Venus Envy (36 page)

Mercury, taking the hint, slipped off one sneaker. Frazier touched him. His skin shivered under her touch. “Wait.”

“Why?” Mercury wanted to know.

“I want to see if you can make those wings on your sneakers flutter.”

He put his sneaker back on, hopped off the bed and flapped the little wings. “On my helmet—you know the one you see in the ancient statues—I can make those wings wiggle too. We only wear those clothes for family portraits now. The rest of the time we wear whatever we feel like wearing, from any century. Some centuries really had great design. I’ve always liked the twelfth century. Very pure lines—the fabric draped beautifully. Of course, the dyes couldn’t hold and they weren’t terribly clean but if you concentrate only on lines, really good.”

“I like today best, although it’s gotten a bit too informal,” Venus contributed to Mercury’s idea. “But really the most incredible colors and fabrics. It’s either that or the eighteenth century—a vast difference, I will agree, but female fashions from that period suit me.”

“Everything suits you, but I like you best naked.” Mercury kicked off his sneakers and leapt back into bed, his silken shorts showing the growing bulge underneath.

Venus pulled Frazier down on the bed and Mercury lay beside her. As Venus kissed Frazier between the shoulder
blades, Mercury gently held her face in his hands and kissed her hairline and then her lips.

Frazier put her right hand on the side of his neck and then moved her hand down to his pecs. His muscles were hard and very well developed, but not massive like Jupiter’s. Mercury’s body suggested a human in his late teens or middle twenties, beautifully proportioned. Had he picked a sport he would have been a backstroker. He moved closer to her and she could feel his heartbeat in his cock, which rested against her thigh.

Venus reached around Frazier and embraced both of them.

Frazier lightly brushed her fingers over his shorts. Mercury exhaled in delight. She ran her fingernails over his thigh and returned to his shorts, where she slid her fingernails over the outline of his cock. Mercury shook. She reached in and touched him as Venus moved behind him and pulled off his shorts. A T-square of soft hair led to the instrument of pleasure.

“This is going to be great fun,” Venus whispered in his ear and then moved down to his buttocks, where she kissed and bit him even as Frazier stroked his stupendous erection. Mercury was perfect in every respect and his penis was no exception. The head and the shaft were in balance, the balls not too saggy or small. Frazier rolled them in her hands just to feel the sweet skin. Mercury pressed against her and moved.

“Remember, she’s human,” Venus said as she reached between his legs and held Frazier’s hand as they both stroked him.

Venus’s long, slender fingers closed around Frazier’s, gently squeezing her hand and Mercury’s cock.

Frazier kissed Mercury on the lips. He knew how to kiss. There was nothing sloppy about his kissing. He took the tip of his tongue and traced Frazier’s lips, then
closed his lips and kissed her passionately. Venus kissed Frazier when Mercury was finished. After incinerating her, Venus then kissed Mercury. Although they had been kissing for centuries Frazier could feel the heat. Venus and Mercury genuinely liked each other, and in the long run maybe that was better than romantic love.

Frazier bit the skin between Mercury’s rounded pecs and then she licked his nipples. Goose bumps covered him. She put her hands on his pecs, then tipped up on her fingernails and scratched him down to his groin. Then she nibbled her way down his rippling ab muscles and followed the line of his obliques to his cock. She started at the base, and using the tip of her tongue, barely touching him really, she moved along the underside to the head, which she circled with her tongue. The god arched his back in abandon.

Frazier raised her head as Venus hovered over her and she kissed a pendulous, magnificent breast before returning to Mercury’s reddening cock.

She caressed his balls as she used her tongue harder and then harder until finally she put his cock in her mouth and sucked. She could feel his heartbeat in her mouth. He stood it as long as he could, then carefully pulled himself away.

Mercury embraced Frazier and pushed his cock inside her. She could feel his heartbeat deep inside.

As she looked over his shoulder she was amazed by the sight of Venus, now sporting a cock as lovely and erect as Mercury’s, bearing down upon the god.

“Never let gender stand in the way of pleasure,” Venus purred as she placed her hands on his rounded ass cheeks, separating them. “I’ve wanted to do this for centuries.” His asshole opened, a rosebud of pleasure, and Venus, ever a worshipper of beauty, tenderly entered her friend.

