Each
time I wrote that Albertine was pretty, I crossed the
words out, and wrote instead that I had felt a desire to kiss Albertine.
Marcel
Proust
Her
face was fine and her legs were long and thin, and she had a new crafty look,
like a fox, and her hand was cool to the touch.
We
climbed the stone stairs in
But
I felt something deeper too. It seemed
that she contained a new desire or longing that she didn’t yet know how to
express and that I didn’t know how feel, so I stalled for time, waiting
superstitiously for clues, hoping for some suggestion or hint.
While
I was waiting, the far away look came into her eyes and finally, like a bird
finding a stray branch, the sadness came.
I knew enough by then not to say anything. I even pretended not to notice. She broke a very long silence, “I’m so frightfully thin.”
I
waited. It seemed like a minute had gone
by but it hadn’t. I said, “I’ve never seen you more beautiful.”
She
wouldn’t let me say that usually and I didn’t know why; she wouldn’t let me
feel as if it were right to say it.
“I’ve
got to gain twenty pounds.”
We
were sitting on the steps, overlooking the waterfall, and I kissed her cheek
and massaged her leg. Twenty feet below
was the Lilly pond. We were surrounded
by Redwood trees and Eucalyptus trees and bird cries were the only sounds that
rose above the sound of the waterfall.
I
said, “Please stay the way you
are.” She was silent. I smiled encouragingly. “You look like Twiggy...”
She
pulled away from me, stood up and launched into a diatribe about bulimia. I waited patiently for an opening. She stopped almost as quickly as she had
started and she seemed almost ashamed of herself.
I
said, “Do it for me Flo.” Neither of us had heard me speak in that tone
of voice before. I took her in my arms
again and kissed her cheek. I said, “Remember the way you made me grow my hair?”
“I
didn’t make you grow your hair. It was
your decision.”
“It
was because you said you’d cut yours if I cut mine.”
She
pulled away from me and climbed three steep steps that were made of rough hewn
rocks. She turned around and staring
down at me asked, “Do you know how much
I weigh?”
“I
don’t care. I like you the way you are.”
“I’m
almost 5’10” and I weigh less than 105 pounds.
Marsha, everyone else, says I look frightful. They’re all planning ways to put weight on me.”
I
persisted, humorously, “I’ll lose
twenty pounds too Flo. We can be skeletons together.” I stood up and danced around in a circle with
my hands over my head, wiggling my fingers and brushing them against the low
hanging branch of a Redwood tree. I
pulled off a small cone and threw it at her.
I
said, “Let’s go to
Her
eyes brightened. She said, a little
timidly, “The camera’s in the car.”
“Great. I’ve got about twenty dollars on me. That should be enough.”
She
said, “I’ve got my check book for insurance.”
Hidden
among the shadows of the park she seemed like a young doe. I said,
“I still love you... even if you do
look like a skeleton.”
She
smiled down at me, shyly, and said, “I
brought something special for you, from my mother’s house. I’ll show it too you
when we get to
We
raced down the stairs, hand in hand, and ran across Perry Field towards the
Yellow Volvo. We jumped in, rolled down
all of the windows and, just for the hell of it, I coasted about a half-mile
down
On
the freeway, I held down the gas pedal until we reached 105 miles an hour and
she yelled at me to slow down.
Winding
along
We
sang Yellow Submarine all the way to
I
finally ran into
Once
back on the freeway, we laughed and giggled and yakked all the way to
She
took pictures with her new 8mm camera and with the 35 mm Canon that I had
bought for $70 at a pawnshop.
For
old time’s sake, I insisted on eating lunch at the Foster Freeze on the
outskirts of
Back
in the car, she began taking movies of me driving.
“I
don’t think they’ll turn out Flo.”
“You
don’t know how great it looks.”
“What?”
She
was full of little boy enthusiasm. She
was about thirteen. “You don’t know how
great you look. I can’t get over it. You look so great and you don’t even know
it.”
“What
look’s so great?”
“Your
pony tail. You don’t know how great you
look. I know you don’t.” She made a little squealing noise. She couldn’t contain her excitement. She started the camera again, directing it at
the back of my head.
“This’ll
be a lousy picture, Flo, there’s no light in here.”
