Bodies and Souls (30 page)

Finally I came out of Nina’s room and walked down the hall to the stairs, and bumped right into the stripper. He was gorgeous, and he was wearing a skintight black tux with no shirt and a gold lamé bow tie. He couldn’t have been much older than I was, perhaps he was twenty-two, and he looked shocked and embarrassed to see me in the hall.

“I’m the babysitter,” I said, trying to be polite.

“Well, I’m the stripper,” he replied, and grinned. “It’s an easy way to make a buck,” he added.

“I suppose,” I replied, although what did I know about it all?

We stood there for a moment longer, insulated by the thick carpeting and the elegantly papered walls, while the women’s laughter rose up the stairs and curled around us.

“Well,” he said, grinning again, “I guess I’d better go do my act.”

He walked away from me and flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs, giving Mrs. Halstead a signal, and she started the music. It was that old da-da-
dah
stripper music from
Gypsy
, and that boy did such a sexy entrance down the stairs that I’m surprised the banister didn’t melt.

I knelt in the corner of the upstairs hall, where I could peek around and watch the show. No one saw me, and they were all too drunk and wound up to care if they had. So I got to watch the guy do his act.

He was good. But I also saw the faces of the women watching him, and I wish I hadn’t. It made me sad. All those women, in their
forties
. I thought it was pathetic that they were so interested in a boy’s body. Surely, I thought, they were past all that.

As soon as the stripper music ended, some disco records came on, and that guy could really move; he was
fabulous
. In the first place he was actually a fine graceful dancer. But of course there was more than that. He was sexy. When he started doing bumps and grinds and taking off his clothes, I stopped looking at the women’s faces. And he flirted with the women, as if he thought they were all unbearably attractive. I don’t
know how he stood it. I thought they all looked stupid; I was embarrassed for them. They laughed and clapped and whistled and yelled, “Take it off! Take it all off!” And he did.

In the most tantalizing way possible, he took off his jacket, cummerbund, trousers, shoes, and socks, until he was out there dancing in front of them in nothing but a gold lamé jockstrap. In spite of myself, I was fascinated.

Then Mrs. Moyer said, “Honey, I’ll give you fifty dollars to take that off,” pointing at the jockstrap. I nearly fell down the stairs in shock. Mrs. Moyer, who’s always campaigning for politicians and being serious about local issues! The stripper told her, teasing, slowly moving his hips as he talked, that he couldn’t take off that last piece of clothing; it wasn’t part of the act. However, he could be raffled off at the end of the act. The money would be split—half would go to him, half to Mrs. Moyer for her birthday present. Whoever won him could go into the guest bedroom and have him at her service for three hours.

The women laughed nervously at that—but something different was in their laughter then, and although Mrs. Halstead was doing a great job acting like an auctioneer and making the raffle one big comedy act, some of those women got deadly serious during the bidding. Well,
I
wasn’t even drunk, and I hadn’t made love with anyone yet, and I still couldn’t help but wish I could enter the bidding, too. He was so sexy. But of course I didn’t have any money, not
that
kind of money. I was relieved to see Mrs. Bennett, who up till then had been laughing too but generally seemed embarrassed, lean back in her chair with a look of disapproval on her face. She didn’t bid even once, which made me glad, because I’ve always admired Mrs. Bennett. The highest bidder was Mrs. Aranguren, who is so exotic-looking that I couldn’t imagine her ever
bidding
for sex, but she paid three hundred dollars. She didn’t look the slightest bit ashamed when she went up the stairs with the boy’s arm around her waist. In fact, she gave everyone in the living room a big grin and wave, and yelled, “Eat your hearts out!”

I had to scurry off to the back stairs which led down to the kitchen so that Mrs. Aranguren and the stripper didn’t see me when they reached the second floor. They went into the guest bedroom and shut the door and I never did hear another thing about it.

