A Week as Andrea Benstock
- Автор: Блок Лоуренс
- Год: 1975
- Язык: английский
- Год: Arbor House
- ISBN: 978-0-87795-100-1
- Жанр: Романы для взрослых
Электронная книга - «A Week as Andrea Benstock». Краткое содержание книги:
“I signed a petition today.”
“Well, that should end the war in a hurry. It’s good to see the suburban middle class putting its ass on the line for the cause of peace and freedom.”
“I signed my maiden name.”
“Andrea Kleinman.”
“Andrea Beth Kleinman. And for my address I put my old apartment on Jane Street.”
He took her chin in his hand and studied her face as if to decipher a secret message. “Is that the truth? Really?”
“Yes. What’s so remarkable about it?”
“Christ, kid. You can’t go home again. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”
“Which home can’t you go to, Jack? That’s the part they didn’t tell me.”
Before Dallas, Harry Benstock had hated John Kennedy. It was a sly hatred, not like the open enmity the rich had shown for Roosevelt a generation earlier. It exemplified itself by little jokes and slurs. Andrea’s father-in-law had owned The First Family, Vaughan Meader’s comedy album. And he had delighted in a rather mindless record on which the singer took the part of the President’s daughter Caroline.
Now there was an unutterably tasteless portrait of JFK, with Jackie at his side, hanging in Harry Benstock’s den. And Harry Benstock was voluble on the subject of the martyred president, and how the best hope of the generation had died with him.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” Andrea had heard him say often. “There’s no way Little Brother is ever gonna measure up to him. He’ll never fill those shoes.”
He had taken the book from her. He uncapped a pen, opened the book to the flyleaf.
“Hell,” he said. “You’re going to have tell me again. I keep thinking Beanstalk and that’s not it.”
“Just Andrea is fine.”
“C’mon, what’s your last name? Just so I’ll know.”
She told him, and spelled it for him. He wrote rapidly for a moment, then closed the book and capped the pen and put them both on the trunk top.
“You can’t read it now.”
“The whole book? I didn’t intend to.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Uh-huh.”
She leaned back and closed her eyes. She was waiting, and she did not have to wait long before he insinuated his arm between her shoulders and the back of the couch. She did not move. Her eyes remained closed and she waited.
She felt his breath on her cheek, breathed it in, registered the aromas of whiskey and tobacco. After a moment his lips just touched her cheek. Then she felt him draw away from her.
She did not say anything. She heard him strike a match and draw on a cigarette.
“It’s good seeing you, Andrea.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning what I just said. It’s good to see you. People lose touch.”
“Why is that, do you suppose?”
“They swim in different rivers. Something like that.”
“We’re in the same river now. Don’t you feel like spawning?”
“Well, that’s pretty direct.”
“I’ve always been pretty direct, haven’t I?”
“Yeah, I guess you have.”
“Well?”
He only hesitated for a moment. Then he kissed her and she surrendered immediately to the kiss, welcoming his arms around her, his mouth on hers. She did not hold anything back, but neither did she feel anything except an unfamiliar tightness in her chest.
This afternoon belonged to her. It existed independent of all other aspects of her life, past and present and future. It might or might not turn out to have meaning, but if it did the meaning was one she would probably not know for a long time. For the time being she was in a special limbo, answerable to no one, not even to herself.
All of this came to her in the middle of a kiss. When the kiss ended he released her and took up his cigarette from the ashtray. He took a drag on it and offered it to her. She drew on it. He said, “You don’t have to do this, Andrea.”
“Don’t you think I want to?”
“I’m not sure you know what you want. I’m just telling you there’s nothing you have to finish just because you started it. We’re both of us too old for that number.”
“I know.”
He leaned forward to put out the cigarette. “You were saying you’d have to meet your husband—”
“Not for a while.”
“That was a while ago.”
“There’s time.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Just don’t say anything,” she said. “Just, just let me do this. Just be still.”
She changed position on the couch, curling fetally with her head in his lap. She put one hand high on his thigh and cupped his groin with the other, holding him snugly. He expelled breath in a quiet sigh. She held him and rubbed her cheek against the back of her hand, then moved to blow warm breath between her fingers.
From that point on it had its own existence. She opened his zipper, extricated his penis. He sat quite still, altogether passive. She drew his pants a little ways down over his hips. Then, without any teasing, she took him into her mouth. And closed her eyes.
Yes. Oh, yes. How very nice this was, how pleasant, how tender, how warm. Men did taste different, one from another, and why shouldn’t they? So many other things served to distinguish one man from his fellow. Why should their taste be identical? Not that she could have specifically recalled the taste of this particular man. That was a nice conceit but scarcely true.
Ah, how exciting to serve as the vehicle of his excitement! To feel him grow in her mouth. How nice.
After a time he could not sit still. After a time his hips gave thrilling little twitches. He put a hand on her cheek, tangled the fingers of his other hand in her hair. It seemed to her that this last was an impossibly tender and thoughtful gesture, to tangle his fingers in her hair.
He spoke her name then and started to lean forward. But with one hand on his chest she made him sit back again, and her hand remained there, telling him that she wanted things this way, that this was her scene to be played out as she willed it.
And he sighed heavily and relaxed.
Of course. Because this was what men wanted. To be passive. Not to do but to lean back with their eyes closed and be done to. Oh, they would always want to make the gesture. They were willing, even anxious, to throw you a gentlemanly fuck. And they wouldn’t want you to think that this was what they really craved. That they were such passive individuals, receivers rather than givers. That what they wanted could be done as well, if not better, by another male. No, they would not want you to think that, and they would not want to think it themselves, but it was true nevertheless. This was what they wanted — to be very still and very silent, to be passive, to tangle their fingers in your hair while you sucked them.
His orgasm was abrupt and unanticipated, rather like a sudden cough.
By the time Mark returned to their hotel room, she had showered and dressed for the evening. He was in an excellent mood. His meeting had gone well and he was pleased with himself.
“Well, you’re certainly in good spirits,” she said.
“The best spirits. And it’s been a beautiful day, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a beautiful night, and I’ll have a beautiful girl on my arm. What’s wrong with that?”