Threesome

HARRY

Hi there, sex nuts! Porn freaks! This is your old pal, Harry Kapp, ne Kapelner, renowned cartoonist and raconteur, set to lay aside pen and sketch pad and do his thing at the old typewriter.

Jesus, how do you get started with this sort of thing? I wrote that first paragraph half an hour ago and ever since then I’ve been sitting here looking at it, and it doesn’t get any longer or anything. It just sits there and looks back at me. I don’t know where writers get it from. How they can just sit down and zip, the words are there. With drawing, the mechanics of pen and ink makes things happen. You start to draw something and your fingers do things your mind hasn’t even thought of, and good or bad things get onto the page. But this writing dodge strikes me as a hard way to make a living.

I do want to write this, though. If only to get a look at the two chapters which will follow it, but which won’t follow it if I don’t write this one. (A lit’ry version of the carrot and the stick. Or was it the tortoise and the hare? Once upon a time there was a carrot and a stick, you see, and they decided to have a race…)

Ah, but vy else do you vish to write zis, Herr Harry? Hmmm. For self-discovery or self-uncovery? Or merely to boast? One does feel boastful now and then, sitting at once on top of a mountain (all right, hill) and on top of the world, the proud owner of two fucking mythical shicksas (those are Israeli taxicabs). Harry, boychik, you’ve come a long way from Pelham Parkway.

Let us not probe motives too closely. Too much attention to vy anyvun does anyzing gives rise to nausea and despair, usually in that order.

I don’t remember just when Priss told me about the thing she and Rhoda had going in college. I remember the conversation well enough but not its location in time. We were going through a mutual confession trip, one of those here’s-some-of-the-crazy-things-I-did-before-I-met-you-things. Not to purge ourselves, but because that sort of thing turns one on.

A perhaps uncomfortable truth-once the fresh gloss is gone from a marriage, once two people cease to be so madly new to one another, the marriage inevitably gets refreshed from the outside. If it gets refreshed at all. Not that people necessarily cheat, or enlarge their family circle in some such manner. But that each, at least in mind, starts filling that bed with other people. You turn on with forbidden thoughts and work them out on each other’s bodies. When a marriage relationship goes stale, all that means is that there has been a failure of imagination.

“Say, I was wondering. Did you ever make it with a girl?”

“What made you ask that?”

“Ah, hah! I think you just answered it, lotus blossom.”

“Oh, did I?”

“You can talk about it.”

“But you’ll despise me, won’t you? ‘Damned blonde dyke bitch.’ You’ll hate me.”

“Oh, come on. Do I know the girl?”

“Girl? How do you know there weren’t dozens?”

“There was just one. Am I right?”

“As a matter of fact, you are.”

“Rhoda Whatchamacallit. Muir.”

“You just flashed into that one? Or did you find some old letters of mine, and is this an elaborate Talmudic con game?”

“No, I psyched it. Tell me.”

“What is there to tell? We, oh, you could say we experimented with sex. The way kids experiment with drugs?”

“They do like hell ex-fucking-periment with drugs. They blow grass and drop acid because it gets them high. That’s not an experiment. It’s a pleasure.”

“Well, it was a pleasure, all right.”

“What happened?”

“What do you think? We made love.”

“I mean what did you do?”

“Locked the door first. Played records. Sometimes left the lights on and sometimes turned them out. Do we really have to have this conversation?”

“No, liebchen, not if it’s too painful for you to talk about it.”

“Devious sheenie bastard.”

“Devious, yes. Sheenie, yes. Bastard, no. What did you used to do in bed?”

“Oh, this is so silly, Harry. We didn’t do anything that you and I haven’t done like maybe a thousand times.”

“Was it better with her?”

“Now you’re not going to be jealous of something that happened in college, for Christ’s sake.”

“It’s not jealousy, it’s fascination.”

“Why?”

“Because I think lesbians are great.”

“I’m not a lesbian!”

“Don’t shout, I’m right here in front of you. I think it’s adorable, two girls in bed together. I’m serious, goddammit, I’m not being sarcastic, nor am I putting you on. I think it’s sweet.”

