Thirty Read Free Page A

marriage is not the ranking love affair since Heloise and what’s-his-name, and if he’s got a certain amount of poise and looks and intelligence, and if he’s got room to operate—”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And if, like most men, he tends to think with his penis—”
    “You are describing Howard.”
    There was more, but that will do. My hand hurts. He called around dinner to say he was catching a late train. I had trouble not laughing until I put the phone down, and then for no particular reason I started crying instead. Real tears. My goodness, I hadn’t cried in, oh, perhaps a day and a half.
    The funny thing is that I have to admit I don’t care if he’s fucking Elizabeth Taylor, as far as that goes. I really don’t care, and I suppose that was part of Marcie’s point.
    I don’t know.
    What do I want with an affair?
    January 19
    More snow.
    The kid who carried the groceries out to the car at Pathmark yesterday said something fresh. I can’t remember exactly how it went, just some inane sort of double entendre which gave me the impression he wouldn’t mind taking me to bed.
    I’m sure I am at least ten years older than him. Than he.
    January 20
    Last night was an odd, disjointed evening. Howie came home on his usual train. If he’s having an affair it can’t be a very intense one because he’s usually home on time. Maybe he’s screwing away his lunch hours.
    If nothing else, I suppose that’s probably healthy. Good for the muscle tone and all.
    During and after dinner, we talked more than usual. He talked mostly about the office. There’s some sort of minor crisis coming up and different people are positioning themselves on different sides and some of them may find themselves fired if things don’t go right. Not Howie, however. Or if his situation is risky, he’s not saying so.
    Frankly, I had trouble following the whole thing. I didn’t even try very hard. But at least we were talking to each other. I talked about something I had read and some household things, and he nodded at the right times.
    Now that I think about it, it was our first togetherness evening in a while, and neither of us was listening to a word the other was saying.
    Are all marriages like that?
    At eleven-thirty we went to bed and started necking. At first I was just going through the motions (Pardon, m’sieu, I thought she was English!) but all at once I was turned on as suddenly and completely as if someone had thrown a switch. It was like a rebirth. I was alive in all my more interesting organs. More than alive.
    He spent some time nuzzling my breasts while he worked a finger into me and diddled me. (It is frighteningly embarrassing just putting the words down. I’ve enjoyed putting down occasional conversations here. I wanted to be a writer in college, and there is a certain pleasure in structuring scenes, and all without the need to invent. But sex writing!)
    Does it matter who did what and with which and to whom? I don’t know. I got sopping wet immediately, hot and wet, and he went from breast to breast like a bee from flower to flower, which I do not suppose is an original image, but I couldn’t get it out of my head at the time, so it must have meant something to me. He buzzed from nipple to nipple while he fingered me very diligently, and I thrashed and panted and did other ladylike things until he took his finger back and climbed aboard and stuck it right on in. Look, Ma, no hands! He got the target on the first try and sank it all the way home, and he was hard as a bar of steel. I couldn’t remember the last time he had been so firm.
    (I have been sitting here staring at the page. I have to stop now. I don’t know why. A woman ought to be able to write about her husband’s cock. It is, after all, something with which she is hopefully more familiar than anyone else on earth, himself excepted. But something is stopping me. More tomorrow, perhaps.)
    January 23
    I was going to mention some things that have happened over