Stephen Dixon - Fall and Rise

“I don’t remember. I should have, shouldn’t I? What I actually thought was that you liked men’s cologne. I couldn’t have been thinking of anyone else. But what about it?” and he makes little kissing noises. “I want to, mucho.”

“Then don’t make a big thing of it or hit me with the dirties or chipmunk sound effects. But do it before the light changes.”

“You’re not doing this just to keep the journey safe?”

“Oh sure, some safe journey. But I’m not. I’d like to kiss you.” A car honks behind us. Light’s changed. “Too late. I knew you were stalling. Next red light and no blab about how you have got to and my exciting nothingness. Just lean over. I’ll be here, maybe a few inches closer, and ready.”

“We should also go to bed.”

“Now stop. One thing at a time and now’s not that time.”

“If it leads to it?”

“What’s got into you? You were never so unwilling to just kiss nor exacting for future promises from it. So let’s at the next red and if it leads to that other thing, it does. I could do it. I’m pretty ready for that too. Truthfully, it wouldn’t be because I was in any but maybe an old memory way touched with unfulfilled feelings for you. You’re still attractive to me. And I know what we could usually do once we got around to it even in some of our worst moments, and that you wouldn’t make a big deal of it. And you wouldn’t, would you? That is, if we did ultimately do it — because that wouldn’t be like you. It’s not smart to sleep with ex-boyfriends if they’re going to put you through things after you’ve slept with them again for one night.”

“We were almost engaged.”

“The light coming up is about to turn red. Are you still game for just starters?”

“There won’t be a problem.” We’re driving along the alternative road for the highway. River’s on our left and not too far ahead an enormous liner is docked, with all its lights on it seems and one of its smokestacks going. We’re a few blocks from the elevated part of the highway if that part hasn’t been torn down too. Didn’t a moving truck sink through what became its razed part somewhere around here which started this whole multibillion dollar removal? Light’s red. We’ve stopped, he moves closer to me, I stay still, we kiss. Feels good. “Nice, huh?” he says. “You always had the softest lips existent, except when you got a sore or two on them. Mind?”

“Another kiss? No.”

He kisses me harder, tries to pry my lips open with his tongue and I fight him. Oh let him, so I let him. We go at it like that, his hand on my thigh, mine on his, both stroking, lips not parting, my skin jingling and head back to boozy. Honks, like a boop-boop-be-doop, behind us. He releases me and the handbrake and we drive on. “Come to my place,” he says when we’re passing the liner and going up the highway ramp too fast for me to catch its name. I always wanted to see the QE2 up close, and maybe I just did, but only with a bit of rummaging through today’s or tomorrow’s newspaper about ship arrivals and departures will I know. “You don’t have to stay the night, but stay if you want to. In fact if you do come you should stay. But come — that’s the important thing. Helene?”

“I’m here; I was just thinking. Was that the QE2 we passed?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“It was several blocks long and had three smokestacks and a dark hull.”

“I once sailed on the Queen and in the six or seven days it took to Bremer-haven — seven, since Le Havre was six — I don’t ever remember observing how many stacks it had. But sounds right. Most liners have two. Huge ships like the Queen, probably three.”

“I’d love to sail on it, but only to Europe. I’ve never gone by ship.”

“We could this summer. Fly one way, return by ship, or the reverse. The Queen still does.”

“Please, we will not. And your place? Also not a good idea. I don’t care what I said about old boyfriends or even near-fiancés, it’s different with ones I loved, and I loved you, you jerk.”

“And this jerk loved you. So it stopped for us both. But we could still fuck tonight, because look at that kiss.”

“You have to say it that way? I’ve nothing against curse words, but that’s all acting on your part. Turning-me-on talk that’s turning me off.”

“Pigshit. Scumbags. Fistfuckers. Cocksucking. It’s a great idea, not a good one, and you have a great body, not a good one, and I want to fuck it. I want to fuck you. I want to screw you and lay you and perform the act of love with you and grab your ass with me on top of your ass and big tits with me on the bottom and I want to suck, fuck and pluck and really plow you. I want to very badly. So, that’s so bad? Fuck it and too fucking bad, for that’s what the fuck I feel and want to do.”

“Thank goodness there are no red lights on this.”

He pulls over to the right, puts the hazard lights on and starts coming to a stop.

“Don’t! That’s insane! You’ll kill us!”

“Sorry,” and he pulls into the driving lane. “And I’m a dummy and also sorry for my talk if it repulsed you.”

“It didn’t repulse. It—”

“Whatever, I’m sorry, and you know what I still want to do. We’d do it for the pure kicks of it and because we once loved and now very much like and respect one another, at least you can be assured I still do with you and even if that respect part sounds contradictory after my fuck talk. Or for no other reason but — no, no reason at all or not one we—”

“Oh—”

“Please, Helene.”

“Oh, I’ll come up. I can’t seem to — oh, I can but I don’t want to argue, because why not? — sure. But only if you promise to give me a good back massage and a glass of seltzer.”

“I’ll massage you anywhere and all night if you want and I only have club soda.”

“I thought I could always get seltzer at your place.”

“Maybe I have some. I probably do, put away for special occasions.”

“And just my back. Don’t get so enterprising. I doubt my body could take more than that tonight. Now I’m going to doze off but not so deeply where you can’t wake me when we arrive.”

“You want to have a baby badly, don’t you.”

“Whuh?” My eyes had been shut five seconds.

“Not by me, but you really still do. Just answer me, then doze.”

“Why that out of nowhere?”

“Like that. Had a feeling, had to say it. If I didn’t I would have lost it. Infantile attitude á la friend Sven, but you want to get married to someone very unlike me — someone who wants to get married but really and have a baby soon. That’s why you were so, well, sad at the balcony announcement, and later pissed off at Sven, besides what that Arthur fellow would make anyone feel.”

“My, you have quite the head on your hat, old buddy. You sure do.”

“Don’t have to get cynical.”

“Then why try to get me to say what you already know and what is probably still a sore point between us? That’s even worse turn-off behavior and talk than that turn-off talk from before. Maybe you had a change of mind about my coming up.”

“Most certainly not. I thought I was getting into something deep; I obviously wasn’t.”

“If you were saying has my attitude changed on the matter in the last year—”

“Maybe that’s what I was saying.”

“It wasn’t, but I’ll answer anyway, bluntly, not deep. It hasn’t. I still do ultimately want to have a baby with someone I care for very much, and I feel confident I will. And because of my age I should be thinking seriously about having one fairly soon, not so much because of the increasing risks of conceiving an unhealthy baby but because I want to be frisky enough to take care of it and play with it and continue to know it over a long period of time. But it’s not a serious problem with me. I’m not, in other words, if Mr. Love doesn’t come along, going to have one as a Miss Mom or jump into marriage with a loving schmuck who also wants to have a baby, just to have one. And it’s not going to stop me, your talk — at least what you’ve said so far, so this is a sincere petition not to say anymore about it — from making love tonight, if you still want to and we’re not too tired to, since right now that’s what I’d like to do. If I’ve broken your balls a little just now, I apologize, since that’s not what I wanted to do at all. Now give me my three-minute doze.”