The Erection Set

You hate and vomit and go through the beautiful act with all the people who don’t know. Except now they suspect. Or they are sure. Men are funny. If they can’t get that they have to do something else, if they’re really in love.

Why couldn’t they talk?

Why couldn’t they be passive?

For once I’d like to hurt. Now, that was a strange thought.

Butwhy did he have to know? Dirty Dog.

I wished the bastard would come back.

There was a knock on the door.

I said, “How do you feel?”

“Lonely. I’ve been doing too much thinking.”

“You’re in the right place for it. I was conceived in that bed. They must have done a lot of thinking too before they decided to beget me.”

“Unlikely. You probably were an accessory after the fact.”

“I doubt it. Those days it was a time for thinking first. I prefer to believe I was planned. Bastardly or not, I was planned for.”

She smiled, then suddenly changed the subject. “Was last night real?”

“You were there, Sheila.”

“Somehow, it seems more like a dream.” Her fingers toyed with the top of the sheet. “I have very odd dreams. My whole life is one terrible dream. Even when I’m awake I wonder if I’m really awake, because when I’m dreaming I think I’m awake and pinch my skin to see if I am or not and I believe I am.” She turned and looked toward the open shutters that sagged inward on their hinges. “I wish I could be sure.”

“You’re awake, kid.”

“I was thinking a long time before you got here.”

“What about?”

“Everything. Nothing. Then everything again. Maybe you you can help me.”

“Just ask.”

“No. I won’t do that,” she told me. The covers moved as she took in her breath, held it, then let it out slowly. When she turned her head and looked at me again there was something different in her eyes. “You put me to bed.”

“Somebody had to.” I couldn’t put my finger on what was different about her now. I picked a loose cigarette out of my pocket and lit it. “About last night ...”

“There never was any last night,” she said. “There’s only from now on.”

“I appreciate that, kitten. I covered all the exits except you.”

“Would you have killed me too?”

“Nope. Women are for kissing, not killing.”

“You’re sexy,” she said, changing the subject again.

“Hell, I’m tired and I’m dirty.”

“Do you have a shower?”

“Sure, but all the hot water has run out.”

“I understand cold water has a depressing effect on the male physiology.”

“Somebody told you wrong. It’s only some males and only some times. Right now I’m hard as a rock.”

“Really?”

“No, I’m lying,” I said, “but if I keep talking like this I sure as hell will be.”

“You’re mean.”

“Certainly. I’m dirty too.”

“So take a shower with me,” she said.

The cigarette burned my finger and I squashed it out under my heel. It left a black smudge on the old wide pine planks. “Sorry, doll, I’m just a natural bastard, not the kind that makes himself into one.”

“Don’t fight with me, Dogeron. I told you I have been thinking. I don’t want any more of those dreams.”

“I’m not a doctor, either.”

“They haven’t been any help. Take your clothes off.”

“No.”

But there she was with me in the shower, slickery slick like Earle used to say, all soapy and turning around so I could swab her down a little better and when I was skiing all over her body with foam-filled fingers she laughed through the suds and said, “Could you really kiss me now, Dog?”

I kissed her, all right. A long, lovely, naked, tight-together kiss.

“You haven’t got a hard-on,” she accused me.

“I didn’t think I needed one,” I said.

“Really, you don’t.”

“Oh?”

“I bet you could do it soft.”

“The hell I could. Look, kill that water and let’s get dried off.”

“Coward.”

“Old,” I said, nice and flat. “Men aren’t padded with fat like you broads.”

Her hands fluttered around me and age stopped being years and started being a long time ago. I said, “At ease, young lady.”

“Pretty,” she said. She turned the faucet off and stepped back to look at me. “You’re larger than the ones in the British Museum.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” I threw a towel at her and stepped out of the shower. But I couldn’t stop her. She ran her fingernails down my back and pushed me around while I was trying to swab myself off and there was her face looking up at me with delicious, wet lips and wild exuberant titties all poked out with hard round nipples asking to be eaten and something crazy in her eyes. This time when her hand touched me there was a tremor in her whole arm that made me want to explode right there. But I knew I had to play doctor or she’d never get the chance again.

Her fingers squeezed. “I try hard,” I said.

“Try harder.”

The timing had to be just right. “Where will I put it, kid?”