“It’ll
turn out, don’t worry. I’ve got to get
your pony tail.” She had tied it up with
a rubber band, while we were washing up after the ice-cream fight at the Foster
Freeze. She brought the camera right up
to my face. “I love ya
big fella. And
you’re on Candid Camera. What do you
say?”
I
started singing to the tune of Porgy,
“Ah loves you Twiggy, yes ah do, ah loves yo
legs, o yes ah does.” I reached over and
squeezed one of them.
She
said, “Let’s do it.”
“Do
what? Here? Now?”
She
said, “Hey, these are silent movies, no
one’s gonna know the difference.”
“Oh,
so you’re gonna film it. For Candid Camera. I knew it.”
She
grabbed my zipper. The camera was
rolling, filming the windshield. I
jumped. “I want to save it for tonight.”
“You
can do it twice. Remember? We’ve did it five times once, just to prove
you could.” She was in the habit of
teasing me for that.
“OK,
six times if you want, but not in the car, not on Candid Camera.” I thumbed my nose at the camera.
The
car swerved and a passing truck driver blasted us with his horn. She craned her neck and looked up at him
through the windshield. A fat face
looked down at us from behind dark glasses and a cowboy hat. It smiled and he waved. We waved back. She lifted her tie dye tee shirt, exposing
her breasts and we could hear his cowboy scream over the roar of his truck as
he gained speed and rolled past us down the hill. We were happy again and I couldn’t resist
going for the big one.
“I
want to you keep the weight off Flo. If you really love me you’ll do it.”
“I’m
not going to weigh 105 pounds. I look
like I’ve come out of a concentration camp.”
“You
look so great. Didn’t you see the look
on that truck driver’s face?”
“He’s
just a truck driver. They all do that.”
“I
can’t tell you how great you look.”
“You’re
the only one that thinks so.”
I
said, “Take your pants off.”
She
kicked her tennis shoes off and took off everything except her tee shirt and
her wristwatch.
“They
look great. I mean beautiful.”
She
looked at the road ahead of us in silence.
We could hear the mufflers of the truck as it shifted gears for the
grade. “I’m going to put on weight Jack. I have to.”
I
refused to change the subject even though I knew I should. “Well, you look great right now at
least. I’m going to enjoy it while it
lasts.” I put my arm on her shoulder and
she moved closer, to the edge of the bucket seat. I said,
“I really hate these bucket seats.”
“What
do you want me to do?” The sadness was
in her voice. We rode along in silence
for awhile.
I
said, “I just love being here with you.”
She
snuggled up to me and began to masturbate.
I drove slowly so that the truck stayed ahead of us. We were starting up another hill, and he was
losing speed.
I
said, “I wish you could take off your
tee shirt but...”
She
slipped out of it before I could protest.
A car was passing us on the left and a middle-aged woman looked into the
car and frowned. The woman thrust her
nose into the air as their car passed us.
She
sucked my cock while I massaged her leg, but she was uncomfortable against the
brake. She got up and said, “It’s
impossible. I’ll end up with a hernia.”
“God
I hate these bucket seats.”
She
sat up and began to masturbate again. It
wasn’t possible to remain behind the truck any longer. “I’m going to pass him Flo.”
She
said, “Let’s give him a thrill.”
I
pushed the gas pedal to the floor while she masturbated us both. He saw us in
his side mirror and laid on his horn as we passed.
A
station wagon full of teenage girls and a weekend father passed us on the
left. The girls leered at us. Flo disappeared
from their view and went down to suck my cock again.
I
tried to stay between the truck and the station wagon but when I came, the
girls were only about fifty feet ahead of us and I imagined that they put their
hands to their mouths and giggled.
I
said, “The girls are enjoying
themselves.”
“What?”
“There’s
a carload of giggling girls about fifty feet in front of us.”
She
raised herself slowly, spotted them and not taking her eyes from them, kissed
me on the cheek. I sped up and passed
them and she waved. She said, “Why don’t you slow down and let the truck
driver catch up so we can give him another thrill?”
“Fuck
him. Let him get his own thrills. We don’t owe him anything.”
