Bitter Sweet (41 page)
‘Constantly. Have you?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
He turned her beneath him and the rhythm resumed. She watched his hair tap his forehead, and his arms tremble as they bore his weight. She rose to meet him, thrust for thrust, and murmured pleasured sounds that he echoed.
He climaxed first, and she watched it happen upon his face, watched his eyes close, his throat arch, and his muscles tense; watched beads of sweat appear upon his brow in the moment before the wondrous distress shook and shattered him.
When his body had calmed he opened his eyes, still leaning above her. ‘Maggie, I’m sorry,’ he whispered, as if there were some preset order.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ she whispered, touching his damp brow, his temple. ‘You were beautiful to watch.’
‘Was I?’
‘Absolutely. And besides,’ she added guilelessly, ‘I’m next. ‘
And she was.
Next.
And next.
And next again.
Chapter 12
At 1:20 A.M. Maggie and Eric sat in the clawfoot tub, in nipple-high bubbles, drinking root beer and trying to yodel. He took a swig, backhanded his mouth, and said, ‘Here, I got one!’ Raising his face like a baying hound, he broke into song.
‘Mockingbird singing, yodel-oyodeiodohoo...’
While he howled, Maggie rocked like an Irishman in a pub and thrust her mug in the air. He howled so loud she expected the mirror to shatter, and ended with a long, mournful note that stretched his lips toward the ceiling.
‘There, how was that?’
She set her mug on the floor and applauded. ‘Remarkable!
Now I’ve got one. Just a minute.’ She retrieved her mug, took a swig and wiped her mouth. After clearing her throat she tried a chorus of the ‘Cattle Call’.
Woo-woo-woo-oo-oo-oo! Woo-woo-woo-up! A-woo-oo oo...
When the chorus ended, he yelled, ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ and applauded while she bowed over her updrawn knees and spread her arms wide, dropping suds on the floor.
‘Let’s see...’ He squinted at the ceiling, took a drink and hummed thoughtfully above his mug. ‘Mmm ...
mmmmmmmm.., yuh! I got it! An old Cowboy Kopus tune. ‘
‘Cowboy who?’
‘Cowboy Kopus. You mean you never heard of Cowboy Kopus?’
‘Nobody ever heard of Cowboy Kopus.’
‘Shows how much you know. When I was little we used to put on shows on the back porch. Larry was Tex Ritter.
Ruth was Dale Evans and I wanted to be Roy Rogers, but Mike said he was Roy Rogers, I had to be Cowboy Kopus. So I stood there and bawled. Had my little six-shooters strapped on, and my red felt cowboy hat with the string pulled up tight under my chin with a little wooden ball, and my Red Rider cowboy boots, bawlin’ fit to kill ‘cause I had to be Cowboy Kopus. So don’t tell me nobody ever heard of Cowboy Kopus.’
She was laughing long before he cut loose with his pitiful rendition of ‘Shy Little Ann from
Cheyenne
’.
When he finished, she suggested, ‘How about if we do one together?’
‘Okay. You know “Ghost Riders in the Sky” by Vaughn Monroe?’
‘Vaughn Monroe?’
‘You don’t remember him either?’
‘Can’t say that I do.’
‘Then how about “Tumbling Tumbleweed” by The Sons of the Pioneers.’
‘That I, know.’
‘I’ll lead off.’
He drew a deep breath and began.
See them tumbling down...
They sang three verses, humming the parts where they’d forgotten the words, managing some dubious harmony and ending with a pair of notes rendered like a pack of yowling coyotes.
Drifting along with the tumbling tum-bul-weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeds!
When the last note died, they collapsed into gales of laughter.
‘I think we missed our calling.”
‘I think we cracked your new plaster.’
They fell back weakly and Maggie caught a faucet between the shoulder blades.
‘Owowoooo!’ she howled, coyote-fashion again. ‘That huuuuuuurts!’
