The Taste of a Woman Read online

She liked what she saw, Granger lying on his back, the excitement for her registering in his penis as it bobbed, speaking its language to her.

  “Poor fellow,” she said. “He needs company.”

  And she mounted him. He thrust against her opening.

  “Slowly,” she said. “Slow-ly.”

  He stopped, then started again.

  She felt herself stretch. She put her hand flat on his chest and pushed there. He slowed. She rested a moment then she lifted her pelvis and brought it down directly on him.

  What she felt then has tried to become the subject of several of her songs, never quite finding its way into language. Never surfacing from the mysteries of the body to the mechanics of the mind.

  It was pain she felt. But only partly that. It was also ecstasy. What she realized was she had never felt this close to a man, so inside his realm of privacy, so part of his consciousness. He was tender somehow, infantile, all the manly bullshit dissolved away. It was an agreement that no matter what comes at them down the road they will, after this intimacy, always share a bond together.

  He moaned as she descended on him, one stairstep at a time, watching his pleasure read across his face. It was she who had him after all, notwithstanding his bravado, his tough exterior, his rebellious thrash against the culture of the land. She had him.

  “Finish me,” he said.

  She didn’t know what he meant.

  In one quick jerk he threw her off him and wrapped her hand around his dick, slippery with her mucous all over. “Jack it,’ he said. “Jack it,” almost screaming.

  She squeezed tighter, moved his skin up and down, felt him throb and thrust against her. And then in one powerful seizing motion, white stuff shot out of him onto her shoulder and past her to the bed beside them.

  She watched him come and lurch and then recover, coming slowly back into himself, reclaiming his old personality.

  She took the gism in her hand, rubbing her fingers, imagining the spiritual meaning of this amazing sticky fluid.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  He put his hand on her clit. “Don’t you want me to finish you?”

  She thought for a moment. She was asking that question of herself, reaching down inside her being to see what it wanted. She waited for an answer. Then without saying anything she leaned back on the bed, his hand still in place on her sex and closed her eyes.

  What happened then she could not recall because she seemed to be in some outside place far away from the bed, the house, the town, even from Granger himself. What she remembered she felt was her whole world coming to a rising peak, hovering there as if not knowing where to go, then from the remembering she had in her sinews and muscles and the flowing rivers of the body, she knew exactly where to go.

  She shook and groped, and grunted lightly, and curled finally in the fetal position, pulling his hand away from her vibrating loins.

  He watched her a moment and when the tidal wave receded, slapped her on the bottom. “Time for the real world,” he said.

  “What happens if I don’t want to go there?”

  Cecily pulled her guitar into her arms and rested it there. She turned her head to one side. A rocking motion began in her body that extended slowly into her fingers strumming across the strings.

  What happens if I don’t want to go there?

  What is the world

  If I won’t go with it?

  Who are the people there?

  How will they do what they do

  Without me?

  She set the guitar aside. Needs a refrain, she thought. What was this song about, anyway? Started out to be about the town, ended up talking about Granger. Maybe both? Will it make up its freaking mind?

  She started humming to herself.

  You wanted me on the great green bed,

  The upstairs room

  With your guns in a row

  You wanted the animal inside of me

  But you didn’t want my soul.

  That was the heart of it, she thought. She laughed. Always the broken heart.

  She leaned back and propped her feet up on the stoop. Something about humiliations that made good fodder for songs. Had to be worth something.

  The sun was drifting down into the trees, playing dodge-ball patterns on the walk. The toke was gone. Should she roll another?

  The song played itself in the recording studio of the mind. She could see the band, the crowds, the lights pressing hard against her as she stood at the mic. But it still needs a bridge.

  She picked up the guitar and decided to let her questions come forth.

  A girl walks down the street

  The sounds of the town

  Talking at her

  Talking at her

  Deacons in their pews

  Ladies at their garden club.

  Talking talking talking

  She says to herself

  What am I doing here?

  Why am I out of my element?

  This is my home town

  A song in my head

  And my lover off lovin’

  Without me.

  Every song a message, she thought. It’s a privilege to be a songwriter, creating something that someone out there is going to hear and respond to: a piece of wisdom if we’re lucky, some authentic human action, kind or unkind. It’s about telling hard truths.

  What was the hard truth of Granger and her? What did she want that truth to be?

  She couldn’t figure it. But in her head the refrain came back to her.

  You wanted me on the great green bed,

  The upstairs room

  With your guns in a row

  You wanted the animal inside of me

  But you didn’t want my soul.

  Bert came back. “Finished that song, hot lady?”

  “You know better.”

  “Songs don’t come easy.”

  “What does?”

  “Don’t cost fifty-cents.”

