happen with just paint and oil and turpentine? Gotta ask M
.

I made 46 bucks this month drawing pictures. MR suggested I switch to chalk and charcoal, so the women’s faces would be softer. He’s right. I love smearing the chalk with my hands, grading it. It’s almost as if you were rubbing your hand on a woman’s face. With the money, I bought two more shirts, and a book called
The Great Gatsby
for E. I read the book when Dunbar told me about it and it’s a great book, even though I don’t understand people like that, except Wolfsheim, the bootlegger. I was going to buy E. some earrings, but I couldn’t do it at the end, because I didn’t trust my own taste. Actually
ran
out of the store
 …

The comics go on, but I don’t care much about them anymore. I’d rather see red shoes
.

Chapter

55

T
he Navy went on like a lumpy road beside a swift river. Routine and habit made it easy; my true life took place at night. I still visited with the blacks, doing their portraits for free and eating when I wanted. I even made a point of entering the chow hall with them, knowing it would drive Harrelson nuts. But I didn’t go into town with them very much anymore. I made excuses about being too busy with my drawings or needing to see my girl or having the duty.

But the truth was I didn’t want to see Winnie.

The truth was I didn’t want to hear that she was pregnant, or in love with me, didn’t want her to start hanging around the gate, the knocked-up black girl crazy for a white man. Most of all, I didn’t want her confronting Eden. I didn’t want her to throw a scene, didn’t want to have to sit down with Eden later and explain what happened that one night when she was in New Orleans. I was also afraid of my own feelings.