James Salter - All That Is

He had come from that and it was now behind him, but it still existed, like the impression on a sheet of paper beneath the one you are writing on. He retained the deep things, a sense of family, respect, and also a kind of honor in the end. His mother’s most valued possession had been an old dining table carved out of fiddleback mahogany that had been in her family since the 1700s. He also remembered the coast and the excitement of the road that led to it, though it was a long way away. They’d gone there when he was a boy, in the summer. The low sea islands, the great stretches of marsh grass, the beaches, and boats cocked as if to dry. The thing that appealed to him most about the house in Piermont was that it was like houses near the ocean. From it, he could look down at the vast river, wide and unmoving like slate, and at other times alive and dancing with light.

One night at a party he met a girl named Dena, tall, loose-limbed, with dark eyes and a space between her front teeth. She was from Texas and divorced, she told him, although that was not strictly true, from a man she described as a famed poet, Vernon Beseler, also from Texas—Eddins had never heard of him—who’d actually published poems, she said, and was friends with other poets. Intense but quick to laugh, she spoke with a drawl in a voice filled with life. She had a child, a little boy, who was staying at her parents’ at the moment. His name was Leon, she said, and gave a little shrug, as if to say she hadn’t chosen it. What is there about a woman who had fallen in love and gotten married and now stands before you in almost foolish friendliness, as a supplicant really, in high heels, alone and without a man? She was innocent, Eddins saw, in the real sense of the word. Also droll. She had a piece of scotch tape across her forehead when he came to pick her up the first time, she had put it there to prevent wrinkles and forgotten to take it off.

“What’s that?” he said.

She reached up.

“Oh, my God,” she said in embarrassment and confusion.

She told him about herself, stories of her life. She liked to sing, she said, she’d been in the choir. You weren’t allowed to wear lipstick in school, but in the choir you could wear it and even some makeup. What happened to their faces? the townspeople used to ask.

She’d gone to Vassar.

“You went to Vassar? Where is Vassar?”

“It’s in Poughkeepsie.”

“What made you pick Vassar?” he said.

“Actually, I’m supposed to be smart. Not supposed to be,” she said, “I actually am.”

She loved Vassar, she said, it was like an English park, the old brick buildings, the tall trees. They used to live as if it belonged to them, they came to class in their pajamas. For dinner though, you had to wear white gloves and pearls. There was a girl named Beth Ann Rigsby. She wouldn’t wear them, nobody could make her do anything. They wouldn’t let her go to dinner. You must wear your white gloves and pearls, they told her. So she came down in her pearls and white gloves and nothing else. Eddins was enthralled. He gazed at her.

“Are you looking at my teeth?” she said.

“Your teeth? No.”

“Are they too big? The dentist says I have a fabulous bite.”

“You’ve got wonderful teeth. What were you like as a kid?” he said.

“Oh, I was a good kid. I got good marks in school. I had this thing, I was mad about Egypt. I told everyone I was an Egyptian, my mother was furious. I had a sign on my door that said You Are Entering Egypt. You want to hear some Egyptian words?”

“Sure.”

“Alabaster,” she said. “Oasis.”

“Cairo,” he said.

“I suppose. They had the first great queen of history and the most famous, Nefertiti. When you died, your heart was weighed against a feather symbolizing truth, and if you passed judgment you took up eternal existence.”

She loved that he was listening to her.

“The pharaoh was a god,” she said.

“Of course.”

“When he died…”

“When God died?”

“It was just his way of leaving to join the other gods,” she said as if consoling him.

In September they went to Piermont for the day and ate lunch in the little, faded garden. The sun was still warm. She was wearing blue shorts and high heels. Her legs were bare and her heels had chafed spots on them. They talked and laughed. She wanted to be liked. Later they came into the kitchen and drank some wine. Eddins was sitting sideways to the table. Without a word she knelt in front of him and began, a little awkwardly because she was nearsighted, to unfasten his clothing. The zipper of his pants melted, tooth by tooth. She was a little nervous, but it was almost as she had pictured it, the Apis bull. Smooth and just swelling his cock almost fell into her mouth and gaining confidence she began. It was the act of a believer. She had never done it before, not with her husband, not with anyone. This was what it was like, to do things you had never done before, only imagined. The light was soft, late in the day. It just sort of flopped right out , she later wrote in her diary. He must of been thinking about it. It was ready . It was just so natural. Once, with her son, Leon, when he was a year and a half old, she had tied a piece of white string around his genitals, not to mean anything, just to set them off, they were so perfect. She had wanted to confess that, to tell someone, and to do this was like confessing, like telling Neil. It was like a boot just slipped onto a full calf and she went on doing it, gaining assurance, her mouth making only a faint sound. She did it as well as she could, she wanted it not to end, but then it was too late for that. She could tell from the movement he was making and then the cries and the great unexpected, it seemed a huge amount—she nearly choked. For a moment she was proud of her nerve. He was still in her mouth. She did not move. After a long time, she sat back.

Eddins didn’t speak or move. She was afraid to look at him, of having done the wrong thing. But she had wanted to. It had been because of her ka , the life force. Follow thy desire, they said, as long as thou shalt live, there is no coming back. She stood up and went to the sink to wash her face. There were brown rust stains under the faucets. She finished and walked into the living room and sat in a chair. Through the window, in the sunlight, she saw a white butterfly flying up and down in pure, ecstatic moves. After a few moments Eddins came and sat on the couch.

“Don’t sit over there,” he said quietly.

“All right. Then you didn’t mind?”

“Mind?”

“In Egypt I would be your slave.”

“Jesus, Dena.”

He wanted to say something but couldn’t decide what it would be.

“At the swimming meets…” she said.

“What swimming meets?”

“The swimming meets at school. The boys all wore these little, silky trunks and you could see some of them… were hard. They couldn’t help it. It made me think of that.”

“The little boys?”

“Not just them.”

“I wish I were all of them and you were looking at me.”

She knew he understood it all. She could feel the goddess in herself rising.

“No, I didn’t mind,” he said.

“I’ve never done it before.”

“I believe you.”

He realized she had misunderstood.

“I mean it was perfect, but I believe you.”

“I felt you were the one. Was it really good?”

In response he kissed her, slowly, full on the lips.

She was afraid of saying something foolish. She looked down at her hands, then at him, then down again. She felt embarrassed but not that much.

“I should probably marry you,” she said. She added, “I am married, though.”

For more than a month before her son came to live with her again—he had been with his grandparents in Texas until she and Vernon supposedly worked things out—she and Eddins lived on Olympus. They lay head to foot, for him it was like lying with a beautiful column of marble, a column that could quench desire. Her mound was fragrant, warm with a kind of invisible sun. The bold, Assyrian parts of him were brushing her lips, stifling her moans. Afterwards they slept like thieves. The sun was bathing the side of the house, the cold air of fall seeped beneath the windows.