Gould (22 page)

She had orgasms where she said she saw heaven. In one she said she met up with her dead brother on a cloud and there was a great light all around them and he put out his hand and she looked surprised at it at first but then shook it and he grinned as if he was in total bliss and then the scene ended and Gould said “Was his arm straight out when you shook it?” and she said “Yes, the way people shake,” and he said “What could it mean then, except for the immediate obvious? Anyway, I'd be suspicious of it,” and she said “How, suspicious? And what do you mean ‘the immediate obvious'?” and he said “I don't want to talk about your brother in regard to it. He's dead, and that, if what I'm saying about the dream's right—‘dream is right,' I mean—” and she said “It wasn't a dream. I wasn't asleep. I was in ecstasy here, mentally removed, yes, but not unconscious,” and he said “Well, it was like a dream—you were put into this almost otherworldly or immaterial state—so I'm looking at it as one. And to me it was just typical dreamlike projection, innocent because you were in this state, of what any sibling, same sex or different, but especially the opposite sex, would dream of if it was a dream or have images of if you're in this ecstatic displaced condition,” and she said “What, though, what? You started it, so say, and not just that I-don't-want-to-go-into-it gibberishness and then more unintelligibleness piled onto it,” and he said “Okay. Did your brother—you know—do certain things physical to you when you were a girl, like get you to masturbate him or try to or fingerfuck you or hint at one of those or both with the hope you'd do it or allow him to or even just expose his erect penis to you or just expose himself, erect or not, but where you knew it was just for exposing?” and she said “I'm sure he didn't on most of those. The hints, naturally, I wouldn't remember, but I don't think any of what you said happened. Though he was two years older, he was sickly almost from birth, so always, once I was seven or so, around six inches shorter than me and then, when I was twelve and he was fourteen, which is when he died, almost a foot shorter. And he was always very immature for his age, not only physically but emotionally—that's what my folks have said and sort of what I recall—my younger brother, I used to think of him as, starting when I was around eight—that he might have died long before he was old enough to get erections he was conscious of or know what to do with one to get relief, though I could be wrong. Maybe, in the secret of his room, it was his only pleasure; I'd like to think he at least had that, but I doubt it because I don't even know if he was strong enough to do it. No, I guess anyone could, if the hands aren't paralyzed and the genitals are developed and the nervous system's working, but what I'm saying is I don't think the last two were for him. He barely had hair under his arms and no little sprouts on his chest and face. And once I saw him getting out of this special sitz bath installed for him in the bathroom and when he was    .  well, this might have been a few months before he died and there was only the littlest of mustaches there and his prick, if it hadn't been tremendously shrunk by the heat of the bath, was more like a boy's half his age,” and he said “That bathroom scene—” and she said “Don't make anything more out of it. I walked in by mistake. He was as embarrassed as I was and quickly covered himself up with his hands. Do me a favor and don't refer to him in that way again or try to analyze my orgasm making something like mystical experiences right after we've had sex. Your judgment's impaired because your mind's still fixed on the sex subject. Also because he was the dearest person there ever was to me, always so sweet and mild-mannered and shy and self-insulting and so on. But the most loving of boys—he used to clean up my room for me when I was at school and he was home getting special ed, take my dinner dishes to the sink, follow me around whenever he could—so the person I miss most and feel worst about and appreciate meeting up with any way I can. And if you put too unseemly a meaning to my encounters with him it might do something to my head where I never see him again, not even in my dreams,” and he said “Okay, will do, but one more thing, if you don't mind, and this may be way off     in fact, maybe I shouldn't say it,” and she said “Better you don't then, if it concerns him,” and he said “It's mostly about you. Did you, maybe, ever try to fool around with him?    .  oh, that was dumb, wasn't it, you already said how embarrassed you both were at that sitz bath scene. But you've also said you've been sexually aware since you were eight and active since you were thirteen, so I thought there might be a slight possibility—is this really too off the mark?” and she said “Yes, but it's not one of your worst questions, given what I've said about myself and the reasonableness of looking at this sex thing from both sides. But I told you: after awhile he was like my younger brother, to be protected and not taken advantage of, besides that I'd never do anything that perverse, even then when my morality code wasn't quite formed. All right? But enough,” and he nodded and after about a minute she said “So what do you think, you're rested yet? Because I feel I could reach that plateau again, or come near. I'd like to at least try to and then who can say what I'll see if I get there. Maybe my brother again who I can apologize to for my little chat with you before,” and he said “Honestly, I must have turned some irrecuperable corner in my sex life, if that makes any sense, but I've been feeling the last few weeks I need more time between them and now with this one that maybe what we did could be my limit for the day,” and she said “Don't tell me; all any girl has to do is wait