“Sweet?”

“Yes.”

“I guess it was sweet.”

“It’s a whole fantasy of mine, as a matter of fact. A whole fetish thing.”

“Honestly?”

“Absolutely.”

“I never knew that. Why didn’t you ever say anything? I could start wearing neckties to bed and pitching my voice lower and cursing like a state trooper. What’s so funny?”

“Like a trooper.”

“So?”

“Not like a state trooper. Oh, you’re a delight. No, it doesn’t matter, forget it. Hey, let’s go upstairs.”

“You’re not kidding.”

“Put your hand here and you’ll see if I’m kidding.”

“Well, what do you know about that? It’s got a great big cock on it.”

“Christ!”

So it turned me on, the whole idea of the two of them together turned me on. So who knows why?

Because I’m some kind of a latent faggot? Better latent than ever, I suppose, but if I ever had the desire I never knew it. The closest I ever came to a homosexual experience was in the men’s room of the New Amsterdam Theater when a beery old fart made a grab for my schlong. I swung a roundhouse right at him. He didn’t bother to duck, but I nevertheless missed him completely and lost my footing and fell in the urinal.

Because I’ve always wanted to make it with my sister? I don’t think so, and neither would anybody who knew my sister. My sister is three years older than I am (and always has been) and she passed Gene Fullmer’s fighting weight before she passed seventh grade. And hasn’t quit yet. It’s not glandular, it’s that she eats ten or twelve meals a day. At the present time she is living in a middle-income cooperative apartment building in Queens and wearing all of Sidney Greenstreet’s old clothes. Her husband is a public accountant with hopes of one day becoming a certified public accountant. I’d say he’s certifiable, all right.

Of course Edith is the family success story. Her accountant is, after all, a nice Jewish boy (he married her under the assumption that she was a Zim Line cruise ship) and they live within subway distance of Mama Kaplan and have produced four children. That these four little bastards are the most singly obnoxious children in recorded time doesn’t seem to matter to anyone, except perhaps me.

I, on the other hand, am this bum who changed his name and married, oy, a blonde shicksa and lives God knows where, you couldn’t even get there on a train, not that you’d want to, oy, and has not produced a single grandchild, not that anyone would want him to, because what kind of a child would you have, a mongrel, that’s what kind of a child you would have.

They should, by all rights, drop dead.

But forget all this Jewish family shit. It was Tuesday when Rhoda’s letter came, and I wanted to drag Priss to the bedroom, and made an effort, toward which she chose to be purposely obtuse. All right, fair enough. I couldn’t blame her. I was trying to use her to shake something that she hadn’t inspired, and while everyone does this, it ought to be done more subtly. Fair enough.

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.”

“Clown.”

“Well, what then?”

“Role-playing. You have to consciously force yourself to think of yourself as a girl.”

“For thirty-six years I’ve been consciously trying to think of myself as a man. You want me to undo all those years of effort?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“At one time or another, sweetie, Mama has done everything.”

“Okay, I’m game.”

“You’re a girl.”

“All right.”

“And I’m a girl, and I love you. Close your eyes, keep them closed. I’m going to take the lead and make love to you now. These are your breasts, big beautiful breasts. This is your slender shapely hairless body. Your soft female skin. This-” Her fingers pressed briefly at my genitalia “-does not exist. Numb, nothing there. This-” her fingers lingering below the base of the scrotum “-is your sweet little snatch. How nice, how sweet-”

How fucking weird.

She made love to me, girl to girl. Or perhaps man to girl, because she took a very active role, did Marcia, leading, guiding, initiating, directing. Did I feel like a girl? I don’t know, I’ve never been a girl, I don’t know what a girl feels. But it was strange. Responding to caresses upon parts of me unused to that sort of thing.

For the finale, I lay on my back with my legs spread and my knees up, the missionary’s wife, and Marcia lay upon me, supporting her weight on her elbows and slamming her ridge of pubic bone into the base of my scrotum. She was fucking the hell out of me. She had no penis nor I any place for her to put it, but that was precisely what she was doing.

