He pulled his hand out. She quivered sadly at its departure and her behind rested once again on the chair. There was a moment in which he stood there, over her, doing nothing. Her head was down, looking like a penitent awaiting a blessing. Slowly — he thought reluctantly — she reached up to his groin and rubbed his erection through the material. He didn’t move or look down: he stared off impassively, waiting to see if she would do his bidding without even a hint. There was a moment of uncertainty, when she shifted on the chair, drawing one of her legs up under her. But then her small hands came up to his belt and began to strip him.
Silently, motionless, he stood there while she exposed his penis and took it in her mouth, her head rocking steadily below him, the warm funnel sliding with dull regularity, as though she were a sleepy farmgirl milking a cow. He could almost see her dull sense of duty as she serviced him. Flashing into his brain while he put his hands on her head and urged her to take more and more of him each time; answering his question while he felt himself emptied into her mouth: She can enjoy it when I make love to her because she pretends it’s someone else. When she makes love to me, it’s her job, her rent check.
She kept his shrinking penis inside and sucked and licked slowly, a pro finishing with meticulous care. He patted her on the head and walked away. Silent. Ignoring the obvious civility of doing something for her. He waited for a protest, for a demand that would disprove his theory. He sat on the couch and picked up that week’s Newstime. After a few long moments of quiet anticipation, while he stared at the magazine typeface, the black letters dissolving into meaningless zigzags, he heard her typewriter begin again. You really earned it tonight, Patty, he said to himself, and tried to laugh bitterly. Wisely.
Instead, he felt tired. And the dull throb of his headache returned.
Tony Winters stood at the bathroom mirror studying his just-shaved face. It had the puffed whitish look of a baby’s. His hair was lustrous from the shampoo. He looked good: young, open, his eyes shining with optimism. He felt almost as if he were seeing a photograph of himself as a college freshman; smooth-faced, eager, beaming cheerfully at the hostile world, confident it would welcome and praise him.
He walked out, the heels of his new shoes sounding a dramatic approach, into the kitchen. Betty was there, dressed for work, reading the Times. He noticed a headline slug at the top of Section C: “BUNTING, NEW PLAY AT CIRCLE REP OPENS.” and decided he wasn’t up to reading either a rave (depressing — it could have been me) or a pan (infuriating — why are they putting that on instead of reviving my plays’?). Betty was reading the Hers column. He laughed at that. She glanced up casually and then steadied her gaze. “You look so handsome,” she said.
“Thank you, darling,” he said casually, but he was pleased she had confirmed his bout of self-admiration at the mirror.
“Why are you so dressed up?”
Tony walked to the stove so he wouldn’t be looking at her when he answered. “Got a lunch date with Bill Hadley.”
“Who’s Bill Hadley?”
“My roommate freshman year.” He poured himself coffee. “I feel like I’m in college today.”
“You do,” she said, smiling delightedly. “Your short haircut makes you look like a boy.” She put out her hand as he neared the table, and her arm went around his waist. He bent over and met her lips. When he pulled away after a quick peck, she insisted, and brought him back for a longer kiss.
I should have stayed in bed until she left, he thought, waiting for her to release him.
When she did, he took Section A from her and looked at the stories, reading paragraphs senselessly, waiting, waiting, waiting …
“Don’t you have to be at work?” he asked, unable to restrain himself.
Betty glanced at their designer wall clock with its minimalist lines instead of numbers. “Oh my God,” she said. “I’m late.”
She hurried out of the apartment. Tony listened for the sound of the elevator doors opening to swallow her and to remove any chance she might overhear. When he had, he picked up the phone and dialed:
“Sherry Netherland. Good morning.”
“Lois Picker, please.”
“Thank you.”
He had been up most of the night, sleeping lightly, waiting to make this contact, but now, hearing the phone wire click as he was switched from electronic point to electronic point en route to Lois’ room, he felt dread.
“Hello.” Her voice was alert. She had flown in last night, arriving at ten or so. She should have had trouble — falling asleep. He had pictured her still in bed, the heavy curtains drawn. Instead, he thought, she must be fully dressed, a breakfast finished on a nearby table, a flat folded newspaper now crumpled and disassembled.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she said, the hard businesslike tone softening.
“Should I come up?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll get a cab.” He hung up, his stomach rumbling. Suddenly he was falling apart — no longer eager, thrilled to have a clandestine life, his body keenly anticipating passionate lovemaking. His legs felt weak, disconnected from his torso, out of step with each other. There was tremulousness in his belly. In the taxi, when it jolted over potholes, he felt as if his intestines were a badly sewn pocket, its seams crumbling.
He got out on Madison, hoping that the one-block walk to Fifth would settle his nerves. Spring must have arrived, Tony decided, because of Central Park. Its pretense of natural beauty in the heart of New York seemed a perfect companion to his own hypocrisy. The trees were like large decorator plants rising out of an enormous stone pot set in the city’s waiting room, a false gesture made by nature to prettify an arrogant manmade world. His adultery seemed just as self-conscious and showy. Betty had done nothing to deserve this: it was an act of narcissism, not desperate love. He could easily live without Lois’ admiration. He would still be a self-sufficient city if he avoided elaborately landscaping his emotional life with a pastoral scene of romance.
The nervous guilt wore off while he walked aimlessly looking at the park, replaced by a petulant anger, an aggrieved feeling that he was oppressed by antique notions. To be faithful, to be honest, to sustain intimacy with only one person; they are dull bourgeois values, he lectured himself. The image of himself as a virtuous married man, living out a lifespan of sexual monogamy, was appalling, as though he were being forced to decorate his apartment with flocked velvet wallpaper and kelly-green shag rugs. He caught a glimpse of himself wearing a lightweight Burberry raincoat — tall, slim, a pleasant, wise smile — and asked the world: Would anyone really believe I could be faithful? Even if I maintained my vows, the world would think otherwise.
When he finally strode into the Sherry Netherland, it was with the self-righteous air of an injured party collecting his court-awarded compensation. Goddamm it, his bearing seemed to say, I deserve this!
In the lobby, when the deskman told him to ring up Lois’ room, it occurred to him that someone who knew him might walk by and stop to ask whom he was seeing in a hotel at ten-fifteen in the morning. After all, this wasn’t some out-of-the way motel. Show-biz meetings were held here, in the rooms of visiting producers, studio executives, and the like.