Threesome

RHODA

After a bus and a plane and another plane and another bus, I found a taxi driver who seemed to understand how to get to the Kapp house. The fare, he told me, would be seven and a half dollars. When he pulled up in front I gave him ten and told him to keep the change. He seemed astonished, as if unaccustomed to being tipped at all, and never so lavishly, and wanted to carry my bag up the hill to the house. I said I’d rather do it myself, and probably sounded quite like that anguished young woman in the Anacin commercial.

Priss was out the door before I reached it. “Oh, Rho,” she said, and ran to meet me, and hugged me.

I was near tears. Throughout the endless flights and bus rides I had hovered on the brink of tears, and kept crying or nearly crying over absurd things-trashy sentimental crap novels, dumb tear-jerking images. It felt a little like the tail end of an amphetamine jag, the exhaustion of endless wakeful hours punctuated with semicolons of nervous unsatisfying half-sleep. Bitter cups of coffee, my life and my trip measured out like Prufrock’s in coffee spoons, clothes sweaty, smelly, bra strap digging into flesh, eyes reddened, gritty as if circled with sand, sour taste in mouth, intermittent heartburn and fleeting waves of nausea Getting there is sometimes less than half the fun.

Prissy was telling me that I should have called, that the cab rates were outrageous, that she could have picked me up at the station. I just kept nodding and not quite smiling. I had thought of calling but had deliberately decided not to, and for no rational reason, but as if covering every bit of the distance under my own power was somehow necessary, would somehow prove something which somehow had to be proved.

“Where are your things?”

“Here.”

“Just one suitcase?”

“Can we go inside?”

“Of course. Harry’s out back, I’ll get him-”

“Don’t disturb him if he’s working. Not yet. I have to get my bearings, I-”

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” And then, using a part of my mind to shake the other part, “Oh, hell, I guess I’m all right. I’m being dramatic, that’s all.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just a rotten endless trip, that’s all. No, I don’t want coffee, thanks, but I’ve had so much coffee and so little sleep-”

“Would you like to lie down?”

“Not yet, I have to unwind first. I feel over-wound. Do you remember when I broke my alarm clock and you took it apart and tried to fix it? Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember.”

“I just have the one suitcase.”

“Do you have trunks coming, or-”

“No, nothing. I think I need a drink.”

“Sure. Scotch? Just a sec. This won’t knock you out or anything, will it?”

“If it does, throw a rug over me. Thanks. Do I have a trunk. No. Just this suitcase. Before I went to Las Vegas, before I went to Las Vegas-”

“Take it easy. Tell me later.”

“-I walked around that fucking apartment trying to figure out how to pack, what to take, put things in storage, ship them somewhere, what to do with everything. And I realized that there was nothing there I wanted. Things, just things, I didn’t want any of them. I filled one suitcase and walked out the door. I was going to call the Salvation Army, tell them to take the rest, but for some reason or other I didn’t. Maybe I forgot. Or it was something about not wanting to be around to let them in, that was it.”

“Come this way, Rho. I want you to get to bed.”

“Can they do anything to me? It’s not against the law to abandon your fucking possessions, is it? Can they say it was a case of littering your own apartment? They can’t do that.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I had to come here. I’m sorry, Priss. I fucked up my whole life and now I’m in everybody’s way.”

Sleep helped, and solid food, and more sleep. Staying in one place helped. Sitting in the house or walking in the yard. The view helped. It is good to be able to rest one’s eyes with distant scenes.

And of course the company helped. Two good people, easy and comfortable in conversation, a dual relief from forced conversations with strangers and the burden of having only oneself for companionship.

If it was a time of slow mending, the surface symptoms went away almost at once. At least I hope they did; I’d hate the thought that I was as dismal on subsequent mornings as I was that first day. The outpourings of self were bright and cynical and wryly humorous, typically Rhoda, spoken through Rhoda’s typical surgical mask.

Ecchhh!

