Small Town

“It’s funny, I didn’t want to speak the words. Let’s get off that subject, shall we? I do think we’ll travel in the early fall, but I really don’t know where. Caroline always wants to go to London, and that’s certainly a possibility, but I find myself drawn to Scandinavia.”

“Just so you’re home the beginning of November.”

“Oh, I’m certain we will be. But why?”

“Or even late October, so you can have an early look. I’ve got a show coming up that I’m over the moon about.”

“Oh, how exciting! New work by one of my favorites?”

He was mad about Jeffcoate Walker, buying for his own collection as well as the museum’s, which had led Susan to speculate that he had depths no one suspected. As it was, Gregory Schuyler was an enigma, married for years to a beautiful woman but fitted out with the sensibilities and refined elegance of a homosexual. His manner was distinctly gay, but his energy was not, and she’d often caught him looking at women in a way she’d never seen him look at men.

The common wisdom with such men was that they were so deep in the closet they didn’t even know it themselves, and she supposed it was possible, and how could you disprove a premise like that, anyway? Until they invented an instrument to read a man’s unconscious mind, the argument would remain moot.

“New work,” she said, “by an artist I know you haven’t seen before, because no one has. He’s my own discovery, Gregory, and I’m sure he’s mad as a hatter, but what he’s done with it is absolutely incredible.”

“That is exciting. A painter?”

“A sculptor. An assembler, really, and unlike anyone you’ve ever seen.”

“African-American?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t say they seem to have a gift for it, that’s as patronizing as prattling about a natural sense of rhythm, but much of the best work in that vein is African-American, isn’t it? How ever did you find him, Susan? Did you go down to Mississippi and poke around little black towns in the Delta?”

“He’s local.”

“He’s a New Yorker?”

She nodded.

“Oh, I almost wish you hadn’t told me. Now I can’t wait until the fall. Do I absolutely have to wait, Susan? Can’t I have a sneak preview?”

“You can have an early look,” she said, “but not this early. Nobody’s seen the work yet, and nobody’s going to see it for at least three months.”

“That’s what? The middle of October?”

“As soon as I finish with jury duty.”

“Oh, dear. Suppose you get on a case?”

“I won’t. Maury Winters told me how to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ll just have to spend three days sitting around a courthouse and being bored.”

“Knowing you,” he said, “you’ll run into somebody who does paintings on black velvet of Elvis Presley turning into a werewolf. Does your new discovery have a name?”

“He does, and I just wish I could remember it.”

“Susan, Susan, Susan. You’re an impossible tease. I hope you know that.”

“I know,” she said, “and it’s completely unintentional. I wasn’t going to mention him at all, but—”

“Oh, please. That’s why you wanted to have lunch in the first place.”

“Only to make sure you’d be in town for the opening.”

“I want first look, Susan.”

“You’ll be one of the very first.”

“That’s not quite the same, is it? Susan, you’re impossible. How can you build up my excitement and then leave me like this?”

The implied sexual metaphor could only be intentional. And how would he react, she wondered, if she were to crawl under the table right now and take his cock in her mouth?

“Susan!”

“What?”

“You just had a wicked thought, didn’t you? You did! Tell me.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I couldn’t possibly.”

Her nipples tingled.

But then they always did. At first, when the soreness wore off and left only the tingling, she thought this was going to be too much to bear, walking around all the time in a state of low-level stimulation. But then she found out that she got used to it, and felt a little bit disappointed. But there was no cause for disappointment; what you got used to, she came to realize, was being slightly excited all the time. It didn’t stop working, you were still excited, but that degree of excitement became your normal condition.

Which was sort of fun.

At first she couldn’t wait to make another appointment and go get labial rings like Medea’s. She positioned herself in front of a mirror and pretended she already had them and used her fingers to open herself up. You could see better, she thought, without the hair, and three days later, the earliest appointment she could get, she was getting waxed by the woman whose number Medea had given her. There was nothing sexual about the experience, except for the idea of it, but she couldn’t wait to get in front of the mirror again. And of course she couldn’t stop touching herself, and couldn’t stop watching herself touching herself, and when she was through she lay there, feeling utterly wiped out, and her nipples were still tingling.

And she decided to wait on the next piercing. There was no hurry, she decided, and it would be good to explore one level before rushing on to the next one.