Dying Inside

Success. The ministrations of her soapy hand revive me.

We spring toward the bed. Still stiff, I top her and take her. Gasp gasp gasp, moan moan moan. I can get nothing on the mental band. Suddenly she goes into a funny little spasm, intense but quick, and my own spurt swiftly follows. So much for sex. We curl up together, cuddly in the afterglow. I try again to probe her. Zero. Zee-ro. Is it gone? I think it’s really gone. You have been present today at an historic event, young lady. The perishing of a remarkable extrasensory power. Leaving behind this merely mortal husk of mine. Alas.

“I’d love to read some of your poetry, Dave,” she says.

* * *

Monday night, about seven-thirty. Lisa has left, finally. I go out for dinner, to a nearby pizzeria. I am quite calm. The impact of what has befallen me hasn’t really registered yet. How strange that I can be so accepting. At any moment, I know, it’s bound to come rushing in on me, crushing me, shattering me; I’ll weep, I’ll scream, I’ll bang my head against walls. But for now I’m surprisingly cool. An oddly posthumous feeling, as of having outlived myself. And a feeling of relief: the suspense is over, the process has completed itself, the dying is done, and I’ve survived it. Of course I don’t expect this mood to last. I’ve lost something central to my being, and now I await the anguish and the grief and the despair that must surely be due to erupt shortly.

But it seems that my mourning must be postponed. What I thought was all over isn’t over yet. I walk into the pizzeria and the counterman gives me his flat cold New York smile of welcome, and I get this, unsolicited, from behind his greasy face: Hey, here’s the fag who always wants extra anchovies.

Reading him clearly. So it’s not dead yet! Not quite dead! Only resting a while. Only hiding.

* * *

Tuesday. Bitter cold; one of those terrible late-autumn days when every drop of moisture has been squeezed from the air and the sunlight is like knives. I finish two more term papers for delivery tomorrow. I read Updike. Judith calls after lunch. The usual dinner invitation. My usual oblique reply.

“What did you think of Karl?” she asks.

“A very substantial man.”

“He wants me to marry him.”

“Well?”

“It’s too soon. I don’t really know him, Duv. I like him, I admire him tremendously, but I don’t know whether I love him.”

“Then don’t rush into anything with him,” I say. Her soap-opera hesitations bore me. I don’t understand why anybody old enough to know the score ever gets married, anyway. Why should love require a contract? Why put yourself into the clutches of the state and give it power over you? Why invite lawyers to fuck around with your assets? Marriage is for the immature and the insecure and the ignorant. We who see through such institutions should be content to live together without legal coercion, eh, Toni? Eh? I say, “Besides, if you marry him, he’d probably want you to give up Guermantes. I don’t think he could dig it.”

“You know about me and Claude?”

“Of course.”

“You always know everything.”

“This was pretty obvious, Jude.”

“I thought your power was waning.”

“It is, it is, it’s waning faster than ever. But this was still pretty obvious. To the naked eye.”

“All right. What did you think of him?”

“He’s death. He’s a killer.”

“You misjudged him, Duv.”

“I was in his head. I saw him, Jude. He isn’t human. People are toys to him.”

“If you could hear the sound of your own voice now, Duv. The hostility, the outright jealousy—”

“Jealousy? Am I that incestuous?”

“You always were,” she says. “But let that pass. I really thought you’d enjoy meeting Claude.”

“I did. He’s fascinating. I think cobras are fascinating too.”

“Oh, fuck you, Duv.”

“You want me to pretend I liked him?”

“Don’t do me any favors.” The old icy Judith.

“What’s Karl’s reaction to Guermantes?”

She pauses. Finally: “Pretty negative. Karl’s very conventional, you know. Just as you are.”

“Me?”

“Oh, you’re so fucking straight, Duv! You’re such a puritan! You’ve been lecturing me on morality all my goddamned life. The very first time I got laid there you were, wagging your finger at me—”

“Why doesn’t Karl like him?”

“I don’t know. He thinks Claude’s sinister. Exploitive.” Her voice is suddenly flat and dull. “Maybe he’s just jealous. He knows I’m still sleeping with Claude. Oh, Jesus, Duv, why are we fighting again? Why can’t we just talk?”

“I’m not the one who’s fighting. I’m not the one who raised his voice.”

“You’re challenging me. That’s what you always do. You spy on me and then you challenge me and try to put me down.”

“Old habits are hard to break, Jude. Really, though: I’m not angry with you.”

“You sound so smug!”

“I’m not angry. You are. You got angry when you saw that Karl and I agree about your friend Claude. People always get angry when they’re told something they don’t want to hear. Listen, Jude, do whatever you want. If Guermantes is your trip, go ahead.”