Letters

(Pause. Now I am not pleased, love, as I was some sentences since. Au contraire: I am frightened to the heart as I push the Pause on your machine. Each and every of those six sixes implies a seven; that parade of climaxes a ditto of dénouements. Even a Seventh Series, it would seem, is pending: seven several strokes, must one presume, of that connubial climax? Now, betrothed sir: though I love you despite all this, very possibly carry your child, and brim with joy at the prospect of wifing you whatever our economic and other woes, you are as it happens not the first formalist I ever fucked. You say you could see, at Niagara-Fallsbrink, but 6/7ths through our story. What I see is, at the end of Series Seven, detumescence, say, and postorgasmic release. Dandy! At the end of Series Six, postcoital lassitude. Who cares? In the 7th period of Series Five, last hours of our wedding day, a weary, blissful 7th coupling. Fatigued joy! In the 7th day of Series Four (I review the transcript), the Sunday of our “honeymoon” week, a similarly lazy spell, let us imagine, of loving rest.

(So far, so good. But the 7th week of this honeymoony Mutuality, the close of your Series Three — am I to look not only for a week-long falling-off from loving vows so freshly vowed, but (chilling prospect!) for the end of Honeymoon before even the Sturgeon Moon is followed by the Harvest? And then (cold hand upon my womb!) a 7th Stage of our affair — commencing, let’s see, 22 September, Yom Kippur on my calendar, and ending God knows when — characterised, on the level of Series Two, by the fin d’orgasme of Series Seven, the postcoital blah of Six, the final fuck of Five, the day of rest of Four, the week’s falling-off of Three…?

(!

(And then — O January in the heart! O ice! — in Series One…

(I can see, Ambrose, but cannot say! O love, love: posttranscript me when I unpush this Pause!)

P.S.: Adieu, Art. Now: Will you, dear Germaine, circa 5 P.M. Saturday, 13 September 1969, take me Ambrose as your lawful wedded husband, in dénouements as in climaxes, in sevens as in sixes, till death do us et cet.?

(Pause!

(Hm!

(Well…

(I will. Yes. I will.)

AM/ggp(a)

cc: JB

A: Ambrose Mensch to Whom It May Concern (in particular the Author). Water message #2 received. His reply. A postscript to the Author.

The Lighthouse

Erdmann’s Cornlot

“Dorset,” Maryland

Monday, September 22, 1969

TO:

Whom it may concern

FROM:

Yours truly, Ambrose Mensch

RE: