“Hugh,” I said, turning away and glancing first at Fiona and then at Catherine: “How about it?”
“Pass, boy. For me, one woman’s plenty.”
“Oh, Hugh, kiss her just once, like Cyril. Catherine doesn’t mind.”
“I don’t care if he kisses her or not.”
“Doesn’t care, boy. You hear that?”
“I mean it, Hugh. Kiss her, if that’s what you want.”
“Cyril, baby, save us!”
“No,” I said, laughing and taking hold of Catherine’s arm, “fun’s over.”
“Oh, you’re just trying to spoil my morning. All of you.” And turning, laughing, staring at Hugh, pulling at the elastic of her tight shorts: “If you won’t kiss our little goat-girl, baby, kiss me instead!”
“Anyway,” I said softly, “she’s gone.”
Were they listening? Were they interested? I would never know because I had already waved at the tiny white figure once again watching us down there in the midst of her girlish vigil beneath the largest olive tree, had already begun to guide Catherine down the other and more gentle slope of our sunlit hill. We walked slowly and heavily, listening to the tread of my chamois boots and Catherine’s worn-out green tennis shoes, moved slowly down the hot pastoral grade with arms about each other’s waists and faces raised to the sun that was dissipated, invisible, yet uniformly present wherever we looked. Our bodies were free, our temperaments were in accord. And near the bottom of the hill we paused, and Catherine rested her head on my shoulder. Her voice, when I heard it, was low and sensible.
“What was the trouble last night?” she asked. “Meredith again?”
I nodded.
“More nosebleeds?”
I nodded.
“She’s had them for years.”
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “I’m fond of Meredith.”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am.”
We kissed each other. The goat-girl and I had kissed each other. Surely on the hilltop we had just abandoned, Hugh and Fiona were kissing too. So my theory of sexual extension, I thought, was taking root, already new trees were growing from the seeds we had spit so carelessly onto that barren ground.
“FIONA IS PERPLEXED, BABY. LISTEN A MINUTE.”
“I’m listening.”
“We were standing together in the dark, like this. We were nude, like this. The whole thing was a duplication of us right now, but different.”
“Well, I hope it was different.”
“Please, baby. Be serious.”
“I had an idea we might talk tonight. Tell more.”
“I was giggling. Just a little.”
“Sure you were.”
“What’s the matter with you? Stop fencing. And you could control your delicious hands. I want to talk.”
“Control your own.”
“If I can’t talk to you, I’m lost.”
“The difference, Fiona, the difference.”
“It’s not just that he’s thin and bony and was trembling. I love all that. It was something else.”
“Don’t stop now.”
“God, you’re irritating.”
“Sure I am. Why not?”
“Baby, please.”
“Start over, Fiona. My love can wait.”
“I want you, baby.”
“Keep talking.”
“We were standing here in the nude, like now. About three o’clock in the morning, and I thought you were on his mind because he seemed taller than ever, bonier, and he was cold, baby, cold. I had my arms around his neck and crossed, like this. Loosely. I didn’t care about his hand on my behind. I hardly knew it was there. I guess I tugged on his beard a little bit with my teeth. But that’s all. I was just hoping that he’d know how good he made me feel and begin to relax.”
“Sounds all right to me. What’s the problem?”
“I wish you’d stop caressing me. God!”
“Caressing stops.”
“Kiss me.”
“Let’s finish the seminar. What happened.”
“You smell good, baby.”
“You, too.”
“That’s enough, now. Please.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just stop being Cyril a minute, can’t you?”
“You’re the one who’s puzzled, Fiona, not me.”
“It’s just that he was doing something funny with that hand of his. I began to feel it. He was making me uncomfortable, and I didn’t know why. I was conscious of something a little different and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was beginning to lose what you call my crispness, baby, I was beginning to smile the way I do when I’m not sure what’s happening. He was making me think, he was making me fish around inside for a little clue about what he was doing and how I was supposed to respond. It was such a small thing, and yet suddenly I couldn’t think about him or me but just about what he was doing back there with that hand of his. Not him, but his hand. Not me, but my behind. It wasn’t exactly a tickling, but it wasn’t sweet. I was uncertain, baby, uncertain. I whispered something to him, but he didn’t care. I tried to move, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t unhappy, just uncertain. Uncomfortable but interested. And then I got the idea, because he was pulling on me. Just pulling on me. He wasn’t rough, he wasn’t tender. Just holding half my little melon as hard as he could and pulling. He forgot me, baby. He forgot himself. And I did too. Because suddenly I got the idea that he must be working in collusion with some great big lovely satyr with hair all over his shanks and a lot of experience with little girls’ behinds. But he wasn’t. There was no satyr. Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No, baby. Nothing at all.”
“Poor Fiona.”
“Now I can’t think of anything else. Who’ll be my satyr — you?”
“Shaggy shoulders, horns, a lot of experience. OK?”
“You’re fun, baby, you really are.”
AFTER ALL, I TOLD MYSELF, IT HAD BEEN A LONG HOTdawn, and emerging now from the dragon’s mouth of the dark green cypresses, I found myself once more in this mild extremity of a familiar mood. There was no longer any point in being dressed for the night, everything about me revealed the pointlessness of a garb that had already served its purpose. The dressing gown untied and hanging open like a pair of splendid maroon-colored silken sails bereft of wind, the carefully tended hair uncombed and rumpled, the clear eyes cloudy, the fresh mouth numbed with fading taste, the cord of the pajama bottoms no longer tied in a perfect bow but sleepily knotted, the feet unaccountably bare, and brows furrowed, hands in pockets, no message on lips that were nonetheless working together in sensual emptiness, not even a cigarette to prolong the vaporous moment — all this told me that the negative account was full and that my usual and fastidious preparations of only a few hours past were now used up.
Catherine was no doubt sleeping. And Hugh? Fiona? The villa concealed on the other side of the wall of cypress trees behind me was dark, the villa lying directly ahead was also dark, concealing what contented faces or whispering mouths I could not predict. Would I hear them? Glimpse them? Join them? Or merely feel my way into a trysting place that would prove white and shadowy and empty after all? Was I, a lover, seeking the companionship of two more lovers or near lovers who might be thickly awake and just as interested as I was in a few moments of drowsy speech? I could not be sure.
I felt the dew on the soles of my feet, I saw myself sitting on the edge of Catherine’s bed and fumbling, as I had, with spectacles but not with tennis shoes. I smiled to think that the spectacles were crooked on the bridge of my nose, smiled to think that for once I had deviated from my usual habits and had walked among the pines and beside the dark sea, had returned without special purpose to Catherine’s villa. I had pushed my way through the cypress trees, had strolled in the lemon grove that fanned out soft and silent at the edge of our lives. Why, I asked myself. Why? And replied with another smile, a keener appreciation of the weight of the silk now dragging down my shoulders and brushing my calves.