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PARTISAN REVIEW
Asking jokingly what I would say if you had allowed yourself to be
seduced into "opening a quick packet of field rations ." Interrogating
me offhandedly about the men I had had before you . Demanding
that I grade them "on a scale from one to ten ." Curious to learn if it
happened that some stranger occasionally caught my fancy. Asking
me to give a "stimulation rating" to your superior officers and com–
rades , our Friday evening guests, the plumber and the greengrocer
and the postman. Eventually, at three o'clock in the morning, we
would clamber into bed or collapse onto the rug , emitting sparks,
my hand on your lips to prevent the neighbors from hearing your
roars , your hand on my mouth to muffle my shrieks .
Limp , drowned in pleasure , aching, dizzy with exhaustion , I
would sleep next day till one or two in the afternoon .
In
my sleep I
could hear yolir alarm clock going off at six-thirty. You would get
up , shave , take another shower-this time in cold water. Even in the
winter. You would get into a clean uniform that I had starched and
pressed for you . Swallow some bread and sardines. Gulp down some
coffee without even sitting down . And then : the slamming of the
door . Your leaping down the steps two by two . The sound of the jeep
starting. That's how the game began . The shadow of a third person
in our bed. We would conjure up some man who happened to have
caught my fancy. And you impersonated him. Sometimes you im–
personated both of you, yourself and the stranger. My role was to
give myself to you both alternately or simultaneously . The presence
of the strange shadows pierced lis both with a searing jungle thrill
that wrenched from my belly and your chest screams , oaths , pleas,
spasms the like of which I have never encountered elsewhere except
in childbirth. Or in death .
By the time Boaz was two our hellfire was already burning with
a black flame . Our love had ftlled with hate. Which consumed
everything yet continued to masquerade as love . When you dis–
covered that snowy January evening, coming back from the univer–
sity library with a raging fever, that lighter on the bathroom stool,
you were overwhelmed by a lunatic glee . You roared with laughter,
like hiccoughs ; you punched me until by a battering cross-exam–
ination you dragged out of me every detail, every jot and shudder,
and without undressing me you fucked me standing up as though
knifing me, and during and after you didn't stop interrogating me
more and more and again you mounted me on the kitchen table and
your teeth dug into my shoulder and you slapped me with the back
of your hand, like punishing an unruly horse. So our life began to
