Lawrence Block - Threesome

So, I turned out a lot of roughs into smooths, so to speak, and then I did some new work, including a couple of my own ideas, a few things that gag-writers sent and that I liked well enough to try out, and a couple of tentative treatments of some of Marcia’s lines for My Shrink Says.

Somewhere between nine and ten I realized that I had been sitting in one position, utterly motionless, my mind quite blank, for a good ten minutes. (Or a bad ten minutes, if you prefer.) I decided that this was either incipient catatonia or I was blocking. I put my pen down and walked out of the shed and into the fresh air. The sun was out and the day beautiful enough for me to notice how beautiful it was, and I don’t ordinarily notice. I said good morning to a couple of birds. Don’t ask what kind. We have bird books all over the house, bought them when we moved in, and I can look at any picture in any of the books and tell you without hesitation what kind of bird it is. I can even tell the warblers apart that way. But once those fucking birds are out of the book and sitting on a tree limb ten yards away, they all become utterly unrecognizable to me. I divide them mentally into four classes. All small ones are sparrows, all medium ones are robins, and all big ones flying high overhead are hawks. That comes to three classes. I had another one in mind when I started this shtick. What? Oh. All of the ones that sing all night long are mockingbirds. That’s it.

So I said good morning to the birds-robins, all of them, whether they knew it or not-and I filled my lungs with fresh air, and I decided that at that very moment my wife and her roomie were in bed together. Call it a psychic flash.

I turned toward the shed, and then I turned away from the shed, and then I said the hell with the shed. I started toward the back door of the overly charming Alpine hut, and then I said the hell with that as well, and I walked along the far side of the house until I came to Rhoda’s room.

When your nearest neighbor is Smoky the Bear, you don’t go berserk about drawing shades. Rhoda’s window shade was not all the way up, but neither was it all the way down. I stood between a wisteria vine and a pussy willow bush (yes, honestly) and looked in the window, and was not at all surprised to see them both there.

They were sort of between acts, I guess. Priss was lying on her back with her head on a pillow. Rhoda was sitting upright smoking a cigarette, one leg curled under her, the other extended. There is a Picasso blue period painting, I think of two acrobats, in which exactly the same positions and attitudes are held. I think it is interesting that I was aware of this, because in terms other than those of pure art this little tableau was driving me out of my tree.

Rhoda held her cigarette to Prissy’s lips. Prissy puffed on it. Rhoda took the cigarette back again, put it in her own mouth, and put her hand between Priss’ legs and put a finger or two up Prissy’s cunt. She fingered her idly in this fashion until Priss lifted her head enough to get her mouth on one of Rhoda’s tits. I don’t remember which one. You see one, you’ve seen ’em both.

And here I was, Munro Leaf’s watchbird. Here is a watchbird watching two lesbians. Here is a watchbird watching YOU. Were YOU a lesbian last month?

If not, what are you waiting for?

I don’t know what I was waiting for. I waited for it a long time, whatever it was, and I stood there watching them do divine things to each other with a feeling of excitement and delight that was not exclusively sexual. Or maybe it was. There is a way to put this, if I can find it, because I do know what I mean, but if no one else does, I will have failed to get the point across.

Let’s try again. I was very pleased with what I was seeing. I was very delighted with it, and in an altruistic way. I thought that this was a great thing the two of them were doing, sure to please them both, and I was happy for them and proud of them for thinking of it. And I was proud of each of them, too, for being able to attract and satisfy such a perfect partner.

It’s remarkable, I suppose, that neither of them happened to look up and catch a glimpse of me. It’s not only remarkable. It’s also a damned good thing, because we would have had an epidemic of coronary occlusion, I think. I don’t suppose I spent all that much time at the window. Five or ten minutes. Probably no more than that.

I stopped watching before they got to the end of that particular paragraph, turned from them in mid-sentence, brushed against the pussy willow bush-a great name for a girl, Pussy Willow-and went back Out Back to the shed.

I picked up a pen and started drawing. I did the sketch three times until I got it just the way I wanted it. Then I sat there listening to bird calls until noon-all bird calls sound alike-at which time I generally appeared for lunch. I did not want to appear for lunch until I was expected to appear for lunch, or I might interrupt them while they were having each other for breakfast.

During lunch I excused myself to go to the toilet, and on the way back from the toilet I let myself into Rhoda’s room and left the drawing on her pillow.

I think we all knew what was going on. I think we all knew that we knew. It was all in the air, like static electricity in a dry room, and we were shuffling our feet on the carpet and getting ready to touch each other.

That morning, while Harry was doing his Watchbird number sheltered by the pussy willow, Priss and I were conscientiously doing precisely what we had decided a day ago not to do. We were Taking Risks. We were Being Less Than Cool. We were making it, not on a Wednesday with Harry in New York, but on a Thursday with Harry Out Back in his shed.

Hard to say just whose idea it was. Probably mine. I had heard them screwing, and while they were normally noisy enough about it, that night they were truly loud; I got the impression that they had moved to the country because their sex life was too high in volume to be conducted within city limits. I lay there listening to the two of them and wanting them both, and woke up no longer listening to them but still wanting them.

I got up after Harry and before Priss. I wrapped up in a robe of hers-my bathrobes were all still somewhere out West, none had found its way into the one suitcase I brought along. I went into the kitchen and had breakfast and made a pot of real coffee. Priss always made real coffee sooner or later, but had instant coffee first at breakfast. Quel dreary-the only time I really care about coffee is first thing in the morning, and that’s the one time it’s hard to get a cup around here that tastes half decent. (Other than that, it’s a great hotel.) So I fixed my own coffee, I did, and I magnanimously poured a cup of it and carried it and a glass of orange juice to Priss’ room. I held the coffee cup so that the fumes wafted under her nose.

She opened her eyes and said, “Owr worgle breel.”

I handed her the cup, but she didn’t reach for it. I held it and she sipped at it.

“Rowrbazzle,” she said.

“Good morning.”

“Erghh.” She sipped more coffee, yawned, reached out and fumbled at the bedside table. She was reaching for her cigarettes, but in the process of getting them she knocked the alarm clock onto the floor.

“I always do that,” she said. “You would think I would learn but I don’t seem to.”

“Your one imperfection.”

“That and my excess of modesty. This is the best coffee I’ve had in ages. Did you make it extra strength or something, or is it just the delight of breakfast in bed?”

“It’s real coffee.”

“At this hour? That’s almost sinful. Oh, orange juice, too. You know, some day I’m going to start buying oranges and having freshly squeezed juice every morning.”