The 1st Deadly Sin

3

She had been one of the first women in Manhattan to leave off her brassiere. He had been one of the first men in Manhattan to use a necktie as a belt. She had been one of the first to adopt a workman’s lunch pail as a purse. He had been one of the first to wear loafers without socks. The first! A zeal for the new bedeviled them, drove them.

No notice of Florence and Samuel Morton was made in the long, detailed separation agreement signed by the Blanks. Gilda took the Buick sedan, the Waterford crystal, the Picasso print. Daniel took the apartment lease, 100 shares of U.S. Steel, and the Waring blender. No one mentioned the Mortons. It was tacitly assumed they were Daniel’s “best friends,” and he was to have them. So he did.

They contradicted the folk saying, “Opposites attract.” Husband and wife, they were obverse and reverse of the same coin. Where did Samuel leave off and Florence begin? No one could determine. They were a bifocal image. No. They were a double image, both in focus simultaneously.

Physically they were so alike that strangers took them for brother and sister. Short, bony-thin, with helmets of black, oily hair, both had ferrety features, the quick, sharp movements of creatures assailed.

He, married, had been a converter of synthetic textiles. She, married, had been a fabric designer. They met on a picket line protesting a performance of “The Merchant of Venice,” and discovered they had the same psychoanalyst. A year later they were divorced, married to each other, and had agreed to have no children because of the population explosion. Both gladly, cheerfully, joyfully, submitted to operations.

Their marriage was two magnets clicking together. They had identical loves, fears, hopes, prejudices, ambitions, tastes, moods, dislikes, despairs. They were one person multiplied by two. They slept together in a king-sized bed, entwined.

They changed their life styles as often as their underwear. They were ahead of everyone. Before it was fashionable, they bought pop art, op-art, and then switched back to realism sooner than art critics. They went through marijuana, amphetamines, barbiturates, speed, and a single, shaking trial of heroin, before returning to dry vermouth on the rocks. They were first to try new restaurants, first to wear Mickey Mouse watches, first to discover new tenors, first to see new movies, plays, ballets, first to wear their sunglasses pushed atop their heads. They explored all New York and spread the word: “This incredible little restaurant in Chinatown…The best belly-dancer on the West Side…That crazy junk shop on Canal Street…”

Born Jews, they found their way to Catholicism via Uni-tarianism, Methodism, and Episcopalianism (with a brief dabble in Marxism). After converting and confessing once, they found this groovy Evangelical church in Harlem where everyone clapped hands and shouted. Nothing lasted. Everything started. They plunged into Yoga, Zen, and Hare Krishna. They turned to astrology, took high colonics, and had a whiskered guru to dinner.

They threw themselves in the anti-Vietnam War movement and went to Washington to carry placards, parade and shout slogans. Once Sam was hit on the head by a construction worker. Once Flo was spat upon by a Wall Street executive. Then they spent three weeks in a New Hampshire commune where 21 people slept in one room.

“They did nothing but verbalize!” said Sam.

“No depth, no significance!” said Flo.

“A bad scene!” they said together.

What drove them, what sparked their search for “relevance,” their hunger to “communicate,” to have a “meaningful dialogue,” to find the “cosmic flash,” to uncover “universal contact,” to, in fact, refashion the universe, was guilt.

Their great talent, the gift they denied because it was so vulgar, was simply this: both had a marvelous ability to make money. The psychedelic designs of Florence sold like, mad. Samuel was one of the first men on Seventh Avenue to foresee the potential of the “youth market.” They started their own factory. Money poured in.

Both, now in their middle 30’s, had been the first with the new. They leeched onto the social chaos of the 1960’s: the hippies, flower children, the crazy demand for denim jeans and fringed leather jackets and pioneer skirts and necklaces for men and Indian beads and granny glasses and all the other paraphernalia of the young, taken up so soon by their elders.

The Mortons profited mightily from their perspicacity, but it seemed to them a cheesy kind of talent. Without acknowledging it both knew they were growing wealthy from what had begun as a sincere and touching crusade. Hence their frantic rushing about from picket line to demonstration, from parade to confrontation. They wanted to pay their dues.