  Bert moved her legs away and sat next to her on the stoop. “One thing more,” he said. “When you are writing those hard things to say, you lose five pounds.”

  “I lost five pounds just since you got here.”

  Cecily did roll another toke. They shared it in the liberating rise of their spirits and watched the trees sway back and forth.

  “Maybe you can help me,” she said after a while.

  “Help you what?”

  “Help me finish the goddamned song, you dolt.”

  He raised an eyebrow and shrugged one shoulder. “You know I’ll do what I can.”

  To his everlasting surprise, she reached over and kissed him, then drug him indoors. She pushed him into her bed.

  It was a lot different than it was with Granger. He caressed her like she was a treasure unwrapped, layer by layer. She kept her eyes closed and was imagining the faces of Burt and Granger mixed together, Burt morphing to Granger then back again, speaking softly, kissing her neck, running his fingers through her hair. She opened her eyes and pulled him to her, hungrily gulping his mouth, his tongue.

  Her clothes were gone. Here was that freedom once again, only now there was no fear, no worry, only anticipation.

  He must have known, for he moved his hands slowly down her shoulders to her breasts, encircling them with his fingertips, lifting them, squeezing them, his hands diving down the narrow thinness of her abdomen to the rise above her sex where he paused.

  She waited, not knowing what was to come.

  She felt something moving against her labia. Something wet, a little rough. She looked. God! It was his tongue. Jesus, how excruciatingly rich. She let herself go and felt her loins fill with the fluid ru
sh the goddess of sexual pleasure designed for her, lubrication for the love fuck.

  She was ready. Beyond ready.

  She was about to reach up, grab him by the dick and put him inside her but he was already guiding himself at her opening, which he now pressed against, asking and demanding. She reached down and with two fingers, spread her labia and arched her pelvis against him. He entered and swam inside her like a fish in a bowl.

  She was at peace, completely. She could leave what was to come to the wisdom of the body and the good graces of a friendly man. This might be a piece of the richness she’d been looking for.

  He was quickening his pace. She felt herself rocking the bed, a small boat in a large sea. She would let him come inside her. It would be safe. She hoped.

  How different this was. So much more . . intimate.

  She grabbed hold of his buttock and clenched him to her. He arched his back and burst loose. When the throbbing ceased and he withdrew, he curled up beside her. She sat up then and reached for pencil and paper. She wrote these words:

  You never really loved me

  You ran

  You sorry dog.

  But you taught me how to love...

  Someone new.

  The sun was down. That quality of angular light at the end of the day filled with color had faded. A southerly breeze cooled the window above them, the curtain drifting over them like a papal blessing.

  She looked back at Burt. Wasn’t this strange? He was curled away from her in the bed, eyes closed.

  She nestled in behind him, played with a lock of his hair and put her arms around him.

  This was going to be an interesting road tour.

  With Your Eyes

  “You’re undressing me with your eyes again,” she said and sat opposite him in the overstuffed chair.

  He smiled faintly and removed his eyes from the place where they’d been stuck ever since she entered the room. He glanced down at his Sunday Times.

  “I can tell that look. Every woman can.”

  She reached over and pulled down his paper. “Look at me,” she said.

  He folded his hands and did as he was told.

  “That’s a different look right now,” she said. “Before, when I came in the room your eyes were flashing. Now they are filled with layers of perplexity and something else, amusement, perhaps.”

  He let one hand drift out to his side, palm up, and shrugged his shoulder.

  “Ah, the arrogance of men,” she said, “searching, searching.” She shifted forward in the chair and arched her spine. She placed her hand on her chest, fingers encircling her breast and stretched the tissue of her blouse against it so that every detail reflected to the surface, the slant from her upper ribs, the arc of the underside, even the areola and nipple pressed into view.

  “Is this what you want?” she said.

  No matter how hard he tried he could not suppress a smile.

  “Men are so predictable. You know this breast. You’ve kissed it, licked it, photographed it, watched it drift over you in bed. There is nothing new about it yet you simply cannot resist.”

  She reached inside her blouse and brought it out for three seconds then nestled it back in its home. His lips parted unselfconsciously.

  “Show a man a nipple,” she said, “and he turns to silt.”

  He reached for his espresso, took a long drink, wiped his lips and was about to reach for his paper when she took it from him and sat next to him.

  “Are you seducing me?” he asked.

  She linked her arm in his and leaned into him. “Just curious,” she said.

  He allowed himself a slight chuckle.

  “You’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of breasts. Probably touched a great many. You’ve watched them grow on daughters and young ladies. Yet you never lose your fascination.”

  He made a gesture to speak but she interrupted him. “Nor do I want you to,” she said, lifting one finger.

  She put her head on his shoulder.