fifteen minutes and then play with you,” and he said “I don't know, and certainly not that soon, but that's how I feel now.” She screamed during some orgasms, even when Brons was home though asleep, and cried after about every fourth one of them and then usually clung to him, sometimes all night, face burrowed into his neck or armpit till he had to force it out if he wanted to get some sleep. “I don't know what it is with sex and us,” she once said, “but it sure is a major plus in our arrangement and it could be the thing that keeps us together most along with your love for Brons. I don't like that but I'll take it for the time being. I got off with lots of other guys, of course, or did till you moved in and will no doubt do again once you're gone from here. But with you, I don't know what it is but like with no one else I actually see things like the birth of the universe or a disconnected star field forming into a constellation I can recognize like a dog or crab and other phenomenal or historical occurrences. Whole Mayan or Aztecan villages—I forget which culture was the one in Mexico and which not—with ceremonial dances and drum-beatings and men in spooky headdresses and codpieces and women with their big boobs showing and kids at their teats and huge beautiful buildings and entrance gates and those things they call ziggurats, I think, but no one on top of them getting his head chopped off. Sea creatures, for instance, one time, a pair of them slithering out of the sea and in quicktime developing teeny legs to walk on land with. And a couple of times—all right, once—I touched but just barely the hand of what seemed like a gentle God, though He had a twinkle in his eye, the old geezer, knew what we'd just done and what I was still in the midst of and that He might even be interested in having a turn with me Himself, so maybe He was only one of God's more trusted helpers—I was going to say ‘advisors,' but God wouldn't have that—a couple of seats down from the ones who sit on either side of God's throne. It could be that our genitals are a perfect match, in spite of the differences in your length and my depth. And maybe also something about our respective ages and health and the area we live in and this great California air and that my house sits next to an enormous church and the feelings we have for each other at the time, like the last one—I felt very good about you before and during it. And where we both are in our general all-around erotic development, or just I am, since you never seem to have these incredible comes and highs after, unless you've been muting them and controlling the body quakes. It's possible I'm at my absolute peak in all this, that the last one or one of the near future ones will be the highest I'll ever reach and then they'll slowly start peaking lower, though I'd hate to believe it. But I'm even worse at figuring these things out than you are, my dear dummy, so why should we try?”

So it could have been that small thin bony body that had as much to do as anything in keeping them together, that's what he now thinks. Ninety-six pounds, sometimes up to ninety-eight, but evenly distributed, nicely proportioned, and muscular from the waist down. That he could lift her body up as he would a kid's, hold it in the air by the buttocks and thighs and set it down on top of him, the few times she let them do it in that position, turn it around even when he was on his back and she was completely off the ground, lift it up and down on him repeatedly and without her moving on her own once till they came and if she did first, then still bob her up and down till he came, and if he did first, then he couldn't go on and she bounced up and down on him but it didn't work and after he flopped out she complained, but his arms hardly getting tired during any of it, and it wasn't that he was a strong guy, though his shoulders were pretty big. Also that her body was so limber, hard and quick. Meaning, what he liked about it. And what she wore in the bedroom sometimes—he's saying what also got him excited: sheerest of outfits, tiniest of briefs, rarely any socks, stockings or bra and never a watch, and all he had to do was see the small line of pubic hair on top—was she lying when she said she never razored it to get it that way? He didn't think so, since she also said she wished it was bushier so at least in that area she didn't look like a pubey girl—and he'd make a move. He also liked picking her up, cradling her in his arms and carrying her to bed that way or to a chair or wherever they'd do it, once on a covered toilet seat, she sitting facing him and flushing the toilet when she started making noises or before she sat on him would turn the sink faucet on and let it run, because her son was playing in his room down the hall. And he never had to suggest twice that they make love. He'd raise an eyebrow a certain way—cock it like a fop; she knew the signal—or would only have to say “So, what do you say?” or give a particular smile, more like a dumb grin, that only meant one thing to them and she usually said “Sure, I'm game, give me a minute,” or “I'm ready, are you?” for he mostly said it or gave these signs when he thought she'd be interested, since she often gave little hints herself: smile more seductive than her others, brushing past him making sure their hips touched when it was obvious she could have more easily gone around—and she'd whip all her clothes off, sometimes letting the underpants dangle on the end of her raised foot before she flipped it into the air and caught it, get under the covers and pull them down on his side, maybe plump his pillow in the middle, say “How much time we have?” if it was before he was going to work or they had people coming over or one of them had to pick up her son at nursery or he was returning from school on the bus or expected back soon from a friend's home.

