people.” Invited him back to Miriam’s apartment. At lunch talked about her husband: brilliant, could be a U.S. attorney or solicitor general, everyone thinks so, clerked for a federal judge, first in his class everywhere, could make a quarter of a million a year in five years with some big city firm but chooses to teach, a skirtchaser from the word gesundheit but the most deplorable thing he does is sleep with his students. If he only did it with his colleagues or from the secretarial pool she’d say Well, that’s what’s going on today, everyone seems to have someone on the side, and the worst thing about it is they’re not doing it out of power on his part or wanting to get ahead on theirs but for good old sheer sensual Circean fun, or so he tells her. Imagine, at their age and when she’d like another child before John becomes too old to play with it, they now have separate beds but in the same room for the once every month he wants to sleep with her and half those times he passes out from wine or drugs before he gets the pensum done. She had a lover she admired but he went to Japan last spring to design bridges that won’t collapse during earthquakes. Before that a couple of one-night stands she met after out-of-town concerts, but she thought them too cheap and problematical with disease. Yet look at her now, in all problematicability another one to two-nighter or afternooner and he said not on her life. Did he tell her his head’s reeling and heart’s going whack whack whack whackety whack for her? She said resist that crap, she doesn’t go for it and nothing quicker will turn her off and he said okay, his heart isn’t pulsing thus, but he’d love riding back to Madison with her, she can drop him off at the airport there just before she goes the rest of the way to her place and she said that’d be too peculiar to John, even if she would relish the help with the driving, and though her husband wouldn’t begrudge her a brief fling in New York he’d resent her bringing the beau so close to home, and he said then let him off in Michigan or Illinois if either’s before she hits Wisconsin and she said what about his California woman, wouldn’t she mind? and he said that little romance is definitely on the way out and has been for two years. Not his ideal mate or even a simulacrum of one and same in spades for her with him. She wants a rich businessman or professional with a P.A. who likes camping and horseback riding and outdoor barbecuing and cars and canoes. He needed a place to stay for a week, they got along okay for a month or two and then he got so taken with her kid and too lazy to move, he’s been able to keep all her house bills paid or just a month behind, they have adequate to sometimes apotheosized sex when she’s not busting his chops to the point where he doesn’t even want to make love with her or suffering from one of her half-dozen imagined ailments or states of fatigue; the loss would be the boy; besides, she smokes. In bed after they undressed she said he should probably know beforehand she’s never had an orgasm. Oh, perhaps once or twice when she was pubescent and did it to herself. But either she’s lost that touch or something’s happened to her nervous system since to make it a near physical impossibility. She’s not saying she doesn’t participate actively and at times avidly during the act, though occasionally fakes it as much as anyone, and does most of the things normal heterosexual couples do except anal sex, but to her regret he shouldn’t expect any vociferous end-screams and yips and yaps and then postcoital sighs and later postorgasmic sleep from her, so she supposes she’s saying he should, as every man she’s been with has, after a reasonable period of time get what he can before she begins tiring of it and suddenly stops. He didn’t bring a condom, assuming she’d take care of everything, and she hadn’t brought her diaphragm to New York, having given up on one-night stands and also preferring to pack as little as she can, so they decided he’d pull out a few moments before his peak ones. He was about a minute away from ejaculation, he figured, starting that familiar climb, at least long enough away where he’d be able to hold it back if he had to and he said “I don’t think I’ll be able to pull out, nor do I really want to the first time, will it be okay?” and she said “I can be a little irregular but think I have my dates sufficiently straight where it’ll be safe, but to reduce the chance of fertilization don’t go in too deep when you discharge.” When he was about fifteen seconds away, he figured, and knew that though he couldn’t hold it back or even control the amount he ejected he could pull out in time, he thought but does he want to? He’d like getting her pregnant and having a hold on her like that and maybe even a child if she wanted it or he could persuade her to keep it or just something troublesome they went through like an abortion that would sort of seal something between them and where he could fly to Madison for it or the birth if she wanted him to and her husband didn’t object, when he came, involuntarily shoving his hands under her and grabbing her buttocks so he could get in as far as he could get. “I asked you,” she said after and he said “What?” and she said “And will you please? — I’ve been trying to get your big load off me for the past minute,” pushing