I Am Curious (Thirty)

March 2

Arnold is really weird!

Who would have guessed it? Not I. He seemed (and truly is) so nice, so simpatico. Not that there is any reason why weird people should be other than nice and simpatico, but one has these stereotypes in mind.

We had dinner, as planned. An Italian restaurant on I think it was Carmine Street. Checkered table cloths and Chianti bottles with dripped candles in them. The usual sort of thing. He talked me into having calamari, which is squid, which is octopus, which turned out to be ever so much more palatable than I had dared to anticipate. From now on when I go to restaurants I am going to try to pick out something I have never had before.

After dinner we went not to a movie but to bed, and not to his bed but to mine. There was a long line in front of the movie, so we gave each other meaningful looks and I said something about my apartment not being very far away. He bought some wine and we went back and talked a little and necked a little and went to bed.

The necking part was really great. It brought it all back. Being young and dating and just feeling each other and groping toward sex instead of getting undressed and putting on a diaphragm and getting in bed together and mechanically gliding into the old husband-and-wife number.

When we wound up in bed it was like two happy kids playing with sex, very loose and sweet and nice. We sort of moved from position to position, and it was loose and lazy, no urgency. I think the wine probably had something to do with it. He was able to go what seemed an incredible length of time without coming and without losing his erection. We took turns being on top, he took me from the rear, we sat facing each other, and the whole thing was purely physical, pure bedroom gymnastics, with no complication of how did we feel about each other or where is our relationship going or any of that oppressive crap.

I hadn’t thought, on the basis of the other night, that he was that good a lover. I think maybe there’s a certain amount of getting used to each other that people have to do before they can really groove on each other’s bodies.

I could have come a couple of times before I finally did, but I waited, and we got there together. Strangely enough after all of that it was not overpowering, not designed to knock me unconscious or anything like that, but very enjoyable and clean feeling and happy making all the same.

Revelation: Sometimes one (i.e., me) does not want to have a big orgasm because it is too much of a surrender of self. Of ego. The little part of you inside your head does not want to let go all the way. Question: Is that why women are frigid? That same kind of holding back?

I am learning things about myself and the world. Maybe they are things everyone else already knows — I sometimes get that feeling, that I am in fact some sort of retarded child. But I am changing. I feel myself changing. Every day I find myself somehow no longer the child I was yesterday.

Scary.

But Arnold and his weirdness. Afterward we were lying on the bed together. I have naturally told him things about myself, not hiding anything in particular, merely being a little reticent about details. Now he begins to ask sex questions.

“Can I ask you something, Jan? Ever make it with a girl?”

“No.”

“Honestly? Not even once?”

“Of course not. I’m probably a lot of things, but not a lesbian. Why?”

“I wondered.”

“I impress you as a lesbian? I’m not sure that’s a compliment, love.”

“Oh, as a matter of fact, you’re wrong.”

“Really?”

“Mmm-hmmm. Most really sensual women have had a homosexual experience somewhere along the line. High school or college. A drunken thing with a roommate or a crush on a teacher or some sort of thing.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Your observation or Kinsey’s?”

“I suppose mine, but I don’t think it’s original with me, or that it strikes a blow at established theories. Everybody’s supposed to be basically bisexual, you know.”

“I’m sure I never felt anything that way.”

“Maybe not. Ever have any experience with group sex?”

“You mean wife swapping? Suburban sin clubs? I suppose some of that does go on—”

“You better believe it does.”

“But I never had firsthand evidence of it. In our crowd there was some occasional groping at parties and there may have been some affairs on the sly, but no Westport Roulette.”

“Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Isn’t it? You know, with the keys in the hat?”

“I guess so.”

“Is that what you meant?”

“Not exactly. I meant, you know, more than two people in the bed.”

“Like an orgy?”

“Well, like three.”

“No, never.”

Looking off into the distance, “I knew this girl with an absolute passion for going to bed with two men at once. She told me she had done it a couple of times and it was fantastically exciting to her.”

“Two men at once?”

“Yes.”

“You mean one right after the other?”

“I mean two at once.”

“I don’t see exactly what sort of thing they would do.”

“Well, use your imagination.”

“I’m sorry, I’m stupid tonight. But they couldn’t both get into her at the very same time, could they? I don’t see—”

“There is, how to say this, there is more than one aperture in a girl, love.”

“Oh, one in the mouth.”

“Or one here.”

“I never thought of that.”

“Haven’t you there?”

“Never. It’s painful, isn’t it?”

“Not if you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not sure I see the appeal.”

“You weren’t sure about the calamari, either.”

“Touché. I must admit I’m interested. I don’t know if I’m personally interested or if it’s just that I like to hear what different people do in bed. They would both make love to her?”

“And to each other.”

“Oh, then they were queer?”

“Everybody’s bisexual, they say.”

“Do you really believe that? I’m not sure I do.”

“Well, that’s the new sexual freedom. The new morality. The kids coming along these days are very open about it. They do whatever feels good.”

“I don’t think I could ever have anything to do with a girl.”

“Maybe that’s your hangup.”

“Maybe.”

I put out a cigarette, and looked down at him, and he was quite urgently erect. “Oh,” I said, and he chuckled, and we made love quickly, just a rapid urgent bang, and I made it seconds before he did.

Then, lying together facing each other, I looked at his now-little penis (his is absolutely tiny when it’s soft but respectable enough when it’s not, a complete transformation) and I thought how innocent it was now, how soft and innocent, and I looked up at his face, and all at once I knew.

I didn’t stop to think it over or I might not have said anything, but instead voiced the thought as soon as it came along. I said, “You were one of the men. With that girl. You were one of the two men.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It just came to me. I don’t know why. It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And you would want me to do that. With you and another fellow.”

“Maybe you would like to think about it.”

“Oh, God. I really don’t know.”

“It excites you, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, damn it, yes, of course it does. Anything sexual excites me if it’s just a matter of thinking about it. I don’t think I could do it. I really don’t. I don’t even think I could let anybody screw me In the bottom, as far as that goes. I don’t think, oh, I don’t even know what I think. I can’t imagine being in bed with you and having you do things with another man. What do you do with him, anyway?”

“The usual things.”

“I just can’t take all this in, Arnold.”

“Why don’t we have some wine and talk about something else?”

“Yes, maybe we should do that.”

And we did, and he hinted that he wouldn’t at all mind sleeping over, it being cold outside and all, and I said no, that I had to be independent now and that I had made up my mind that one part of my independence was that I would not spend the whole night with anyone. That this was one of the things I had been running from when I left my husband. I had not previously decided any such thing, but I didn’t want him to stay overnight I guess because I wanted to be alone when I woke up and also because I frankly didn’t want to hear any more about group sex until I had a little more chance to digest what he had told me.

The independence aspect went down well, though. Made perfect sense to him and he seemed to respect me for it. He had a last slug of wine, lit himself a cigarette, and away he went into the night, leaving me with more new thoughts to echo around in my head than I had room for.

He is really weird.

Two men at once? I don’t think I could relate to that sort of scene.

Or is it that I don’t want myself to enjoy something like that?