The Taste of a Woman Read online

  For all appearances, maybe this was a great happening. Maybe this would be love with a capital L, love of a somewhat eclectic and unconventional variety.

  “How long will this last?” I said.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve decided not to worry about that,” he said. “It lasts as long as it lasts.”

  So maybe he was being taken advantage of. So what. He was clearly in a state of abject pleasure. Well deserved, I say. I would not want him to diminish any of that by worries I impose upon him. He’s a big boy. I kept quiet.

  So I imagined him going home, the girl waiting there, greeting him with a long hug, asking him about his day, bringing him his dry martini dressed in short shorts and a halter top, her hair flowing over her shoulders, the aroma of woman and gardenia mixing in his nostrils... what price would anyone pay for that?

  And then I thought of Groucho Marx and his glittering girlfriend decades younger than he. How the family protested when he left her a small fortune. All the press coverage that painted her as a Trollope. Well, she gave him what he needed while everyone else was just standing around.

  “Good going,” I said to my friend. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

  And that night I had a dream. A girl came and asked me if I’d fix her problem. Then she knelt beside my bed. I said yes and she crawled in bed beside me and let me put my hand on her leg. It was a thrilling experience even though my wife was sleeping right beside me. Before I could understand what was happening the girl rolled over me into the space between me and my wife so she could keep her in the loop.

  It was real cozy.

  What all this told me was I was every bit as lecherous and anybody and if I could have my life as it is, undisturbed, and have a 20 year old in my bed... I would.

  But I was contained by protocol, by the formality of cultural expectations that promote stable families, the upbringing of children, the promise of long lasting love.

  I made up an excuse to call him up.

  “Still going strong,” he said.

  “Good,” I said. “Really good.”

  I started noticing the girls at the gym. Well, I always notice, but now it was with a little touch of wistfulness as if I’d found out I was missing something. As if they were missing something I might offer.

  Maybe there’s a mismatch ingrained in the way men and women think, I wondered, the differences between their hormones, their expectations for life and love. Why don’t we just acknowledge that and learn to incorporate those differences into our lives? Was my friend an example of that success?

  So now a twenty-year-old in a tank top and tight short shorts just walked towards me as I am working out on the elliptical rider. Usually I divert my eyes when this happens. This time I watch her unselfconsciously, willing to suffer the turn of the head, the eyeblink, the downward drift at the corner of the mouth. Judge me, if you will, I seem to be saying. But there is so much to enjoy in this life. “Why all this music,” Says Gregory Ore, “if there’s no dancing.”

  She kept walking and sulking. I didn’t care. I kept taking in her form, her style, the graceful motions of her body. But I thought I saw a little glimmer of satisfaction - did I imagine it? - a covered over pulse of emotion hidden by all those external registers of disgust, yet lurking somewhere behind that face, speaking a quite different message. Ah, paradox. Ah, the mixed messages of life.

  I was on the edge and not shrinking back. Aren’t we are always on the edge when it comes to love and sex?

  The girl kept walking but she walked with the knowledge of my eyes upon her. I knew this and knew she knew it too.

  One seed planted. It grows. Or not.

  The Power of the Mask

  “How’s your sex life?”

  Amy took a long drink from her gin and tonic and looked up at Juice. The question was inevitable. They’d agreed to meet every Friday, 4 p.m., the Drinking Gourd just off campus from the University of Middlebush where they were classmates in the psychology program and talk about their love life. Or the absence thereof.

  That little word absence was what got this whole thing going to begin with, what with the prospect for a meaningful relationship amidst an ocean of possibilities not so brght. “Friday Phallic Forum,” they called it, an opportunity to be frank and open, something that passing in the corridors of Bertran Hall did not encourage. She dreaded the question but knew it was coming.

  She looked up at Juice with a tired expression of the condemned as if to say, do I have to answer? Seeing no reprieve she sighed. “What sex life, Juice? The closest thing I’ve got to a lover is my stuffy penguin, Locksley.”

  “So let’s go through the prospects,” said Juice.

  “But skip the skanks, please.”

  “Awww, that takes away half the list.”

  “Nonetheless... ”

  “Depends if you’re looking for love or a cuddle.”

  “How about both?”

  “Picky, picky.” Juice swirled her Manhattan and watched the ruddy red color climb the side of the glass and swish back down again. “A little cuddle makes a girl feel wanted,” she said.

  They knew where this was going. Ritual by now. Amy being conservative and wanting everything perfect, Juice pushing her to loosen up and have a fling if only for the sake of having fun sometimes. Inevitably, they landed in the middle with no solution.

  Amy beat her to the punch. “How’s it going with ol’ round hips,” she said.

  Juice ducked her head down to conceal a grin, but Amy caught it.

  “You mean Rebel?”

  “Okay, he fucked you in some strange place again. Last time it was under the 12th street bridge. Am I right? I can hardly wait to here where you did it now.”

  Juice’s head was up but the grin still cracked her face. “Telephone booth,” she said.

