Stephen Dixon - Gould

She had orgasms where she said she saw heaven. In one she said she met up with her dead brother on a cloud and there was a great light all around them and he put out his hand and she looked surprised at it at first but then shook it and he grinned as if he was in total bliss and then the scene ended and Gould said “Was his arm straight out when you shook it?” and she said “Yes, the way people shake,” and he said “What could it mean then, except for the immediate obvious? Anyway, I’d be suspicious of it,” and she said “How, suspicious? And what do you mean ‘the immediate obvious’?” and he said “I don’t want to talk about your brother in regard to it. He’s dead, and that, if what I’m saying about the dream’s right—‘dream is right,’ I mean—” and she said “It wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t asleep. I was in ecstasy here, mentally removed, yes, but not unconscious,” and he said “Well, it was like a dream — you were put into this almost otherworldly or immaterial state — so I’m looking at it as one. And to me it was just typical dreamlike projection, innocent because you were in this state, of what any sibling, same sex or different, but especially the opposite sex, would dream of if it was a dream or have images of if you’re in this ecstatic displaced condition,” and she said “What, though, what? You started it, so say, and not just that I-don’t-want-to-go-into-it gibberishness and then more unintelligibleness piled onto it,” and he said “Okay. Did your brother — you know — do certain things physical to you when you were a girl, like get you to masturbate him or try to or fingerfuck you or hint at one of those or both with the hope you’d do it or allow him to or even just expose his erect penis to you or just expose himself, erect or not, but where you knew it was just for exposing?” and she said “I’m sure he didn’t on most of those. The hints, naturally, I wouldn’t remember, but I don’t think any of what you said happened. Though he was two years older, he was sickly almost from birth, so always, once I was seven or so, around six inches shorter than me and then, when I was twelve and he was fourteen, which is when he died, almost a foot shorter. And he was always very immature for his age, not only physically but emotionally — that’s what my folks have said and sort of what I recall — my younger brother, I used to think of him as, starting when I was around eight — that he might have died long before he was old enough to get erections he was conscious of or know what to do with one to get relief, though I could be wrong. Maybe, in the secret of his room, it was his only pleasure; I’d like to think he at least had that, but I doubt it because I don’t even know if he was strong enough to do it. No, I guess anyone could, if the hands aren’t paralyzed and the genitals are developed and the nervous system’s working, but what I’m saying is I don’t think the last two were for him. He barely had hair under his arms and no little sprouts on his chest and face. And once I saw him getting out of this special sitz bath installed for him in the bathroom and when he was . well, this might have been a few months before he died and there was only the littlest of mustaches there and his prick, if it hadn’t been tremendously shrunk by the heat of the bath, was more like a boy’s half his age,” and he said “That bathroom scene—” and she said “Don’t make anything more out of it. I walked in by mistake. He was as embarrassed as I was and quickly covered himself up with his hands. Do me a favor and don’t refer to him in that way again or try to analyze my orgasm making something like mystical experiences right after we’ve had sex. Your judgment’s impaired because your mind’s still fixed on the sex subject. Also because he was the dearest person there ever was to me, always so sweet and mild-mannered and shy and self-insulting and so on. But the most loving of boys — he used to clean up my room for me when I was at school and he was home getting special ed, take my dinner dishes to the sink, follow me around whenever he could — so the person I miss most and feel worst about and appreciate meeting up with any way I can. And if you put too unseemly a meaning to my encounters with him it might do something to my head where I never see him again, not even in my dreams,” and he said “Okay, will do, but one more thing, if you don’t mind, and this may be way off in fact, maybe I shouldn’t say it,” and she said “Better you don’t then, if it concerns him,” and he said “It’s mostly about you. Did you, maybe, ever try to fool around with him? . oh, that was dumb, wasn’t it, you already said how embarrassed you both were at that sitz bath scene. But you’ve also said you’ve been sexually aware since you were eight and active since you were thirteen, so I thought there might be a slight possibility — is this really too off the mark?” and she said “Yes, but it’s not one of your worst questions, given what I’ve said about myself and the reasonableness of looking at this sex thing from both sides. But I told you: after awhile he was like my younger brother, to be protected and not taken advantage of, besides that I’d never do anything that perverse, even then when my morality code wasn’t quite formed. All right? But enough,” and he nodded and after about a minute she said “So what do you think, you’re rested yet? Because I feel I could reach that plateau again, or come near. I’d like to at least try to and then who can say what I’ll see if I get there. Maybe my brother again who I can apologize to for my little chat with you before,” and he said “Honestly, I must have turned some irrecuperable corner in my sex life, if that makes any sense, but I’ve been feeling the last few weeks I need more time between them and now with this one that maybe what we did could be my limit for the day,” and she said “Don’t tell me; all any girl has to do is wait fifteen minutes and then play with you,” and he said “I don’t know, and certainly not that soon, but that’s how I feel now.” She screamed during some orgasms, even when Brons was home though asleep, and cried after about every fourth one of them and then usually clung to him, sometimes all night, face burrowed into his neck or armpit till he had to force it out if he wanted to get some sleep. “I don’t know what it is with sex and us,” she once said, “but it sure is a major plus in our arrangement and it could be the thing that keeps us together most along with your love for Brons. I don’t like that but I’ll take it for the time being. I got off with lots of other guys, of course, or did till you moved in and will no doubt do again once you’re gone from here. But with you, I don’t know what it is but like with no one else I actually see things like the birth of the universe or a disconnected star field forming into a constellation I can recognize like a dog or crab and other phenomenal or historical occurrences. Whole Mayan or Aztecan villages — I forget which culture was the one in Mexico and which not — with ceremonial dances and drum-beatings and men in spooky headdresses and codpieces and women with their big boobs showing and kids at their teats and huge beautiful buildings and entrance gates and those things they call ziggurats, I think, but no one on top of them getting his head chopped off. Sea creatures, for instance, one time, a pair of them slithering out of the sea and in quicktime developing teeny legs to walk on land with. And a couple of times — all right, once — I touched but just barely the hand of what seemed like a gentle God, though He had a twinkle in his eye, the old geezer, knew what we’d just done and what I was still in the midst of and that He might even be interested in having a turn with me Himself, so maybe He was only one of God’s more trusted helpers — I was going to say ‘advisors,’ but God wouldn’t have that — a couple of seats down from the ones who sit on either side of God’s throne. It could be that our genitals are a perfect match, in spite of the differences in your length and my depth. And maybe also something about our respective ages and health and the area we live in and this great California air and that my house sits next to an enormous church and the feelings we have for each other at the time, like the last one — I felt very good about you before and during it. And where we both are in our general all-around erotic development, or just I am, since you never seem to have these incredible comes and highs after, unless you’ve been muting them and controlling the body quakes. It’s possible I’m at my absolute peak in all this, that the last one or one of the near future ones will be the highest I’ll ever reach and then they’ll slowly start peaking lower, though I’d hate to believe it. But I’m even worse at figuring these things out than you are, my dear dummy, so why should we try?”