He grinned. ‘C’m’ere. I got a place that won’t hurt.’
‘No spout and knobs?’ she inquired, setdng her mug on the floor.
‘Well, maybe a couple,’ he replied, settling her between his silky thighs. ‘But you’re gonna like ‘em, Miss Maggie, I can promise you that.’
‘Mmmmm...’ she purred, resting her forearms on his chest. ‘You’re right. I do.’
They kissed, growing aroused beneath the bubbles, his hands gliding over her naked rump.
After some time she opened her eyes and inquired lazily, ‘Hey, cowboy?’
‘Ma’am?’ he drawled, arranging his mouth in a triangular grin.
‘You wouldn’t want to kiss my mole again, would you?’
‘Well now,’ he replied in his best sagebrush accent. ‘A gentleman ought not to refuse a lady when she asks so sweet-like, I think we can take care of that little matter with no problem at all.’
They took care of that little matter and a couple of others, and by the time they had done so it was after
in the morning. They lay on the rumpled bed in the Belvedere Room with their tired limbs twined. His stomach rumbled and he inquired, ‘What’ve you got to eat, Miss Maggie? I’m damn near stove in.’
Hooking her heel on the far side of his leg, she asked, ‘What do you want? Fruit? A sandwich? An omelette?’
He turned up his nose. ‘Too sensible.’
‘What then?’
‘Doughnuts,’ he declared, slapping his belly. ‘Big, fat, warm, yummy doughnuts.’
‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s go.’ She grabbed his hand and hauled him off the bed.
‘You’re kidding!’ he exclaimed. ‘You really have doughnuts?’
‘No, I don’t, but we can make them.’
‘You’d start making doughnuts at
in the morning?”
‘Why not? I’ve been collecting quick bread recipes till they’re sticking out of the drawers. I’m sure in some of those books we’ll find doughnuts. Come on. I’ll let you choose. ‘
He chose orange drop doughnuts, and they built them together, she wearing her rose quilted housecoat, exclusively, he wearing blue jeans, also exclusively. It took them longer than warranted: she put him to work squeezing an orange and he tried to do so against some unorthodox places that brought about a good-natured scuffle, ending with the two of them rolling and giggling on the floor.
While he was grating a rind, he scraped the end of a knuckle, and its doctoring included enough kisses to delay the making of doughnuts for a good ten minutes. When the batter was finally mixed, it had to be tasted, resulting in an arousing round of finger sucking from which Maggie surfaced with the lazy warning, ‘If you don’t let me go my grease is going to catch fire.’ His reply rocked them both with laughter that dwindled eventually and left them leaning against cupboards like a pair of surfboards stored in a corner. He planted his feet, locked his hands over her spine and studied her face with a growing sense of wonder. The laughter fell away.
‘My God, but I love you,’ he said. ‘I’m halfway through my life and it took me till now to find out how it really ought to be. I do . . . I love you, Maggie, more than I planned on.’
‘I love you, too.’ She felt full with it, reborn. ‘During the past couple of months I’ve imagined this night finally happening, but I never imagined this part of it. This is special , the laughter, the sheer happiness. Do you suppose if we’d got married when we were fresh out of school we’d still be this way?’
‘I don’t know. It feels like it.’
‘Mmm... yes it does.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Isn’t it nice? We not only love each other, we like each other as well.’
‘I think we’ve found the secret,’ he replied.
He studied her face, tipped up at an acute angle, her delicate chin with its distinctive dimple, her adoring brown eyes and softly smiling mouth. Upon it he placed a lingering, unurgent kiss.
When it ended she murmured, “Let’s finish our doughnuts so I can curl up next to you and turn over while I sleep and feel you there behind me.’
At 4:o5 they fell into bed exhausted, with orange doughnuts on their breath. Eric curled behind Maggie, his face in her hair, his knees cupped behind hers, one hand on her breast.
He sighed.
She sighed.
“You wore me out.’
