“And give ciphers like me a chance.”
“How can you say that when your work is so beautiful. At least I think so.”
“And ma’am, I am entirely charmed that you do.”
“You do you know, sometimes sound as if you’re not entirely from the Bronx. And appropos of your exerting a certain Gallic savoir faire, would you be open to an invitation if I were to ask you to come with me racing. October, that wonderful month in Paris where the chestnuts are dropping from the trees in the Jardin des Tuileries and also the time the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is at Longchamp, where I have a dear mare running.”
“Do I, ma’am, take my not sounding as not being from the Bronx as a compliment or possibly a mild rebuke.”
“Take it merely as an observation my dearest. From someone whose thoughts are entirely in your interest.”
“I shall, Mrs. Wilmington.”
“Touché. We do, don’t we, dig for ourselves entrenchments of deviousness out of which extrication becomes difficult, if not ultimately impossible. But that is reserved for others. With you, I never feel that I am in tainted company in which future betrayal portends and when you sense someone is lying to you.”
“And I should be delighted to head to Paris. And we might together while there pop into the church of St. Sulpice and if lucky, hear Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass.”
“Done, my dear.”
On the staircase landing, gilded bronze jardinieres. Reminders of one’s lace-curtain origins of an onyx sort, when one enjoyed in childhood to push these over to marvel with pleasure as they smashed upon a tiled sunroom floor. My refined Irish parents’ efforts to maintain elegance in the face of their progeny, who treated all such things as junk. And this residence festooned with riches. Past which Dru leads me by the hand along a corridor. Crystal chandeliers everywhere. Furniture shapes unseen under white sheets. Where a key hangs hidden on the back of a chair and opens up a door. Dru turning the gilt handle, diamonds aglimmer on her wrist. While I don’t have a thing to wear to Longchamp. And follow into this darkened shadowy chamber this woman who can go anywhere in the world and do what she wants. Dru striking a match. The flame illuminating a golden coronet atop a massive canopy bed.
“This candle to burn while we make love.”
“Holy cow, Dru. Holy cow.”
“Next, dear boy, you’ll be saying gee jiminy winikers, or is it winkus or something vaguely akin.”
“This is all so sumptuously beautiful that it’s made me become what I believe is usually referred to as being nervous.”
“Well, this is my closest girlfriend’s house. Or rather, ‘cottage in the city,’ as she calls it, which at the moment is entirely empty. In any event, servants do play havoc with the privacy of one’s life. And I hope that you’re not going to suddenly go shy on me.”
“No ma’am. I’m trying to stay as brave as possible. But we could be committing adultery.”
“I assume you’re kidding.”
“Yes I am, ma’am.”
“I see we’re quite firmly back to ‘ma’am’ again. And you’re behaving like a virgin. But of course adultery and worse is exactly the kind of illicit sin we are, or rather at least I am, committing.”
“Well ma’am, maybe I didn’t mean for our association to go this far so fast.”
“Well, in exactly another second it can pretty quickly disappear into a taxi and head down First Avenue. I shall call one.”
“Gee, please don’t. I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, whatever it is that you don’t know what to say, you’d better say it. And if I may suggest further, without undue delay. For putting it in the parlance of the outspoken, I do not intend to aimlessly fuck about. In platitudes, clichés, or otherwise.”
“Well, I guess if it’s not a platitude, I want to be with you. And I guess I think about you.”
“Well, how nicely halfhearted of you.”
“I think you’re wonderful.”
“Well, that at least might be considered as a mild improvement. And perhaps it’s better that you know that my involuntary winking can at times be voluntary, as it was at Sutton Place that evening when we all went out for dinner. And also, if I may put it so bluntly, when your hard-on grew so enticingly large. When we first met up, you were blushing and indeed as I believe you described yourself to someone who shan’t now be named that it had you crouched over like a cripple in a hopeless effort to disguise the predicament that your engorgement presented. And now need I say, my dear boy, that that shown to me then was the biggest green light in the world. Or am I deluding myself and am now to hear you deny that such tumescence was inspired by me.”
“No ma’am. I don’t deny it. I openly admit it.”
“Good. At last we seem to be getting somewhere. Now show me where it hurts. Because from what I can see of your posture, you again seem crouched over in such pain.”
“I guess I’m also nervous with the lack of scruples. Gee, I think I feel a little bit guilty. Sorry, I mean chilly.”
“Of course the words guilty and scruples do rather go together, but I am absolutely sure you meant to say chilly. It is, after all, somewhat unseasonably cool in this house. Now dear boy, as we are prolonged standing here, do I keep the candlelight alive. Or do I blow it out and immediately turn on my flat heel and saunter straight out of here.”
“I guess I am traumatized by some recent events.”
“I’m assuming I’m not one of them.”
“No, ma’am, you’re surely not.”
“Well, am I to blow out the candle or not. Blow, I presume.”
“No, no, don’t.”
“Well then, as I am not quite yet old enough to be your mother, please forgive me if I don’t speak in pedantic euphemisms in order to request to see that cock of yours already bursting the seams of your trousers.”
“Ma’am, you don’t mince your words, do you.”
“No. I don’t. Why should I.”
“I agree, ma’am. Why should you.”
“We all, don’t we, seek to reach a plateau of pleasure upon which we think we can glide indefinitely. And I suppose some of us accept the risk of doing so dangerously.”
“Dru, I guess I’ve had a couple of things happen today that have dismayed me. But please. Don’t blow out the candle.”
On the gray marble chimneypiece amid a collection of Islamic looking pots, one candle out of a dozen in their tall tulip glasses glowing in the mirror. Softly flooding its single flame of light across the room and spreading shadows within the shelter of the great canopied bed and beyond.
“Holy Christ, Dru. Get back.”
“What is it.”
“Behind you.”
“Oh that. It’s dead and stuffed. I meant to warn you.”
“Holy cow. It’s a rattler. Diamondback.”
“Oh dear boy you are, aren’t you, a nervous wreck, but at least you remembered my name. Next perhaps, you’ll call me sweetie pie. But that’s an eastern diamondback. I suppose, alive, our most deadly of snakes.”
“That looks at least seven feet long and in the dark it looks alive with its fangs ready to strike. Hey what kind of a place is this. Could be black widow spiders everywhere you put your hand.”
“I suppose the Irish, not having snakes in Ireland, have an exaggerated dread of them.”
“You betcha, ma’am.”
“Better not bring you into the next room where my friend has two stuffed black mambas that extend as high as you or I up off the floor and which are wrapped around objets d’art. The world’s most feared snake alive, but I assure you my friend preserves them harmlessly dead.”