In further expiation, they sold the factory (at an enormous profit) and opened a boutique on Madison Avenue, an investment they were happily convinced would be a disaster. It was called “Erotica,” based on a unique concept for a store. The idea had come to them while attending religious services of a small Scandinavian sect in Brooklyn which worshipped Thor.

“I’m bored with idleness,” he murmured.

“So am I,” she murmured.

“A store?” he suggested. “Just to keep busy.”

“A shop?” she suggested. “A fun thing.”

“A boutique,” he said.

“Elegant and expensive,” she said. “We’ll lose a mint.”

“Something different,” he mused. “Not hotpants and paper dresses, miniskirts and skinny sweaters, army jackets and newsboy caps. Something really different. What do people want?”

“Love?” she mused.

“Oh yes,” he nodded. “That’s it.”

Their boutique, Erotica, sold only items related, however distantly, to love and sex. It sold satin sheets in 14 colors (including black), and a “buttock pillow” advertised merely “for added comfort and convenience.” It carried Valentines and books of love poetry; perfumes and incense; phonograph records that established a mood; scented creams and lotions; phallic candles; amorous prints, paintings, etchings and posters; unisex lingerie; lace pajamas for men, leather nightgowns for women; and whips for both. An armed guard had to be hired to eject certain obviously disturbed customers.

Erotica was an instant success. Florence and Samuel Morton became wealthier. Depressed, they turned to blackstrap molasses and acupuncture. Making money was their tragic talent. Their blessing was that they were without malice.

And the first thing Daniel Blank saw upon awaking Sunday morning was the note on his bedside table, the invitation to brunch from Flo and Sam. They would, he remembered fondly, serve things like hot Syrian bread, iced lumpfish, smoked carp, six kinds of herring. Champagne, even.

He padded naked to the front door, unlocked chains and bars, took in his New York Times. He went through the ritual of relocking, carried the newspaper to the kitchen, returned to the bedroom, began his 30 minutes of exercise in front of the mirror on the closet door.

It was the quiet Sunday routine he had grown to cherish since living alone. The day and its lazy possibilities stretched ahead in a golden glow. His extensions and sit-ups and bends brought him warm and tingling into a new world; anything was possible.

He showered quickly, gloating to see his dried skin had softened and smoothed. He stood before the medicine cabinet mirror to shave, and wondered once again if he should grow a mustache. Once again he decided against it. It would, he felt, make him look older, although a drooping Fu-Manchu mustache with his glabrous skull might be interesting. Exciting?

His face was coffin-shaped and elegant, small ears set close to the bone. The jaw was slightly aggressive, lips sculpted, freshly colored. The nose was long, somewhat pinched, with elliptic nostrils. His eyes were his best feature: large, widely spaced, with a brown iris. Brows were thick, sharply delineated.

Curiously, he appeared older full-face than in profile. From the front he seemed brooding. Lines were discernible from nose creases to the corners of his mouth. The halves of his face were identical; the effect was that of a religious mask. He rarely blinked and smiled infrequently.

But in profile he looked more alert. His face came alive. There was young expectation there: noble brow, clear eye, straight nose, carved and mildly pouting lips, strong chin. You could see the good bones of cheek and jaw.

He completed shaving, applied “Faun” after-shave lotion, powdered his jaw lightly, sprayed his armpits with a scented antiperspirant. He went back into the bedroom and considered how to dress.

The Mortons with their “…Thousands of fantastic pip-ple…” were sure to have a motley selection of the bizarre friends and acquaintances they collected: artists and designers; actors and writers; dancers and directors; with a spicy sprinkling of addicts, whores and arsonists. All, on a Sunday morning, would be informally and wildly costumed.

To be different-aloof from the mob, above the throng-he pulled on his conservative “Ivy League” wig, grey flannel slacks, Gucci loafers, a white cashmere turtleneck sweater, a jacket of suede in a reddish brown. He stuffed a yellow-patterned foulard kerchief in his breast pocket.

He went into the kitchen and brewed a small pot of coffee. He drank two cups black, sitting at the kitchen table and leafing through the magazine section of the Sunday Times. The ads proved that current male fashions had become more creative, colorful, and exciting than female.

