The Women's Room (57 page)

Everyone was listening with interest, but Mira was losing much of what Ben said. She was looking, under her eyes, at his arms, and at his hand on his glass. His shoulders, under the thin white shirt, looked broad and tanned. His hands were large, with a little dark hair on their backs. The fingers were broad and stubby-ended yet delicate at the same time. His hair was full and dark. She did not dare as yet to look at his face.

‘Think about a traditional painting – of a table, say. Most of what you see is the top, the things piled on it, the cloth, or a bowl of fruit, a vase of flowers, the bread and cheese – you know. Say it’s a painting of the entire table, not just a still life. If there’s a long cloth, you may not even see the legs. Or take another example – a building. You see the façade: you don’t see the back unless you walk around it, and if it’s a working building, chances are the back isn’t attractive, it has sliding
garage doors and ramps, it’s the receiving and warehouse part of the building. But even if you see the back, you never see the foundation, the basement, the part that holds everything else up. Well, that’s our usual view of society.’

Mira raised her eyes. His face was brilliant, his eyes were light. He was enjoying himself and his audience’s attention. He had a large round face with prominent cheekbones and dark eyebrows. He looked intense.

‘We are aware of the people at the top – in our present society and in those of the past. We know about the wealthy, the powerful, the famous. They make the rules, their standards and manners and styles set the tone. It’s as though they are the flower the whole plant was designed to produce. But in fact, the flower is only one phase of the process that is a plant, and the purpose of the plant is to endure and to reproduce. Production of a flower is only one step in the process. The stem, the supports of the table, the foundation pillars of a building are also essential to the whole. So are the roots, the feet of the table, the basement walls. These are like the lower classes of a society: they are necessary, but they don’t get much attention, they are not often seen as beautiful, they are taken for granted.

‘But in cubist painting, everything is important, everything is paid attention to. Even the underside of the table, the insides of desk drawers, the space around the table – each thing is seen and seen in the round, each is shown in its essentiality, each is given room to exist. What dominates the painting is not the top, the flower, but the whole, the design of the whole. Well, society could be like that. With laws designed for people rather than for property, we could have a government without a single dominating ruler. There is no single thing in a cubist painting that dominates the whole, yet the whole coheres. It might be possible that each group, each person, could be granted its own inherent autonomy, its space. The foundations would be admitted to be as important as the top.’

‘If there were a top,’ Grete said.

‘Well, there will always be a top if it is a table, a façade in a building, people who are better known than others. But each would have only its own space and would stay in it.’

‘But in cubist painting,’ Mira argued, ‘things don’t stay in their own space. That’s one of its main points. Each little section infringes on every other around it, everything overlaps.’

‘Is that right?’ Ben gave a delighted gasp. ‘That’s even better! Because
we do violate, intrude upon, each other’s space all the time – life would be awfully sterile and boring if we didn’t. We do it in speech and in action – we do it when we touch each other. So we learn to violate each other’s space a little, but we know when to return to our own. There is contact without conflict.’

Clarissa shook her head. ‘I’d like to believe such a thing is possible, Ben, but I can’t imagine eliminating conflict.’

‘We don’t want to eliminate it. It’s a wonderful thing. We grow by it. We just learn to contain it. We learn to jiggle!’ he laughed, carried away by his own high spirits.

Clarissa was thinking. ‘Yes, okay. But isn’t that exactly what the human race has been trying to do for centuries? Games, sports, debates – that sort of thing. Provide sublimation for aggressiveness?’

‘Yes,’ Val shot in, ‘but all the while it has been piously mouthing that aggression is wrong, it has been exalting the hero, the warrior, the man who kills.’

‘That’s true.’ Thoughtfully said, but Clarissa was not persuaded.

‘You think it’s time we got our shit together and stopped being moral schizophrenics,’ Val said to Ben. ‘A man after my own heart!’

Everyone began to talk at once then. Mira touched Ben lightly on his arm to get his attention, then pulled her hand away instantly, as if she had been burned. He looked at her smiling. He had seen.

‘That was wonderful, Ben,’ she said.

