By Lynda Schor
The first
time Clifford and I had sex, (I hate that expression but I can't say "made
love."
"Slept
together" isn't true, and "fucked" doesn't sound too good anymore, though
for a
while during
the seventies it had a real tang to it, a crude panache, an edge that overuse
has worn
down. "Making the beast with two backs" I've always hated. "Having one's
ashes
hauled"
might be good for certain occasions. But as far as describing sex goes,
there's no
adequate
language. Maybe that's because there aren't enough descriptions of sex.
During sex
one has
to make up one's own language. For those who like it, crude language is
fine, and
for others
the language of romance works. More often than not, I won't ask for something
because
the words are funny, crude, or clinical, and, ultimately, a turn-off. Anyone
who
thinks
a lot about language during sex needs some more port.) Clifford was drinking
port wine
because, as he said, "It keeps me from thinking too much."
I wondered
how you could think too much. I assumed that his mind went racing when
he
wanted
to be feeling. Or that it meant being aware of all sorts of things that
are antiromantic,
or anti-sexy.
All the blood that he wanted to be flowing into his penis was flowing through
his brain.
He wanted his penis to be erect--not his cerebellum, his cerebrum.
From his
stories about his past, I got the feeling that his penis used to be an
initiator, but that
it had
gotten him into trouble by choosing the wrong women, and the wrong time
and place.
By now,
after much discussion and lots of training in restraint, it's become much
more
passive.
He almost has to encourage it before it will perform. (More about the word
"perform.")
Perhaps
it's trying to tell Clifford something, but in a different way. Or perhaps,
like my father
with my
mother, it's become tired of being led around by Clifford, and is now showing
its
passive-aggressive
side.
He hadn't
wanted to have sex in my apartment because my son was upstairs in his room.
"He'll
never come down while you're here because he's afraid of finding us doing
something he
won't want
to see," I'd said.
Clifford
and I weren't madly in love, and that made the sex so much more self-conscious.
So maybe
we shouldn't have had sex until we were in love, you might say. But maybe
sex without
love is more intimate. Perhaps the very passion of love obliterates awareness.
"Love"
may feel like the most intimate experience, but maybe it's the opposite.
if Clifford
and I were
mad about each other, writing about our first night would turn out like
romance
writing.
Like when I tried writing about Hoo Hwa. It really was sappy. I couldn't
get
a handle
on anything real about the experience, anything that romance novel words
and
phrases
wouldn't work best for. Writing about Hoo Hwa and me in love was hard
to make
unique or even unusual, difficult to keep it from sounding trite.
We brought
the wine up to Clifford's loft bed. The sheets had brown and black and
orange
stripes.
I hate brown and orange together. Then I recalled how I'm always telling
Steffi
that she
makes too much of appearances. However, are someone's sheets just "appearances"?
A choice
was made here. Perhaps appearances are everything. But Steffi might leave
because
of the
sheets (or the violet walls) whereas I just note things. I give it time,
filing everything
away until
there's an accretion of details about the person that forces me to go either
one way
or the
other. The fact that the bed wasn't made was sort of touching--why make
a loftbed? No
one can
see it from underneath. There was a subtle odor up there in the sheets,
neither bad
nor good.
Something to get used to.
We had been
kissing down in Clifford's kitchen, but navigating up the loftbed stairs,
one of us
at a time,
with two glasses. and a bottle, brought me back to my feeling of strangeness--being
with a
near-stranger, and in a strange apartment.
I lay down
on the mattress before taking any clothes off because I feel I look best
that way--
lying down.
if possible I like to leave some pieces of clothing on too. It makes me
feel less
naked.
Which some people don't feel even when they are, and some people feel even
when
clothed.
The article of clothing I prefer leaving on is my undershirt. Some former
lovers weren't
at all
interested in breasts, and never noticed they were covered. I sat up to
hug him, but
Clifford
lifted my cotton Jockey shirt and studied my breasts, his eyes moving from
one to the
other.
I studied his face in the meantime. It seemed as if he were having a religious
experience.
At one
time his worship would have turned me on, as if I was turning myself on
through the
refraction
of his gaze. But now it just seemed odd. Maybe I was thinking too much.
I took a
swig of
port. My tongue shriveled. Clifford touched my breasts gently, weighing
them in his hands.
This didn't
interest me, except to wonder what he was thinking, if he was, though I
really liked his
gentleness.
But my nipples became erect anyway.
I opened
Clifford's fly, and then pulled up his shirt. I liked his pale, hairless
stomach and chest.
He lifted
his arms for me like an infant. I was touched, and watched his upper arms
and chest
gooseflesh.
He tried to stand up to pull off his jeans and hit his head on the ceiling.
"I've done that on my loftbed," I said, giggling.
He lay down
beside me, rubbing his head, while I pulled off his jeans, which his jockeys
came off
with, immediately
exposing him.
I was surprised
at Clifford's penis. Not that anything was wrong. But Clifford is tall
and slender,
and his
penis was, well maybe not exactly short, but chubby, stocky. I guess I
expect people's
penises
to resemble them, not to look like strangers. Stefan, my first husband,
though he was
small-boned
and delicate, had a surprisingly large and fat organ (is that the right
word here?).
But he
also had fat fingers and toes, so maybe, because of that, it wasn't so
much of a surprise.
That's when
Clifford introduced his penis as Roger, and it seemed perfectly logical,
its seeming
like a
different person, that it or "he" have "his" own name. D. H. Lawrence's
gamekeeper,
Mellors,
from Lady Chatterley's Lover, had his John Thomas. (And, come to
think of it, wasn't
the poor
cuckolded, paralyzed husband, the one with the money, named Clifford?)
There are
many jokes
about penises having their own separate identities, but Roger made them
seem
true. He
was a short fat bald guy standing on a small island of wheat-colored grass.
"Don't feel
obligated to do anything," I said. "I mean, I hate it when people, men,
or women,
think that
just because you've gotten undressed, or because you kissed, that you have
to finish
the entire
act (another strange word). That you have to come (another strange word)."
As soon
as I said that, Clifford sighed with relief, and Roger, appreciating the
lack of demand,
swelled.
"Hold me,"
Clifford said, finishing the port. We lay on the foam rubber mattress,
covered with
the striped
sheet, our arms around each other. I enjoyed being held, and the voluptuous
sensation
of Clifford
running his fingers slowly up and down my arm, tickling. His hand moved
more and
more slowly,
and then stopped. I looked at Clifford. His mouth was slightly open, his
eyes were
moving
under his closed lids. I never could have fallen asleep like that with
someone I hardly knew.
I felt suddenly
very bereft: I was in a strange place, one that had a strange smell, and
I was all alone.