  “That’s so retro. Where the hell did you even find one of those?”

  Juice tossed her head to one side allowing her dark hair to slap her face, her expression more serious now, showing a little flicker of pride. “Down around the corner of 45th and Franklin there’s an old one, red like the ones in England with all those pains of glass in it, one that you can keep the light off by cracking the door just a little while you’re doing it.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of discovery?”

  “It’s half the pleasure. Makes you come sooner and harder as if your Darwinian gene pool wants you to finish fast and get the hell away before the predator arrives.”

  “Don’t understand how that works.”

  “Well, usually he just lifts my skirt and pulls down my panties.” She paused for dramatic effect. “That’s all you need, pulled panties and a hard dick. Really!”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  Juice grinned.

  Amy finished her G&T and ordered another. “You have such an interesting life,” she said.

  “Yours could be as interesting.”

  “I’m too inhibited. I just don’t see myself doing that, even though I apparently admire you for being able to.”

  “That’s what we’ve got to work on.” Juice ordered another Manhattan and licked the last crystal of cherry juice from the previous.

  “How about Jonathan,” she said.

  “The history major with the rich parents, the tweeds and the little Austin Healey? Cute, but out of reach.”

  “Can’t think like that. What would you do with him in bed?”

  Amy turned red as the cherry in Juice’s Manhattan which just hit the bar in front of her. Juice looked at it menacingly.

  “I think I would let him do whatever he wanted to,” she said, very softly.

  Juice recognized a score. “Would you go down on him?”

  Amy turned so red Juice worried for her health. Watched her to make sur
e she was still breathing.

  “I take back the question,” she said, attacking the Manhattan. “That’s something you’d decide in the moment anyway. Okay, how about Richard.”

  The color started receding in Amy’s face.

  “He’s nice but a little queer.”

  “He’s not gay, I know that for sure.”

  Amy shot a how-do-you-know-that glare at Juice but did not ask. She considered Richard briefly while squeezing her lime into her drink. Mathematics. Very smart. Geeky in that kind of way a girl might want to take care of. To protect from all the ruffians.

  “I suppose.”

  “We’re not talking about tying the link for life you know, Amy. Just a fling. You suppose what?”

  “Well, he is kind of sweet.”

  “And he’s in our dorm, too, just down the hall.”

  “Watch yourself! I am not sliding into his bed in the middle of the night.”

  Juice laughed. “Might give him the rise.”

  “I’m sure!” The color started moving in again from the periphery of her face like a southern tide returning.

  “Well, that’s a good thing, Amy. A good thing. Think of it as one of your powers.”

  “Powers. Like Wonder Woman.”

  “Like Wonder Woman. Yes, Indeed!”

  “Then who does that make you?”

  Juice thought long and hard. Adelle’s seductive voice filtered in over the crowd singing something about the necessary ingredient of hurt.

  “I would be something dark,” she said. “A Raven or maybe a swamp rat.”

  Amy looked on with a mixture of worry and admiration. “Well let’s add a little princess cape or something upbeat to that image. You do have a side of you filled with light.”

  “Lightning bug, maybe. That way I could be both.” But we’re getting off the track. Now you name one.”

  “One what?”

  “Fuck-mate, dummy!”

  Amy laughed so hard she spilled half her drink. “I forgot we were still thinking about sex.”

  “What else is there to think about?”

  “Okay. Okay. God! I have to name one?”

  “It’s all about you, honey.”

  The call list in her mind flickered by as if she were looking for a telephone number.

  “Don’t think!” Juice said. “Just say the first name that pops into mind.”

  “Christopher,” she said, then immediately covered her mouth.

  “Je-sus!” said Juice. You’re talking about the hot new Brain Dynamics teacher. Oh, oh, oh my!”

  Amy turned away from Juice and hid her head.

  Juice stroked her back, lovingly. “It’s all right,” she said. “I hear he is single. You’ll just have to stand in line with all the other yeasty teenagers drooling all over themselves. But that’s okay. Why not go for the dangerous one. God. I’m proud of you. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  Amy recovered, a little, and sheepishly added, “Since he’s so really out of reach, I guess I won’t have to worry about it.”

  “Maybe. But at least now you have a shopping list.”

  A week went by with classes and bullshit and while Juice couldn’t wait for their next meeting Amy thought it came around too quick. She showed up anyway.

  “How many of you list did you fuck this week?”

  “Very funny.”

  “So what did you think, they’d come knocking on your door. Back you up/against the wall/in the hall/balls and all?”

  “You made that up!”

  “Just for you sweet-pea. I see you changed your drink. A Mai Tai?”

  “Thought it might change my luck.”

  “It’ll change how fast you get drunk, that’s what.”

  “Appropriate.”

  The girls sucked on their drinks and fiddled with the glasses they were served in.

  “But I want a report,” Juice said. “Give me something to chew on.”

  “Not much.”

  “Come on. Give it.”

  “Okay. Well I did say hello to Jonathan.”

