By the Light of My Father's Smile Read Free Page A

as if she would kill her for distancing from her, slaughter her for her indifference. Bruise her for the days spent indifferent to Pauline, with her head under the covers in bed.
    When she retrieves her tongue from my daughter’s throat, she laps her armpits, her sides; she claims my daughter’s body as she wriggles expertly backward, toward the slippery penis of the boy, whose heat she feels in her cunt, in her ass, in her ovaries and womb. This is not the moment to recall her own grandsons, half the age of the Kalimasan boy. But she does. Sex is like a stew for her, everyone in it at once. She imagines the thrust of the penis of the Kalimasan boy. She feels her own clitoris huge against the body of the woman with whom she is so angry. She wants her grandsons to know this kind of power over a woman, or over a boy. It is the only power over others she wants them to have. The power to give pleasure, ruthlessly, and to leisurely take it.
    She is ready to burst. But refuses to do so. She lifts her body off Susannah. Rests on her knees, her hand busy between my daughter’s legs. Legs that, though wide, are not wide enough. She pushes them wider. My daughter moans. Feels a wimp. How could she be like this with this woman who so often irritates her? It is a mystery she will not entertain tonight. She feels Pauline’sfist, each knuckle distinct, raking her labia, sending heat waves to her womb. She feels fingers and then full warm lips on her breast. But there is a lessening of intensity, a flagging of energy. She peeks through her tangled hair to see what is happening with Pauline. It is as she suspects. Pauline is waiting for her to ask for it. To beg and plead for it.
To thrash against her hand and moan. Oh please, please, go down on me.

    This is the moment Pauline loves. In fact, if she thinks about how much she loves it before it happens she will go off and miss what is for her the crowning moment. That moment when all her terrible beauty is acknowledged, her awesome power bowed to, the sensuality of her daring to wear a bathing suit while riding motorcycles driven by Hindu boys in a country run by Muslims, forgiven.
    The Kalimasan boy has her breasts now, as she waits, in what seems a royal, even imperial squat, for the plea she knows will come. She has given Susannah deeper orgasms than she has ever known; she feels she controls them. Pauline has the same breasts that she had at thirty. Strong, upright breasts whose slight sag only makes them more supple in the hand. Breasts that have never known a bra. The boy’s mouth on her breasts is cool as a melon seed. Waiting for my daughter’s surrender she rocks; my daughter’s shudder against her clitoris almost sets her off. She moves slightly back from her. It will not do to come now and give up the moment my daughter bares herself.
    Please, my daughter says.
    Please what? says the woman, stopping the movement of her hand altogether.
    My daughter whispers something.
    Pauline says, loudly: Speak up!
    Lick me, my daughter says, and looks her in the eye.
    My daughter hears the sharp intake of the woman’s breath. Still looking deep into her eyes, witnessing the lust and the victory, acknowledging it, she reaches up to touch Pauline’s clitoris. It is swollen and tremulous, her cunt dripping. Her hand is a dancer in the woman’s wet flames. Intoxicated, she raises her hand to her nose. The scent of a woman’s sex is like nothing in the world. It is a scent she would crawl for, though Pauline, ever practical, has reminded her it is a scent she already owns.
    Pauline pumps her hand slowly up and out of Susannah’s body, which grieves its leaving by shivering and shuddering. Every fiber of her body is alert to what is coming to her clit.

    Pauline would like to make her beg some more. She is in an arrogant, nearly hostile place few of her friends, colleagues, children, and grandchildren ever see. It is powerful there. She loves it. But if