“What was her way?”
“You’re very personal.”
“Yes. You can always refuse to answer.”
“Well, Gilda is a very healthy, well-adjusted, out-going woman. She likes people, likes children, parties, picnics, the theatre, church. Whenever we went to the theatre or a movie where the audience was asked to sing along with the entertainer or music, she would sing along. That’s the kind of woman she was.”
“A sing-alonger with a padded brassiere.”
“And plastic flowers,” he added. “Well, not plastic. But she did buy a dozen roses made of silk. I couldn’t convince her they were wrong.”
He rose to blow out another three candles. He came back to sit in his Eames chair. Suddenly she came over to sit on the hassock in front of him. She put a light hand on his knee. “What happened?” she whispered.
“You guessed?” he said, not surprised. “A strange story. I don’t understand it myself.”
“Have you told the Mortons?”
“My God, no. I’ve told no one.”
“But you want to tell me.”
“Yes I want to tell you. And I want you to explain it to me. Well, Gilda is a normal, healthy woman who enjoys sex. I do too. Our sex was very good. It really was. At the start anyway. But you know, you get older and it doesn’t seem so important. To her, anyway. But I don’t mean to put her down. She was good and enthusiastic in bed. Perhaps unimaginative. Sometimes she’d laugh at me. But a normal, healthy woman.”
“You keep saying healthy, healthy, healthy.”
“Well, she was. Is. A big, healthy woman. Big legs. Big breasts. A glow to her skin. Rubens would have loved her. Well…about three years ago we took a summer place for the season on Barnegat Bay. You know where that is?”
“No.”
“The Jersey shore. South of Bay Head. It was beautiful. Fine beach, white sand, not too crowded. One afternoon we had some neighbors over for a cook-out. We all had a lot to drink. It was fun. We were all in bathing suits, and we’d drink, get a little buzz on, and then go into the ocean to swim and sober up, and then eat and drink some more. It was a wonderful afternoon. Eventually everyone went home. Gilda and I were alone. Maybe a little drunk, hot from the sun and food and laughing. We went back into our cottage and decided to have sex. So we took off our bathing suits. But we kept our sunglasses on.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know why we did it, but we did. Maybe we thought it was funny. Anyway, we made love wearing those dark, blank glasses so we couldn’t see each other’s eyes.”
“Did you like it?”
“The sex? For me it was a revelation, a door opening. I guess Gilda thought it was funny and forgot it. I can never forget it. It was the most sexually exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life. There was something primitive and frightening about it. It’s hard to explain. But it shook me. I wanted to do it again.”
“But she didn’t?”
“That’s right. Even after we came back to New York and it was winter, I suggested we wear sunglasses in bed, but she wouldn’t. I suppose you think I’m crazy?”
“Is that the end of the story?”
“No. There’s more. Wait until I blow out more candles.”
“I’ll get them.”
She snuffed out three more tapers. Only three were left burning, getting down close to the iron sockets. She came back to sit on the ottoman again.
“Go on.”
“Well, I was browsing around Brentano’s-this was the winter right after Barnegat Bay-and Brentano’s, you know, carries a lot of museum-type antique jewelry and semi-precious stones, coral and native handicrafts. Stuff like that. Well, they had a collection of African masks they were selling. Very primitive. Strong and somehow frightening. You know the effect primitive African art has. It touches something very deep, very mysterious. Well, I wanted to have sex with Gilda while we both wore those masks. An irrational feeling, I know. I knew it at the time, but I couldn’t resist. So I bought two masks-they weren’t cheap-and brought them home. Gilda didn’t like them and didn’t dislike them. But she let me hang them in the hallway out there. A few weeks later we had a lot to drink-”
“You got her drunk.”
“I guess. But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t wear one of those masks in bed. She said I was crazy. Anyway, the next day she threw the masks away. Or burned them, or gave them away, or something. They were gone when I got home.”
“And then you were divorced?”
“Well, not just because of the sunglasses and the African masks. There were other things. We had been growing apart for some time. But the business with the masks was certainly a contributing factor. Strange story-no?”
She got up to extinguish the three remaining candles. They smoked a bit, and she licked her fingers, then damped the wicks. She poured both of them a little more vodka, then regarded the candelabrum, head cocked to one side.
“That’s better.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “It is.”
“Do you have a cigarette?”
“I smoke a kind made from dried lettuce leaves. Non-nicotine. But I have the regular kind too. Which would you like?”
“The poisonous variety.”
He lighted it for her, and she strolled up and down before the mirrored wall, holding her elbows. Her head was bent forward; long hair hid her face.
“No,” she said, “I don’t believe it was irrational. And I don’t believe you’re crazy. I’m talking now about the sunglasses and the masks. You see, there was a time when sex itself, by itself, had a power, a mystery, an awe it no longer has. Today it’s ‘Shall we have another martini or shall we fuck?’ The act itself has no more meaning than a second dessert. In an effort to restore the meaning, people try to increase the pleasure. They use all kinds of gadgets, but all they do is add to the mechanization of sex. It’s the wrong remedy. Sex is not solely, or even mainly, physical pleasure. Sex is a rite. And the only way to restore its meaning is to bring to it the trappings of a ceremony. That’s why I was so delighted to discover the Mortons’ shop. Probably without realizing it, they sensed that today the psychic satisfactions of sex have become more important than physical gratifications. Sex has become, or should become, a dramatic art. It was once, in several cultures. And the Mortons have made a start in providing the make-up, costumes, and scenery for the play. It is only a start, but it is a good one. Now about you…I think you became, if not bored then at least dissatisfied with sex with your ‘healthy, normal’ wife. ‘Is this all there is?’ you asked. ‘Is there nothing more?’ Of course there is more. Much, much more. And you were on the right track when you spoke about “a revelation…a door opening’ when you made love wearing sunglasses. And when you said the African masks were ‘primitive’ and ‘somehow frightening.’ You have, in effect, discovered the unknown or disregarded side of sex: its psychic fulfillment. Having become aware of it, you suspect-rightly so-that its spiritual satisfactions can far surpass physical pleasure. After all, there are a limited number of orifices and mucous membranes in the human body. In other words, you are beginning to see sex as a religious rite and a dramatic ceremony. The masks were merely the first step in this direction. Too bad your wife couldn’t see it that way.”
“Yes,” he said. “Too bad.”
“I must be going,” she said abruptly, and marched into the bedroom to retrieve her cape.
“I’ll see you home,” he said eagerly.
“No. That won’t be necessary. I’ll take a cab.”
“At least let me come down to call a cab for you.”
“Please don’t.”
“I want to see you again. May I call you?”
“Yes.”
She was out the door and gone almost before he was aware of it. The smell of snuffed candles and old smoke lingered in the room.
He turned out the lights and sat a long time in darkness, pondering what she had said. Something in him responded to it. He began to glimpse the final picture that might be assembled from the bits and pieces of his thought and behavior that had, until now, puzzled him so. That final picture shocked him, but he was neither frightened nor dismayed.