Norman Rush - Mortals

He sat down. Her naked feet were in his lap.

He said, “Do you want to pull off those elf pants, me to pull them off?”

“You want sex,” she said.

“Of course, but this is a separate matter because those things look hot. They look uncomfortable.”

“Stirrup pants is what they call them. You may remove them.”

“I am not sort of crushingly out for sex, my dear.”

“Oh mais non.”

“Well I’m not.”

“Sure you are.”

“Well I am and I’m not, you know how it is.”

Her perfect legs were out, there, perfect things, gleaming.

“You can have it if you want it,” she said.

“I know.”

“It won’t be full-dress. I’m so tired. But you know me. I’m happy if you need to.”

“Non, merci.”

“You have a right.”

“No I don’t. There is no such thing.”

“Please,” she said. “Please. Be real.”

She began rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, producing a sound, a creaking sound he hated to hear. It was too organic.

“Ray, I can accommodate you anytime.”

“No I think I’ll wait instead of taking advantage of a lagged-out wreck of a darling and guaranteeing that when I die I’ll go directly to hell.”

He sat at the end of the sofa and took her feet into his lap.

She had her forearm over her eyes. It was possible she was concealing tears, trying to.

She asked, “Did you masturbate?”

He hated this. It was mere liberationism. She knew who he was, for better or worse. He was someone used to there being more of the unsaid in love-talk, love-communications. I’m almost fifty, he thought. Of course this might be an attempt at seduction, getting him onto the slippery slope and then getting sex over with so she would feel better because she had taken care of an obligation.

“No,” he said, lightly, as lightly as he could. This subject was sediment stirred up, he was certain, by the weekend Antichrist, Morel, whose doom was coming. He would arrange it. He thought, He thinks I’m Bottom … I’m Tamburlaine … He’ll see.

He rubbed Nivea cream into the soles of her feet.

She was persisting. “Really not?”

He moved back so that her feet were decently remote from his genitals.

“No. It was part of waiting for you to come back, Iris,” Ray said. It was perverse, what she was doing.

“Did you have wet dreams?” she asked.

“Iris. Yes, I had wet dreams. Since you ask.” Suddenly, he was enraged. She was pushing him around.

“I masturbated,” she said, which was more cheap fucking damned liberationism, offensive, offensive.

“You did?” he said, but lightly, calmly, falsely, to his ears. He wanted to ask her if she had thought of him, if he had been involved in her imagery, if imagery had been involved in the act, which would be a tremendous mistake on his part.

“Did you think of me?” he asked, thinking that if she hesitated before saying yes, it would mean hell, of a sort, was here. She had not even glanced at the mail. Where was she?

“No,” she answered, not hesitating, which was a plus, a great plus. He loved her for her truthfulness.

Now the worst thing he could do next would be to ask further along this line rather than being superior to it. She could save him from ignominy by volunteering something, images from the movies, something innocuous he could live with. This was not like her. Why was she doing this if she loved him? She thinks she wants truth, he thought. Truth for him, when he saw her at the airport, would have meant some act like pressing his hands along her physical outline in the world, hard, like an idiot, a scene.

Tears were leaking out from underneath her forearms. She was trying to disperse and spread them around with arm movements so he wouldn’t notice.

Here we are, he thought. The tears could be over anything, anything, her sister, secret adventures, anything.

Her panties were red lace, ones he liked but not his greatest favorites, the one or two high-cuts she was willing to wear only for sex.

“Stop staring at my mons.”

“I’m not, or not exclusively, anyway. I’m staring at your whole pleasant body.”

“Peasant body?”

“Pleasant.” He enunciated.

“Sorry, my ears are still clogged from flying.” She tried to work up a yawn, but failed.

Now she had both arms crossed over her eyes. Her tears increased. At least she seemed not to be actively crying. Her rib cage movements were slight. She wasn’t heaving out the tears, it was more like leakage, an overflow. He decided to let her weeping run its course, to say nothing until he was solicited. It was always possible he was going to hear that these were tears of relief. He kept kneading the soles of her feet, feeling like weeping himself. What was it about individual vigorous pubic hairs poking here and there through the lace at her crotch that he liked to see, loved, in fact? It was festive, was why.

She said, “Tell me everything.”

“I think I kept you pretty up to date on the phone. Let’s see. Around here, not much. We’re still waiting for the Boka Report. There’s been plenty of funny business in the Housing Authority and it’s possible the vice president will be hurt. There’s a new press law, very objectionable. Somebody in admin at the embassy posted a complaint about the Batswana leaving rubbish behind when they eat in the building. The word pigs was used. Barrage of apologies.

“South Africa is looking okay. You know de Klerk got sixty-seven percent in the white people’s referendum. The oil embargo is off, not that it was ever really on.

“What else … I would say it’s going okay except for Natal. The killing won’t stop in Natal. And you know that Winnie and Nelson are separating.”

“I heard that. She seems to be awful. But it’s sad.”

“She had lots of boyfriends, apparently.”

“Well, but Ray . He was in prison for years. What do you want from people?”

“I know.”

“Why even mention that, when it was about that insane football club she ran and that boy they killed?”

He said, “I had a dream last night. I dreamed there was an ad in the paper for see-through spandex shorts or something. I was going to buy some for you.”

“You don’t need to convince me you’re concupiscent. My offer is on the table. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried. Let’s see. The drought, bad here but patchier than in Zimbabwe. The maize crop is bust.

“Nothing definite on Dwight Wemberg, although there are theories that he’s gone to ground up north. And by the way, I’m getting the distinct impression that I’m supposed to bring him in. Me. He’s my responsibility. I may have to go up to Maun. There’s no logic to it. Whenever there’s a fugitive around here the conventional wisdom is that he’s hiding up in the swamps. Like the mass murderer. Lord Lucan. They thought he was in the Okavango.”

“No, the Tuli Block.”

“Same thing. The imbroglio at St. James you know about, except the latest. There was the Too Much of Cabbage rebellion and then there was property damage, then the school was shut down. And where it is now is that the parents want somebody to give the miscreants a big punishment event, with the miscreants getting lashes. All hands refer to the students as miscreants, by the way, myself included.

“So, you know Curwen. He won’t hear of any lashing business. There’s a standoff and I don’t know how long we’ll be closed. The House of Chiefs, big surprise, has come out against Curwen.

“You met Pony, the young guy who worked in the bursar’s office. Curwen was grooming him for bursar, although I guess he had never gotten around to hinting to Pony that that offer was coming, being a Brit. Anyway Pony has disappeared.