A Week as Andrea Benstock Read online

  “New York. I don’t know how you could stand it.”

  “Well, I couldn’t. That’s why I came home.”

  “It’s nice for a visit. I like to drive down and see a couple of shows every now and then. Oh, you married a man with an original mind, didn’t you, Mrs. Benstock? ’A nice place to visit but I’d hate to live there.’ Well, like most clichés, it happens to be the truth.”

  “Well, that’s really all I did. Visit there, I mean. I never really lived there. I visited for a couple of years.” The waiter brought their drinks and they ordered dinner, sirloin for him, lobster Newburg for her. “So this is an Apricot Brandy Sour,” she said. “You would have to taste it to believe it, but don’t bother. I don’t feel sorry for that girl now. Anyone who drinks these regularly must be used to having men abandon her.”

  “I’ll order you something else.”

  “No, let me finish this. It’s not going to be a habit with me, but let me stay with my Apricot Brandy Sour. That sounds like a name for one of James Bond’s girlfriends. ’Her name was Apricot Brandy Sour. She drove an E-type Jaguar and wore a diamond tiara and nothing else. Her auburn hair cascaded over her lush ruby-tipped breasts.’”

  “‘Bond cast an admiring glance at her breasts. He took out a packet of Player’s and slit the wrapper with his thumbnail.’ I’ll be damned if I know how he does that, incidentally. He must have the sharpest goddamned thumbnails ever.”

  After dinner they had a brandy at their table, then strolled through the lobby. They were both postponing their return to their suite, in unspoken agreement to delay their pleasure as long as possible. In the casino he told her that it was a good idea to stay away from the roulette wheel. They had the usual zero and double zero, and they also had a triple zero, which gave the house an added edge.

  “I keep learning new things about you,” she told him. “Now I discover you’re an expert on gambling.”

  “Not an expert and not even a gambler. I played when I was here the last time because there was nothing else to do. I think I won about forty dollars. It bored the hell out of me.”

  “What did you play?”

  “Blackjack some of the time. I lost a little at blackjack and won at craps. I think I’ll try my luck at the crap table.”

  “All right. Oh, they have slot machines.”

  “You’d get a better break playing parking meters, but here’s ten dollars. Have fun.”

  She drifted over to a bank of slots while he headed for the crap table. When he rejoined her she had doubled her ten-dollar stake, and he told her that was exactly half of what he had lost at craps. She poured quarters into her bag and took his arm. “Let’s go,” she said. “I have a sudden craving for champagne.”

  “So do I.”

  In their suite she said, “I wanted the wedding small and I could have lived without the reception, but I’m glad we weren’t too blasé for a honeymoon. This is just the way every marriage should start. Flying first class, and then this suite. You’re going to give me an appetite for luxury. I won’t even ask what this is costing us.”

  “I won’t even tell you.”

  “Do you want to open the champagne? I think the second bottle will have to wait for another night, but I’ve got room for a glass or two. You pop the cork and I’ll slip into something more comfortable.”

  When she came out of the bedroom he was already in bed with the sheet covering him from the waist down. He held two glasses of champagne. She slid under the covers beside him and took a glass. “To our honeymoon,” he said. “May it last a minimum of one hundred years.”

  “Oh, it will.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you look terrific in black lace? I certainly hope not, but you do.”

  “I’ve never owned anything like this.”

  “You won’t own that long. I’m about to rip it off you.”

  “You won’t have to. There. Am I what you always wanted? You’d better say yes.”

  “Just what I always wanted. All I ever wanted, and you’re mine and I love you.”

  “Oh, this is so perfect. A bed is nicer than a couch, isn’t it? And married is nicer than not married. Let me look at you. My husband. Oh, what a big cock you have. Do you mind if I talk like that?”

  “I like it.”

  “What a big beautiful cock my husband has.”

  “And what lovely tits my little wife has. I think I will kiss them.”

  “Oh, please do. Oh, yes.”

  “And what a nice cunt. What a nice wet cunt, all warm and wet.”

  “Oh, put your cock in my cunt. Oh, fuck me.”

  He positioned himself on her and rubbed the head of his penis back and forth over her clitoris. The sensation was almost painfully exquisite.

  “Don’t tease.”

  “It says in the books that you’re supposed to like this.”

  “God, I love it but I want you inside me. Now. Oh, yes, that’s so good. Your cock is in my cunt and I love it, I love you, oh God.”

  Afterward he lit a cigarette and they passed it back and forth. She said, “That’s good to know, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “That it’s better when you’re married.”

  “Didn’t you think it would be?”

  “I didn’t think it could be. Was it my imagination or did you make it last longer than usual?”

  “I wanted to make it last forever. I never wanted to finish. I want all of this to last forever.”

  “It will, my darling.”

  “And we can do it whenever we want to. We have a license, like a hunting or a fishing license. We have a fucking license and we can do it all we want.”

  “Every night on Kenmore Avenue.”

  “Every night. ’Mr. and Mrs. Benstock of 803 Kenmore Avenue regret they must reject your kind invitation as they will be at home that evening fucking.’ I hope we remember to draw the drapes.”