At precisely 11:30, he locked his front door and took the elevator up to the Mortons’ penthouse apartment on the 34th floor.

He was alone in the elevator, there was no one waiting for entrance at the Mortons’ door and, when he listened, he could hear no sounds of revelry inside. Perplexed, he rang the bell, expecting the door to be answered by Blanche, the Mortons’ live-in maid, or perhaps by a butler hired for the occasion.

But Samuel Morton himself opened the door, stepped quickly out into the corridor, closed but did not latch the door behind him.

He was a vigorous, elfin man, clad in black leather shirt and jeans studded with steel nailheads. He twinkled when he moved. His eyes, shining with glee, were two more nailheads. He put a hand on Daniel Blank’s arm.

“Dan,” he pleaded, “don’t be sore.”

Blank groaned theatrically, “Sam, not again? You promised not to. What’s with you and Flo? Are you professional matchmakers? I told you I can find my own women.”

“Look, Dan, is it so terrible? We want you to be happy! Is that so terrible? Your happiness-that’s all! All right, blame us. But we’re so happy together we want everyone to be happy like us!”

“You promised,” Blank accused. “Sam, your cuffs are about a half-inch too long. After that disaster with the jewelry designer, you promised. Who’s this one?”

Morton stepped closer, whispering…

“You won’t believe. An original! I swear to God…Here he held up his right hand. “…an original! She comes into the store last week. She’s wearing a sable coat down to her ankles! It’s a warm day, but she’s wearing an ankle-length fur. And sable! Not mink. Dan-sable! And she’s-beautiful in an offbeat, kinky way. Marilyn Monroe she’s not, but she’s got this thing. She scares you! Yes. Maybe not beautiful. But something else. Something better! So in she comes wearing this long sable coat. Fifty thousand that coat-at least! And with her is this kid, a boy, maybe eleven, twelve, around there. And he is beautiful! The most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen-and you know I don’t swing that way! But she’s not married. The kid’s her brother. Anyhow, we get to talking, and Flo admires her coat, and it turns out she bought it in Russia. Russia! And she lives in a townhouse on East End Avenue. Can you imagine? East End Avenue! A townhouse! She’s got to be loaded. So one thing leads to another, and we invited her up for brunch. So what’s so terrible?”

“Did you also tell her you were inviting a friend-male and divorced-who is living in lonely anguish and seeking the companionship of a good woman?”

“No. I swear!”

“Sam, I don’t believe you.”

“Dan, would I lie to you?”

“Of course. Like your ‘thousands of fantastic pipple’.”

“Well…Flo may have casually mentioned a few neighbors might stop by.”

Daniel laughed. Sam grabbed his arm, pulled him close. “Just take a look, a quick look. Like no woman you’ve ever met! I swear to you, Dan-an original. You have simply got to meet this woman! Even if nothing comes of it-naturally Flo and I are hoping-but even if nothing happens, believe me it will be an experience for you. Here is a new human being! You’ll see. You’ll see. Her name is Celia Montfort. My name is Sam and her name is Celia. Right away that tells a lot-no?”

The Mortons’ apartment was a shambles, thrift shop, rats’ nest, charity bazaar, gypsy camp: as incoherent as their lives. They redecorated at least twice a year, and these upheavals had left a squabble of detritus: chairs in Swedish modern, a Victorian love seat, a Sheraton lowboy, a wooden Indian, Chinese vases, chromium lamps, Persian rugs, a barber pole, a Plexiglas table, ormolu ashtrays, Tiffany glass, and paintings in a dozen trendy styles, framed and unframed, hung and propped against the wall.

And everywhere, books, magazines, prints, photographs, newspapers, posters, swatches of cloth, smoking incense, boxes of chocolates, fresh flowers, fashion sketches, broken cigarettes, a bronze screw propeller and a blue bedpan: all mixed, helter-skelter, as if giant salad forks had dug into the furnishings of the apartment, tossed them to the ceiling, allowed them to flutter down as they would, pile up, tilt, overlap, and create a setting of frenzied disorder that stunned visitors but proved marvelously comfortable and relaxing.

