Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

She told herself the erection was caused by the cool air, a physical reaction to temperature, not a sexual statement. But she was frozen in position, her mouth only inches from his little flag of sex. I’m here, I’m here, it seemed to say. I’m also this, his wide brown eyes and pursed lips insisted. I have a cock, I have a cock, the tough little body proclaimed. Absurd but frightening, too. Does it begin that early?

Who is this erection for? she wondered. Me or Francine?

She shuddered at herself. And then quickly fastened Byron’s diaper. She closed him up so hard she got an image of the stiff penis snapping off, an icicle yanked from the eaves.

Wanting to obliterate these pictures, she searched for the softest and bluest of his stretchies. Her favorite, a deep navy blue outfit with red feet and a bear stitched on the chest, was getting tight on Byron. She had to bend his thick thigh forcefully to get his second leg in, and even then, when Byron stretched full out, the material was pulled taut at his groin — the puffy front of his diaper gave him the look of a sumo wrestler wrapped in a loincloth.

Byron whined impatiently while she closed the snaps and picked him up. She hugged him close. She put a hand on the back of his bobbing head and tried to urge him into the crook of her neck, to snuggle him, to feel the quiet warmth, to caress what he had once been: tiny, adoring, senseless.

But his strong neck pushed against the hand. His feet kicked at her belly, thumping her like a drum. A hand reached for her mouth, pushing open her lips. The fingers grabbed her teeth, the nail digging into her gums like grappling hooks, and his toes poked her ribs, feeling for a foothold — she was the mountain he wanted to assault and conquer, the height he would use as springboard to leap off into the world.

“Diane!” Peter called from the living room. “Diane!”

Byron kicked harder at the sound of his father’s voice, excited, his legs bicycling as if to power her forward. Diane carried him out. “Yes?” she said on seeing Peter.

“What are we doing for dinner?” he asked. Peter had a glass of ice water in his right hand and a copy of the Times in his left. He had taken off his blue blazer and looked resplendent, although plump, in his pink Brooks Brothers shirt. Peter’s body had begun to show the effects of his sedentary life. A belly had formed, a soft wave ready to splash over the brown leather belt, and his cheeks had settled, thickening his jaw, giving his face a placid appearance of self-satisfaction. His reddish blond hair seemed to grow reluctantly at his forehead; there was no longer enough of a mane to sweep across his brow and a portion stuck out, waving for help.

“I don’t know,” she answered, keeping the irritation she felt out of her tone.

“Do you want to go out? To I1 Cantinori?”

“With him?” she said, ducking away from another of Byron’s swipes at her mouth.

“We can’t take Byron there. Can’t we get a sitter?”

“I haven’t seen Byron all day, I’d like to be with him. No, it’s too big a deal. Let’s order pizza or something.”

Peter frowned. He pursed his lips. Then he looked down at the Times and seemed to become absorbed in an article.

“Hello!” she called.

“The theater’s dying,” he said. He looked up at her. “I was hoping for a romantic evening. Dinner. You know.”

He meant, she knew, that they had made love only once since Byron’s birth. Peter had brought up the subject recently and she had told him that after a day at the office and four hours of caring for Byron she felt tired, and certainly not sexy. Presumably Peter hoped a meal out, just the two of them, would put her in the mood. She hated to think about making love. Before the baby, they had often made love after evenings out, sometimes briskly, even perfunctorily, but that was all right. Planning was not. She hadn’t enjoyed the wait, the pleasantly nervous anticipation, of dating; to experience delayed gratification with a husband of eight years struck Diane as ludicrous.

“Peter, if you’re horny, why don’t you just say so?”

He smiled and blinked at her wonderingly. “Well, well. And they say romance is dead.”

“I don’t have time for romance. Let’s have pizza. We can still go to bed.”

Peter smiled and sat on the couch. “Will you order it?”

“Sure,” she said, and handed over Byron, who arched and yearned in his father’s direction anyway. She looked up the phone number and dialed, going through the schedule: pizza arrive fifteen minutes, half hour to consume, one-hour play with Byron, then bath for Byron, and bedtime rocking, forty-five minutes, sex with Peter an hour (make that half an hour), shower (to avoid rushing in the morning), and then to work on the brief. “I’d like a pie with sausage and mushroom, please.” Should be able to get to rewriting the draft by nine-thirty, ten at the latest. Six hours should do it. I’d even get three hours’ sleep.

She finished giving the order and hung up. She looked at Byron, held aloft, jumping up and down on Peter’s thighs. She didn’t feel up to a long-winded sexual exchange: necking, massage, genital foreplay, lengthy screwing — the four-course meal that Peter would want.

I’ll give Peter a blow job right after rocking Byron to sleep, she decided. I can always masturbate later.

“MARKET’S CLOSED,” Sammy said in the manner of a public-address announcer at Yankee Stadium.

Joe, Sammy’s father, Eric’s boss, pushed his chair away from his Quotron. “A good day,” he judged. Joe had a pompous voice to accompany his stolid figure and unsmiling face. “I’m going for a walk,” he said, and strolled to the door like a king wandering out of his castle. “I’ll be back at four forty-five. Sammy, have the totals ready.”

“I’ve already got ’em!” Sammy said, his leg hopping nervously, always the eager son ready to anticipate demands.

That stopped Joe. “Indeed?” he said, “The numbers change right up to close—”

Sammy smiled triumphantly; outperforming his father’s expectations was his ultimate satisfaction. “I keep a running total using the spread sheet. Up-to-date every thirty seconds. Want the numbers now?”

Joe shook his head no. “Very impressive. Print them out for later.”

Sammy grinned at Eric — exhausted Eric, red-eyed Eric, disgusted Eric, weary of life and of defeat and of these two and their repetitive psychological conflicts.

Joe continued to the door. “Very impressive.” He opened the door. “But unnecessary.” And left.

“Fuck you!” Sammy said, furious, without any irony or self-consciousness.

Eric tried to explain. “He just pretends he’s not pleased, Sammy. He’s very proud of you.”

“He doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction. He’s a son of a bitch!”

Irene, Joe’s secretary for thirty years, got up from her position at the phones. “Sammy!” she warned, like an indulgent aunt.

“Oh, shut up!” Sammy screamed, a spoiled nephew, casually insulting, confident of clemency. “Come on,” he said to Eric. Sammy got up and beckoned Eric to the one private room in the fifteen hundred square feet Joe had leased from Bear Stearns. This private corner room, which had a sweeping view of the southern end of Manhattan, was ostensibly Joe’s, although he stayed in the main room with Sammy and Eric for most of the day.

“I have to go home,” Eric said, but with hopelessness in his tone.

“Ten minutes!” Sammy said. “The baby can wait ten minutes.”

Dutifully, Eric rose. He had been in the chair since lunch. He had to steady himself on the desk for a moment, his circulatory system shocked by the change, and then went into Joe’s office. Sammy shut the door. “You know where he went?” Sammy said, his face in a sneer of contempt.