Gilbert Sorrentino - The Moon In Its Flight

Campbell, then, apparently looked upon Nick as someone who would soon reveal to him the knowledge of all the wondrously, beautifully commonplace, essential things he had missed in his vapid life. That Nick knew how to transfer from, say, the Lex to the Fourth Avenue Local at Fourteenth Street was the commonest sort of knowledge, but to Campbell it made Nick a hero of the street. This was, it goes without saying, daft, but no more so than the awe of those who wonder at the sophistication of the man who understands and appreciates wine or polo or bridge or antiques or baroque music. All trifling expertise, as Nick might have said had he thought or cared to say it, is as one. Campbell was even more impressed because Nick had no curiosity concerning Campbell’s world. If such a world was one made manifest, so Nick seemed to make clear, by Campbell’s dopey clothes and annoying accent and the chilly stories he told of “swotting” for exams and smuggling beer into dormitories, Nick was content to remain ignorant of and distant from it. He never said this to Campbell, but his polite yet fixed smile of attention was more candid than any remark might have been: a drink at the Plaza, ice cream at Rumpelmayer’s, blinis and caviar at the Russian Tea Room with its ghastly pink napkins, none of these things were of any interest or concern to Nick. They were for other people, those who were intent on being something. Nick, in his stiff Crawford suits, Flagg Brothers shoes, Tie City polyester repp stripes, under his gleaming Brylcreem hair, was somehow aristocratically self-contained. This, true or not, enthralled, awed, delighted, and charmed Campbell. So their unlikely friendship developed, neither of them knowing one important thing about the other. This turned out to be a serious matter, indeed; although deeper knowledge may not have changed a single impending act or decision of theirs.

One day, after lunch, Campbell told Nick that he’d been telling Faith about him, and their lunchtime and after-work “adventures,” as he had taken to calling their peregrinations, self-consciously yet delightedly. Well, they were adventures, at least for him, and he had made that clear to Faith. In any event, she’d very much love to have him as a guest up in Connecticut, and as for Campbell, it went without saying that he would be so pleased, and so on. In sum, Nick was invited for a weekend at any time, at his leisure: it was up to him to set a date. At this point, things, for Nick, become a little awkward; not only was the invitation sudden and unexpected, but Nick felt, obscurely, that he was being steered into something. Yet he and Campbell got along, did they not? they worked well together, they were compatible: and Faith was probably terrific. So what was wrong? Nick’s immediate response, had he articulated it, would have been a polite “no.” For somehow behind or beneath the odd bonhomie that easily existed between the two men, was something that nagged at Nick, that made him feel uneasily like — what? A sap, maybe? He had thought, uncertainly, for some time, that Campbell’s innocence and enthusiasm were manufactured, and that his astonished reactions to the mundane this and that to which Nick introduced him were spurious, that he was “putting on an act.” He felt that Campbell was maybe playing him — or playing with him — for some hidden reason of his own. And now, suddenly, Faith was supposedly in a state of eager curiosity about him. “Maybe,” he said. “I’ll let you know — thanks.”

About a week or so later, Nick had decided, despite his subtle discomfort, to accept the invitation, his objections — although they weren’t really that — laid aside. That morning, by peculiar coincidence, Campbell thrust at Nick a handful of color photographs of himself and Faith on an almost empty beach. He had about him a faintly proud, uxorious air, as if he had said, “How do you like my beautiful wife?” Nick, nodding and smiling, as people will, looked through the photographs of the couple, both in swimsuits, both smiling disarming smiles. There were photos of the two of them together, embracing, mugging, wading in the surf; and shots of Campbell and Faith, each alone. She was very lovely, precisely the sort of young wife who would live, or so Nick thought, in some old New England house, no doubt one that her family had bought the young couple as a wedding gift. She was tall and slender, with a nicely formed, lithe body, long straight hair, glossy rich in the rich sun of the rich beach on which they were relaxing or “cavorting,” was the odd word that came to Nick unbidden. But in one photograph, which made Nick, in quick reaction, pull his head sharply back and raise his eyes to Campbell’s, then look down again, Faith stood, unsmiling, looking directly at the camera with what seemed an almost painful sexual intensity. Her hands were cupped beneath her breasts, which were half-out of her bra, in an offering. She was, Nick thought, Nick knew, offering him her breasts, and herself. This glaringly erotic image had been specifically made for him, of course it had. It had been posed by her and by Campbell for him! As he looked up again, Campbell, blushing to his hairline, was reaching for the pack of photographs, embarrassed, nervously laughing, reaching and saying something, saying, “Oh, hell, Nick, I didn’t mean for that one to be — it’s, you know, it’s, I’m sorry. It’s personal.” And he took the photographs back.

All right, so Nick thought, perhaps, it’s “personal,” but it was in the pack, part of the group, not removed for their own pleasures or uses. He was meant to see it. Campbell’s wife was audaciously offering him her body, he was meant to see her breasts, her sensual frown, he was meant to want her. He saw again the soft shadows that were the areolas of her nipples, she might as well have bared herself, for God’s sake. Nick knew, for certain, that Campbell wanted him to fuck his wife. And what would he do? Watch? Nick saw her slender fingers cradling her breasts. This is what Campbell wanted, but did Nick? He decided to wait and see if a weekend visit would come up again.

It did come up again, within a day or two, accompanied by a squeeze of his arm and a kind of maudlin testimonial to Faith’s expectations of his visit: Campbell was “afraid” he’d been “giving her an earful” about Nick. “Anyway,” he said, “I think we could have a hell of a lot of fun.” The photograph was not mentioned. Tomorrow, Nick thought, he’s more than likely to bring in a picture of his wife naked. He didn’t really believe this, nor did he by now believe that Campbell wanted him as a partner in a sexual adventure; he had come to accept Campbell’s assertion that the beach picture was indeed meant to be private and to stay private. He was, or so he told himself, getting a little weird. So he decided to tell Campbell that he’d try to get up to visit on the next weekend or the one after that. On that very day, as if scripted, Campbell brought in another photograph of Faith, this one taken, he was clear on this, especially for Nick. There she stood, sweet and obscene, pouting, in flower-print panties and white high heels, at the side of a king-size bed, an iced drink in one hand and the other curved lightly into her crotch. Behind her was a Boston Museum of Fine Arts poster of an Odilon Redon flower painting that echoed her insubstantial underwear. “Faith wanted me to give you this,” Campbell said. “Even though I wasn’t sure, you know … about it.” He colored slightly. “You, right? understand?”

Nick was nonplussed, to say the very least, by this, nonplussed and silenced, but aroused and tempted as well. Still, the new image of Faith, rather than pushing Nick into inviting himself to their house, pushed him back into procrastination. He was, as remarked, tempted, but repelled as well — it was all too eager and sweaty. And to complicate and blur matters, there was no way for him to know whether Faith had any notion of Campbell’s use of the photograph — of either of them. One might cynically say that Nick, at this point, could not or would not believe that this glorious woman knew that her husband was pimping her face and body, since he was half in love with this discreetly exhibitionistic phantom. It doesn’t really need to be said, but the very things that aroused and inflamed Nick were those that made him apprehensive and uneasy. He was no sexual innocent, and had his fair share, as it is said, of amorous adventures. But there was something just slightly off with this particular situation, something that lay just out of sight. And yet — there was Faith, or at least her image, waiting. Am I crazy about this woman I’ve never seen? Yes. Is she being offered to me like a whore? Yes. Why? I don’t know. Does she know or is she ignorant of her role? Who cares? So he simmered and stalled, half-witted with desire.