On Archimedes Street (26 page)

Dutch grabbed Flip’s butt, pulling Flip in deeper as he slid in.

In a whisper: “Take it all the way out real slow, so that the head is on my hole. Then stick it back in real fast.”

Flip complied.

“Yeah, like that! Pork my hole!”

Then, at the next slow withdrawal, Dutch let out a loud rumble.

“Pooorrrk….”

And with the next rapid reentry, a staccato shout.

“
Butt
!”

After a few of these, Flip whispered, “I’m close.”

“Yeah, let’s ride this home.” Dutch stroked himself. “Chant it with me.”

“Pooorrrk….” slowly out.

“Not so loud!” But Flip joined in, just as loud.

“
Butt
!” Quickly in.

Then together: “Pooorrrk….
Butt
! Pooorrrk….
Butt
! Pooorrrk….
Butt
!” Flip felt the orgasm boiling up in his balls. “Now!” He shot, and his own ejaculate lubricated the finale.

Dutch gave himself three rapid strokes during those final thrusts.

“Pork
butt
! Pork
butt
! Pork
butt
!”

Dutch erupted on the final beat of the porcine cantillation. It gushed onto Dutch’s stomach, pooling in his navel and running down the defined muscles of his stomach, soiling the bedclothes. It smeared between them as Flip slowly pulled out.

They lay side by side, facing each other, fighting to slow the pace of their respiration. Each held the other’s gaze for a second. They smirked at the same time, and Dutch said, “Take that
dirty
dick.” Then the laughter came. And stayed.

Chapter 36

D
OODIE
WAS
an uxorious man. He’d indulged his three wives far more than had been good for them, giving them every little thing they asked for, bringing home candy and flowers routinely. First, Rita Mae. Died of cancer. Rita Lee. Aneurysm. Finally, Estelle. That ended in divorce. After so many years of calling his mate “Miz Rita,” Doodie had not been able to break the habit. Estelle got sniffy about it. That was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

The truth was, he missed female company. He was getting on in years. Why should he spend them alone? He had the money and the inclination to spoil a woman, make her happy. And here was a woman. Respectable. Of a suitable age. Most importantly, she was named Rita. Of course, she was white, but that couldn’t be helped. He knew eyebrows would be raised. But he didn’t care. And he thought she wouldn’t either.

Honoria had departed to grade papers, and the Abbott boys were long gone. Ogorita and Doodie were washing up the pots. Doodie scrubbed. Rita toweled them dry or, in the case of the cast-iron skillets, set them to sizzle over a flame on the stove.

He removed his apron and dried his hands on it. He would have proposed as they worked together, so harmoniously domestic, but it felt wrong to propose while he was wearing an apron.

Hanging it on the refrigerator’s magnetic hook, he finally spoke.

“Miz Rita, I got somethin’ to say.”

“Well, go ahead and say it. God knows you’re not slow to speak your mind.”

“I declarin’.”

“What are you declaring?”

He knew the woman wasn’t this dense. She was probably extending this moment, to savor it later.

“I axin’ for your han’ in marriage.”

“My hand in ma….” Rita drew out a kitchen chair and sat on it. She took a deep breath. “Come sit down, Doodie.”

She waited a second or two. “I’m very honored, Doodie….”

“No. Wait. I know what you gonna say. Too ol’. Too set in your ways. Don’t wanna leave your own home.”

Rita nodded.

“But you won’t hafta. I set in my ways too. Don’t wanna leave my house eeder.”

“How would that work?”

“We meet after woik, make a meal togedder. Share it. Invite people. Play cawds. We take toins in each udder’s house. Help each udder. Play in the yawd wit’ plants. I treat you real good, Miz Rita. You a fine lady.”

“You mean this would be a white marriage?”

“Well….” Doodie couldn’t figure out what Rita was asking.

“I mean a marriage without sex.”

Doodie didn’t like the word
sex
. He preferred
relations
.

“What a marriage is, if it don’t have relations? No, a real marriage, Miz Rita, wit’ a weddin’ night an’ all. Course, I no young buck. You can’t be ’specting—”

But Doodie was interrupted by a muffled sound from next door.

“Uhm uhm
bwah
, uhm uhm
bwah
, umh uhm
bwah bwah
.”

“
Da
-wum
da
-wum
da
-wum
dah
.
Da
-wum
da
-wum
da
-wum
dah
.”