21

Mira got a little high that night, and so did Ben, and somehow – later she could not remember whose suggestion it was, or if there had been no suggestion at all, but simple single purpose – he ended up in her car, driving her to her apartment and when they arrived, he got out and saw her to the door and of course she asked him in for a nightcap and of course he came.

They were laughing as they climbed the steps, and they had their arms around each other. They were designing the perfect world, trying to outdo each other in silliness, and giggling to the point of tears at their own jokes. Mira fumbled with her key, Ben took it from her, dropped it, both of them giggling, picked it up and opened the door.

She poured them brandies. Ben following her to the kitchen, leaning over the counter and gazing at her as she prepared the drinks, talking,
talking. He followed her out of the kitchen and right into the bathroom, until she turned with a little surprise and he caught himself, cried ‘Oh!’ and laughed, and stepped out, but stood right beside the closed door talking to her through it while she peed. Then sat close beside her on the couch, talking, talking, laughing, smiling at her with shining eyes. And when he got up to get refills, she followed him into the kitchen and leaned across the counter gazing at him as he prepared the drinks, and he kept looking at her as he did it, and poured too much water in her glass. And they sat even closer this time, and there needed no forethought or calculation for the moment when they reached across and took each other’s hands and it was only a few moments later that Ben was on her, leaning against her, his face searching in her face for something madly wanted that did not reside in faces, but searched, kept searching, and she too, in his. His body was lying on her now, his chest against her breasts, and the closeness of their bodies felt like completion. Her breasts were pressed flat under him: they felt soft and hard at once. Their faces stayed together, mouths searching, probing, opening as if to devour, or rubbing softly together. Their cheeks too rubbed softly like the cheeks of tiny children just trying to feel another flesh, and hard, his beard, shaved though he was, harsh and hurtful on her cheek. He had her head in his hands, and he held it firmly, possessively, and gently, all at once, and he dipped his face into hers, searching for nourishment, hungry, hungry. They rose together, like one body, and like one body walked into the bedroom, not separating even in the narrow hallway, just squeezing through together.

For Mira, Ben’s lovemaking was the discovery of a new dimension. He loved her body. Her pleasure in this alone was so extreme that it felt like the discovery of a new ocean, mountain, continent. He loved it. He crowed over it as he helped her to undress, he kissed it and caressed it and exclaimed, and she was quieter, but adored his with her eyes as she helped him to undress, ran her hands over the smooth skin of his back, grabbed him from behind around the waist and kissed his back, the back of his neck, his shoulders. She was shy of his penis at first, but when he held her close and nestled against her, he pressed his penis against her body, and her hand went out to it, held it, caressed it. Then he wrapped his legs around her, covered her, holding on to her tightly, and kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her hair. She pulled away from him gently and took his hands and kissed them, and he took hers and kissed the tips of her fingers.

She lay back again as he pressed against her, and he caressed her
breasts. She felt that her body was floating out to sea on a warm gentle wave that had orders not to drown her, but she didn’t even care if she drowned. Then, rather suddenly, he put his mouth to her breasts and nursed at them, and quickly entered her and quickly came, silently, with only an expelled breath, and a pang of self-pity hit her, her eyes filled with tears. No, no, not again, it couldn’t be the same, it wasn’t fair, was there really something wrong with her? He lay on top of her, holding her closely for a long time afterward, and she had time to swallow the tears and paste a smile back on her face. She patted his back gently and reminded herself that she had at least had pleasure from it this time, and maybe that was a good sign. He had given her, if nothing else, more pleasure than she had ever had from her body before.