  “I watched you undress Clarisse at the office party the other night... ”

  “Aww, come o. . “

  “... with your eyes. And don’t deny it. It will ruin this conversation if you lie. Besides, I liked, maybe even loved, watching you do it.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Absolutely serious. It was a turn on. Think about it. The fact that you were examining her body, familiarizing your self with her narrow waist, the round hips, the tilt of her breasts... it’s a cut to the core.”

  “What core?”

  She took his mug from his hands and finished the remaining electric contents.

  “We walk in a lie all the time. You wanted to fuck Clarisse but you were not allowed. Partly that arouses even more desire on your part but the social morays deny you that right. The arc of marriage and family denies you that right. That doesn‘t mean you don’t feel it. The excitement is in how you process your desires in the tight constriction of social graces. That makes for tension of the most delicious kind and that is the kind that is very exciting.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Actually, yes. But, do I want you not to undress Clarisse? No way. It just made me hold on to you more closely. We were dancing, remember? That moment was the one I pushed your hand down on my ass and forced my thigh between your legs. You see, we both got a thrill out of it.”

  She snuggled tighter into him, crossing her leg over his lap.

  “I think you don’t understand women very well.”

  “Probably not. Now that you mention it, I’m sure I don’t.”

  “You’ve had your first lesson. Now let’s see if we can understand men a little better.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Now about this breast business, tell me why you can never get enough.”

  A troubled look came to his face. It took him a while to come up with, “I’m wired that way.”

  “So you’re giving me that wolf-pack mentality jazz. Wolves in men’s clothings. Survival of the species. That shit. Impregnate the universe so that little children can carry on the family traits.”

  He remained silent.

  “Don’t pout. Just go deeper.”

  He got up and went to the kitchen. She followed. He poured another cup. She hugged him, grinding softly against him from behind. He turned and leaned against the counter.

  “Part of it is a... quiet flirtation.”

  “That would be your imagination working. Plus a little self-serving arrogance on your part. You presume the woman is flirting.”

  “No, not at all. Take the way Clarisse was dressed.”

  “You liked that?”

  “What’s not to like? Face it. Her neckline dropped dangerously low then crossed under her belt like she was wearing a Roman Toga. But the material was so silky that it clinged to her skin...

  He stopped, realizing how this was sounding.

  She laughed out loud. “Go on. Go on. This is exactly what I’m looking for.”

  “It’s going to make you mad.”

  “I promise.”

  He shot her a doubtful look, shrugged and continued.

  “Well, it clung to her body everywhere, breasts, waist, hips. . I mean. . how do you ignore that?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I mean she intended not to be ignored. Not only that, it was intended to come dangerously close to the line which means it was in the plans, consciously or unconsciously, to take advantage of what she knew would be a lustful audience, given the booze and festivity of the hour.”

  “Oh, that’s classic! Typical man response. She asked for it? Isn’t that what rapists say?”

  He turned from her and dropped his cup noisily to the granite countertop. “I knew th
is was a bad idea.”

  “Jesus!” she said. “Just shake it off. We’re not in Sunday School. Dig a little deeper. Come on.”

  He looked at her with a look of a bird in a trap, wariness mixed with a dilated pupil. I’m fucked, he thought. May as well continue.

  He thought for a moment. She stood by, her eyes fixed on him, watching every emotion spilling forth.

  “In every lie there is always a little truth,” he said.

  She cocked her head in curious anticipation.

  “I mean, down deep Clarisse wanted men to look at her, wanted their lustful eyes, wanted to feel the feel of a man undressing her, especially in the middle of a dance floor where no one has the balls to do it.”

  “That’s what you think?”

  “That’s what I think. She would never admit it because that plays into that date-rape game but it is there, down deep, I can assure you.”

  “You’re going to be in trouble with woman’s lib.”

  “I already am. But there is a distinction. I think it is not so much seduction as it is a wish to be wanted.”

  “Explain.”

  “Clarisse did not want to be attacked she just wanted the thrill of someone wanting to attack her.”

  She was silent.

  “Think of yourself. Don’t you want the desires of other men focused on you?”

  “No,” she said. Then, “well.” Then, “Sometimes... May-be.”

  “Point taken.”

  She stepped away from him and launched herself up to the counter where she sat, facing him, hands clasped between her legs, eyes refocused on his.

  “I told you I could be jealous of you. Are you jealous of me?

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  She was astonished. “Why not?”

  “We are married. We had a long courtship. The marriage is stable. I don’t have anything to worry about.”

  She jumped down from the counter and started pacing. “That’s arrogance,” she said. “Think about it. You think you are so perfect in your attractiveness that I would never be tempted to stray. It’s also stupidity. You think I don’t have the same desires you do. You think that the will to wander, to experiment, to jump to something new is only a male thing?”