  “Wow. Good going. What did he say?”

  “He was getting into his little sports car just as I came alongside so I leaned over and said, nice wheels. He just said thanks but he looked at me pretty hard.”

  “Ah. Nice beginning. Something will come from that. How about the rest of your list?”

  “I caught sight of Richard working on something in the chemistry lab. Ordinarily, I would have passed on by but remembering our conversation, and frankly, the challenge you gave me, I went in and said something silly like, oh I don’t know, what are you making, or something.”

  “Oh this is good.”

  “I was surprised. I always thought he was shy and withdrawn and maybe couldn’t even talk to a girl but he launched right in to a long description about how he was synthesizing Wintergreen and how this was not a natural mint but one completely made up in the lab, and how it had such a fabulous aroma... I got a lesson in synthetic chemistry on the spot.”

  “That’s progress. Did he ask you out?”

  “No. But he did seem interested.”

  “Good work.” Juice turned her head so she was close to Amy’s face and so their eyes made direct contact. “Now, there’s one more on your list.”

  “He’s a professor, Juice. Give me a goddamn break! All I did was gawk.”

  “Maybe he likes gawky girls.”

  “Let’s hope. And now it’s your turn.”

  Juice took a long time to respond. By that action Amy knew before she spoke that there was something dramatic to come forth. When she gathered herself she just shrugged and said, “Rebel and I are toast.”

  “Jesus, Juice. That was sudden.”

  “Not really. Turns out when he fucks a girl publically in all four quadrants of the city he moves on to the next. It’s his M.O.”

  “Bastard!”

  “Yes. But then I have to say I was a little that way myself. A little ready to move on. What he gave me, what we did together, was experimental and daring and lots of fun.”

  Juice paused and let the meanings catch up. “But I am stoked for action, I have to tell you that.”

  Amy turned over in her mind what just happened. An image of a bird released from her cage seemed appropriate.

  “There was something interesting this week,” said Juice.

  “Well that was pretty interesting, I have to say.”

  “I mean in a different way.”

  “Lay it on.”

  “A strange invitation.”

  Amy perked up. She looked directly at Juice.

  “A Masked Ball of some sort.”

  “I got one too.”

  “An invitation?”

  “Yes, something about come and be whoever you want to be.”

  “The very same, and then it said at the bottom, ‘You are invited by the person wearing the Zoro outfit.’ Oh, Amy, this is just the perfect thing.”

  “Mine said the same. Isn’t that curious. It means someone we know invited us both. I’ve never been to a masked ball before and I’m not so sure about it.”

  “Why not? Listen chickadee. Masquerade balls are a fabulous tradition. Especially for women. They allow you to act out behaviors you ordinarily wouldn’t, to be liberated, if you will. You see, behind a mask you can chose not to be yourself but whoever you want, acting however you want. Pretty neat, huh?”

  “Tempting. But why the mask?”

  “I Googled it. Some believe we all wear masks, at least sometimes. In that way we can act out the person we want to become and start living that way with the help of the mask. You see, there’s no shame. You are not so connected to your acts, and yet you are, if you
know what I mean.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Look. Masquerade discloses the reality of souls, said a guy named Pessoa. We can tell secrets and not be ashamed. That’s why there’s such love for Carnival, Mardi Gras. You can let your inner self out. Might be especially good for you since these gatherings all encourage sensuality.”

  “I will not be forced.”

  “No, no, no. No force. You just do what you want and no one will care. There’s power in the wearing of a mask. Why do you think all the comic book superhumans wear masks. Anonymity, to be sure, and that’s key, but also it brings powers: intelligence, healing, warping powers, flight. The rules are gone when the face is hidden.”

  “You sound like an expert.”

  “I did my research. Fits right in with our study of psychology. I might even get a paper out of this.”

  “Meanwhile, what to do?”

  “Aren’t you just the least bit enticed?”

  Amy took in a deep breath and exhaled it noisily. She rubbed a little sugar off the bar top in front of her. Adjusted her glass.

  She smiled. “Let’s fucking do it,” she said.

  They chuckled. Considered the possibilities. Paused.

  “But what will we be?” said Amy.

  Puzzlement. Hard thinking. Then a sudden realization.

  “Of course!” they said simultaneously.

  No brainer for Amy. She went to the costume store and found 10 Wonder Woman costumes. She looked at them long and hard, imagined her filling out each one. After about an hour studying then she picked the sexiest one and bought it. She felt like she was buying smut in the sex shop but the thrill sent her flying.

  She went home and immediately tried it on: Gold headband with a red star in the front, Red cape. There had not been a mask in the costume pack so she found a red one with white fluffy trim. Then there was the bodice, solid red with a winged W on the front. Wow, the front. It nestled her breasts so cozily that they lifted and leaned forward looking like they were reaching into the mirror. She experimented. Pulling the bodice down to reveal more of the plunging neckline, getting shy, pulling it up a little. “Oh, hell.” She said and pulled it down half way. “This way nobody can miss my girls.”