"Nothing."
"Give it a few minutes," she said. "Sometimes, with virgins, it doesn't work right away."
"I don't feel anything," he said.
"Isn't everything getting sort of very sharp and clear?"
"No."
"It works differently with different people," she said. "I see everything very sharply and clearly, all the outlines crisp and sharp and clear. All the outlines. Crisp and clear."
"You forgot sharp," he said.
"Yes, crisp and clear and sharp," she said. "For some people, everything gets fuzzy, but not for me. What happens with me is I feel very relaxed and everything just shines with a sharp, clear crispness."
"What happens with me is nothing," Willis said.
"How do you see me?" she asked. "Do I look crisp and sharp?"
"You look naked."
"I know, but am I also crisp and sharp?"
"No, you're soft and round."
"Some people see things soft and round," she said.
"Especially if they are soft and round."
"Try to be serious," she said. "Get up and walk across the room, okay? Oh, look," she said, "it's gone. What happaned to it?"
"Your Acapulco Gold killed it," he said.
"No, it makes sex better, you'll see. Get up and walk across the room."
"Will that bring my hard-on back?"
"I want you to see how the timing is off. And the distance. With a lot of people, distances get distorted. The wall there'll seem a million miles away, it'll take forever to walk across the room and touch the wall. Go ahead, try it."
"I want my hard-on back," he said.
"Go on over to the wall there."
"Don't I get a blindfold?"
"Does the wall look far away?"
"It looks right there."
"Right where?"
"Right there at the end of the tunnel," he said, and began giggling.
"There was a man I used to see…"
"You promised you wouldn't…"
"No, no, this was a friend. And he said Hell is the Holland Tunnel. Hell is getting stuck forever in the Holland Tunnel."
"Where's the Holland Tunnel?" Willis asked. "In Amsterdam?"
"No, in New York. He was a New Yorker. He recited a poem to me."
"A Dutch poem?" Willis said, and giggled again.
"English, English. He wrote it himself, would you like to hear it?"
"No," Willis said, and giggled.
"'Twas brilliant when the slimy toads…"
"The what?"
"The slimy toads. Just listen, okay? 'Twas brilliant when the slimy toads, set fire to Gimbel's underwear. Aunt Mimsy was in Borough Park, and the Nome rats ate her there."
"The what rats?"
"The Nome rats."
"From Alaska?"
"I guess. They ate her."
"Who?"
"Aunt Mimsy. Just like the ones in Mexico. Or maybe all over the world, for that matter. The rats, I mean."
"Mexico? What are you talking about?"
"Eating poor Aunt Mimsy. Regular cannonballs."
"Cannibals, you mean."
"Yeah," Marilyn said.
"Do you know you have a hammer here?" Willis said.
"Where?"
"Here on this table."
"What table?"
"This table alongside the bed here. With this lamp on it, and this phone, and this hammer."
"Oh, yeah, my hammer," she said.
"Are you perhaps a carpenter?" he said, and giggled.
"That's for protection," she said. "It's the best weapon a woman can own. I saved an article about it."
"Do you have a permit for that hammer?" he asked. He was still giggling. He couldn't seem to stop giggling.
"I'm serious," she said.
"Carry or Premises?" he said, giggling.
"A woman knows how to use a hammer. There isn't a woman on earth who hasn't at one time or another had to hammer a nail or something. She knows how to grip it, she knows how to swing it, she knows how to use it. I pity any poor bastard who comes in here and tries to mess with me. In Mexico, there were people who used hammers on the rats down there."
"Mexico?"
"Sure, there were rats the size of crocodiles down there. They used to jump on people while they were asleep in their beds, try to chew off their faces. They were regular cannibals, those rats."
"Cannibals only eat their own species," Willis said.
"Great idea," she said, grinning. "Come eat me."
They made love tirelessly and endlessly all day Sunday, and late that night as they were lying spent in each others' arms, whispering about their favorite colors and their favorite ice-cream flavors, and their favorite movies and television shows, and their favorite songs—all the favorites new lovers feel obliged to list for eternity—she mentioned that no two lines rhymed in the song "Moonlight in Vermont." He asked her where she'd come across this astonishing piece of information, and she said she'd learned it from a trombone player she used to know.
"You didn't tell me about the trombone player," Willis said.
"Well," she said, "there's no sense telling you about every little thing I've ever done, or everyone I've ever known in my life. Anyway, it's true that no two lines in the song rhyme. Try it," she said.
"I don't know the words," Willis said. "Tell me about the trombone player."
"Why? So you can get mad all over again? The way you got mad in the park Friday?"
"I won't get mad."
"He was just somebody I knew, that's all."
"A john?"
"Yes. A john."
"Where?"
"In Buenos Aires."
"A South American?"
"No. He was from New Orleans."
"That's right, South Americans play guitars, don't they?"
"See?" she said. "You're getting mad again."
"No, I'm not," he said.
"I think we'd better get something straight right now," she said.
"Sure," he said.
"I used to be a hooker, okay? That's something I never told anyone else I know in this city. But if…"
"You only told me because I found out about it," he said. "From the Houston P.O."
"Why ever I told you, it happens to be a fact. Let me finish, will you please?"
"Sure."
"What I'm trying to say is that if what I did a long time ago is going to cause problems all the time… I mean, I can't watch everything I say or do, Hal, I'm sorry."
"No one's asking you to do that."
"Yes, I think you are. I used to be a hooker, yes. But I'm not anymore."
"How do I know that?"
"Oh, shit, here we go again," she said, and got out of bed.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To get another joint," she said.
"No, let's talk about this. You're the one who wanted to talk about it, so let's…"
"Fuck you, I want another joint," she said.
"Marilyn…"
"Listen, you," she said, and stamped back to the bed and stood beside it naked, her hands on her hips. "I don't want to hear another word about was he a friend or was he a John or did I fuck him or suck him or let him shove a cucumber up my ass, okay? I did all those things and worse, and if this is going to be the kind of relationship I want it to be…"
"What kind of relationship is that?"
"Honest," she said. "Open. And if you make a dumb comment about that word, I'll hit you with the hammer, I swear to God."
"No comment," he said, and smiled. "I'm afraid of hammers."
"Sure, joke about it. I'm being serious here, and you're…"
"I'm being serious, too."
"You think I'm still hooking, don't you?"
He didn't answer.
"You think the trombone player was last week instead of five years ago in Buenos Aires, don't you?"
"Was he?"
"I am going to hit you with the fucking hammer!" she said, and reached for it.