Underneath, Frazier felt him shake. Venus mimicked his rhythm. If he used long slow strokes, so did she. If he moved shorter and harder, so did she. They moved, sleek as dolphins, the three of them together. It would be impossible to determine who suffered the most rapture. With a thunderous explosion they came simultaneously and Venus fell back on the bed laughing and hugging Mercury, even as she reached over to pet Frazier’s hair.

Frazier pinched her arms with both hands to make certain she was alive. She counted her fingers. She counted her toes. “I have all my parts,” she shouted jubilantly and launched herself on Venus and Mercury, laughing and kissing them.

“Why can’t it be like this with humans?” Frazier wrapped her arms around them.

“You need to find the right human, or humans,” Venus replied. She pulled the sash behind the bed and two nymphs appeared, bearing drinks filled with ice as well as cucumber sandwiches, scones, honey, and a variety of little cakes. The young ladies put the food on an arm that they pulled out from the bed, then left.

Mercury handed Frazier a glass of Louis Roederer Cristal, 1973. “There’s Coca-Cola here, too, for your chaser. Southern champagne, right?”

“Right.”

Venus held up her glass, the light streaming through the pale golden liquid, bubbles soaring toward the surface. “To love, to laughter, to friends.”

“Hear, hear,” Mercury agreed as Frazier clinked glasses with both of them.

“This stuff is as good as nectar,” Frazier opined.

“I think so, too, but Juno, ever the traditionalist, insists there be nectar and ambrosia at all family gatherings. I much prefer this or a good hamburger. You Americans make the best.”

“The French make the best pâté and champagne.” Venus filled her mouth with champagne, then kissed Frazier, pouring the champagne into her mouth.

“Let me try that.” Mercury repeated the procedure on Venus.

“Germans have the best asparagus, especially in May. Beer too.” Frazier reached for another cucumber sandwich.

“Can we say anything about English cooking, or Indian or Japanese?” Mercury leaned back against the pillows.

“Best beef is in Kobe, Japan,” Frazier said.

“Argentina,” Venus disagreed.

“I’m off beef myself, but the best sushi I ever had was in a little inn in Tokyo and the best fried chicken I ever ate in my life was at a roadside cafe near Charleston, South Carolina.”

“One of my favorite, favorite cities.” Venus leaned against Mercury, using him for her pillow. “I have smiled upon that town.”

“May I?” Frazier then leaned against Venus and the three of them ate and drank in contentment and peace.

“Know what I think?” Mercury wiped crumbs from Venus’s lips.

“I can hardly wait,” said his longtime friend.

“Blood makes you family; Fate makes you friends. I much prefer my friends.”

“Me too.” Frazier seconded the idea, then changed her mind: “Well, I don’t know. I really love my brother and my father. I think Carter is going to grow up at last.”

“Fantastic-looking man. I’ve thought of kidnapping him a few times. However, the last thing your brother needs in this life is another woman, even if she is a goddess.”

“That’s probably true, but I think this one he’s got
now, Sarah Saxe, I think she’s good for him. Do you know our futures? Will my brother be able to help Armstrong Paving? He’s not really cut out for business.”

“No, we don’t know the future, although Apollo has the gift: of prophecy. But Carter—don’t worry too much about him. If he stays out in the field doing the actual work he’ll be happy. He doesn’t need to run the business.”

“That makes sense.” Frazier smiled. “If I go to Apollo will he tell me the future?”

“Don’t do that,” Mercury counseled. “He’ll tell you in a riddle or some lyric outburst and you’ll drive yourself nuts trying to figure it out. Delphic Oracle kind of stuff. I can’t tell the future, but I can see the present. Here, let me show you.” He touched a sleek row of controls in the headboard. Noiselessly a tapestry rolled upward toward the ceiling, exposing a huge black screen.

“Don’t tell me you all watch television.” Frazier frowned.

“Not often.” Mercury reached into the headboard and clicked a button. “Look.”

The inside of the White House leapt into view. The bathroom to be exact. A figure sat on the throne, intently reading the newspaper, which hid his face.

“Don’t be rude, Merc.” Venus giggled.

“How was I to know?”

He beeped the remote again and the inside of La Scala appeared. A tenor and counter-tenor battled through an excruciating rehearsal.

“Can you show me anyone I know?”