I think kinkiness is a turn-on in and of itself. In any event, I did not find any of this remotely boring. As she delivered her final thrust, I came like Old Faithful.

When drinks were freshened and cigarettes lit, I said, “Aggressive castrating bitch.”

“Who says?”

“You did, remember? And I’m not gonna argue with you. I’d be afraid.”

“Damn right.”

“Cause you might rape me.”

“Damn right.”

“That was a gas.”

“Yeah, it kind of was, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely. I don’t think I ever want to do it again, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“Yeah.”

“Scary.”

“I’m a little bit shaky just now, to tell you the truth.”

“It’s a scary world.”

“Not for me. The only thing that scares me is me. I frighten the shit out of myself, Harry.”

“You okay?”

“I guess.”

There was something I was trying to remember. Oh, yes. “Incidentally, there’s a non-book in it.”

“Huh? Even with the new permissiveness, sweetie, there’s a limit.”

“No, something you said before. My Shrink Says. ”

She was instantly interested. “That’s the title? Hey, I think I dig it. Give me a handle on it.”

“I didn’t get that far.”

“ My shrink says. Uh. My shrink says kumquats make you horny. No, it doesn’t make it. My shrink says sometimes it’s only a cigar.”

“That’s sensational.”

“It’s also a steal. Freud said it.”

“Honestly? Let him sue, we’re using it. It’s too visual to pass up. A girl smoking a cigar with her eyes glassy and obviously what she’s doing is going down on that cigar, and that’s the tag line.”

“Brilliant.”

“What else did Freud say?”

“Oh, he said a million things. He said the paranoiac is never entirely mistaken.”

“You’re making these up.”

“God’s truth.”

“If there are enough of them, we could make it Freud Says. ”

“ Sigmund Says. ”

“Much, much better. Worlds better. Although I don’t know-”

“I think I like My Shrink Says better.”

“So do I.”

“More room to move around, too.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who do you think would like it?”

“I was thinking of Jonathan. It’s his kind of thing.”

“Your agent or mine?”

I thought it over. “Better call Alex. I don’t think Peggy gets through to Jonathan very well.”

“All right.” She leaned over to grind out her cigarette. “If you want, I’ll fix some dinner. And then we could ball some more.”

“I ought to get on home.”

“Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut.”

“Massachusetts. Say, did you hear about the guy who ran his boat aground in Gloucester Bay?”

“He didn’t know Mass. from a shoal in the sound.”

“Now how in hell did you know that one? I made it up.”

“You told me once before.”

“Oh.”

“And I always remember everything you tell me.”

“My shrink says nobody likes a smartass.”

“Does he really? My shrink says a bird in the hand is perfectly normal.”

“A prince of a man. My shrink says pimples cause masturbation.”

“Mine used to say that. Now he says sodomy is a pain in the ass.”

“My black shrink says every motherfucker has an Oedipus complex.”

“He should know. I wonder if we’ll come up with anything printable?”

“Call Alex.”

“I will.”

“And stay as sweet as you are.”

“My love to Priscilla.”

Did I give you her love, Priss? I can’t seem to remember. Jonathan was crazy about My Shrink Says. It was singularly easy to write and to illustrate, and seems to be selling, although figures will not be in for a while.

I am beginning to realize what writers do. Because as slow as this went at first, it picked up speed at a remarkable rate. Writers, I think, do the same thing everyone else does who makes something out of nothing. The typewriter is just another form of pen and sketch pad. The brain seeps down into the tips of the fingers, and one gets into synch and lets everything play itself through the medium of fingers and typewriter and onto the paper.

Listen to the idiot, drunk with triumph at having written a chapter. One chapter doesn’t make a book any more than one swallow makes a hangover.

And there’s also the question of whether or not the chapter’s relevant. Is it enough about the three of us or is it too much a matter of What I Did On My Wednesday Vacation? I think it’s pertinent.

I also think it’s impertinent, come to that. But it does bridge the gap to Rhoda’s arrival, and who is better equipped to tell you about Rhoda’s arrival than the lovely Rhoda herself?

That’s your cue, kid.