A. Homes - Music for Torching

"Oh," Liz says. "Well, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Elaine says, disappointed at Liz's response. She was hoping for something more-the offer of a collective effort. What can we do, what can I do to help you? "I'm so embarrassed," Elaine says. "This isn't supposed to be happening. Women aren't supposed to be stuck anymore. We're already having postfeminism, and I'm in the Dark Ages. I missed the whole damn thing. Even you did it," Elaine says. It comes out sounding like a cut. She stops.

They sit in a booth in the luncheonette. Liz orders the diet plate.

"I'll have the same," Elaine says, unable to make her own decision.

"I thought you were having an affair and were too embarrassed to tell me with who," Liz says. "I know how you are, very moral, a little naive, and I wanted to tell you that if you've succumbed and become a sniveling horny-hound like the rest of us-it's all right."

"Everyone does it," Elaine says, flippantly confirming.

"Exactly," Liz says, digging into her cottage cheese.

"I don't know what to say," Elaine says. She is humiliated and disappointed. On all fronts, she has failed herself, radically. She stares at her plate; the iceberg lettuce reminds her of Pat.

"I'm your best friend, remember," Liz says. "You can tell me anything, no matter how horrible."

She can't tell Liz about Pat-Elaine imagines telling Liz and Liz being offended, competitive, possessive. She imagines Liz saying, I can't believe that you did it without me, that you didn't think of me first. I would have done it if you'd wanted to.

"Who did you have an affair with?" Elaine asks.

"An affair? Affairs. If it rang my doorbell, I fucked it, no questions asked-like trick or treat."

"I think Paul is having another one," Elaine says. "He's acting weird. He shaved all his hair off. I mean all his hair, and he's sleeping in a nightgown."

"Maybe he's hooked up with a drag queen?" Liz snickers.

"He says it's self-expression. I hope it's no one good."

"Good?"

"Someone we know or someone better than me." Elaine takes a shallow breath. "I hit him," she says. "Last night, at Pat and George's, I got so mad that I punched him."

"Oh, please," Liz says. "I used to pound Roger like I was tenderizing a piece of meat."

"Did he ever hit back?"

"No, he was 'better' than that. He had his own forms of revenge."

"Like what?"

"He left."

There is an awful silence. "Sorry," Elaine says.

"Whatever it is, work it out," Liz says. "The last thing you want to be is divorced. Everything after the first is seconds; it's a scratch-and-dent market."

"It's like I'm doing the dead man's float," Elaine says, picking up the check.

They drive in silence. Elaine's anger and anxiety are paralyzing. She doesn't know how to make herself better, how to save herself. "Do you want to come to Sammy's school play?" she asks Liz.

"Can't," Liz says. "I have to finish an assignment for a class."

Liz drops Elaine back at the house. A group of men are maneuvering a mini-crane up the driveway and around the Dumpster. Like an air-traffic controller, Mrs. Hansen is there, guiding them in.

Elaine checks her watch. Without a word, she gets into her car and speeds away-an hour to kill. Bored and half crazy, she calls Pat on the cell phone.

"Come on over," Pat says.

Elaine pulls into the driveway, parks, and hurries into the house. "Sammy's play is at two," Elaine tells Pat.

"I'll get you there," Pat says. Her kisses are insistent and sure. They taste of Crest and coffee. Pat and Elaine are in the living room, the same living room from the night before. They are on the sofa. Pat knows better than to try to get Elaine down the hall to the bedroom; it won't happen. Pat is unbuttoning Elaine. Elaine is worried that someone might see them through the windows, that the girls will come home, that an encyclopedia salesman will ring the bell. She is thinking of the night before, Paul in the dark, Paul on the floor, wedged in the space between the coffee table and the sofa. She is thinking of the soft sweep of Pat's skin across her own. She is sliding her clothing off.

"Hang on," Pat says, getting up, hurrying down the hall. Elaine sits on the sofa, waiting. She's thinking of the fight, a farcical domestic routine, dancing around the room in the dark, like a scene from an old black-and-white movie, slapstick sick. Futile. Everything is futile.

Pat comes back in her robe. They begin again. Pat kisses Elaine. Elaine is still not at all sure what it means that she is kissing another woman.

Elaine pulls Pat toward her.

The robe falls open. Around Pat's hips is a wide black belt, a silver-studded harness, with straps dipping between her legs. The whole contraption is like medieval armor, or motorcycle gear. And there is something hanging from it. "Buster," Pat says.

"I know someone whose cat is named Buster," Elaine says.

Pat has another one in her pocket. She pulls it out-a pale, fleshy fang that looks as if its skin is peeling. "I made it myself, using a candle mold and art supplies."

Elaine picks a familiar scent out of the air. "It smells like cedar chips," Elaine says.

"I keep it in with my sweaters," Pat says. She reaches into the robe and strokes the one she's wearing. "I bought this one over the phone. It's called a Jelly, a champagne-colored Jelly."

The sight of Pat in a black leather harness with a translucent plastic prick, poking up, like a faux fountain, is incredibly peculiar. Who does Pat think she is? Who does she want to be? Can Pat see how strange it looks? Has she taken a look at herself in a mirror? A thin roll of flesh curls over the harness. Is this supposed to be a turn-on?

"You don't have to do this," Elaine says. "I'm fine without it."

"Please," Pat says, her voice hungry and thick. "I want to. Just let me."

Elaine is on the sofa, and Pat is on top of her-theirs is a graceless, technical composition.

"Is it in?" Pat asks.

"Yes."

A hole is to fill. So different from a hand, from a tongue, from the real thing.

Elaine hears something. "What's that?" she asks, lifting herself up; the angle is good. She holds herself there, peering over Pat's shoulder. She is worried they will be caught. It's one thing for someone to be found doing it with the neighbor's wife, another if it's two wives doing it together, and quite a third if it's two wives and something called Buster. "There was a noise."

"The dryer," Pat says. "The dryer went off."

Pat fucks her. It's not tender. It's not two lonely women making each other feel better-it is something more, fantastically brusque, almost brutal.

Pat humps. Buster slips and slides sloppily, sometimes stabbing Elaine, sometimes poking her ass, her thighs. Pat thrusts. Buster slides out. It goes nowhere.

"Pat it in," Pat says as desperately as anyone. "Put it in."

And Elaine guides it back in, a lifeless probe, a plug, a cork instead of a cock. Chicks with dicks, a pole and a tit. Pat's breasts flap against Elaine. The silky sensation of skin on skin, the motion, the rocking, the deep drilling does the job. Elaine hooks her legs around Pat, holding her there; her cunt clutches the blind, deaf, and dumb thing stuffed inside her, brainless Buster.

"Did you come?" Pat asks.

"Yeah," Elaine says.

Pat rolls away. She snaps off the harness, the dildo falls to the ground-it bounces.

There is a moment of silence, a resting place. Pat is propped up on her elbow, looking at Elaine.

"Do you want me to do it to you?" Elaine asks, hoping Pat says no. "I owe you. You didn't really get any."

"I got enough," Pat says.

The contraption lies limp-not limp, but lame-on the floor.

Elaine notices a second hole, at the back of the harness. "What's that for?"