Sam Morton led Daniel to the entrance of the living room, tugging him along by the arm, fearful of his escaping. Blank waved a hand at Blanche, working in the kitchen, as he passed.

In the living room, Flo Morton smiled and blew a kiss to Dan. He turned from her to look at the woman who had been speaking when they entered, and who would not stop to acknowledge their presence.

“It is bad logic and worse semantics,” she was saying in a voice curiously devoid of tone and inflection. “‘Black is beautiful’? It’s like saying, ‘Down is up.’ I know they mean to affirm their existence and assert their pride. But they have chosen a battlecry no one, not even themselves, can believe. Because words have more than meaning, you see. The meaning of words is merely the skeleton, almost as basic as the spelling. But words also have emotional weight. The simplest, most innocent words-as far as definition is concerned-can be an absolute horror emotionally. A word that looks plain and unassuming when written or printed can stir us to murder or delight. ‘Black is beautiful’? To the human race, to whites, blacks, yellows, reds, black can never be beautiful. Black is evil and will always seem so. For black is darkness, and that is where fears lie and nightmares are born. Blackhearted. Black sheep of the family. Black art: the magic practised by witches. Black mass. These are not racial slurs. They spring from man’s primitive fear of the dark. Black is the time or place without light, where dangers lurk, and death. Children are naturally afraid of the dark. It is not taught them; they are born with it. And even some adults sleep with a nightlight. ‘Behave yourself or the boogie man will get you.’ I imagine even Negro children are told that. The ‘boogie’-a black monster who comes out of the dark, the perilous dark. Black is the unknowable. Black is danger. Black is evil. Black is death. But ‘Black is beautiful’? Never. They’ll never get anyone to believe that. We are all animals. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

She raised her eyes to look directly at Daniel Blank. He was startled. He had been so engrossed with her lecture, so intent on following her thought, that he had no clear idea of what she looked like. Now, as Florence Morton hastily introduced them, as he crossed the room to take Celia Montfort’s proffered hand, he inspected her closely.

She sat curled up in the softness of a big armchair that was all foam, red velvet and cigarette burns. Strangely, for a Sunday morning, she was wearing an elegant evening shift of black satin. The neckline was straight across, the dress suspended from bare shoulders by “spaghetti straps.” She wore a thin choker of diamonds, and on the wrist of the hand she held out to Blank was a matching bracelet. He wondered if perhaps she had been to an all-night party and had been unable to go home to change. He thought so when he saw the silk evening slippers.

Her hair was so black it was almost purple, parted in the middle, and fell loosely below her shoulders without wave or curl. It gave her thin face a witch-like appearance, enhanced by long, slender hands, tapering fingers with stiletto nails.

Her bare arms, shoulders, the tops of her small breasts revealed by the low-cut gown: all gleamed against the red velvet. There was a peculiar, limpid nakedness to her flesh. The arms were particularly sensual: smooth, hairless, as seemingly boneless as tentacles: arms squeezed from tubes.

It was difficult to estimate her height or appreciate her figure while she was coiled into the armchair. Blank judged her a tall woman, perhaps five foot six or more, with a good waist, flat hips, hard thighs. But at the moment all that was of little importance to him; her face bewitched him, her eyes locked with his.

They were grey eyes, or were they a light blue? Her thin brows were arched, or were they straight? Her nose was-what? An Egyptian nose? A nose from a sarcophagus or bas-relief? And those parted lips: were they full and dry, or flat and moist? The long chin, like the toe of her silk slipper-was that enchanting or perhaps too masculine? As Sam Morton had said, not beautiful. But something there. Something better? It needed study.

He had the impression that at this time, noon on a bright Sunday, wearing Saturday night’s stale finery, her face and body were smudged with weariness. There was a languor in her posture, her skin was pallid, and faint violet shadows were beneath her eyes. She had the scent of debauchery, and her toneless voice came from senses punished beyond feeling and passions spent.