Why am I typing out all this garbage? Too heavy a remembrance of things past. Marcel Proust is a yenta, after all. This is supposed to be a bestseller, clever and groovy and sexy and all, and if it stays maudlin like this how can anyone tell the nitty from the gritty?

Get with it, Muir.

Evenings, in those first weeks, were the best times. We three would sit around the living room, drinking but rarely getting sloshed. From the first there was no need to make conversation per se; conversation made itself. Early on there was a lot of do-you-remember crap, nostalgia for the old college days, filtered and lamed by my not knowing that Harry already knew how much Priss and I had been to each other. But we got out of that habit quickly enough (the conversational habit, I mean, not, oh, you know what I mean) and our conversations after that were mostly about nothing in particular, and about ourselves.

I sit here, I smoke cigarettes, I get up and pace this brick-textured kitchen floor, doing my caged lion number to perfection and trying to figure out just how and where and when sex began to put in an appearance. But I cannot nail it down. It began for me as the newness of being here began to wear off and as I began to feel myself reacting-to Harry, to Priss, and to my particular role in their lives.

Growing awareness, hints, allusions, glances, intimations, speculation rising to become desire. I would look at Harry during a conversational interlude in which Priss was doing her Mrs. Malaprop routine, scattering her brain around for all to see, the shameless wench, and I would think how much alike he and I were, how our minds worked in not dissimilar ways. The next mental step was not so awfully hard to take. One did not even have to break stride.

And at other times, in much the same sort of conversation, I would catch Prissy’s eye and remember the splendid self-sufficiency of the room we shared, where the male animal did not intrude and was not missed. And recognized that, although there had been no other girl for me since Priss (except for a feeling session at a drunken California party, a pushy butchy young lady who insisted on groping me) that I still, God help me, wanted her in precisely the same way I always had.

But I am explaining too much and showing too little. So, if you will, a scene or two Scene: the Kapp living room at minutes past twelve of a weekday evening. Priss has been in the bathroom washing her hair, reappeared in a terry cloth robe (looking unpardonably desirable) and then asked if anyone was coming to bed. (I nearly accepted.) Harry said he thought he would have another drink or three. I grunted something along those lines. Priss said goodnight and went off to beddie-bye, a not uncommon occurrence at that hour. We remained in our chairs. On the record player, the food of love played on.

HARRY (getting to feet): You about ready for a refill, Rho?

RHODA: Oh. Yes, I guess so. Thanks.

HARRY: Sort of a lazy evening.

RHODA: Uh-huh.

HARRY: This must be getting pretty boring for you.

RHODA: What must?

HARRY: The way we live. One day the same as the next. I keep feeling we ought to be entertaining you in some way

RHODA: Oh, God, no! I just like being with the two of you, that’s all.

HARRY: We’d have some people in, but RHODA: You don’t have much to do with other people, do you?

HARRY: We never see anyone.

RHODA: That’s-I’m sorry, what were you going to say?

HARRY: No, go ahead.

RHODA: I was just going to say that it was unusual, and I was just thinking in terms of my own marriage, may it rest in peace. And the marriages of people I knew. We weren’t as wonderfully self-sufficient as you two.

HARRY: If that’s what it is.

RHODA: Isn’t it?

HARRY: I don’t know. When we lived in the city we always had other people around. You know, other people are very necessary. They’re stimulating, you feed off them. That makes it sound parasitic. I mean everybody feeds off everybody else

RHODA: Symbiotic.

HARRY: That’s the one. And after we moved out here we would still see our New York friends. They would come here for an overnight or a weekend, or we would drive into the city and stay over. But gradually, and I don’t know how exactly, all of this dropped off in frequency and those relationships faded to an annual exchange of Christmas cards.

RHODA: I guess that has to happen, doesn’t it? It’s too hard to maintain a close relationship at a distance.

HARRY: It seems that way. Hell, you expect that. But you also expect new friendships to develop in a new location, and that hasn’t happened. I think we probably moved too far away. We’re actually out in the country here, and our neighbors, the closest thing we have to neighbors, aren’t people we have anything in common with. Let me get you another drink.

