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PARTISAN REVIEW
carefully, seeking a cue for the passion that did not come. Her flesh
was very firm under the shifting play of her long, fine hair. But she
had left on her brassiere, and cried out softly in protest when I tore
it off. "Oh, please don't! They're so ugly since I had the baby, I feel
like an old woman."
Her breasts did sag a little, but they were magnificently heavy,
cool and satiny on their underside where I kissed them, feeling their
whole dumb weight on my cheek. "How white you are!" I said. "You
even
feel
white in the dark."
"And you black, black-my gypsy-my black Jew!" Though my
hair is very dark, my skin is actually quite fair, but I submitted to the
legend of myself with real delight. I could feel my body beginning to
stir, and I started to roll over on top of her.
"Wait," she cried, "wait! I'm not prepared. I have no--"
"To hell with it. It's all the better." I was impatient, in my mind,
already a father. More important than the moment of possession seemed
to me the consequence. I could imagine our son (a
real
son this time!),
his pictures sent to me secretly, rarely-then not at all, after I had grown
bored with writing and had moved too often for her letters to follow
me. But he would be there always, somewhere, a real token of that
summer when I was the world's beloved.
"No, really, Milton. You know how I would like to have your
child, how
flattered
I would be. But I can't afford it; next year I want
to go back to school. Seven children should be enough for anyone, any–
how!
If
you don't have any sort of- I brought along a-a contraceptive
for you." She handed it to me in the dark, and I let it drop to the
floor, rolling away from her, as my desire oozed out of me with the
sweat. My poor son!
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Darling!" Her hand moved tenta–
tively down over my shoulder, my chest, my belly, into the darkest
tangle of hair. "Oh, Milton, what's the matter with me?"
God knows what club of Hercules, what Thor's hammer she had
dreamed to rend and redeem her, to be in her that summer's climax and
my legend's; she found only the torpor of my flesh. I felt no coldness,
no panic, only an infinite languor, and a sense of triumph over all
the women whose surrogate she was. Yet something impelled me to
another lie.
"Please understand. I'd like to, but I can't. I love my wife too
much. I've never been unfaithful to her-and-I just can't."
"How lucky she is! How wonderful she must be! I could tell from
her picture, just at a glance. Oh, Milton, I
do
understand." But she
was crying, and suddenly kissing me all over, her mouth wet and very