Florence and Samuel immediately launched into a violent denunciation of her “Black is beautiful” comments. Daniel watched to see how she reacted to this assault. He saw at once she had the gift of repose: no twistings there, no squirmings, no fiddling with bracelet, fluffing hair, touching ears. She sat quietly, composed, and Daniel suddenly realized she was not listening to her critics. She was withdrawn from all of them.

She was gone but not, he guessed, day-dreaming. She was not floating; she had pulled back within herself, sinking deeper into her own thoughts, hungers, hopes. Those eyes, indecipherable as water, attended them, but he had a sense of her estrangement. He wanted to be in her country, if only for a visit, to look around and see what the place was like.

Flo paused for an answer to a question. But there was no answer. Celia Montfort merely regarded her with a somewhat glassy stare, her face expressionless. The moment was saved by the entrance of Blanche, pushing a big-three-shelved cart laden with hot and cold dishes, a pitcher of Bloody Marys, an iced bottle of sparkling rose.

The food was less unconventional than Blank had hoped, but still the poached eggs were sherried, the ham was in burgundy sauce, the mushroom omelette brandied, the walnut waffles swimming in rum-flavored maple syrup.

“Eat!” commanded Flo.

“Enjoy!” commanded Sam.

Daniel had a single poached egg, a strip of bacon, a glass of wine. Then he settled back with a bunch of chilled Concord grapes, listening to the Mortons’ chatter, watching Celia Montfort silently and intently devour an immense amount of food.

Afterward they had small, warmed Portuguese brandies. Daniel and the Mortons carried on a desultory conversation about Art Deco, a current fad. Celia’s opinion was asked, but she shook her head. “I know nothing about it.” After that she sat quietly, brandy glass clasped in both hands, eyes brooding. She had no talent for small talk. Complain of bad weather and she might, he thought, deliver you a sermon on humility. Strange woman. What was it Sam had said-“She scares you.” Why on earth should he have said that-unless he was referring to her disturbing silences, her alienation: which might be nothing more than egoism and bad manners.

She rose suddenly to her feet and, for the first time, Blank saw her body clearly. As he had guessed, she was tall, but thinner and harder than he had suspected. She carried herself well, moved with a sinuous grace, and her infrequent gestures were small and controlled.

She said she must go, giving Flo and Sam a bleak smile. She thanked them politely for their hospitality. Flo brought her coat: a cape of weighted silk brocade, as dazzling as a matador’s jacket. Blank was now convinced she had not been home to that East End Avenue townhouse since Saturday evening, nor slept at all the previous night.

She moved to the door. Flo and Sam looked at him expectantly.

“May I see you home?” he asked.

She looked at him thoughtfully.

“Yes,” she said finally. “You may.”

The Mortons exchanged a rapid glance of triumph. They waited in the hallway, in their studded jumpsuits, grinning like idiots, until the elevator door shut them away.

In the elevator, unexpectedly, she asked: “You live in this building, don’t you?”

“Yes. The twenty-first floor.”

“Let’s go there.”

Ten minutes later she was in his bedroom, brocaded cape dropped to the floor, and fast asleep atop the covers of his bed, fully clothed. He picked up her cape, hung it away, slipped off her shoes and placed them neatly alongside the bed. Then he closed the door softly, went back into the living room to read the Sunday New York Times, and tried not to think of the strange woman sleeping in his bed.

At 4:30, finished with his paper, he looked in upon her. She was lying face up on the pillows, her great mass of black hair fanned out. He was stirred. From the shoulders down she had turned onto her side and slept holding her bare arms. He took a light wool blanket from the linen closet and covered her gently. Then he went into the kitchen to eat a peeled apple and swallow a yeast tablet.

An hour later he was seated in the dim living room, trying to recall her features and understand why he was so intrigued by her sufficiency. The look of the sorceress, the mysterious wizard, could be due, he decided, to the way she wore her long, straight hair and the fact, as he suddenly realized, that she wore no make-up at all: no powder, no lipstick, no eyeshadow. Her face was naked.

He heard her moving about. The bathroom door closed; the toilet was flushed. He switched on lamps. When she came into the living room he noted that she had put on her shoes and combed her hair smooth.

“Don’t you ever wear any make-up?” he asked her.

She stared at him a long moment.

