Small Town

Come see me Friday, she’d said. Yeah, right, he thought. The only question in his mind was whether he should call and let her know he wasn’t coming or just not show up and let her figure it out for herself. With her looks and her morals, she wouldn’t have trouble finding another partner; with her toy chest, she wouldn’t be hard put getting along without one.

Maybe he’d send flowers, with a note saying he’d decided not to see her again. Once, a philosopher... the note could say.

Would she get the reference? A professor at Colgate had loved to tell the story. Voltaire had accepted an invitation from a friend to go to a specialized brothel — young boys, something like that. He’d gone and had a good time, and the friend invited him again a few weeks later. Voltaire declined. But you had such a good time, the friend said. Mais oui, said Voltaire. Once, un philosophe. Twice, a pervert.

Flowers and goodbye. That would be nice, the sort of mixed message that might even appeal to the dizzy bitch. Or, to keep it simple, he could skip the flowers and skip the note and just never see her again. She’d get over it, and so would he.

He checked his book, and saw that it was moot. He couldn’t go Friday anyway, he had to speak at a dinner in Connecticut. That would be his second speech of the week — he had to fly to Richmond Tuesday morning to talk at a luncheon.

He spent the weekend at his apartment, letting the machine take his calls. Monday morning he called the lecture bureau and said something had come up, to cancel his appointments for the week. Both of them, the lunch in Richmond and the dinner in Hartford. The woman he spoke to was clearly rattled and obviously wanted him to be more specific about his reasons for canceling, but he didn’t have the energy to invent something, and she evidently couldn’t bring herself to press him for a reason.

Wednesday he was supposed to get together with a writer who came highly recommended. They were just going to have lunch and explore in the most general fashion the possibility of their working together to develop a book proposal. Tuesday he called the writer to cancel. Did he want to reschedule? Not now, he said. He had the writer’s number, he’d call him when things cleared up a little.

Wednesday he had lunch alone at a diner in the neighborhood, then walked in Central Park for hours, pausing now and then to sit on a bench and stare off into space. Thursday he went to the gym, gave up on the treadmill after five minutes, gave up on the weight machines halfway through his cycle. Sat in the steam room for longer than he should have, and was dizzy and dehydrated when he got out of there. Went home, drank a whole bottle of Evian water, and went to bed.

Friday he picked up the phone to call her and tell her he wasn’t coming. He had her number at the gallery and dialed six of the seven digits, then hung up. Picked up the phone again, dialed three digits, quit.

Jesus.

At eight that night he gave his name to her doorman, praying that she wouldn’t be home. The doorman called upstairs, then nodded to him and pointed to the elevator. He knocked on her door and she called out that it was open.

He went in. There was no one in the living room. He walked on through to the bedroom and found her dressed in a black leather garter belt and black mesh stockings and high-heeled black shoes. Nothing else. The outfit should have looked absurd, but didn’t.

“Hi, Franny,” she said, almost gently. And smiled.

“Susan.”

“No, don’t talk. The hood will come later, but for now I don’t want you to speak. Do you understand?”

He nodded. She was crazy, he thought, and he was crazy to be here, he ought to leave right now. And he was getting a hard-on, and who the hell was he kidding? He wasn’t going anyplace.

“I waxed myself, Franny.” She touched herself, showing him. “It was starting to grow back, so I took care of it. You use hot wax, you pour it on and let it cool and rip it off. It’s painful, and very erotic. But it’s pretty.” She held herself open for his inspection, asked him if he didn’t think it was pretty. He nodded, and she told him to get undressed.

“Look at you, Franny, you’re hard as a rock. What’s a sweet little girl like you doing with such a gorgeous cock? One of these times I’m going to wax you. Everything, your chest, your armpits, your cock and balls and ass. Everything. You’ll be so silky smooth everywhere, and you’ll wear silk underwear and you’ll be hard all the time. Get on your knees, Franny. I’m all sensitive from the waxing and I want you to lick me. I want you to make me come.”

When she sent him home later that night he felt at once gloriously alive and determined he would never see her again. He went home and had another night full of unremembered dreams, waking with a furious erection and a strong urge to relieve himself, which he resisted.