I went down into the kitchen, where Mrs. Halstead was starting to make coffee, and she asked me, since I was still there anyway, to help clean up the mess. And it
was
a mess. But I got to hear the women discussing the stripper. Some of them were pretending it was all an intellectual or political coup: women’s lib. Mrs. Moyer said it was great that
they had got to yell “Take it all off” and “Let’s see your buns and boobies” to a man. But some of the other women were sad. One woman, whom I was glad I didn’t know, cried, “I’ll never see such a handsome male naked again in my life. I hate getting old!” She sat down, or rather fell down, into a chair and bawled until another woman sort of carried her out to a car and drove her home.

I never dreamed that sort of thing could happen here in Londonton, and in fact Mrs. Halstead told me she had had to import the stripper from a bar in Southmark. She didn’t say how much he cost, but she indicated that he was pretty expensive. I helped her clean up the kitchen, and then I drove home, feeling stunned and depressed.

Mother was waiting up for me as she always does, sitting in bed reading. When I came in, she called out for me to come in and say good night. She patted the bed next to her, and I plopped down with my head on a pillow and talked to her the way I have so often done after a night out. I told her about the party, every detail, and we both got to laughing so hard that Mother nearly fell out of bed.

“How wonderful!” she whooped. “I told you that under the beautiful surface of this town there lies a hotbed of depravity and vice!”

“But you know,” I said, “Mother … it makes me feel a little
sad
, and I’m not sure why. The thought of those old women leching after that young man. Mrs. Moyer, Mrs. Halstead—they have children. Mrs. Moyer and Mrs. Bennett have children almost as old as that stripper. Seeing them look at that guy that way makes me feel sick. And sad.”

Mother stopped laughing then, and just looked at me for a minute. She smiled, but her eyes were serious. “Loss of innocence,” she said. Then she did something she hadn’t done for a long time. She reached out and pulled me up against her, and as she talked she held me as if I were still a child, and stroked my arm.

“You’re so young,” she began, and I said my usual “Oh,
Mother
.” But she went on. “I mean you’re young enough to still believe the best of people, and seeing below the surface makes you sad. Innocence is bliss, and all that. But, Mandy, those women aren’t bad or even pathetic because they liked watching that male stripper. Women in their forties are just as much sexual creatures as young women, maybe even more so. And thank heavens for it. We older women have the same desires—just not the same opportunities. Desire, my darling, goes on and on, even when youth fades. You’ll learn all this in your own good time, but for now, don’t judge older women, those women, too harshly. You’re young and lovely, everything is on your side—so be kind. Let us old
women have a turn at enjoying the sight of young men’s bodies.”

As Mother spoke, she kept her arm wrapped about me, and held my arm in hers, and in her absentminded, almost oblivious way, she traced circles on my inner wrist with her thumb. It was a sweet caress, and now as I sit here in this church, I am aware of Mother, sitting only inches from me, her hands folded quietly in her lap. It is unusual, that quietness, for her hands are seldom still, always working on her pottery.

Over the years I have watched her hands shape a multitude of vases, bowls, cups, and figures on her pottery wheel, so that when I think of Mother, I first envision her articulate hands. When I was little, and sat with her through concerts or speeches or church services on days when there was no Sunday school, I used to play little games with her hands. I would slide her rings off and try them on all her fingers; I would open and close her fingers in contrived patterns. Little nonsense games, just keeping in touch with my mother. Now I am too old to do such things. I’m nineteen, and I wouldn’t dare sit playing with my mother’s hands in church. Still, I sometimes think I would like to hold her hand again.

It seems to me that there is nothing like the flesh for telling. The skin’s silent eloquence is more powerful than a million spoken words. I think of the few boys with whom I have in various ways made love—and especially I think of Michael. We are often so clumsy. I’m eager to grow older, for surely as I do I will learn more grace and control in touching. Now Mother reaches in her purse for the envelope which contains the church offering; her arm grazes mine, and I feel the familiar comfort of it. I sit firm, I don’t tighten up. She is my mother and her flesh is familiar. I remember in an instant the back rubs she gave me when I was sick, the times she knelt to draw me to her to console me when I was sad, the brisk competent gestures with which she fixed my dress or brushed my hair when I was small. We seldom touch that way anymore; we seldom touch at all now. I’d be embarrassed to take her arm in public. But I’m eager for new and different embraces from others, to take the place of those I’m leaving. I’m yearning for Michael’s touch above all. And I’m longing to continue my work with clay, to see if I can, with my own hands, mold that clay into some kind of celebration of all the touching I have known.

