Stephen Dixon - Frog

He also continues to read letters Denise sent him before they were married, look at her photos. Two especially. Nude Polaroids of her seven to eight months pregnant with Olivia. Maine, secluded rented cabin, tips of trees and ideal summer sky behind her, standing on the top porch step, he must have been sitting or lying on the porch when he took them, looking down at him skeptically and saying to herself, she later told him when he asked, “Why am I doing this for you and what if someone gets ahold of it? I’m so bloated and deformed, it’ll come out pornographic.” He promised to only take one but then lied and said his finger was over the slot when the photo came out and took a second with her consent before the first was developed. She wanted to destroy both but he swore he’d never let anyone see them or leave them in a place where they could be found accidentally. They were the only nude shots he had of her. Huge belly, enormous breasts, it seemed twice as much pubic and armpit hair but that was probably just the shadows, ankles swollen, thighs wider, face chubbier, big dark aureoles, and so on. Same position and look in both, so he doesn’t know which one he had to lie to get. He cut the borders off them and then some of the porch and sky till they fit into one of the plastic sleeves of his wallet’s photo section under another photo. Doesn’t remember what photo they were under then — maybe the same one as now, which is of his mother, standing between his uncle and aunt, their arms interlocked, posing merrily at Denise’s and his wedding reception. Meantime he’s gone through three or four almost identical wallets. He wishes he’d taken nude photos of her when she wasn’t pregnant. Soon after he met her, for instance, when he said if Playboy had a pictorial essay planned on nude assistant profs, she’d be a great choice (she wasn’t flattered, said his remark was dumb and young), or about six months after she had Eva, when she’d slimmed down to her lowest adult weight, done lots of muscle-toning exercises and swimming and jumping rope. Even her buttocks were getting hard. Taken pornographic photos, even. Front, back, lying down, legs spread apart, fingering herself, shots of them making love taken with the aid of a timer, from behind with her rear raised, vulva opened, head turned around to him. He once asked her to pose nude when she wasn’t pregnant — a simple shot, standing and smiling — when she was stepping out of the shower and he held up the unopened Polaroid camera. But she said the only reason she let him keep the nude ones he had of her was because they didn’t resemble her except for the skeptical expression somewhat when she’s doing something she doesn’t really want to but oh what the fuck, and her hair when it had been dried by the sun after a shampoo, brushed hard and pinned up.

If Gail knew about the photos and letters and little tricks he used to get or lose an erection and how he felt about her, she never let on. Years. Then she tells him their marriage is a sham and she wants a separation. Springs it on him. First she asks him to sit. He’d come back from work, hung up his jacket, put his briefcase and books on the living room chair he always puts them on, the three girls were playing somewhere, he went over to kiss her, she put her hands up to back him off, asked him to sit, get a drink if he wanted — a hard one preferably, even if that seemed, she said, like something someone might say in a bad movie or lousy book, but it might be useful to have, though she hoped not to throw at her. “What do you mean? What is it? You’re making me nervous. Are you ill? Can’t be if you’re talking about throwing drinks at someone.” That’s when she says their marriage is a sham, she’s known it for a year, she doesn’t believe a kind or polite word he says to her except when it’s about what she cooks or when she in any way makes life easier for him, and she’s been faking for months, as she suspects he has, her sex and most of her orgasms with him, what there were of them. “I’m surprised about the sex part,” he says. “Your orgasms particularly seemed every bit authentic. I for sure have been involved in it almost every second. As for the other stuff, I’m surprised but not as much, since I’m not very convincing when I say just about anything I want very much to get across and especially affectionate and complimentary things, and I also have a way of saying things that come out sounding opposite of what they mean.” “Horsecrap. Anyway, what I’m getting to is we should separate. For half a year, let’s say, so the girls will begin getting used to it while still holding some hope we’ll get together again, which I guarantee you there’s no hope of since my ultimate aim is to get an unacrimonious divorce.” “Absolutely not. I mean, sure, unacrimoniously, if it ever came to that, which I don’t want it to, for one reason because it’ll hurt the kids too much — my two and Susan. And why the hell a divorce? I love you and feel very strongly we can work out whatever it is you think’s fouling up things and also that I can convince you, despite my speaking problems, that you’re dead wrong about what you think I feel and don’t feel about you. First off, let’s talk about what brought all this up. You think, for instance, I’ve had a lover or two? One-shot flings even?” “No, though maybe you have. When you bring it up like that, it’s usually true. Not that I’d care, now, unless she was carrying something communicable. Because I now have one, you know. But why would you know? You mainly think of yourself and would probably be glad he was taking some of the sexual pressure off you. He’s clean though. If you’ll permit me: bags first till I had him medically checked out. I’m smart enough not to get temporary or terminal anything because I suddenly got the hots for someone. An untemperamental mature man whom I’ve little emotional feeling for but I adore sleeping with and being with sometimes too. He can be a gas. Are you upset?” “Sure, yes, very, what do you think? Screw it. You want to take lovers and don’t believe we can work things out—” “Never, even if I wanted to.” “Then better you do leave. Though I’m sorry about Susan. In my own way I love her, so I’ll miss her. I can continue — we all can — to see her, can’t we?” “Certainly your girls. And you too, if she wants. She probably will, for a while, when we move to a new neighborhood and her social life sags, but then she’ll consider having to see you a stiff pain in the ass. She’s practical and unsentimental and you pretend to be the reverse. Can you ever stop being a fake?”

He says some words to her, she to him, then: “Fuck you,” “Eat shit,” “Same here,” “Stick it up your skinny hole,” “Oh, very fine words,” he says, “You miserable shriveled-up prig should talk?” he pushes her, she takes a swing at him and he twists her arm till it hurts, all three girls have come downstairs and been watching, she leaves the next week, the two never saying a word to each other and trying to be in different rooms till then, his girls see Susan regularly but she won’t see him no matter how many times he apologizes on the phone for having hurt her mother. They divorce, she moves in with her lover, meets someone on a business trip and settles in the city he works in. His daughters thought of Susan as their sister, they tell Howard. “We’ll take a trip West this summer,” he says, “drive through where she lives and you can spend a day or two with her. More if she has time and you want. I’ll stay in the motel and read and do some work.” “Marrying someone with a child can be a disaster for us,” Olivia says. “Next time fall for someone without one. Then if you want to have another, do it with her so the baby will have to stay or later on be shared.” “I’m too old for another child and I don’t want another wife. I’ve never loved any woman since your mother and I seriously doubt I could. I didn’t even tell Gail that. That was mean of me. From now on I only want to be with you kids till you’re all grown up. After that you can visit or stay but it’ll be best if things go bad for you with someone else that you try to hack it out on your own. Do you understand?” “No.” “‘Hack.’ It’s too dated a word. Work it out with him, or if you’re without him, then by yourself, in other words. Clearer?” “It’s not that. Just most times you seem a lot healthier and not so strange when you’re with someone. That last thing with Gail we won’t count. Eva and I are going to try and find a nice lady for you.”