“Sure.”

Immediately Frank Armstrong was seen rummaging through the closet looking for his dress homburg. In doing so, he knocked down Libby’s hatboxes. They clattered to the floor, tops flying off. Grumbling, he
stepped off the little stool and began putting things back together. He noticed Frazier’s letter inside an oval dark-blue box just as he was about to clap on the lid.

He removed the letter, studied the address and the date. He opened it and read standing up.

“Frank….” Libby called up from the living room.

“What?”

“What was that racket I heard?”

“Knocked down your hatboxes. Don’t worry, everything’s all right,” he answered in a loud voice even as he continued to read.

That fast, Libby appeared. The minute she saw what Frank was reading, and the open hatbox, she broke into a swift trot, for her, and snatched the letter out of his hand.

“Don’t upset yourself.”

He grabbed it right back. “I’ll be the judge of that. There’s nothing in here I don’t know. You had no right to keep this from me.”

“You had a lot on your mind”—she was dying to read his letter—“and her letter to me was spiteful, cruel, and well, awful, just awful. I didn’t raise her to be like that. Anyway, I was afraid yours would be upsetting.”

“It’s not.”

“Then let me read it.”

“No, she wrote it to me, not you.”

“I bet she tells you to leave me.” Libby gritted her teeth.

“No.”

“What does she say then? I mean, after all the years we’ve been married I ought to know. What does she say about me?”

“The letter is to me and about me. It’s not about you.”

Libby’s voice registered disappointment. “Oh, well. Does she attack you?”

“She doesn’t hold back any punches but she doesn’t attack me.”

“She was on drugs when she wrote those letters. Morphine. She couldn’t have known what she was writing.”

Frank reached down and placed the lid on the hat box. “I think she knew and I think she was on target, at least about me.”

“You ought to let me see the letter.” Libby’s jaw tensed.

“No.”

“Then there must be something in there about me, otherwise you wouldn’t care.”

“No, Libby, it’s not all that bad, but it’s a private communication from my daughter to me.”

“You always loved her more than you loved me!” Libby shouted, a spontaneous explosion. “That’s why she’s a lesbian. I’ve heard about that. If boys are too close to their mothers they can’t transfer their love to other women, and it’s the same for a girl who’s too close to her father.”

“Give it up.” Frank threw the hatbox up onto the closet shelf.

“I’ve got a sick child and you want me to ignore it?”

“She’s not sick.”

“She’s certainly not normal.” The cords stood out on Libby’s neck.

“Who is? You? Me? Carter? The girls in the bridge club? My golfing buddies? Are they normal or are they just more committed to keeping up the phoney facade?”

“What phoney facade?” She took a step toward him, a threatening step.

“That everything is just”—he searched for the word—“peachy. That one is perfect, that one’s mate is wonderful, and that one’s children will all grow up to be
successes and they, in turn, will marry the kind of people who care about appearances. The right job. The right religion. The right ancestors and the right color. The men wear double-breasted navy blazers with a silk rep tie for those luncheons at the club, and the girls wear floral print dresses with big hats. It’s just a show.”

“You’ve talking about our life! You’ve talking about our friends!”

“Maybe we don’t have any friends, Libby. Maybe we just have other actors in this bourgeois play.”

“Bourgeois?” Her eyebrows lifted, carrying with them the hard line of contempt. “I didn’t even know you knew words like that.”

Frank stood up ramrod straight. “I know a lot more than you give me credit for.”

She crossed her arms across her still lovely bosom. “I’m all ears.”

“I’m not a person to you. I’m a meal ticket. I’m an escort. I’m the genial host who mixes martinis in the summer, bloodys on Sunday after church, and scotch at night in the winter. I’m the guy who completes the picture but you don’t know who I am. You never did. You never wanted to. You just goddam wanted me to play my part. I’m tired of acting in your play. I’m tired of paying for the privilege. I don’t know how many years I have left, and I want to live them with some kind of”—he groped for a concept, for the words—“peace and maybe, maybe even love.”

“Love?” She belted out the word. “Love? You never loved me. You loved your business. You loved your golf. You loved your precious Frazier. I worked for you! I hosted parties for those boring paving contractors, for clients. The food, the flowers, the compliments to their wives. And I gave you two children. I raised them. I raised them! You were working.”