Aspinall didn’t waste any time. Prok budgeted some eight thousand dollars to the purchase of the newest movie-making, processing and editing equipment, and Ted went through the lion’s share of it in a week. Prok was busy everywhere — furiously busy, lecturing, taking histories, posing for photos and sitting for interviews, overseeing the move and the reshelving of the library’s holdings and at the same time puzzling over the data for what would become the revolutionary female volume — and yet he found time to hide away in the darkroom and consult with Aspinall over every last piece of photographic equipment. Film — the rapid frame-by-frame encryption and exposure of animal behavior, from the porcupine to the erotically charged bull to the uninhibited couple in their Florida apartment — this was Prok’s new obsession, and Aspinall was his purveyor.
And, yes, I’m aware of the evolutionary progression here. Aware that the lower animals are one thing, the recording of their habits uncontroversial, educational, salutary even, and the human animal quite another. Perhaps we did go too far. Perhaps some of the critics of what the public was calling The Kinsey Report had a valid point, though none of us saw it at the time. What was it Margaret Mead had said of the male volume? Something along the lines of accusing Prok of being a reductionist, too dour, too scientific — all those statistics and not a single mention of fun, and that was the term she used: “fun.” As if “fun” could be measured or catalogued. And Lionel Trilling, Lawrence Kubie and the rest, denouncing Prok — and by extension, us, me—as championing a mechanistic view of human relations over the spiritual and emotional. I see now what they were getting at, if only narrowly, but still I stand by everything we did — if we hadn’t been rigorously scientific, consummately professional, the whole thing would have been a sham. In any case, I saw the criticism as nothing but a goad, narrow-minded, puritanical, anti-scientific, and to move forward — to progress — we had to ignore it. And so it was only logical that we began to film human sexual behavior.
But let me backtrack a moment here. It wasn’t solely the arrival of Aspinall and the acquisition of all that equipment that pushed us in the direction of live filming, nor simply the evolutionary progression of the project either, but a third factor played into it as welclass="underline" the ready availability of subjects. For one thing, Betty was in town still, and still willing. I saw her occasionally, driving down the street in a late-model convertible, pushing a basket up the aisles of the supermarket in the starched white nurse’s uniform she’d tailored to fit her lush proportions, and occasionally I stopped to chat with her — we were friends. She was a friend of the research and I a friend of — well, friendly relations. And then there was Vivian Aubrey, the former Columbia student who’d been such a prodigious help to us during our early visits to New York. She was in Bloomington increasingly now, attracted by the aura of Prok’s fame, as were a number of other women (another Vivian, the multiorgasmic Vivian Brundage, comes to mind, a sixty-year-old Philadelphia gynecologist we were to film a number of times with various partners) and men. Always men. Because more and more, Prok craved men.
The first film we made — of Corcoran and Betty, reprising their earlier roles — was the one I remember best. It was late in the year — the holidays were nearly on us, Prok dusting off his Santa Claus whiskers, Vivian Aubrey preparing to go off and visit her parents in Florida, my own mother appearing out of the blue to spend some time with her grandson — when Prok, with a hint of mystery in his voice, asked us to gather at his house that evening, sans wives, on Institute business. My mother didn’t understand. All through dinner she’d quizzed me about the project and Prok — When was she going to see Prok again? Such a nice man. So dedicated. What had I thought of his picture in such-and-such magazine? And Mac. Didn’t that photograph flatter her, because God knows she’s no beauty. I sliced meat and dipped the tines of my fork into a mound of mashed potatoes and assured her that Prok hadn’t changed at all (a lie) and that he talked of her often and fondly (another lie) and we’d see him at the Institute tomorrow, but that tonight’s meeting was strictly business and bound to be a bore.
Iris concurred. “You don’t want to go, Irene, believe me. It’ll just be Prok and his boys, heads down, worrying over the female orgasm.”
My mother gave me a look across the table, then turned to Iris. “But you’re not being fair, Iris, he’s such a—”
“—sweet and generous man?”
“That’s not what I was going to say, but, yes, I think he is. And a great man too. And John should feel privileged to be part of the whole undertaking. I’m very proud of you, John, I am.”
Iris dabbed at a blackish smear of strained spinach that had somehow migrated from John Jr.’s bib to his forehead. “Oh, yes, I know,” she said, her voice weary and saturated with sarcasm. “I count my blessings every day.”
And then it was off in the cold, the Dodge wheezing to life on the third try, headlights drilling the road all the way into town and out to Prok’s house, where the faerie cottage glittered with Christmas lights. I slammed out of the car, huddled against the cold, and hurried up the path to the house, hardly noticing the dark humps of the frost-killed flowerbeds and the forest of saplings that had begun to take hold in the neglected yard. I stood on the familiar doorstep and rang the bell.
Mac answered the door with a welcoming smile, and she was dressed up — and made up — as if she were going out to a concert or the theater, in a dress I’d never seen before and earrings in the shape of miniature jeweled Christmas trees. Her hair was newly permed. She was wearing lipstick. “John,” she breathed, “come in and welcome,” and I felt bad that I had nothing to offer her, not flowers or candy, not even a cheese.
“I don’t, well, I didn’t know this was a formal gathering, or I would have brought a cheese, at least.”
This was an old joke between us, and she laughed to show her delight in it. “No need for cheeses tonight. Prok’s made a Barbados punch specially for the occasion.” A pause. “And your mother — she’s well? And Iris? Good. Well, send them my love. And we’ll have them out to the house over the weekend, just us, just the girls. Will you tell them?”
She held my hand a moment too long, and I felt the pulse of all that had passed between us, the slow, sweet, soft heartbeat of those times, and then she led me into the living room.
The others were already gathered there, the erratic light of the fire distorting their features so that they looked like strangers in a crowded waiting room till I came close and all was familiar again, Hello, John. Good evening. Cold out there? A lamp was lit in the corner. The Christmas lights at the window winked on and off, fixed to a timer. There was a smell of woodsmoke, the oak and apple wood Prok liked to burn, and of the scented white candles Mac had set on the mantelpiece, everything cozy and festive. I greeted everyone in turn, but when I saw that Betty was there, lounging in the far corner and chatting casually with Corcoran, it gave me a jolt — something was up, and my interest was piqued, no doubt about it — so that I wound up presenting her with an awkward nod and a puzzled little half-formed smile before settling into a chair beside Rutledge and Prok. Betty acknowledged me with a smile that flickered across her lips and vacated her eyes before turning back to Corcoran, and I wondered what that meant. Did I feel a stab of jealousy, as ridiculous as that might seem? What had she said that night at the tavern—Purvis is a great friend of mine, you know that, don’t you? But wasn’t I a great friend of hers too?