RHODA: But make it light.

HARRY: Uh-huh. The thing of it is, I don’t know, you talk about self-sufficient, Priss and I being self-sufficient. Sometimes I really feel that we are. Sometimes I feel that other people are nothing but an intrusion and that all we need are each other for company and enough income to balance the outgo. I would say I feel this way by far the greater portion of the time.

RHODA: And the rest of the time?

HARRY: The rest of the time I need more than I get.

RHODA: This is a little dangerous, this conversation.

HARRY: It’s just talk.

RHODA: Sure.

HARRY: People who connect the way we do, you and I do, ought to be able to say things to each other. You talk about being afraid you’re getting in the way, crowding us, Christ’s sake, Rho, there’s no way you could crowd us. You’re part of the family.

RHODA: Uh-huh.

HARRY: Where was I?

RHODA: Sometimes you need more than you get.

HARRY: Right, and the thing of it is

RHODA: That you and I have a thing for each other, and you’re thinking about trying it on.

HARRY: Jesus.

RHODA: That’s where you were running with the ball, isn’t it?

HARRY: That’s where the goal line is.

RHODA: Priss is my best friend on earth, Harry.

HARRY: Just your friend?

RHODA: Huh?

HARRY: Nothing. Priss is my best friend, too. That doesn’t cut it. I still want to ball you.

RHODA: No.

HARRY: She never has to know.

RHODA: Harry, I don’t want it. The whole thing is just too heavy. If we did make it I would have to move out and I don’t think I’m ready for that. I mean I like it here and I would hate to fuck it up and have to go away.

HARRY: You wouldn’t have to go.

RHODA: I couldn’t handle it.

HARRY: I want you.

RHODA: Look, damn it HARRY: And you want me. Tell me you don’t.

RHODA: You’re attractive, I dig you, I relate to you, yes, I suppose I want you, but HARRY: Come over here.

RHODA: No, I’m sorry.

HARRY: I want to kiss you and eat you and fuck you.

RHODA: Stop it.

HARRY: Just kiss me once.

RHODA: Then will you drop all this?

HARRY: If you still want me to.

RHODA: I’ll still want.

HARRY: Fair enough.

RHODA: But no more than one kiss. Or I’ll scream. That’s melodramatic, I can’t help it, but it’s what I’ll do because there’s more happening here than I can hold together. I can’t handle all this. Promise that you’ll let me go to sleep.

HARRY: I promise.

They kiss, she and he. He tests her lips with his tongue and her mouth opens like Sesame. His arms circle her and one of his large hands claps her on the buttocks and draws her loins to his. Involuntarily her anal sphincter tightens, her crotch thrusts forward, and she feels his erection press her. She thinks of Priss sleeping a few rooms away, blonde hair on her pillow, facial mask relaxed in sleep, innocent sleep, and recalls Priss’ lovemaking, and feels Priss’ husband’s cock working rhythmically against her parts, and she very very nearly melts entirely away.

But she doesn’t. She taps some reservoir of determination, hauls herself up by emotional bootstraps and ends the kiss. Each takes an unplanned step backward. They regard each other at some length.

HARRY: I knew it.

RHODA: So did I.

HARRY: That it’s all there for us. That all we have to do is let it loose.

RHODA: Not now.

HARRY: You know we will sooner or later. Nothing is going to keep us from fucking each other.

RHODA: I HARRY: So why wait?

RHODA: You promised.

HARRY: I know.

RHODA: If it’s going to happen it will. But not tonight. It can’t be tonight. I have to get my mind right.

HARRY: All right.

RHODA: Goodnight.

HARRY: Uh-huh. One of our best.

RHODA: Goodnight.

HARRY: Goodnight.

In bed, she wraps herself up securely in the bedclothing and clutches tightly to her pillow. For a long time she lies awake listening to the silence. Then, just as she is on the point of sleep, she hears them fucking through the wall. Bed springs, and moans.

She wants to cry, she holds on, and she miraculously sleeps.