  “Let’s never open them. Just in case the mood comes on us suddenly.”

  “As it very well might. And we don’t have to get up and go home, and I think that’s the best part. No more going home to Admiral Road and trying not to walk bowlegged.”

  “What a nice picture that makes.”

  “And trying at the same time to keep the smile off my face. I wonder if they knew. I suppose they must have.”

  “Do you care?”

  “Not a bit.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Are you sorry we didn’t wait?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you might be.”

  “I’m not. You’re not, are you?”

  “God, no. I couldn’t have waited, I don’t think. I could never sleep after a date with you.”

  “And I thought you weren’t interested. All those months and you never tried anything.”

  “I was afraid of spoiling things. I knew I was going to marry you and I didn’t want to rush you.”

  “When did you know?”

  “As a matter of fact, cliché or not, I knew from the first time I saw you. That’s something nice and romantic for us to tell our children. It happens to be the truth. I took one look at you and I said to myself that this was the girl I was going to marry. And then I told myself not to be ridiculous, but I never did change my mind.”

  “What a wonderful man you are.”

  “Just keep on thinking so.”

  “You could have had me any time, you know. That’s probably not something I should be telling you. But I am glad you waited as long as you did. And I’m glad you didn’t wait any longer. You weren’t the only one who had trouble sleeping.”

  “Think you’ll be able to sleep tonight?”

  “Like a lamb.”

  “Well, you go to sleep. I’ll just touch you a little.”

  “Sneak. Oh, that’s nice. But you can’t be ready again so soon. Oh, but you are. How lovely.”

  They made love again. It was briefer this time than before, but equally satis
fying, and afterward he lay in her arms for just a few minutes before rolling off of her and going to sleep. He lay on his side facing her and she watched him sleep and remembered how she had watched him on the plane.

  She smoked a cigarette, then put out the bedside light and stretched out beside him. But she was not ready to sleep, and after a few minutes she knew it.

  She slipped out of bed and got the champagne bottle and a glass from her night table. She went into the living room and poured herself a glass of champagne.

  Shortly after they had begun having sex they had confessed their prior experience to one another. She had admitted to one affair at Bryn Mawr and two in New York. He told her he had had one genuine affair at Cornell, another brief affair in law school, and perhaps a dozen one-night stands with girls he had picked up. She was certain his summary was the literal truth, and just as certain that it was a good thing hers wasn’t.

  Years ago she had taken it for granted that it would be impossible to marry a man who did not have considerably more sexual experience than she did. She had since come to see that neither sexual experience nor sexual sophistication was terribly important. Of course she was glad that Mark was not entirely without experience, but she was also glad that his experience had been no more extensive than it had.

  Nevertheless, it still seemed to her that it was important for the man to think he was more experienced than his bride. And however much experience he had had, there was no question that his lovemaking satisfied and fulfilled her. She had slept with men whose store of sexual expertise was greater than Mark’s, but she had never slept with a man who moved her more deeply or pleased her more thoroughly. If he lacked something in the way of innovation and sophistication, he more than made up for it in other ways.

  And she had learned to distrust sexual cleverness, anyway. New York had been full to overflowing with men who could screw you in every position the Kama Sutra ever thought of, and they all forgot your name before they were through doing it.

  But how she longed to take his penis into her mouth! Ever since a boy from Haverford had taught her to enjoy fellatio, it had always seemed to her the ultimate expression of love, an act ideally to be reserved for what she had around the same time learned to refer to as meaningful relationships. It bothered her that she had done this with other men and not with Mark. There ought not to be anything she had done with others but not with him. She did not in the main regret her experience before she met Mark. It was the past, and nothing to do with the present. But she did wish to do with him everything she had ever done with anyone else.

  She wanted to know his taste. On two or three occasions she had surreptitiously touched herself after intercourse and conveyed her hand to her mouth, seeking in that way to have the flavor of him. And so many times she had been on the verge of putting her mouth on him.

  But it would be a mistake, surely, to take the initiative. And he had never hinted that she might do this for him, nor had he attempted to go down on her. He was marvelously oral and used his mouth with great enthusiasm and effect on her breasts, so much so that she was sure he would eat her magnificently if he only got around to it.

  Oh, it would come with time. He had waited longer than necessary to make love to her at all, and perhaps this was a similar sort of reticence. Sooner or later he would add this element to their repertoire; if he did not take the initiative himself, she would find some subtle way to teach him to teach her. And what an eager pupil she would be.

  She drank another glass of champagne and smoked another cigarette. It was late and she was tired, and she knew now that she would be able to sleep. She was a married woman on her honeymoon and it was a perfect honeymoon and she knew she would remember it all her life. And she knew too that she was slightly anxious for it to be over and done with even as she looked forward eagerly to its remaining days. She was a little impatient to begin this business of being a wife.