him and he rolled himself off and said “The depth?” and she said “Gee whiz, all of a sudden he’s showing signs of life again — where do you go? The depth, yes; you knew, don’t tell me, even if you are sleepy and spent, so why did you? and it hurt besides. Simply so you could experience the experience of experiences fuller — well darnit, haven’t you done it enough, and this isn’t out of bitterness because I never arrive there, where when someone asks you earnestly not to and for extremely important reasons, you don’t?” and he said “But you said it was okay to shoot in you,” and she said “But not so far in and hard. Do you have a tissue or handkerchief, please?” and he reached over her to the floor and felt her skin as he did and wanted to rest across her and kiss her belly and belly button and things but knew she wasn’t in the mood and got a hanky out of his pants pocket and gave it to her and said “It’s clean, or maybe at the most I used it for one nose blow but folded it over,” and she said “Where I’m putting it, who cares?” and wiped her vagina—“Even if I get fifty billion with this, there’s another fifty billion I didn’t. Probably I should flush the buggers out,” and went to the bathroom; he watched her and thought beautiful ass too but won’t say it, that’s all he needs. When she was back in bed he said “Sorry about all that, but how much would it have reduced anyway?” and she said “If you ever read a manual on conception or spoken to a specialist about it, you’d know; but it would have even been worse if you’d done it that way from behind as you first wanted to,” and he said “That helps it too?” and she said “Tell me, why are you trying so hard to be dense?” and he said “Now you’re busting my balls too; what’s going on, what’d I say? — ah, screw you and all women, at least the grown-up kind: how quick you switch,” and turned over and she said “Who did?” and he thought “Who did”? What’s she mean, “switch” or my “balls”? And what did I get myself into now with my big mouth and how do I get out of it? and she said “Gould, please, not now when we’ve just done lovemaking, and I couldn’t bear another over-super-sensitive when-there’s-something-to-gain-from-it self-centered misogynous man — I’ve had my fill,” and he said “Oh you have, huh? And ‘misogynous’; why couldn’t you have just said woman-hating? When I use them it’s always for fun or self-mockery but you’re serious about your ostentatious words.” She didn’t say anything, his back was still to her, and a few seconds later, while he was wondering if she was looking at him now, and then that he really did it this time; she’ll never trust him again with his promises and she seemed so disappointed and pissed; well, the hell with her, who needs her? who needs any of them, just as he told her, she said “Oh no, it’s happened, the same thing when I got pregnant with John; I know you don’t want to talk to me or even look this way and think I’m nothing less than a pompous priss, but I just felt the tiniest kind of detonation inside me and several small aftershocks before it stopped; believe me, Gould, I’ve conceived,” and she touched his back and he looked at her and saw she was serious and said “Now that’s nuts, much more than anything you said or did before,” and she said “Practically what Harry said when I told him it a few weeks later about John, but I’m sure it’s happened with millions of other women and lots of them I bet even recognized what it was,” and he said “Girl or boy?” and she said “You sneer but if there’s a calculably different sensation for a girl, then it’s a boy,” and he said “Don’t spare my feelings, I want to know now: Down’s syndrome or completely free of it or anything like that?” and she said “That wouldn’t be funny to a lot of people,” and he said “That’s true, nothing to laugh about, and we should talk later about what you just felt, this is serious, but I’m feeling dozey after our sex and for the next half hour would like to be good for nothing else but a nap,” and she said “Just one or two more things if I’m right about this. As I already told you, John could use a sibling now more than later and if it’s a boy then even better for him and I think easier for me and certainly fewer clothes to buy — I’m being facetious there — and I know I want another child some day so I might as well get it over with now. And you seem, other than for a few crank shortfalls, as if you have good genes and the chances are that between us we’d produce a healthy, reasonably nice-looking intelligent human being. Of course I’ll have to tell Harry, something I’d do anyway about us — that’s the agreement we have, not to keep it a secret for more than a month, though he’s always gotten more incensed than I over the disclosure — but didn’t think there’d be a fertilization to divulge too, and by then a moderately defined embryo. He’s even said he wouldn’t mind our having another child if it resulted by accident, and if it came to it he’d have no problem with it being from someone else. He’s very fair that way,” and he said “It sure isn’t how I’d take it if you were my wife. I’d throw you the hell out,” and she said “Maybe that’s why if I were single again, something I’ll never be unless Harry dies or leaves and doesn’t return for several years or tells me he wants to remarry and actually does or suddenly begins to repeatedly beat