A. Homes - The End of Alice

I feel Clayton’s weight and understand both the comfort and fear of suffocation. I feel my cavity fill with his fluid and know that for hours it will slowly run out of me; it will mix with shit and leak out a milky brown, soft suede. I will feel him in me longer than he will feel me around him. He will zip up and walk off and I will still lie here split in half. I will have to roll over and take matters in hand. I am the pussy and I take it to heart. I know what it means to be the wife and am so glad to have this horrible moment, this degradation, under my skin.

I check myself in the mirror. I am old, so old. My youth, my beauty, has been lost to this place, that is what they’ve stripped me of — my finest years. As a young man there was a notable fineness to my features: clear eyes, a thick head of hair, even my chest tresses evoked a certain mystery— there was a mystical spin, a magical weave, to the pattern of that thatch. It swirled like a hypnotist’s spiral, round and round. And look at me now. The skin that every summer broke out in freckles is awash in liver spots. The mat on my chest has gone silver, spare, wiry like steel wool. It is the wiring of death, my own wiring breaking through the skin. My body is softening, spilling out over the edges. Everything attractive has disappeared. The fine cap of hair that crowned my pate has receded into thin gray strands— I grow them long and carefully sweep them back. When my teeth go into a jar, that will be all, the end. I’ll file the damn dentures sharp and bite my own jugular.

On turning fifty in this criminal hothouse, as the institution’s gift the cook baked a dozen of my beloved cuppy cakes — the finished product was leaden like Civil War ammunition, coated with a heavy brown frosting that had less flavor, less firmness, than shit.

“Thanks,” I said to the cook. “Thanks very much.”

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“And many more,” the sergeant added.

He called! My mother answered the phone!

Obviously she hasn’t received my latest missive yet, the postcard that explains the proper time and place for exclamation marks!

His voice cracked! Tennis date, tomorrow! Can’t wait!

Tennis. They meet at the courts. He arrives early and stands by the fence, swinging his racket, the Wilson wonder wand, back and forth through the grass as though it were not the accoutrement of activity, the measure of athletic prowess, not a sporty bit of equipment but that most modern whip, the freshest fetishistic toy for playing out the empire’s old relation between homeowner and his lawn, a weed whacker.

She arrives, says not hello, but are you ready?

Hello is a word that comes with a blush, a flush of shyness. It is not absolutely necessary, and so it is dropped. She is dying — half-dying — not having known until now that he would be so willing, so easy.

They step onto the courts. Quickly, she goes to the far side. Her T-shirt catches the breeze, fills with air, billows like a sail — catches my eye, catches my breath, my full attention. With only the slightest effort, she could fly.

For his part, the boy wears the vestments of virgin, white tennis shorts and a proper white T-shirt. The shorts are too snug, the shirt too large — his father’s. His effort displays his desire to please, the seriousness with which he has taken the job, his vulnerability.

She smiles.

With the exception of two women in tennis togs at the far end, the courts are empty. The women are volleying, taking great care to avoid the baby carriage parked midcourt by the sidelines under the shade of a maple tree.

To catch his attention, she holds a bright green ball up in the air.

He crouches, readies — the crotch of his shorts bunches up. She loves playing tennis. He hits, she hits, they hit. She plays him well, but rarely allows herself to win. She compliments him, but not too much, not too often. She does not make him work excessively hard nor does she make the game too easy. There is time for that. The ultimate move, the great reach out and touch someone, must come from him. He must initiate otherwise he will be too shy, he will feel put upon. She will wait until it is his idea, until it is something he wants, knows he must have. Until then, they will just play.

The ball escapes and flies into the far court, into the ladies’ game. He indicates that he will retrieve it. She looks at the two women, looks at her boy looking at them. They are in short white dresses with frilly white panties, like diaper covers, over their underwear. When the boy comes toward them, one of the women bends to pick up his ball. Bent, the full fluff of her upper, inner thigh is flashed in his face along with the sparsely haired turkey skin that surrounds the extended pubic region. That the hole is hidden, swathed, only makes things worse — that it, too, isn’t flashed in his face heightens the suspense, hints that something more special is buried there, makes everything seem better than it is, than it ever could be. The baby begins to cry and the woman leaves him for the carriage. The boy returns with a rise in his shorts. From across the court, she sees the distension, the bulge, bloom. The fat bitch has given him a hard-on. Will mysteries never cease?

I am Casper here, the friendly, fondling ghost. I walk out onto the court, stand behind her, and take her arm as she pulls it back to swing. I touch her. There is the high hum, the holy harmonia, as if to touch, to tickle, were the highest, most sophisticated of all tantric exercises.

Even though she is well past age, even though not quite so fine as something brand spanking new, I am stirred by the feel of her flesh. Is it because I have been deprived, have gone without for so long? Is it possible that as my age advances, the acceptable limit of their years also rises? The idea that if I live to be eighty, I will find forty-year-olds attractive, will think them babes, is a thought that should I ever think it, I hope will be seconded by the impulse toward suicide. That I might find charm and sustenance in fully flowered — past ripe, nearly sour— endowments, that a grown woman’s warm welcome of my intrusions, protrusions, my wicked weapon, might someday appeal, is far, far beyond what I am willing to allow my imagination to conjure. They say women peak sexually much later than men — I have witnessed though not sampled such; a willingness to experiment, wife-swapping, doing it with the dog, with the bisexual daughter of the couple next door, etc., and frankly it scares me half to death.

Her. It is urgent that I take her in my hold and encourage her to step into the ball, pivot, rotate fully, to arch her back when serving. I need to stand pressed against her, spread her legs, then ask her to check her balance, her position. I want to slightly humiliate her in her game, to rub myself against her, and through this loving, gentle guidance separate her from him, that she should play with only me. I want to lick her lips, to spit in her eyes, and spray her with what is mine.

Can’t wait!

And when their hour is past, when their hearts are pounding and sebaceous glands pouring sweat, she makes the gesture of checking her watch, an unspoken but undeniable signal that their time is up. He comes to the net. “Great,” she says, blotting her nose. She has a propensity to sweat, to produce water bubbles like blisters that cover her shnoz — good pores, effective but not too large. “Yeah, great,” he says, echoing her sound, imitating her blotting with a wider gesture, wiping his whole face with the shoulder of his father’s shirt. She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a ten, and he starts to hesitate, to actually back away, to pretend that he’s not going to take her money. But she holds steady; the bill remains, extended, curled in the air between them. He takes the money. “We’re pretty well matched,” he says.