She
lay back in her seat, without any clothes on, and finished herself off. When she came, she didn’t hold back. She made so much noise that I thought I heard
the truck driver yelling in his cab from 400 feet behind us.
She
brought a wet finger up to my face.
“Want some?”
She
claimed that she had never met a woman who didn’t like the taste of her own
cunt.
She
pushed her crumpled jeans over the brake, to make a seat, and snuggled up to
me. I made her put her tee shirt back on
and we drove all the way to Tahoe City like that.
We
got there at around seven. She put her
pants on and went into a Supermarket to get some food. She brought back swimming suits for both of
us.
We
drove along Lakeshore road until we found a nice view of the lake. It was a warm evening and we put on our suits
in the car.
I
watched her walking in front of me in her bikini. She was captivated by the lake, which she was
seeing for the first time. From behind,
she looked like a Parisian fashion model.
I noticed a couple of high school boys admiring her from the steps of a
cabin.
I
said, “I dare you to jump in.”
The
night was warm.
“Are
there any sharks?”
“How
would I know?”
She
walked in up to her ankles. She
announced, “It’s freezing.”
“I
know.”
“You
dare me?”
I
remembered the IVs sticking into her arms.
“You might get a relapse.”
She
began balancing her way through the pebbles until her knees were under water.
“Flo. Get back
here...”
She
did a belly flop and disappeared under the water. About twenty seconds later her head appeared
next to a motorboat that was tied to the pier.
She screamed, “Why didn’t you
tell me it was so cold?”
I
followed her into the water. I swam to
where she was hanging onto a plastic chord that held the motorboat to the
peer. Our teeth chattered in the 55
degree water. We kissed. Her face and body were freezing.
A
voice yelled from the cabin. “Private
property. No swimming.”
When
we got out of the water we were both shivering.
We dried ourselves and I turned on the heater in the Volvo, full blast,
and drove for about 15 minutes to Meek’s bay.
The
cabins were still there as I remembered them.
By the time we got dressed, paid for two nights, signed the registration
book as and Mr. and Mrs. George Washington and chatted with the landlady, it
was dark.
We
went out for a moonlit walk along the beach at Meek’s
Bay and she asked if I thought there would be a place where we could make love
outside in the moonlight. There were
tents in the campground behind us and cabins all around. Music was coming from a dance hall and there
was a couple holding hands at the end of the peer and another couple kissing in
the shadows of the beach. There were
lights along the beach in both directions as far as we could see.
I
said, “Not unless you want to see what
the Lake Tahoe jail looks like, from the inside.”
“It
might be worth it.”
“What,
a prison term?”
“No,
your tail for the Lake Tahoe jail.”
“I’ll
beat you to the cabin.” I danced
backwards about twenty feet and crouched, with my arms outstretched like a
basketball player daring a point guard to come in for a lay-up. I yelled,
“Go for it. I dare you.”
She
charged. I turned around and sprinted
towards the park where the tents were.
She chased me around the driveway.
I ran backwards and sideways and she couldn’t catch me. I jumped over the barrier into the campground
and she followed me. A murmuring roar
emanated from about twenty tents, simultaneously, like a small grass fire. Nobody yelled or even said anything
intelligible but we got the idea.
I
said, in a low voice, “Shit.”
She
said, “Let’s get out of here. They’re trying to sleep.”
I
tiptoed out of the campground and she followed.
Once over the barrier, we jogged towards the cabin and then I sprinted
ahead, holding the key, high over my head.
“I’ve got the key.” I waved it
over my head. “I’ve got the car keys
too.”
She
shook her fist at me. I ran slowly and
reached the cabin just before she did. I
pretended not to have enough time to get the door shut. She struggled to push the door open. I held tight and then let it go and she flew
through the door and landed on the bed. She screamed and then pretended to be dead.
“I’ve
killed her.”
She
opened one eye.
“No,
she’s only half dead.”
She
closed her eye and opened the other one.
I
said, “Hmm. This is a very interesting case.”
She
was breathing hard. I put my hand near
the snap on her jeans and said, “I
wonder if her cunt’s dead,” and grabbed for the snap. She screamed and we began to wrestle and she
managed to get on top of me and she started tickling me. She knew that she could always win at that,
because she was ticklish in only one very tiny spot that was very difficult to
reach: in the pits of her knees.
