657: At the dock, . . .
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 7 continues
AT THE DOCK, there was a crowd, and Ariane rewarded Denny for his honesty with a kiss, a good one. Then she patted him, like a child, and said, “That’s enough now.”
Perhaps there was a suggestion that there might be more later, but the present belonged entirely to her. She was in control. Denny gave himself to her, let her take the lead. Of course he expected her to give herself to him later, but for now he was hers. Again she was struck by the grace and power of this mating dance, the delicate balance of give-and-take.
“Denny,” she said, dreamily, speaking from somewhere distant, a place in her thoughts rather than from the front seat of Denny’s car, “did you ever think about the way that men and women—”
She hesitated. She realized, from the way Denny was looking at her, that he had never had the thought she had had, that he rarely gave any thought at all to any such thing as a mating dance. For him it was just a two-part invention: a long, boring preliminary and a brief pleasure, as much pleasure as he could get, in whatever form he could get it, but he was looking into her eyes now, thankful for having a question addressed to him, hopeful that if he answered it correctly it might get him closer to her, and to that brief pleasure, and Ariane, seeing on his face the look of a puzzled puppy, felt that she had to go on.
“—well—the way men and women—dance?” she asked.
“Huh?” said Denny.
“Never mind,” said Ariane. She slid across the seat and pressed herself against him because she was bored with him. She didn’t want to have to try to talk to him anymore. When he began, clumsily, to paw her, she was surprised to find that not even his attention, not even the fact of his desire, all that eagerness and fumbling, was enough to keep her from being bored with him. There isn’t much of a future for him, poor guy, she thought. Not with me, anyway.
Ariane, convinced that Denny would always bore her, lost interest in him and in what he was trying to do to her, but Denny grew more and more fascinated with Ariane. After a painfully slow progress that he considered subtle, he succeeded in getting her blouse unbuttoned, and he began rubbing his face against her bra and repeating “I love you, Ariane” again and again, but his little brain was busy, revving on lust, trying to decide whether he would be rushing things if he tried to get the damned bra unhooked and, more urgently still, whether he should let himself ejaculate in his pants (as he was almost certain to do in a moment if he didn’t call matters to a halt, pull away from Ariane and take a deep breath or two in the hope that he might actually be able to get into Ariane and do his ejaculating there instead of just continuing to rub his penis against her knee, and loving the way it slid against the smoothness of her stocking, in the accommodating valley it had found where her leg was folded). His overheated mind was trying to mediate between his headstrong and sensible selves:
“You really ought to try to hold off, you know, in case there is any chance that she might be willing to give you more than what you are now getting.”
“Get it while you can!”
“You really should try to hold out for the greater pleasure—”
“Oh, Geez, that feels good!”
All of that was going on somewhere below the level of thought, in the bottom of his mind, but suddenly, to Denny’s surprise (and to the surprise of his penis, which was so startled that it shuddered and gushed), there crept into his mind a real and vivid perception of the young woman he was humping. The aroma of her, the texture of her skin, the scent of her hair, the smooth skin of her neck, the uncomfortable lump of her shoe beneath his leg, the particular fold of her leg behind the knee, the sough of a sigh that escaped her, all suddenly made him say to himself, What a wonderful girl she is.
He pulled away from her so that he could look at her.
Really wonderful. There’s something about her, something suited to the night.
He had never had a thought like that in his life.
Of course, all girls seem suited to the night when you’re snuggling them in a parked car on a pier.
He astonished himself.
But she transcends the moment. And it’s not just looks. It’s something that underlies her looks. It’s a kind —a kind of softness. That’s it, softness. Underneath that wise-guy stuff there’s a softness to her, like night breezes.
This was the nearest thing to a poetic thought that Denny had ever had. He was infatuated with his little thought as soon as he had it. He fell in love, truly, really, right at that moment. He fell in love with Ariane (a little) and with his idea of her (more) and with this newly discovered self who could have such perceptions and think such thoughts (quite a lot).
“You’re like the night,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Night breezes. You make me think of night breezes.”
“Night breezes?”
“You’re lovely,” he said. “You’re lovely, like night breezes.”
He must have come, Ariane decided.
Men of all ages, she had discovered, will say odd things when they come. She sighed.
I hope he didn’t get any of it on my skirt.
She twisted a little to one side with the meager hope that she might be getting out of the way of any that might still be dripping somewhere, and she relaxed a little.
At least he’ll stop humping me now.
Denny suddenly felt blue. He was annoyed that matters had gotten away from him, gotten beyond his control.
That night breezes business was right, but it didn’t sound right after I said it. And then “lovely.” Why did I say “lovely”? It wasn’t—strong. Not the sort of thing a guy would say.
He had said it because he was actually describing his own assessment of his own thought. The thought had seemed so lovely to him. It was a word he would never ordinarily have used, a word that he probably had never uttered before, but suddenly there it had been, asking to be used, all but begging to be said, making its bid to become a part of Denny’s life—and now it was. Now he was a guy who might, under the right conditions, with the right girl, use the word lovely.
That’s interesting, thought Ariane. Lovely. I wouldn’t have expected that.
She thought that she might have misjudged him. Here was some evidence that he could think. He might have ideas, dreams, plans, questions. He might hold her attention. She’d never found that before.
Not that I’ve been looking, she told herself. The thought of looking triggered the old Tootsie Koochikov habit, and she glanced at Denny’s crotch.
But this guy might be different, she told herself.
Maybe there was something going on behind his libidinous eyes.
Maybe there’s a brain attached to his dick.
This made her snicker, and Denny, of course, decided that she must be laughing at lovely.
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 657, Mark Dorset considers Allusion; Advice; and Seduction: Crude, Clumsy from this episode.
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