I kept thinking about Rhoda. Wondering if there would be anything between them, either in the mind or in fact. Wondering how I would feel about it. Weaving, in spite of myself, weird, three-in-a-bed fantasies.
And what would happen, I wondered, if I should happen to loft a pass Rhoda’s way. The uncertain divorcee, her wedding ring gone, her maiden name hers once again-folklore marks them as easy game, like widows and betrayed wives. Did I want Rhoda? Yes, dammit. Did I want her right there in Prissy’s house, Prissy’s ex-roommate and ex-lover in Prissy’s house?
Indeed I did.
Or perhaps she would want to come into the city on a Wednesday. I go to New York just about every Wednesday, getting up early enough to drive the old Chevy to the station and catch the first train. Sometimes but not always Priss comes along and shops while I make the rounds of editors and collaborators and agents. Sometimes we then do something in the evening, like catch a play or a movie. When we first moved up here she came in almost every week, but now it’s more like once a month. We have told each other various reasons for this-that it’s a long trip, that she has things to do that are more important to her than shopping. We both know better. When people are together all the time, alone with each other as much as we are, they need a break from each other. I prefer the Wednesdays when I make the trip alone.
I went in alone the day after Rhoda’s letter came. I hit the half dozen magazine offices I generally hit, showed the new work I’d done in the past week, and peddled most of it, which was gratifying. I dropped in on my agent, told her about the sales I had made and dropped off the unsold work for her to send around. She would try the major markets and what remained unsold would be returned to me to try on my own if I wanted. She doesn’t like to bother with cartoon submissions to minor markets; it’s unprofitable for her, but by stubbornly keeping all of those old chestnuts in motion I generally add a couple thousand a year to my income, which pays for a lot of stamps and envelopes.
Around two in the afternoon I cabbed up to 83rd Street to see Marcia.
Marcia is Marcia Goldsmith, a long-legged low-voiced brittle brilliant young lady slightly reminiscent of Elaine May, but a little less overpowering, thank God. She and I have collaborated on several non-books, she doing text and I providing pictures. A non-book is the sort that sits next to the cash register on the way out of the store, and it’s just sixty-four pages of one-line gags and art work, and you could read it in ten minutes flat and never want to look at it again, but what the hell, it’s only a buck and there are few enough laughs in this world, so you buy it.
The non-book on which we were presently working was called The World is Coming to An End Because Book. That was the working title, which we thought we might amend to Chicken Little Was Right, which I have seen on buttons but not as a title. The premise was that we would have about thirty or forty ways in which the world was coming to an end, all of them ostensibly humorous, and that the increasing public consciousness of pollution and the environment question and all that would make people welcome the book as a sort of tragic relief.
I wasn’t that crazy about the idea myself, but Marcia was coming up with some good lines, and the theme did suit my drawing style. The world is coming to an end because pretty soon there won‘t be any place left to throw old razor blades -and a view of the Grand Canyon filled to the top, and a little guy standing there with razor in one hand and blade in the other.
Well, can’t every line be a boffo, you know.
So I went up to Marcia’s place and she poured me a drink the size of Lake Erie, but purer, and I showed her what artwork I’d come up with during the week, plus a few gag ideas I had thought of-some she loved, most she hated-and she gave me a batch of new ideas which I would take back to Massachusetts, see which ones I liked in graphic terms, and work up some roughs.
This much we probably could have done on the phone. But then I took her face between my hands and kissed her wide mouth, and she laughed throatily and gave me a lot of tongue and thrust with her hips and wiped her loins across mine.
Surprise, Priss!
Or is it? Did you know, or take for granted? Well, surprise, anyway. What you wrote held surprises for me. Sauce for the goose and all that. When one gets on one of these truth trips, it’s like going to a hotel in Paris. You have to take the bidet with the suite.
It was the best sort of casual shtupping. We both liked each other a lot, but in the deeper sense neither of us really gave a double damn about the other, and we only balled each other because it felt good. No jealousy, no intrigue, no hang-ups. Just some friendly fucking. And in this chill dreary world, where the fucking you get is never worth the fucking you give, friendly fucking is treasure enough.
In bed, after we had spent some minutes handling and nibbling at various portions of one another, I said, “Hey, may I ask a personal question, Marsh?”
“Do we know each other well enough for that? Mmm, I like your body, I groove on you. What do you want to know?”
“Ever make it with a girl?”
“Well, I like that. Just because I’m an aggressive castrating bitch, you figure I’ve got to be a dyke as well. You’re full of compliments.”
“Forget I said a word,” I said, and grabbed her.
We went into a friendly clinch, but then she broke away from me, raised herself up on one elbow, draped her breasts over me, and poked her eyes into my eyes.
“Why?” she demanded.
“I wondered.”
“I know you wondered, you wouldn’t have asked if you hadn’t wondered. Why?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“Meaning you’re not really sure you want to say. Yes, I have, as a matter of fact. It’s better than ham.”
“Oh, you know that one?”
“Honey, doesn’t everyone?”
“I suppose.”
“Hey, do you have a lesbian hang-up?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. What the hell is a lesbian hang-up, anyway?”
“What you got, I think. Hey.”
“What?”
“I got a sensational idea.”
“What?”
“Go get us each a drink.”
“That’s your sensational idea?”
“No, but first get us a drink.”
I came back with drinks and the bottle. She sat on the edge of the bed, deep in thought. I kissed the back of her neck. She didn’t seem to notice.
She said, “You like things a little kinky, no?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“Well, I have this idea.”
“You’re gonna call up a girlfriend to join us.”
“I am like hell.” She swung around, eyes positively fierce. “What the hell do you think I am?”
“A virgin.”
She whooped. “All right, I had that one coming. Where did I pick up this outraged innocence, I wonder? But no, I’m not into that any more. Girls. For a while, yes. In the future, perhaps. At the present, I pass. And I never did like crowd scenes. I like one-to-one relationships, otherwise I get paranoid and become convinced that the other people dig each other more than they dig me. My shrink says-forget it.”
“Forget what?”
“I don’t have a shrink. It’s an obnoxious habit I’ve developed of starting sentences with My shrink says when I want to endow thoughts of my own with extra authority. It’s handy, but fuck games for the time being, I’ve had it with games.”
“What was your sensational idea?”
“Oh, yeah.” We had refilled our glasses by now, and were probably pretty drunk. “My idea. I don’t know if it’s a good idea any more. I thought we could both be girls.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Both be girls making love. You and me. Lesbians.”
“Wouldn’t I have to have an operation? Because I don’t think I’d care to.”