I want to be a sculptor. I’m going to be a sculptor.

I’m afraid to tell my parents of my decision. They’ll be alarmed. Since their divorce, my parents have not trusted each other. Daddy will think Mother has exerted some kind of influence over me, making me want to become a sculptor because she’s a
potter. Mother will just be furious—because the influence she’s wanted to exert over me hasn’t worked. She has never wanted me to live an “artistic” life, because her own life has been so hard. She will think I’m dooming myself to a lifetime of poverty, solitude, and eccentricity as a potter, and she’s always yearned for me to be normal. She wants me to have a career as a teacher or a file clerk, something easily set aside while I have children so that I can hold a marriage together. She doesn’t want me to be overwhelmed and driven by my work. But I have to be a sculptor; I can’t help it. I look about this church and feel drawn by the beauty of all these human bodies. There is such adroitness in the ways arms and legs angle, bend, and flex. There is such a fine reciprocity between muscles and skin. When I talk to people, I am usually tongue-tied, or bored, or embarrassed by the banalities we exchange, but if I could learn to shape clay skillfully enough, I could show them how beautiful they are, and how I love them in my own way.

I know I have a talent for sculpting, too. My art teacher at college has told me so, and I can’t think why he would lie. It’s going to be rough at the end of the semester when Mother sees my grades and realizes that I dropped anthropology and took sculpting instead, in addition to my other art courses. But I don’t even care if I get a degree, I just want the art courses. If only I can make Mother understand.

Earlier in this service, I watched Priscilla and Seth Blair leaning up against their mother, and I envied them their innocence and dependence. Mrs. Blair and her children incline toward one another in all their movements, with the natural interdependence of a family. They seem to have nothing to hide from one another. But that will change as they grow older; it always does. Still, I envied them this morning, and wished for that childhood relationship with my mother, that comfortable trust. I wish I could tell my mother I’m going to be a sculptor—if I had when I was little, she would have laughed and bought me a set of modeling clay. But in the past few years she has often said to me when I brought home good grades from art class that she’d rather I got pregnant at sixteen by a sailor than become an artist. Why does she say such things to me? Why does she think she knows what’s best for me? She might have had a tough life, but we are two different people. She’s willing to tutor and encourage other kids who want to learn how to pot or sculpt—why can’t she encourage me? It’s the damned words, I think. Mrs. Blair protects her children’s bodies with her own, but as they grow, the tactile safeguards will disappear, and she’ll protect and direct them with words. And it will all get screwed up. I love my mother and I know she loves me, but touching is so simple and true, and words
are so complicated and often misunderstood. When Mother and I talk for any length of time about my future, about my art, we invariably end up disagreeing.

I want her to give me her blessing; I want her to let me be a sculptor. I need her. She was so wonderful this weekend when I came home all in tears.

At college I was determined to forget Michael, to date older, more sophisticated boys, to have lots of fun. And in six weeks I had three relationships—none of them glorious.

The first boy I dated and slept with was a smooth-talking senior. I was impressed that he paid attention to me, a freshman, but it was stupid of me to be so thrilled, because his only interest in me was as a fresh body. Screwing was, for him, like putting another notch on a belt. I found out too late that he was trying to set some kind of record before he graduated. I was more relieved than hurt when I discovered all this, because it explained why having sex with him was so much like taking my driver’s test had been: a quick run-through with an impatient partner.

The second boy I met in my freshman comp class. He was cute and clever and witty, and I thought we might become a couple for a while, because we enjoyed each other so much. We dated for a month, and got along well, laughed together, had fun. But he seemed alarmed instead of pleased when I said I would sleep with him
—he
asked, so why did he seem amazed and upset when I said yes? We went to his room just one time, for he lost his sense of humor and wit. He fumbled and bumbled and practically came in his pants and neither one of us had much fun. After that one night he avoided me. Now he even sits on the other side of class. I can’t get him to talk to me. I’m beginning to see that sex is a complicated matter, and I’m even more grateful for the ease I had with Michael.