“Occasionally I rouge my nipples.”

He gave her a sardonic smile. “Isn’t that in poor taste?”

She caught his lewd meaning at once. “Witty man,” she said in her toneless voice. “Might I have a vodka? Straight. Lots of ice, please. And a wedge of lime, if you have it.” When he came back with identical drinks for both, she was curled up on his Tobia Scarpa sofa, her face softly illuminated by a Marc Lepage inflatable lamp. He saw at once her weariness had vanished with sleep; she was serene. But with a shock he saw something he had not noticed before: a fist-sized bruise on the bicep of her left arm: purple and angry.

She took the drink from his hand. Her fingers were cool, bloodless as plastic.

“I like your apartment,” she said.

Under the terms of the separation agreement, Gilda Blank had taken most of the antiques, the overstuffed furniture, the velvet drapes, the shag rugs. Daniel was happy to see it all go. The apartment had come to stiffle him. He felt muffled by all that carved wood and heavy cloth: soft things that burdened, then swaddled him.

He had redecorated the almost empty apartment in severe modern, most of the things from Knoll. There was chrome and glass, black leather and plastic, stainless steel and white enamel. The apartment was now open, airy, almost spidery in its delicacy. He kept furniture to a minimum, leaving the good proportions of the living room to make their own statement. The mirrored wall was cluttered wit, but otherwise the room was clean, precise, and exalting as a museum gallery.

“A room like this proves you don’t require roofs,” she told him. “You have destroyed the past by ignoring it. Most people have a need for history, to live in a setting that constantly reminds of past generations. They take comfort and meaning from feeling themselves part of the flow, what was, is, will be. I think that is a weak, shameful emotion. It takes strength to break free, forget the past and deny the future. That’s what this room does. Here you can exist by yourself in yourself, with no crutches. The room is without sentiment. Are you without sentiment?”

“Oh,” he said, “I don’t think so. Without emotion perhaps. Is your apartment in modern? As austere as this?”

“It is not an apartment. It’s a townhouse. It belongs to my parents.”

“Ah. They are still living then?”

“Yes,” she said. “They are still living.”

“I understand you live with your brother.”

“His name is Anthony. Tony. He’s twenty years younger than I. Mother had him late in life. It was an embarrassment to her. She and my father prefer him to live with me.”

“And where do they live?”

“Oh, here and there,” she said vaguely. “There is one thing I don’t like about this room.”

“What is that?”

She pointed to a black cast iron candelabrum with twelve contorted arms. Fitted to each was a white taper.

“I don’t like unburned candles,” she said tonelessly. “They seem to me as dishonest as plastic flowers and wallpaper printed to look like brick.”

“Easily remedied,” he said, rose and slowly lighted the candles.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s better.”

“Are you ready for another drink?”

“Bring the vodka and a bucket of ice out here. Then you won’t have to run back and forth.”

“Yes,” he said, “I will.”

When he returned, she had snuffed three of the tapers. She added ice and vodka to her glass.

“We’ll snuff them at intervals. So they will be in various lengths. I’m glad you have the dripless kind. I like candles, but I don’t like leavings of dead wax.”

“Memories of past pleasures?”

“Something like that. But also too reminiscent of bad Italian restaurants with candles in empty Chianti bottles and too much powdered garlic in the sauce. I hate fakery. Rhinestones and padded brassieres.”

“My wife-” he started. “My ex-wife-” he amended, “wore a padded bra. The strange thing was that she didn’t need it. She was very well endowed. Is.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Gilda? A very pleasant woman. We’re both from Indiana. We met at the University. A blind date. I was a year ahead of her. We went together occasionally. Nothing serious. I came to New York. Then she came here, a year later, and we started seeing each other again. Serious, this time.”

“What was she like? Physically, I mean.”

“A large woman, with a tendency to put on weight. She loved rich food. Her mother is enormous. Gilda is blonde. What you’d call a ‘handsome woman.’ A good athlete. Swimming, tennis, golf, skiing-all that. Very active in charities, social organizations. Took lessons in bridge. Chinese cooking, and music appreciation. Things like that.”

“No children?”

“No.”