on John or me, I wouldn’t think of marrying you or even continuing with you for any extended length of time for fear it’d wreck my marriage,” and he said “Well, that gets me off cheap, for here I was about to do the right thing, which I had no desire to, and that’s to propose to you,” and she said “Some funny joke?” They made up after he awoke. He said “I’m sorry but when I said I’d throw you the hell out I meant that if I were married to you I’d never cheat and would expect the same from you,” and she said “How do you know? And you can see how my phlegmatism and dispassionate — but you don’t want those sort of words, so my . the way I’m . . look, I can’t think of simpler ones this moment for what I usually am that can so easily nettle a man or make him feel he has the license to skirtchase and frig whomever he wants to. But since I don’t want to battle after only a day as if we’ve been married several years and also because of this new complication that I for one believe we’ll have to face eventually, I accept your apology. Now, if you want to make love again — the carnal kind — for I suspect that’s what you’re building up to and perhaps why you apologized so generously . .”—“Not so though I wouldn’t mind having sex.”—“. . then okay, but if it’s no hassle getting dressed I’d like you to go out and buy a packet of the most expensive unscented nonlubricated condoms to lessen the chances of conception in case I was wrong about what I felt before; this way will also make it easier, if you’d still like to, to come in deep as you want from behind.” He came over the next morning soon after her friend had left for work and when she thought John would still be asleep in the guest room. John walked into the living room while he was on top of her on the couch and he quickly pulled out and rolled off her and said “Oh my gosh, excuse me, this is terrible,” and tried covering his genitals with his hands and she said “What are you doing? don’t panic, keep yourself exposed and your erection erect if you still have one till the normal time it’d take for it to go down and for you to put your underpants on. He’s seen us so let him think what we’re doing is entirely natural and not something to be hidden or feel guilty or discomposed about or he can be troubled by it for years and possibly into his own sex life. And it isn’t as if he’ll be telling his father anything Harry won’t already know. I don’t keep a journal of what takes place but I will remember the main events when I inform him.” She drove to Madison the day after, he didn’t hear from her or write, and two months later . but why didn’t he? Thought if she wrote him first he’d have permission to write back or she’d tell him where to write if not to her home — he had her address — and perhaps even how he should address the envelope, maybe by some other name or care of a friend or something. Maybe she wouldn’t tell her husband what happened in New York but if she did he didn’t want to make it any harder for her with him. They’d talked about it before she left. He said he likes her a lot, probably loves her, anyway, he feels very good about her, loves being with her and doesn’t want to stop seeing her, and she said “I won’t reveal my feelings for you. Obviously, they’re fairly good or I wouldn’t have slept with you. If it was just sexual frustration that motivated it, I think that would have been the end of it after the first time, as I’m satisfied easily that way and one time can hold me for a week, even without the end all punch. Let’s see what develops in my belly before we make any plans. If nothing does then I don’t see why we can’t hook up someplace for a few days, and without John; Harry’s done it several times with his girls and once for a month. Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?” and he said he never had any desire to: “You get up to the edge and look into it and what do you see: an enormous ditch and trickle of water winding through it and ruddy rock and dry brush and stuff and maybe some Western-garbed people on donkeys lumbering down a narrow path, and I could never afford it,” and she said “It’s much more, yours is just travelogue, but all right, then I can drive east or even fly here, but let’s wait and see. One day . .” and two months later (he’d look for a letter from her almost every time he opened his mailbox) she wrote saying everything’s been confirmed except the gender, she’s already started to show but only a bump, and rather than risk never getting pregnant again and for all the other reasons she gave she’s going to go through with it; “Harry’s more than for it, he’s delighted with the prospect and also that he isn’t the biological father. He might be an egomaniac some ways but he doesn’t think there’s anything genetically useful, especially not his narcissism and cockiness, he can pass on except his intellect, and I told him you’re his equal in that regard and you’re substantially more creative and artistic than he, which he wants more of in his progeny. He said to convey his congratulations to you and that unlike me he hopes it’s a girl,” baby’s due in March. He wrote back saying that, clubby as this insipid remark sounds, he sends his best wishes to Harry too and appreciates his temperance — how ‘bout dat for a word? Thanx, Roget — in the matter and if there’s anything he can do for them reg