Stephen Dixon: Frog

Anyway, should go to sleep now. He’s tired enough. Has to be at work early tomorrow. Isn’t: end of job. Odd that he’s making less now, in what the money buys, and gets less respect at work, mainly because of the kind of job he had to take at his age just to survive, than when he first met her. Probably not so odd, but then was he ever on his way. Turns off the light, turns over on his side — right side, but don’t make anything of it — cups his hands under his cheek, wishes he had two pillows. They always slept with two each. Her habit. He got to like it. She had two for herself when he met her and wanted two for herself when he moved in. They went to a store to buy two more, but the same kind she had in case their pillows got mixed up on the bed. But enough of that. Shuts his eyes. Thinks of himself sitting on a rooftop. Climbing a tree. Sailing a boat. He never sailed. Hasn’t climbed a tree since he was a young man. He was sitting cross-legged when he never does. She sailed before she met him — with the man who played her father in the play: just friendship; they’d never made love — and liked to sit cross-legged in her short nightie while reading on their bed, but that doesn’t have to be the explanation why. They’re naked in bed. Image just entered. He didn’t do anything to bring it on. Nothing immediate he means; now . It’s that first time again. He remembers her body so well. For those twenty or so years it only imperceptibly changed. Maybe a little more. She studied dance for years, continued to as an actress, during their marriage always ran, swam, did dance warmups, kept in shape. Waist, breasts, hips, arms, legs — all like a dancer’s. Muscular buttocks, calloused feet, delicate hands. The neck. Strong stomach. Her face. Long blond hair usually brushed straight back with a barrette on top or pinned into a chignon. Dirty blond hair to almost brown by the time they divorced. Always so soft. Covered his face. Sucked her nipples when it did. Right one was the one he preferred, maybe because it was the easiest to reach. That make sense? Could. Ran his hand down her long hard deep back crack. She’s on top of him now. Grabbed her ass and squeezed and rubbed. Pressed it into him. Steered their movements just like she did. They came, one of them first. Rolled over. Soon started doing it again. They said “You know, I love you.” “And you know I love you.” “And I love you.” “And I love you, my darling.” “And you’re my darling too and I love you.” “And I love you, my darling sweetheart, I love you, just you.” “And I love you too, my darling darling sweetheart, I love you, just love you, I do.” “Love love love,” one said. “Love love love love,” the other said. They came, slept, sometime after that started doing it again. He did. She let him. All that’s been said. If that hasn’t been said then should have been assumed. Long kisses, all kinds of kisses. Telephone rings. Must be ringing in the apartment across from his or is in his head. Listens. Ringing stops. “Rachel, thought it was you,” a woman says. He imagines her speaking on the phone to him. “My darling, I haven’t changed and I’m coming right over.” Her clothes, body, feelings toward him? “My sweetheart, I’ve changed somewhat, but who doesn’t in ten-some years at our age, and I’m coming right over. I’m going to jump right into bed with you when I get there. How could we have let it go on like this so long? I let it. But enough talk. I’m on my way.” She comes. Rings the vestibule bell. He opens his door while she’s running upstairs. “As you can see,” she says, “I’m still in pretty good shape.” He pulls her down on him. First closes the door. First tears off her clothes. First hurries with her to the bed. He had waited naked for the half-hour it took her to get there. He raises the top part of his body to hers. Their heads meet, chests. They open their mouths. Kiss for a minute like that without stopping. He’s inside her now. Just happened. Corresponding parts found their way. For the time being he doesn’t feel much down there; it’s all in the kiss. Her hair around him. Still soft and fine. Used to frizz up a bit when she took a hot shower or the air was damp. Then he falls back on the bed because he can’t keep himself up like that any longer and she falls on him, clip their teeth and almost chip them, and they start kissing again and holding each other as tight as they can without hurting the other, she with her arms under him till she has to pull them out because, she later tells him, they were beginning to hurt.

This is how he remembers it. He shits in his pants. Actually, it starts with him coming up to her — his memory of it always starts with him coming up to her and pointing between his legs. She says something like “Did you make doody in your pants?” He nods. Remembers nodding, not speaking. “Doody in your pants again?” Nods. Next thing he remembers she’s pulling him into the bathroom, then that he’s in the bathroom, long pants are off his legs, she slips his underpants off with the shit inside it, and holding the clean part of the underpants pushes the shit into his face. Then she picks him up by his underarms, holds him in front of the medicine chest mirror and tells him to look at himself. He doesn’t want to. He’s crying. “Look, I’m telling you to look!” He looks. Shit all over his face. Looked like hard mud. Just then he hears his father’s voice. “Hello, anyone around?” He starts squirming in her arms to be let down. He wants to run to his father to show him what she did. He knows what she did was wrong. She lets him down. He runs out of the bathroom, through what they called the breakfast room into the kitchen where his father is. He points to his face. His father starts laughing very hard. That’s all he remembers. Scene always goes blank then.

“Frieda’s coming today,” his mother said on the phone. “She particularly asked me to see if you could be here. I’d love for you to be here too.” “I don’t know if I can make it,” he said. “Please do though. She’ll be here at noon. She’s always very punctual, to the point most of the times of getting here ten to fifteen minutes early. I’m taking her out to lunch. Would you like to join us?” “Now that I know I can’t do.” “Dobson’s — for fish. She was thrilled with it the last time. Raved and raved. Even had a glass of wine.” “No, thanks, Ma. If I come I can only spare an hour. Getting there and back will take another hour, which is really all I can spare. Two. Total.”

He tells his wife that his mother called before. “Frieda’s visiting her for the day. Both want me to be there. For lunch too, but that I’m definitely not doing.”

“Your old nanny? What was the story you told about her — what she did to you?”

“What? Every morning rolling down my socks in a way where I could just hop out of bed and roll them up over my feet? Actually, she did that the night before. Left them at the end of my bed along with my—”

“Not the socks. The feces in your face. How’d that go again? I remember your father was in on it too. In the story.”

“He laughed when he saw me.”

“What do you think that was all about?”

“More I think of it, maybe he really did think it was funny. Here’s this kid of his running up to him with shit all over his face. He had a great sense of humor — No, he did. And for all he knew I might have tripped and fallen into it and maybe that’s what he thought was so funny. His kid tripped head first into shit.”

“But later he knew. You told him, didn’t you? You were pointing, crying. And you told your mother later — you must have, or he did — but they still kept her on.”