769: “Terrence, . . .”
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 58 begins
58
“TERRENCE, sweet Terrence, was fiercely opposed to the war,” she said. “And I loved him for that. Not for that alone, but partly for that—that and the fact that as a lover he—”
She brought both hands to her face, under her chin, with her fingers extending upward to her lips, as if she had to hide her mouth while she spoke. Maybe she had come to the memory of another guilty pleasure.
“—set—me—on—fire.”
She was smiling behind her fingers, but her eyes were bright.
“He had a prick like a tree.”
Snickering.
“A young oak!” She brought her hands down from her face. Her eyes were enormous, as if she were astonished, and with her hands she pantomimed grasping the trunk of an oak—not a sapling, certainly, but a tree she couldn’t encircle with her hands—and her eyes widened farther still and her mouth fell open.
Enthusiastic female laughter. I resisted the temptation to look in the direction of the woman who had smiled at me when I left the bathroom.
“For a few months,” she said, “we were—quite a spectacle. We used to pack the house. We were amazing. There was something frantic about our lovemaking. Out of control. We used to whip the audience into a frenzy. Of course, most of them were stoned or otherwise whacked out, so they were pretty close to hysteria before we even touched each other, but we used to take them right over the top.”
She looked down and shook her head once or twice to make her hair fall. When she raised her head again she wore a look of blissful blankness. She held her cigarette like a joint, took a deep drag, and released the smoke slowly, with a sigh, speaking through it.
“It was like—they were our feeeedbaaaack, man. You know?”
The audience had relaxed. The smiles had returned to their faces.
“We’d start getting off on each other, and they’d start getting off on us, and we’d start getting off on the way they were getting off on us, and they’d start getting off on—hoo! Wow. You know what I mean? Far fucking out!”
They were having a good time again; she was going to be amusing again.
“We’d give it to them, and they’d amplify it and give it back, and we’d amplify it and give it back, and they’d amplify it—synergy, man! It was synergy. Oooh-ooh-oooh—I can hear them, you know? Like, in my memory. They’re kind of chanting, like ‘Right on, right on, right on,’ while I’m rocking on top of Terrence. Mm-mm-mm!”
She had dropped to the floor, on the living room rug, on her knees, and it was very easy to imagine that Terrence was under her, stoned and stiff as an oak, grinning while she rocked atop him, as she was rocking now.
“It was like we were musicians, man,” she said, smiling at the vacant space where Terrence’s face would have been. “Fucking musicians!” She threw her head back, as if Terrence had bucked. “I mean, I had orgasms like guitar solos! Hell, I had orgasms that became guitar solos.” She turned toward me, and, still screwing the invisible Terrence, asked, “Remember Jersey Cooper’s solo on ‘Too Long, Woman’? ”
“Sure,” I said, and played it on the air guitar: “ ‘Huhhh-uhhh-waah-wah-wah-ooooh-ahh-eeeeehuh—’ ”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said dreamily. “That was me, that was me. No shit, that was me.”
This was a hit. Applause, laughter, whistles, the whole bit. She was smiling, but the tears were pouring down her cheeks.
[to be continued]
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