I
began laughing uncontrollably and begged her to stop. Finally, I held her slender wrists tightly
and we began making love.
She
stopped me. “Wait. I have a surprise.” She got up and went over to her
suitcase. “Put these on first.” She threw a pair of striped pajamas over my
head.
I
took them from my head and looked at them.
“What. I haven’t worn pajamas
since I was a kid.”
“It’s
a surprise.”
“Surprise?”
“Wait.” She looked around. “There.
The lamp on the chest of drawers.”
She plugged it into a wall outlet and turned out the overhead light
bulb. She said, “That’s more like it. I little romance. I’ll be right back. Get ready.”
“Get
ready?”
She
had her hand on the door knob. “Trust
me.”
“What
do you want me to do to get ready?”
“Just
put the pajamas on and get into bed.”
“Oh.”
Her
eyes flashed maliciously.
“Sure.”
She
went to the car. She was gone for what
seemed like a long time. When she
returned, she was wearing her robe and carrying my camera.
I
asked, “What were you doing out there?”
“Nothing.”
She
put the camera on the dresser and then took off her robe. She stood there in a black nightgown and
looked down at me. In the dim light, her
eyes were black and intense. I didn’t
know what to say.
I
said, “I don’t understand. You’ve never worn pajamas before.”
She
laughed. “These aren’t pajamas.”
“What
are they?”
“It’s
lingerie.”
“Well?”
“Do
you like it.”
“Yeah,
sure. I mean. It’s nice.”
I tried to sound convincing.
“It’s
the same one my mother wore on her wedding night.”
I
was moved to silence.
She
said, “I want you to take a picture of
me.”
She
turned the overhead light on and I took a picture.
“I
suppose these are...”
“Yes. They are the pajamas my father wore.”
She
turned the light out and we got back into bed.
It was a twin bed but it was a little narrow. She pulled the covers back and lifted her
lingerie up over her stomach. I pulled
the pajamas down to my knees and we made love like missionaries.
Within
two or three minutes she began a deep moaning and the walls of her vagina
gushed and ballooned out and then suddenly, her vagina gripped the shaft of my
cock and began undulating spasmodically.
It seemed to pull and vibrate knowingly as I came. It must have vibrated for thirty
seconds. Almost before it was over I
said, “You had a vaginal orgasm!”
She
was silent.
I
said, “It must have been the
lingerie.” We lay together in
silence. Finally, I said, “Did you feel it?”
“What?
“The
vibrations.”
“What
vibrations?”
“Your
cunt. It was vibrating and gripping my
cock. It’s never done that before.”
She
didn’t say anything.
“That’s
the first time you had an orgasm without me masturbating you afterwards.”
She
remained silent.
I
asked, “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“I
didn’t feel anything different.”
“What? Didn’t you have an orgasm?”
“Yes.”
“Well.”
“It
didn’t feel different.”
“It
must have been the lingerie.”
“Nonsense.”
“Nonsense? You were the one who brought it along!”
“I
didn’t have a vaginal orgasm.”
“Well
it sure did a lot of vibrating.”
Silence.
I
asked, “Didn’t you feel it?”
The
long silence started. I began breathing
slowly. I waited for one, two, three
minutes.
Finally,
she said, “The vaginal orgasm is a
myth. It is just a device that men use
to subjugate women.”
I
meditated on that. Let it sink in, and
tried to adhere to my rule of waiting for at least thirty seconds and maybe a
minute to respond to serious statements like that. I tried to allow thoughts to compose themselves
but nothing came. It was about nine
thirty.
I
asked, “Do you want to go for a walk?”
She
didn’t answer right away.
“Yeah.”
We
dressed quickly and walked back to the campground and went out onto the
peer. We could see the bright lights of
I
had decided not to talk about her weight or the orgasm.
We
held hands but I felt distant. Finally,
the darkness and the strangeness of the
She
said, “Let’s travel around the world
Jack. I’ve got the money. I want to spend it.”
I
was silent, feeling our smallness, sitting on the shore of the huge lake,
surrounded by mountains, on a small planet way out at the far edge of our
galaxy.