‘I think it’s the other way around.’
‘Fun though.’
‘Mmohmm. ‘
‘Love you.’
‘Love you, too. Don’t leave without waking me.’
‘I won’t. ‘
And like two who’d been together for years, they slept in utter peace.
He awakened to the feel of their moist skins joined and his hand lying lax on her belly, lifting and falling with each breath she took. He lay still, filling his senses: her rhythmic breathing on the pillow; rumpled eyelet sheet covering their shoulders; her naked rump sealed to his thighs. The smell of her hair and something flowery somewhere nearby; sun and snow indirectly lighting the room; dusty-rose paper covering the walls; the noiseless motion of white lace curtains in the forced air from the furnace. Warmth.
Contentment.
I don’t want to leave here. I want to stay with this woman, laugh and lot, e with her and share the thousands of mundane tasks that bind lives. Carry the things that are too heavy for her, reach the things that are too high, shovel her walk, shat, e in her bathroom and use the same hairbrush. Stand in a doorway in the morning and watch her dress, and in the same doorway in the evening and watch her undress. Call home to say, I’m on my way. Share unshaven Sundays and rainy. Mondays and the last glass of milk in the carton.
I want her with me when I put the boat in the water for the first time, to understand spring as a season of the heart as much as of the calendar. And in summer when I pass by on the water, to watch her turn with a trowel in her hand and wave from the yard at the sound of my horn. And in autumn to understand my sadness when I lay up the Mary Deare for the winter. I want for us some fine things an occasional Dom Perignon, two weeks in
Acapulco
, chateaubriand by candlelight; and some less than free-greying hair and lost keys and spring colds.
No, I don’t want to leave this woman.
He knew the precise moment she awakened by the change in rhythm of her breathing, and the slight tensing of muscles that fell just short of a stretch. He spread his hand on her stomach and touched her back with his nose. She reached behind and slipped her hand between his legs.
Stroked him - once, twice- tight, deft, certain, and his flesh sprang alive in her hand. She smiled-he knew it as certainly as if he could see her face- and curled forward, tucking him inside her, then reaching around with an arm and drawing him flush against her. He gripped her hips and said good morning-I-love-you in an age-old, wordless way.
When they had shuddered and stilled, and the moisture lay drying upon their skins, she turned, their bodies still precariously linked, and hooked her legs over his thighs.
The smile he had earlier divined, he saw and met with one of his own. He crooked an elbow beneath his ear and fitted the fingers of his free hand between hers. They lay studying one another’s eyes while morning brightened the sills of the room. His thumb drew lazy circles around hers. The furnace clicked off and the curtains stopped fluttering. She reached m smooth a tuft of hair on his head, then linked her hand with his as before and resumed the lazy stirring of thumbs. No word was spoken, no promises lent, but during that silence they both said the most meaningful things of all.
A half hour later they sat at the table, holding hands, wishing useless wishes. He emptied his coffee cup and rose reluctantly, drawing his jacket from the back of the chair.
He slipped it on slowly, delaying the inevitable, his head hanging as he reached for the bottom snap. She came to him and brushed his hands aside, usurping the task. One snap.
Another. Another. Each drawing them closer and closer to parting. When all but the top snap were closed, she raised his collar and held it against his jaws with both hands, drew his face down and tenderly kissed his mouth.
‘I would not have traded last night for Aladdin’s lamp,’ she told him softly.
Closing his eyes, he wrapped both arms around her.
“It was much better than when we were kids.’
‘Much better.’ She smiled. ‘Thank you.’
They drifted into the sombre silence of pre-parting.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ Eric told her. ‘What I feel is strong, though. It’ll need some kind of resolution.’
‘Yes, I suppose it will.’
‘I don’t think I’ll live too easily with guilt.’
She spread her hands on the supple leather covering of his shoulder-blades and felt the need to make of this parting not a mere good-bye but a valediction.
‘Let’s not feel we must make promises to one another.