“How long were you married?”

“Ahh…He stared at her. “My God, I can’t remember. Of course. Seven years. Almost eight. Yes, that’s right. Almost eight years.”

“You didn’t want children?”

“I didn’t-no.”

“She?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you divorced?”

“Oh no. No, that had nothing to do with it. We divorced because-well, why did we divorce? Incompatibility, I guess. We just grew apart. She went her way and I went mine.”

“What was her way?”

“You’re very personal.”

“Yes. You can always refuse to answer.”

“Well, Gilda is a very healthy, well-adjusted, out-going woman. She likes people, likes children, parties, picnics, the theatre, church. Whenever we went to the theatre or a movie where the audience was asked to sing along with the entertainer or music, she would sing along. That’s the kind of woman she was.”

“A sing-alonger with a padded brassiere.”

“And plastic flowers,” he added. “Well, not plastic. But she did buy a dozen roses made of silk. I couldn’t convince her they were wrong.”

He rose to blow out another three candles. He came back to sit in his Eames chair. Suddenly she came over to sit on the hassock in front of him. She put a light hand on his knee. “What happened?” she whispered.

“You guessed?” he said, not surprised. “A strange story. I don’t understand it myself.”

“Have you told the Mortons?”

“My God, no. I’ve told no one.”

“But you want to tell me.”

“Yes I want to tell you. And I want you to explain it to me. Well, Gilda is a normal, healthy woman who enjoys sex. I do too. Our sex was very good. It really was. At the start anyway. But you know, you get older and it doesn’t seem so important. To her, anyway. But I don’t mean to put her down. She was good and enthusiastic in bed. Perhaps unimaginative. Sometimes she’d laugh at me. But a normal, healthy woman.”

“You keep saying healthy, healthy, healthy.”

“Well, she was. Is. A big, healthy woman. Big legs. Big breasts. A glow to her skin. Rubens would have loved her. Well…about three years ago we took a summer place for the season on Barnegat Bay. You know where that is?”

“No.”

“The Jersey shore. South of Bay Head. It was beautiful. Fine beach, white sand, not too crowded. One afternoon we had some neighbors over for a cook-out. We all had a lot to drink. It was fun. We were all in bathing suits, and we’d drink, get a little buzz on, and then go into the ocean to swim and sober up, and then eat and drink some more. It was a wonderful afternoon. Eventually everyone went home. Gilda and I were alone. Maybe a little drunk, hot from the sun and food and laughing. We went back into our cottage and decided to have sex. So we took off our bathing suits. But we kept our sunglasses on.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know why we did it, but we did. Maybe we thought it was funny. Anyway, we made love wearing those dark, blank glasses so we couldn’t see each other’s eyes.”

“Did you like it?”

“The sex? For me it was a revelation, a door opening. I guess Gilda thought it was funny and forgot it. I can never forget it. It was the most sexually exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life. There was something primitive and frightening about it. It’s hard to explain. But it shook me. I wanted to do it again.”

“But she didn’t?”

“That’s right. Even after we came back to New York and it was winter, I suggested we wear sunglasses in bed, but she wouldn’t. I suppose you think I’m crazy?”

“Is that the end of the story?”

“No. There’s more. Wait until I blow out more candles.”

“I’ll get them.”

She snuffed out three more tapers. Only three were left burning, getting down close to the iron sockets. She came back to sit on the ottoman again.

“Go on.”

“Well, I was browsing around Brentano’s-this was the winter right after Barnegat Bay-and Brentano’s, you know, carries a lot of museum-type antique jewelry and semi-precious stones, coral and native handicrafts. Stuff like that. Well, they had a collection of African masks they were selling. Very primitive. Strong and somehow frightening. You know the effect primitive African art has. It touches something very deep, very mysterious. Well, I wanted to have sex with Gilda while we both wore those masks. An irrational feeling, I know. I knew it at the time, but I couldn’t resist. So I bought two masks-they weren’t cheap-and brought them home. Gilda didn’t like them and didn’t dislike them. But she let me hang them in the hallway out there. A few weeks later we had a lot to drink-”

“You got her drunk.”

