Stephen Dixon - Frog

He calls, they meet, have coffee, take a long walk after, the conversation never lulls, lots of things in common, no forced talk, good give and take, mutual interests, laughs, they touch upon serious subjects. Her teeth are fine. Her whole body. Everything’s fine. Profile, full face. Some bumps, bulges, but what was he going on so about her hips and nose and so on? Scaring himself away maybe. They’re right, all part of her, fit in just fine. She’s also very intelligent, not meek, weak, just very peaceful, thoughtful, subdued, seemingly content with her life for the most part. They take the same bus home, he gets off first and says he’ll call her soon, she says “That’ll be nice,” waves to him from the bus as it passes. He doesn’t call her the next week. First he thinks give it a day or two before you call; see what you think. Then: this could get serious and something tells him she’s still not exactly right for him. She’s a serious person and would never have anything to do with him in any other way and maybe playing around is what he really wants right now. She may even be too intelligent for him, needing someone with larger ideas, deeper thoughts, better or differently read, a cleverer quicker way about him, smooth-spoken; she’d tire of him quickly.

He calls a woman he used to go out with but was never serious about more than a year ago and she says “Hello, Howard, what is it?” “Oops, doesn’t sound good. Maybe I called at a wrong time.” “Simply that you called is a surprise. How is everything?” “Thank you. Everything’s fine. I thought you might want to get together. Been a while. What are you doing now, for instance?” “You’re horny.” “No I’m not.” “You only used to call when you were horny. Call me when you’re feeling like a normal human being. When you want to have dinner out, talk over whatever there’s to talk over, but not to go to bed. I’m seeing someone. Even if I weren’t. I could never again be around for you only when you have your hot pants on.” “Of course. I didn’t know you thought I was doing that. But I understand, will do as you say.” The phone talk makes him horny. He goes out to buy a magazine with photos of nude women in it. He buys the raunchiest magazine he can find just from the cover photo and what the cover says is inside, sticks it under his arm inside his jacket, dumps it in a trash can a block away. He really doesn’t like those magazines. Also something about having them in his apartment, and why not do something different with the rutty feeling he’s got. A whorehouse. He buys a weekly at another newsstand that has articles on sex, graphic photos of couples, and in the back a couple of pages where they rate whorehouses, single bars, porno flicks, peep shows and sex shops in the city. He goes home to read it. There’s one on East Fifty-fourth that sounds all right. “Knockout gals, free drink, private showers, classy & tip-top.” He goes outside and waits at a bus stop for a bus to take him to West Fifty-seventh, where he’ll catch the crosstown. He has enough cash on him even if they charge a little more than the fifty dollars the weekly said they did, plus another ten for a tip. He wants to do it that much. He gets off at Sixty-fifth — butterflies again — will walk the rest of the way while he thinks if what he’s doing is so smart. The woman could have a disease. One can always get rid of it with drugs. But some last longer than that. You have to experiment with several drugs before one works. And suppose there’s one that can’t be cured with drugs or not for years? No, those places — the expensive ones — are clean. They have to be or they’d lose their clients. He keeps walking to the house. Stops at a bar for a martini just to get back the sex feeling he had, has two, heads for the house again feeling good. No, this is ridiculous. His whoring days are over. They have been for about ten years. He’d feel embarrassed walking in and out of one; just saying what he’s there for to the person at the front desk, if that’s what they have, and then making small talk or not talk with the women inside, if they just sit around waiting for the men to choose them — even looking at the other men in the room would be embarrassing — and then with the woman he chooses. “What do you like, Howard?” or whatever name he gives. Howard. Why not? No last one. “You want me to do this or that or both or maybe you want to try something different?” It just isn’t right besides. He still wants very much to have sex tonight — with a stranger, even — but not to pay for it. A singles bar? What are the chances? For him, nil, or near to it. He doesn’t feel he has it in him anymore to approach women there or really anywhere. To even walk into one and find a free place at the bar would be difficult for him. Maybe Denise would see him this late. Try. If she doesn’t want him up, she’ll say so quickly enough. Or just say to her “You think it’s too late to meet for a beer?” If she says something like “It’s too late for me to go outside, why don’t you come here,” then he’ll know she wants to have sex with him. She wouldn’t have him up this late for any other reason. And if he comes up at this hour, shell know what he’s coming up for. If she can meet at a bar, then fine, he’ll start his approach from there. Suppose she gets angry at him for calling so late and being so obvious in what he wants of her, expecially after he said a week ago he’d call her soon? Then that’s it with her then, since he doesn’t feel there’ll be anything very deep between them, so what he’s really after is just sex. But don’t call from a pay phone on the street. She may think he always walks the streets at night and get turned off by that.

He goes into a bar, buys a beer, tells himself to speak slowly and conscientiously and watch out for slurs and repeats, dials her number from a pay phone there. She says “Hello,” doesn’t seem tired, he says “It’s Howard, how are you, I hope I’m not calling too late.” “It’s not that it’s too late for me to receive a call, Howard, just that of the three to four calls from you so far, most have come this late. Makes me think … what? That your calls are mostly last-minute thoughts, emanating from some form of desperation perhaps. It doesn’t make me feel good.” “But they’re not. And I’m sorry. I get impulsive sometimes. Not this time. You were on my mind — have been for days — and I thought about calling you tonight, then thought if it was getting too late to call you, but probably thought about it too long. Then, a little while before, thought ‘Hell, call her, and I’ll explain.’ So some impulsiveness there after all.” “All right. We have that down. So?” “So?” “So, you know, what is the reason you called?” “I wanted to know if you might like to meet at the Breakers for a drink, or maybe it’s too late tonight for that too.” “It probably is. Let me check the time. I don’t have to. I know already. Way too late. If you want, why not come here.” “That’s what I’d like much better, really. You mean now, don’t you?” “Not two hours from now, if you can help it.” “Right. Is there anything I can pick up for you before I get there?” “Like what?” “Wine, beer? Anything you need? Milk?” “Just come, but without stopping for a drink along the way.” “I already have. But so you won’t get the wrong idea, it was because my phone wasn’t working at home. Just tonight, which was a big surprise when I finally picked up the receiver to call you. So I went out to call from a public phone. But I didn’t want to call from the street. Too noisy, and I also didn’t want to give you the wrong idea that I’m always calling from the street. So I went into this bar I’m in to call but felt I should buy a beer from them first, even if I didn’t drink it — though I did — part of it — rather than coming in only to use their phone. That’s the way I am. I put all kinds of things in front of me.” “Does seem so. Anyway, here’s my address,” and gives it and what street to get off if he takes the bus. “If you take the Broadway subway, get off at a Hundred-sixteenth and ride the front of the train, but not the first car, so you’ll be right by the stairs. The subways, or at least that station at this hour, can be dangerous, so maybe to be safer you should take the bus or a cab.” “A cab. That’s what I’ll do.” “Good. See you.”