They looked at each other, startled.

“Pooorrrk….
Butt
! Pooorrrk….
Butt
! Pooorrrk….
Butt
!”

“Pork
butt
! Pork
butt
! Pork
butt
!”

Doodie frowned at the interruption. “Dem boys strange.”

She would have spoken up for her boys, but the interruption really did come at the most inopportune moment. “Oh, they’re just practicing their bicycle chanting.” Secretly, however, she was moved and ridiculously pleased by the compliment to her cooking. “And it sounds like they appreciated my Boston butt roast too.”

“Yeah. It really delicious tonight, Miz Rita.”

“Doodie. I really care for you. And you paint a picture of a life that’s very appealing to me.”

“You except?”

“Doodie, there’s something you have to see.” She dreaded this, but she summoned her courage. “Wait here.”

She went into her bedroom and removed her blouse and bra. She knew that Doodie was too prudish to stay in the room while she disrobed.

She stepped into the kitchen, and he looked up. He started to protest, and then he realized. This was not obscene. This was not flirtation or dalliance. This was information that was best relayed visually. Picture-and-thousand-word thing. Did she really think he would mind the scar?

“Well? What do you say, Doodie?”

Doodie delayed. Finally, he said, “Titties for babies.”

Rita was floored. She expected platitudes, sympathy, anything but this response. “Tit” certainly had an Old English root, “titt,” which satisfied her far more deeply than “breast,” even though it, too, derived from the Old English, “breost.” She wondered about “baby.” She’d have to look it up. From “babble”?

“A satisfactory response, Doodie. Yes, I will marry you.” She left the room to make herself decent again.

When she returned, Doodie seemed shy. He was almost pawing at the floor with a foot, embarrassed by something.

“’Preciate what you jes’ did. Honest. Ol’ people got to be honest—not that you ol’, Miz Rita, like me!” he quickly amended. “But you prolly should know I got cancer too. Prostrate,” he said darkly. “Dey put radian nuggets in it, but don’t woik. So—dey took it out.”

“You had prostate cancer?”

“Guess you correctin’ me. Well, it
prostrate
me, I can tell you.”

“So that’s why your nephew took over the hardware store for six months….”

“Now I figger it—so dat’s why you retire.”

There was a lull.

“We’re survivors, aren’t we, Doodie?”

“Yes, Miz Rita.” If all those uxorious years had taught him anything, it was this: The answer to any woman’s question was “Yes, Miz Rita.” Except, of course, if the woman was Miz Estelle.

“You bin honest. You gotta know.” Doodie shook off a frown. “Not dat it make no diff’rence. But, when it come to relations….”

“Yes?”

“Don’t get the wrong ideer. I still do the relations… take the Cialis. But….”

“Yes?”

“Well, the prostrate push it out, you know? An’ don’t want you to think you don’t satisfy, but you see….”

“Yes?”

“Well, I come in my”—Doodie could hardly bring himself to say it—“in mahnuts,” he elided in a whisper. “’Stead of coming out, it go back in, to, well—you know.” Doodie was abashed and looked at the floor, at anything but Rita’s face.

“You mean retrograde ejaculation?” Then Rita frowned.
Retrograde ejaculation?
What a ridiculous phrase! She’d been hanging out with Honoria for far too long.

Doodie didn’t know what that meant. “I mean I now a nut-comer.”

Nut-comer!
The word danced in her brain. A modern-day kenning of force, of directness.

“And when you come, can I feel that you’re coming, if I grab your balls?”

“Miz Rita, please! Not decent!”

“Let’s do it now! What are we waiting for?”

“Miz Rita! What you sayin’? We gotta stand up befo’”—he stammered—“the preacher befo’ dat—I mean anythin’—happen.” In fact, his experience before this had all been pretty vanilla. No woman had ever grabbed his balls, before or after his operation. They seemed somehow disgusted by or at the least uninterested in his genitals. Doodie was intrigued, and he tried to put the thought out of his mind. Somehow, though, it lingered there.

Of course, she was disappointed. But, in a way, she was charmed.

And then Doodie said, “An’ you know—if we a team—a real couple. Well. We could share. You know? What we know.”

“What do you mean?”

“An’ beat LaNasa—I mean Miz Lotte—in the cook-off.”

And right then Rita knew she wasn’t making a mistake.

