“I want what you want.”
“No good. Suppose you could have it either way. The Good Fairy comes and gives you a wish. You can go on doing it with me wanting you to or you can stop with me wanting you to stop. See what I mean? That’s the question you got to answer.”
He was right, it was the question she had to answer, but she had to think about it first.
“I would go on,” she said finally.
“Uh-huh.”
“Because I like the things it’s doing for us. Sully, I never really knew you till tonight.”
“You mean all this talking.”
“Yeah, all this talking. You never talked to a woman like that, did you?”
“To anybody. No, I never did.”
“So nobody ever knew you. And nobody ever knew me. And all the girls you’ve had, none of them ever got to you the way I do. That’s not a question either because I know it’s true. The past few nights. You never had that with anybody else.”
“You’re right.” He looked at her. “You know something? Another thing that scares me. All my life I see a girl, and I want her. Like you turn a faucet and water comes out. Lately nothing. The other night Markarian’s in with his daughter, and thinking about her and the coon and about how Markarian was with you it occurs to me it would be like turning the tables if I got to his daughter. He screws my wife so I screw his daughter. Poetic license. No, that’s not it. Justice. Poetic justice.”
“So.”
“So you saw her, you know what she looks like. And here I’m having this thought and I look at her and it comes to me that I don’t want to. Poetic or not, I got no urge at all for the little bitch.”
“You wouldn’t want to have her?”
“Not in the slightest. You would want me to have her?”
She licked her lips. “I would want me to have her.”
“Did you ever—”
“No. I never even wanted to until just now. I never even thought about it until just now. Lately I’ve been having all kinds of new thoughts.”
“Welcome to the club.”
“The thought excites you, doesn’t it? Me with her.”
“Yeah, it does. Why the hell is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You with her excites me. Me with her doesn’t. Why the hell is that?”
“Well, me with Markarian does, as far as that goes, and—”
“That’s something else worries me.”
“That you’re—”
“Not that I am. Not exactly. I mean I never felt anything that way. For another man. I can’t imagine it. But the idea that this business of being turned on by what you do with someone else, that it’s a fag thing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, skip it. I don’t understand it myself, it’s just a feeling. Just something for when there’s nothing else to worry about, and there always is. Melanie? This I got to say because I can’t talk myself out of it. You could meet somebody you like better.”
“No.”
“It could happen.”
“It could never happen.”
“Again, even if you believe this, how can you know?”
She said. “Jesus, I’m so tired.”
“Yeah, we’re wearing ourselves out. Let’s go to sleep, huh?”
“It’s necking,” she said.
“Huh?”
“How I know it could never happen.”
“You lost me.”
“Remember with Markarian? Necking in the living room, going through a long buildup? The whole thing was necking. Fucking him was necking.”
“I don’t—”
“Even having an orgasm, part of me wasn’t there. It was in the future.” She shook her head, impatient with herself. “Jesus, I’m so exhausted I can’t put words together. What made me hot with him was thinking how I would tell you about it. And what we would do afterward. If I’d of come home and we didn’t do anything, I’d of been ten times as frustrated as if I never left the house in the first place. Oh I want to do things, baby. Freaky things I never used to think about. Girl things. Group things. But to go out and do them and then come on home, because that’s the important part. The other is necking. What’s so funny?”
“They would lock us up. The both of us. If they could take off the tops of our heads and look at what’s inside, they’d lock us up. No question. We’re a pair of weirdos.”
“Yeah.”
“They’d lock us up,” he said.
“Just so they put us in the same cell.”
“Yeah. And just so they let you out once in a while, huh? Oh, God, am I tired. I am so tired.”
Eleven
That Friday morning, at about the time Sully and Melanie Jaeger headed upstairs to bed, Hugh Markarian went into his den and uncovered his typewriter. He put a fresh sheet of paper in place and typed “119.” at its top. He looked thoughtfully at the number as if waiting for it to tell him something. It occurred to him that it ought to tell him something. If nothing else, it ought to give a short nod of recognition. It was not as if he and “119.” were meeting one other for the first time. Just renewing old acquaintances.
He had first typed that particular number almost a month ago, at which time one might say it had told him something, told him it was time to take a week or so off. Then, two days ago, he had typed it again. And again yesterday morning. And now today.
He thought now of his conversation with Linda at Tannhauser’s, his buoyant assurance that he was extending his leave from the book because he was enjoying the free time, but that within a few days he would return to it with no trouble at all. One day he would simply be ready, that was all.
And true to his word, he got out of bed Wednesday morning knowing that this was the day. Even before he reached his den his fingers were anticipating the feel of the typewriter keys. Then he’d typed the damned number at the top of the damned page and waited for something to happen, and nothing did. Nor had anything happened yesterday when he repeated the performance verbatim.
Nor was anything extraordinary happening now.
Perhaps “119.” had numerological significance. Perhaps it was some sort of jinx. He couldn’t remember that the number had played any prior role in his life. It had never been his address, for example. Was it a prime number? He got a pencil and played with the number. No, it was not a prime; it was the product of 7 and 17. They in turn were both primes, but it seemed likely that a great many numbers, numbers of pages which had presented no difficulty, could make much the same statement.
Suppose he just skipped on and wrote “120.” And came back and wrote “119.” later? No, by George, because it would be more than a little trick to write a page with no idea of what might happen on the one preceding it. And if he just omitted “119.” forever, it looked to be cheating, like skipping from twelve to fourteen when numbering hotel floors. If one really wanted to be safe, one would build a hotel with a thirteenth floor and not put any rooms on it. Now, insofar as the pages of a book were concerned, on the other hand—
His mind went on playing along these lines until he told himself to stop. This was silly. There was a point to working, and there might be a point to not working, but he was deliberately thinking along unproductive lines.
He skipped down a few lines from the top of the page and typed: “Reasons why this book is not getting written.”
And below, in outline form:
(1) Other things on my mind.
(a) Karen.
(b) Linda.
(c) Melanie.
(2) Problems with the book.
(a) Too much time away from it and lost the handle.
(b) Worried about writer’s block has indeed brought on writer’s block.