She used to say that most of the jokes he made were coarse, foolish and old or just made no sense but certainly weren't funny except perhaps to an immature twelve-year-old boy who also wasn't too bright, which was why she seldom laughed at them. That most of the books he read were written not to be read but only to be written about they were so obscure, pedantic, longwinded and dull. That all his tedious hard work at the typewriter was going to go for nothing because he wrote about people he hadn't the clearest idea of, like what went on in their heads or how they felt or what their jobs or home life or history were about, besides that she was sick of him stinking up her sewing room all day with his body sweat when he typed. That almost all the so-called suggestions and advice he gave her son were the opposite of what she wanted the boy to know or do. That he was the worst driver she'd ever seen and every time she got in a car with him she took her life in her hands as well as her son's if she was dumb or desperate enough to bring him with them. That he ought to grow a mustache to make his bland face more interesting, and when he did, that he should grow a beard to wipe out the devastating effects of the mustache, because he now looked a little like Hitler or Groucho Marx or someone else she didn't like—anyway, awful, much worse than before and she was sorry she first encouraged him to grow it and now that he'd got to like that bush. That he was getting a big pot belly and also seemed out of breath half the time and he ought to run or exercise more and also dance a lot if he didn't want to keep looking ten years older than he was and ridiculous in pants and shirts that were now four sizes too small for him. That he had to find a better-paying job or just two of the same-paying ones if he wanted to continue living with them, because she just couldn't take any more, always being so close to broke. That the only thing he was really good for now was sex and more sex and that for sure wasn't enough for what she wanted in a man and in fact was probably the easiest thing for her to find. That she did appreciate that he'd been there for her son at a time when he most needed a man and for the music he listened to sometimes that she occasionally liked and the dishes he'd concocted and introduced her to, like a simple vinaigrette dressing and slicing up raw mushrooms into the salad and beef Strogonoff and that vegetable curry with all the extras, things she never knew existed not that she couldn't have lived without them. That he was a terrible baby sometimes, jumping back when a mouse darted across the room and being too afraid to chase after it with a broom, not jogging through certain streets because dogs there once ran after him and snarled. That he drank too much, talked too much and was so damn opinionated, as if nobody on the West Coast ever had a brainy idea but him or did anything with any taste, and he wore clothes that were completely wrong for this area and climate, railed against petty things that other people would just say “That's life, what can you do?” to and swallow. Talked and made noises in his sleep to the point where she wanted to wear earplugs when she went to bed, but if she did who'd hear Brons if there was some kind of emergency and he needed them, since he also slept as if nothing in the world could awake him. His voice and choice of phrases and words sometimes were so vedy English that he sounded like the classic closet pansy. All the coffee he spilled on her rugs that he'd never in a year have the money to get professionally cleaned. His smelly bowel movements, the urine drops he left on the toilet seat, his body and head hair all over the bathroom floor and stuck in the shower soap. Why'd he stay with her for years? he thought. Why didn't he leave after a few months or go those times she asked him to rather than cajole her to let him stay? She was right, a little into their relationship, when she said he only continued to live with her and claim he loved her and wanted to marry her because of her son. He took Brons to nursery most times, picked him up whenever he could too, had snacks with him after, made him lunch every day for school, got him up for school and made him breakfast while she slept and stayed with him at the corner till the school bus came, helped him with his spelling words for the weekly first-grade spelling tests, read books or told stories to him almost every night, played board games or cards with him when he was too tired to and wanted only to lie on his bed and read a book or had important other work to do but just because the boy asked him to. Did whatever he could for Brons. It was true the kid had him around his little finger, as Evangeline liked to say, but he didn't think he ever did anything that was wrong or bad for him. Spoiled him, Evangeline said, but so much that Brons might never be the same after Gould finally left, because no one would ever give in to him that way again. Sat with him and the humidifier under a makeshift tent on the bed when Brons had a bad respiratory infection and trouble breathing. Spent the night on a mattress on the floor in Brons's hospital room when he had his tonsils removed. Hoisted him onto his shoulders, hoisted him onto his back, ran or bounced around with him like that, the two of them pretending they were all sorts of things, cowboy on a bucking bronco, desert warrior on a camel, Bellerophon on Pegasus when he killed the Chimera, but mostly knight errant on his obedient horse, till they both dropped. Stayed by his bed most nights till Brons was very sleepy or asleep and a couple of times said to him because he liked to hear the answer to it—“Tell me,” “Tell you what?” “You know, what I am to you,” “You're in my head forever and wherever and ever, so help my heart.”