“I wasn’t acting. It took me a long time to put the pieces together.”
“Oh, come on. That’s bullshit. Everyone knows. You know it when you’re six years old. You know if you’re thinking I want to fuck her or I want to fuck him.”
“You thought about fucking when you were six years old?”
“Damn straight. Miss Carlyle. Tight brown skirt.”
“You knew what fucking was when you were six years old?”
“I knew Miss Carlyle and my penis had something going on. I knew that.”
“Well, my penis didn’t have anything going on with anyone until I was twenty-three.”
“That is just not true. You had girlfriends.”
“They were friends I made out with.”
“You never slept with any of them?”
“No. And I never pretended to.”
“I just assumed.”
“I wasn’t like you.”
And now I figure out why I’m scared. I’m scared he’s going to ask me if I wanted to sleep with him back then. And I know I won’t lie. And I know that will truly be the end for us.
“And now you sleep only with men?”
“Yes. One man at a time.”
“You never had a ménage?”
Why do straight men love to ask this? “Not really.”
“Not really?”
“Well, Steve and I once invited this guy up. We really thought we were going to do it with him, but then he took off his pants and he had this really flabby bum. He was a pretty slender guy with this white jelly bum and Steve and I could not stop laughing and he got mad—understandably— and left.” Steve called it the big flabby fanny fiasco. We still could get laughing until our stomachs ached about it.
If Steve were here he could tell the story of that night so well no one would be able to breathe. But Paul didn’t think my version was funny. “Is it better, sex with men?”
I laughed. “It is for me.”
“I mean, sex is kind of athletic. I’m just wondering. I’ve kind of been thinking about this for a while. I mean. Women are always complaining about getting hurt, you know?”
“You mean emotionally?”
“No, physically. I mean sex hurts them.”
“Really?”
“I mean, just when you get really into it they tell you it hurts.”
“Really?” I didn’t think there was much about any kind of sex that I didn’t know about by now, but this news surprised me.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had sex with Gail without her saying ouch like fifty times. I just wonder if with men it’s different.”
“Maybe it is. Some people are rougher than others.”
“Are you rough?”
I realized he was leaning halfway across the table; his knuckles were touching my plate and his eyes, his watery, drunk green eyes, were all over me.
“Yes, kind of.” It was the martinis talking.
“I already know what your penis looks like.”
“And I yours,” I said, trying for lightness and missing. The penis he’d mentioned was suddenly rock hard.
“I want to.”
“Paul,” I said.
He stood up, signaled to the waiter to put it on his tab, and nearly pushed me to the elevator. When it came we got in alone, and as soon as the doors closed he was at me—mouth, stubble, osso buco breath. I am kissing Paul, I am kissing Paul. His name rang through me like a cathedral bell. He pressed me hard against the brass handrail, his hands reaching for my fly, and then the elevator dinged, and he was on the other side of the box and looking like he’d never seen me in his life. But no one was on the seventh floor when the doors opened. He put out his arm for me to step out first and then he shoved me against the elevator opening and when the doors tried to shut they bumped against my back over and over, pushing me into him. He was at me like an animal, biting my nipples through my shirt, shoving, thrusting, as if he’d gotten a hold of a piece of meat too enormous to know what to do with.
“Paul.” I took his face in my hands and held it in front of mine. “Slow down, baby. Let’s get to the room.”
He seemed unable to make eye contact but fished in his pocket for the key and led me down the hallway.
I stood in the center of the navy blue room as he locked and bolted and chained the door. I could hear him breathing. “You know, I think we need to take a few steps back here.”
He didn’t seem to register that I had spoken. He took off his shirt with one paw reaching behind his back and yanking up while the other fumbled with belt and zipper. His penis shot straight out at me and he was still breathing noisily but smiling now, proud of his erection, looking at me for the first time since we’d left the restaurant, as if he expected praise for what it could do.