“I’ve
still got forty five thousand dollars.
We could travel for six months.
As long as we want. We could live
on a desert island if we want.”
I
held her hand. “You know I wouldn’t let
you do that. And I have to pay my own
way. Besides. You have a lot of things to do with that money.
You can’t throw it away.”
She
was silent. I felt that I was growing
smaller, physically. It seemed like
madness. And I felt awkward again, as if
I were in the presence of a Princess.
Her legs, the money, the sex, it all seemed absurd, irrelevant. I didn’t know what to say. I squeezed her hand and she squeezed
back.
I
found myself holding back tears. She couldn’t see my face in the darkness, and
a lump had formed in my throat and I knew that if I tried to talk she would
know I was about to cry.
I
felt betrayed by God and the Universe. I
wanted to run but I knew that the edge was all around and there was no where to
go.
Her
silence began to envelop us. Suddenly,
all of her causes seemed worthless and I wanted her to invest the money for herself
and to forget them. But I couldn’t say
anything about that either. I was
plunged deeper into anger and sadness and isolation. I’ve always been a gambler but the odds were
just too bad and I didn’t say anything.
She
asked, “A penny for your thoughts.”
“They
aren’t worth that much.”
“I’ll
pay. They’re worth it to me.”
I
said, “I was thinking that if we owned
that boat, it wouldn’t make us any happier.”
She
pointed to the one across from us. “This
one?”
“Well,
any of them.”
She
said, “I’ve never liked boats.”
“Me
either. I hate sailing.”
“I
get sea sick.”
I
said, “Human beings are such intolerable
snobs.”
She
thought in silence. I added, trying to
sound light, even funny, “Why don’t we
kill ourselves? You can kill me first. I’ll take your word for it. I won’t check up on you. I’ll trust you to kill yourself afterwards.”
“That’s
not funny.”
“I
trust you.”
She
said, “Sometimes you make me feel like
killing myself.”
“I’ll
buy a gun. You can keep it loaded
and...”
“Don’t
talk like that, it scares me. I don’t
like guns. It’s sick humor.”
Her
voice was tinged with anger and my sadness came back. The lump formed in my throat again and I
couldn’t talk.
After
another silence she said, “Let’s go
back.” She got up. We walked down the peer, to the shore, in
silence. She walked ahead of me, a few
feet.
Under
the night lights, I could see that her body was stiff and that she seemed to be
indulging herself with anger as she strode ahead of me but when we left the lights,
her body slackened and she walked cautiously towards a field of tall
grass. I followed. She entered the grassy field. The cabin was barely visible in the darkness
and I could feel her fear as we were enveloped in the blackness of the forest
night. I caught up with her and put my
arm around her.
I
said, “I still love you baby.”
She
gave a little laugh and put her arm around my waste. She asked,
“Are there any snakes?”
“I
don’t think so. The altitude’s too
high. Well.. Maybe we ought to go the long way, on the
road, just to be sure.”
I
steered her back to the driveway and we walked arm in arm over the bridge and
onto the highway. We walked down the
lonely road that was lined with tall pine trees and turned into the next
driveway that led to the cabins. It was
a long walk and her anger disappeared into the darkness and the danger of the
night forest.
We
slept that night in the safety of each other’s arms but we had no future. Therefore, like all lovers, we plunged even
more deeply into the present: the next day we rode horseback and I was nearly
killed by my horse but we only laughed.
I tried to teach her to water ski and she nearly drowned and we laughed
again. We took twelve rolls of film and
made love so much that by nightfall, we couldn’t decide if we were sore from
riding horseback or from fucking. We
didn’t care.
We
made love into the night, and all the next morning until a dour Girl Scout
leader knocked on our door. She asked
us, with a meaningful glint in her eye, if we were planning to stay for another
night. We looked at each other and broke
out laughing. She turned her back and walked away telling us over her shoulder
that she would report us to the authorities if we “carried on again like that
another night.” We shut the door behind
us and laughed so hard that tears came to our eyes.
But
She
said she had to return to the East Coast for about a month, to see her parents
again. She assured me it wasn’t my
fault, that she had promised them. She
said she would try to be back in time for Mike’s party.