Chapter 37

“W
HEN
HE
dies, they’ll have to call him ‘the dead Councilman Abbott,’ because he has perpetually been ‘the late Councilman Abbott.’ Paule, he was even late for our wedding! La! Well, there’s worse things, I suppose.” Say-Say Abbott smiled ruefully at her hostess. Paule Saint-Paix returned the smile, making it warm. One of those worse things, Paule knew, was that Achille Abbott was a menace to anything in skirts. And at his age too! You’d think he’d know better by now. Unfortunately, except for his bald spot, he’d retained the good looks of his youth. And power was an aphrodisiac.

“What will you be late to tonight?”

“Oh, the debutante predinner dinner dinner. Dinner dance. At least it’s a chance to dress up. And I suppose we’ll make an entrance.” Say-Say Abbott essayed a weak smile.

“Say-Say, we’ve been friends a long time. I care for you very much.”

“I love you too, Paule. Don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“And I without you, especially when Frenchy….” She paused. “So, you’ll forgive me if I’m trespassing where I shouldn’t, but Say-Say?”

“Yes.”

“It seems to me that you’re not happy. I think you haven’t been happy for a long time now.”

Say-Say stifled a sniffle.

“No! No tears. Red, swollen eyes are the last thing that’s going to help you now. I think I know why you’re unhappy, Say-Say.”

“Yes, I imagine everybody knows why. And now Dutch has gone off to live in some hovel on”—she shuddered—“the West Bank, on top of it all.”

“New necklace?”

Say-Say patted her throat. “Yes. I call this one ‘Dianne.’”

“Dianne?”

“Yes. Every time Achille embarks on one of his affairs, he gives me an expensive piece of jewelry. Babs is a diamond bracelet. Sally is a dinner ring. Simone is a sapphire-and-pearl choker. Simone lasted longer than the others. I don’t imagine he knows I know their names.”

“Why don’t you take them back to the jeweler and get something you like?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like them. In a way, they’re precious to me, because Achille took the time and care to pick them out.”

“He took no time and took no care. He probably just told the jeweler to pick something out in a certain price range—the price undoubtedly in direct proportion to the guilt. And the jeweler unloaded the merchandise that wasn’t moving. You should return them all!”

Say-Say was a little miffed. She knew Paule was well intentioned, but somehow the jewelry was a solace. “I don’t know. His feelings might—”

“
His
feelings! What about
your
feelings? Look, Say-Say, I refuse to let you be his doormat any longer. Take that grotesque thing off right now!”

Say-Say reached behind her neck to undo the clasp and handed the heavy necklace over. Paule handled it with distaste. “Achille always did have more money than taste.”

Say-Say giggled a little, feeling mutinous. She was surprised to feel a tingle of excitement.

Paule dropped the necklace on her dressing table and moved to her own jewelry chest. “It doesn’t suit you. Where is that Edwardian lavaliere? Ah, here it is!” She withdrew an oval about the size of a guest soap, encrusted with small rose-cut diamonds, which didn’t glitter. They glowed softly. The thin platinum chain crossed an inch above the pendant, which was attached to the two crossing strands. A large sapphire surmounted the X where the chain crossed. Paule stepped behind Say-Say to work the clasp.

“Oh, Paule! It’s exquisite!”

“Yes, they knew something about elegance then. It’s lovely on you. It’s yours; it suits you much better than it suits me.”

Say-Say wanted the lavaliere. She knew she should refuse. “Oh, I can’t take this; it must be of untold worth.”

“It is. Just like its new owner.”

Say-Say blushed. She was insanely pleased. No one complimented her anymore.

“But you know… it’s all wrong with that light blue you are wearing.” Paule was extremely politic. The voluminous baby-blue crepe-de-chine was straight out of Queen Elizabeth II’s closet, circa 1972. Complete with matching baby-blue shoes, yet. And to think that Say-Say thought the modernistic, jutting angles of Achille’s chunky gold necklace somehow complemented this dowdy thing.

“Shall I run home and change? Maybe my beaded peach….”

Paule quickly scotched any retreat toward the beaded peach. She hadn’t seen it, but “peach” and “beaded” told her all she needed to know. “No, I have just the thing.” She stepped toward her dressing room.

“Oh, Paule, you’re just a slip of a thing! A size 2. I’m a 6. I couldn’t squeeze….”