After a time, he leaned back and lay on his side close to her. They lighted cigarettes and sipped their drinks. He asked her about her girlhood: what kind of child had she been? She was surprised. Women ask such things, sometimes, but not men. She was delighted. She lay back and threw herself into it, talking as if it were happening there and then. Her voice changed and curled around its subject: she was five, she was twelve, she was fourteen. She hardly noticed at first that he had begun to caress her body again. It seemed simply natural that they would touch each other. He was gently rubbing her belly and sides, her shoulders. She put her cigarette out and caressed his shoulders. Then he was leaning over her, kissing her belly, rubbing his hands on her thighs, on the insides of her thighs. Desire rose up in her more fiercely than before. She caressed his hair, then his head moved down, and she tightened up, her eyes widened, he was kissing her genitals, licking them, she was horrified, but he kept stroking her belly, her leg, he kept doing it and when she tried to tighten her legs, he held them gently apart, and she lay back again and felt the warm wet pressure and her innards felt fluid and giving, all the way to her stomach. She tried to pull him up, but he would not permit it, he turned her over, he kissed her back, her buttocks, he put his finger on her anus and rubbed it gently, and she was moaning and trying to turn over, and finally, she succeeded, and then he had her breast in his mouth and the hot shoots were climbing all the way to her throat. She wrapped her body around him, clutching him, no longer kissing or caressing, but only clinging now, trying to get him to come inside her, but he wouldn’t. She surrendered her body to him, let him take control of it, and in an ecstasy of passivity let her body float out to the deepest part of the ocean. There was only body, only sensation: even the room had ceased to exist.
He was rubbing her clitoris, gently, slowly, ritually, and she was making little gasps that she could hear from a distance. Then he took her breast in his mouth again and wrapped his body around her and entered her. She came almost immediately and gave a sharp cry, but he kept going, and she came over and over again in a series of sharp pleasures that were the same as pain. Her face and body were wet, so were his, she felt, and still the pangs came, less now, and she clutched him to her, holding him as if she really might drown. The orgasms subsided, but still he thrust himself into her. Her legs were aching, and the thrust no longer felt like pleasure. Her muscles were weary, and she was unable to keep the motion going. He pulled out and turned her over and propped her on a pillow so that her ass was propped up, and entered her vagina from behind. His hand stroked her breast gently, he was humped over her like a dog. It was a totally different feeling, and as he thrust more and more sharply, she gave out little cries. Her clitoris was being triggered again, and it felt sharp and fierce and hot and as full of pain as pleasure and suddenly he came and thrust fiercely and gave off a series of loud cries that were nearly sobs, and stayed drooped over her like a flower, heaving, his wet face against her back.

When he pulled out, she turned over and reached up to him and pulled him down and held him. He put his arms around her and they lay together for a long time. His wet penis was against her leg, and she could feel semen trickling out of her onto the sheets. It began to feel cold, but neither of them moved. Then they moved a few inches and looked into each other’s faces. They stroked each other’s faces, then began to laugh. They hugged each other hard, like friends rather than lovers, and sat up. Ben went into the bathroom and got some tissues and they dried themselves and the sheets. He went back and started water running in the tub. Mira was lying back against the pillow, smoking.

‘Come on, woman, get up!’ he ordered, and she looked at him startled, and he reached across and put his arms around her and lifted her from the bed, kissing her at the same time, and helped her to her feet, and they went together to the bathroom and both peed. The water was at bath level by then. Ben had put Mira’s bath lotion in the water, and it was bubbly and smelled fresh, and they got in together and sat with bent knees intertwined, and gently threw water at each other and lay back enjoying the warmth and caressed each other beneath and above the water.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

‘I’m famished,’ he said.

Together, they pulled everything out of the refrigerator, and produced a feast ofJewish salami and feta cheese and hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes and black bread and sweet butter and half-sour pickles and big black Greek olives and raw Spanish onions and beer, and trotted all of it back to bed with them and sat there gorging themselves and talking and drinking and laughing and touching each other with tender fingertips. And finally they set the platters and plates and beer cans on the floor and Ben nuzzled his face in her breast, but this time she pushed him down and got on top of him and, refusing to let him move, she kissed and caressed his body and slid her hands down his sides and along the insides of his thighs, held his balls gently, then slid down and took his penis in her mouth and he gasped with pleasure and she moved her hands and head slowly up and down with it, feeling the vein throb, feeling it harden and melt little drops of semen, and wouldn’t let him move until suddenly she raised her head and he looked startled and she got on top of him and set her own rhythms, rubbing her clitoris against him as she moved and she came, she felt like a goddess, triumphant, riding the winds, and she kept coming and he came too then, and she bent down her chest and clutched him, both of them moaning together, and ended, finally, exhausted.