“I guess. But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t wear one of those masks in bed. She said I was crazy. Anyway, the next day she threw the masks away. Or burned them, or gave them away, or something. They were gone when I got home.”

“And then you were divorced?”

“Well, not just because of the sunglasses and the African masks. There were other things. We had been growing apart for some time. But the business with the masks was certainly a contributing factor. Strange story-no?”

She got up to extinguish the three remaining candles. They smoked a bit, and she licked her fingers, then damped the wicks. She poured both of them a little more vodka, then regarded the candelabrum, head cocked to one side.

“That’s better.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It is.”

“Do you have a cigarette?”

“I smoke a kind made from dried lettuce leaves. Non-nicotine. But I have the regular kind too. Which would you like?”

“The poisonous variety.”

He lighted it for her, and she strolled up and down before the mirrored wall, holding her elbows. Her head was bent forward; long hair hid her face.

“No,” she said, “I don’t believe it was irrational. And I don’t believe you’re crazy. I’m talking now about the sunglasses and the masks. You see, there was a time when sex itself, by itself, had a power, a mystery, an awe it no longer has. Today it’s ‘Shall we have another martini or shall we fuck?’ The act itself has no more meaning than a second dessert. In an effort to restore the meaning, people try to increase the pleasure. They use all kinds of gadgets, but all they do is add to the mechanization of sex. It’s the wrong remedy. Sex is not solely, or even mainly, physical pleasure. Sex is a rite. And the only way to restore its meaning is to bring to it the trappings of a ceremony. That’s why I was so delighted to discover the Mortons’ shop. Probably without realizing it, they sensed that today the psychic satisfactions of sex have become more important than physical gratifications. Sex has become, or should become, a dramatic art. It was once, in several cultures. And the Mortons have made a start in providing the make-up, costumes, and scenery for the play. It is only a start, but it is a good one. Now about you…I think you became, if not bored then at least dissatisfied with sex with your ‘healthy, normal’ wife. ‘Is this all there is?’ you asked. ‘Is there nothing more?’ Of course there is more. Much, much more. And you were on the right track when you spoke about “a revelation…a door opening’ when you made love wearing sunglasses. And when you said the African masks were ‘primitive’ and ‘somehow frightening.’ You have, in effect, discovered the unknown or disregarded side of sex: its psychic fulfillment. Having become aware of it, you suspect-rightly so-that its spiritual satisfactions can far surpass physical pleasure. After all, there are a limited number of orifices and mucous membranes in the human body. In other words, you are beginning to see sex as a religious rite and a dramatic ceremony. The masks were merely the first step in this direction. Too bad your wife couldn’t see it that way.”

“Yes,” he said. “Too bad.”

“I must be going,” she said abruptly, and marched into the bedroom to retrieve her cape.

“I’ll see you home,” he said eagerly.

“No. That won’t be necessary. I’ll take a cab.”

“At least let me come down to call a cab for you.”

“Please don’t.”

“I want to see you again. May I call you?”

“Yes.”

She was out the door and gone almost before he was aware of it. The smell of snuffed candles and old smoke lingered in the room.

He turned out the lights and sat a long time in darkness, pondering what she had said. Something in him responded to it. He began to glimpse the final picture that might be assembled from the bits and pieces of his thought and behavior that had, until now, puzzled him so. That final picture shocked him, but he was neither frightened nor dismayed.

Once, late in the previous summer, he had been admiring his naked, newly slender and tanned body in the bedroom mirror. Only the nightlight was on. His flesh was sheened with its dim, rosy glow.

He noted how strange and somehow exciting the gold chain of his wrist watch looked against his skin. There was something there…A week later he purchased a women’s belt, made of heavy, gold-plated links. He specified a chain adjustable to all sizes, and then had it gift-wrapped for reasons he could not comprehend.

Now, only hours after he had first met Celia Montfort, after she had slept in his bed, after she had listened to him and spoken to him, he stood naked again before the bedroom mirror, the room illuminated only by the caressing nightlight. About his wrist was the gold chain of his watch, and around his slim waist was the linked belt.

He stared, fascinated. Chained, he touched himself.