  She padded silently back to the bedroom. He was positioned as she had left him, lying on his side facing her side of the bed. She got into bed and moved close to him, first feeling his body warmth on her skin, then moving closer so that their bodies touched. He did not awaken, but his arm reached out and fell across her body. She felt a deep sense of security unlike anything she had known since childhood. This man would take care of her. This man, this good man, loved her.

  And she loved him. She did.

  This had been the best day of her life. It was the most important day of her life, as she had known it would be, and now it had turned out to be the best day of her life, better than she had dared hope it would be.

  Drifting off to sleep, her last thought was of her high school’s motto. Optima Futura. The best is yet to be.

  Monday

  September 21, 1964

  “MORE coffee, Eileen?”

  “Oh, do I have time? It’s two-thirty. I guess I have time for one more cup. But let me get it.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  But Eileen Fradin was on her feet, headed for the kitchen. “Don’t you be silly,” she said. “Listen, you’re supposed to be in a delicate condition, remember? You might as well milk it for all it’s worth.”

  “I feel about as delicate as a rhinoceros.”

  “Well, I can get my own cup of coffee. More for you? Give me your cup. I wish my coffee tasted like this. Will you listen to me? I sound like somebody in a commercial. But it’s the truth, my coffee’s lousy. What brand do you buy, Andrea?”

  It was the pot, not the coffee. She and Mark had received four electric coffee-makers as wedding presents, and three of them had been promptly returned for refunds. The fourth, with a twenty-four cup capacity, had been retained; it might be useful for large parties. Andrea made coffee in an old-fashioned drip pot like the one her mother used.

  Hadn’t she told Eileen this? Hadn’t they had this conversation before?

  “About four months to go, Andrea?”

  “Three months and three weeks. According to Dr. Lerner.”

  “Getting excited?”

  “I don’t know. Not exactly.” She sat back, folded her hands over her rounded abdomen. She remembered the first time she’d felt life, that extraordinary sensation of alien movement within herself. “I suppose I’m excited,” she said. “It’s hard to be excited from day to day.”

  “I know what you mean. With Jason I was nauseous the whole nine months, did I tell you?”

  “I think so.”

  “So I didn’t have time to be excited.”

  Andrea lit a cigarette. She had tried to stop as soon as she had learned that she was pregnant, apprehensive that smoking might have a bad effect on her unborn child. So many things seemed to be bad for the unborn. Her own morning sickness had lasted less than three months, but during its duration Lerner had refused to prescribe anything for it.

  “Not since Thalidomide,” he’d said. “You wake up nauseous, you have a glass of orange juice, you throw up, and then you’ll be set for the rest of the day. I wouldn’t even take aspirin for headaches if I were you.”

  But it had been impossible to stop smoking. It made her terribly nervous, and mightn’t the nervousness be as bad for the baby as the smoking? Mark had suggested the possibility and it made a certain amount of sense to her.

  “I’ll just finish this coffee and then I’ll get Jason,” Eileen was saying. “Nursery school makes such a difference in my life. It’s not even two months yet, I’m not used to it, but it makes a real difference. You feel as though you’ve got space to breathe again, you know what I mean?”

  “Sure.”

  “But I shouldn’t be saying this to you. You haven’t even had the kid yet and I’m telling you what a pleasure it is to be able to dump him on the nursery school. Well, I’ll enjoy my freedom while I’ve got it. It won’t be long before people tell me to sit down while they bring the coffee.”

  “You’re not—”

  “No, not yet, but didn’t I tell you we’re going to try in a month or so? Because
I’d rather have the baby in the spring or early summer so I don’t have to carry in the hot weather. And if I’m like I was with Jason I won’t have to try for very long. All Roger has to do is look at me and I’m pregnant.”

  Andrea drew on her cigarette. It was a strange relationship that she had with Eileen Fradin. She felt at once both more and less mature than Eileen. She was almost three years older, had gone out of town to college, had lived and worked in New York. Eileen had never lived other than in her parents’ house until the day she married Roger Fradin. She had read almost nothing, had done no traveling to speak of, and had spent all her life in a world bounded by her family and the friends of her childhood.

  On the other hand, Eileen had been married for four years and had a three-year-old son. She lived not in an apartment like Andrea but in a tract house in Tonawanda. She knew whom to call when something went wrong with the washing machine. She was more experienced at the business of being a wife and mother and, Andrea sometimes thought, more efficiently designed from the beginning to play those roles.

  “I got pregnant so easy the first time, Andrea.” She leaned forward and her eyes narrowed. “If you want to know something, I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure I wanted to. And then it was too late to change my mind.”

  “How did you feel then? After you found out you were pregnant?”

  “Oh, well, you have to feel excited, right? I mean maybe I was going through some doubts, but then it was too late so I put it out of my mind. We wanted children, and there was no question about it. I just got to thinking maybe we should have a little more time to ourselves. Not so much for Roger’s sake because he was older.” Roger was a few years older than Mark. “But for my own sake, I was like still in college and so young. Of course I was looking for an excuse to quit college anyway but I thought, you know, if we had another year or two to ourselves who would it hurt? You know what I mean?”