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:
“You see a lot of each other.”
“Sure, and if he needed something he’d come to me, I suppose, but I don’t really know him. Of course there’s the age difference.”
“He thinks you don’t approve of him.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“Because he’s working for his father. You’re a lawyer and he’s a businessman and it’s not even his business and he thinks you don’t approve.”
“How do you know this? Something he said?”
“Just intuition.”
“Woman’s proverbial intuition.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well,” he said, and paused, and then something changed in his face, as if he decided that conversation had run long enough, as if it was opening doors he would prefer to keep closed, as if he had reached for the switch and changed the channel. He reached over and put a hand on her knee. “There’s one thing we can do,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“To uphold the institution of marriage. To express our solidarity with the concept of the sanctity of the family unit.”
“How?”
He squeezed her knee. “We can go home and screw our brains out,” he said.
“Well, now,” she said. “You don’t think I’m a little old for that sort of thing? A little long in the tooth?”
“I’ve always thought your teeth were just the right length. What the hell does that expression mean, anyway?”
“I don’t know. But thirty’s old, you know.”
“Ancient.”
“The bones get brittle.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll be gentle with you.”
“You do and I’ll kill you.”
When he returned from the bathroom she was already in bed. “I’m wearing my present,” she said. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t get me a fur coat?”
“Very. I hope you know I meant it when I said to exchange it if you don’t like it.”
“I hope you know I love it.” His gift was a dress watch with a gold mesh band and a delft blue face, and she thought it was exquisite. “And it’s such a perfect gift for a thirtieth birthday.”
“How so?”
“Oh, time flying by. Like giving a gold watch to someone when he retires, so he can listen to the rest of his life ticking away.”
“I hope you don’t—”
“Ha!” She sat up in bed. “Gotcha! No, silly, I didn’t take it that way at all. Anyway, it could be worse. It could be a calendar watch. Oh, come here, don’t pout Oh, come here, my darling. Ah, yes. That’s better. That’s so much better.”
It was a good night for them to make love. Lovemaking was a virtually automatic accompaniment to significant days — birthdays, anniversaries. But tonight was especially right because the lovemaking was in such perfect harmony with the feelings that had been with her all evening. She was aware throughout of the special familiarity of their bodies, the mutual knowledge acquired over the years, and she quivered in appreciation of the genuine comfort and pleasure that grew out of this knowledge.
For quite a long time they lay on their sides facing one another, kissing lazily, touching each other with their hands. This, she sometimes thought, was truly the ultimate intimacy, the special intimacy of hands. Her hands on him, his hands on her, touching one another not so much to excite as to examine, to seek, as a blind person would seek to read a face.
Knowing each other, knowing each other so well and so long, knowing each other as no one else on earth knew either of them. Oh, there were vastnesses of him she did not know. She kept finding new depths in him. And there were infinite stretches of herself that she very carefully kept to herself. But each day and month and year they opened a few more doors and windows to each other. Sometimes in conversation. Sometimes in the touch-language of the flesh.
“Mmmmm.”
“Hmm?”
“Come on top for a while.”
“Lazy man.”
“Ahhhh.”
Slipping easily from one posture to another, lazy, warm, unhurried, and finally he was on top of her again and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held him very tight, and he began to move within her more deliberately, and he was breathing faster and so was she, matching her breathing to his unconsciously, automatically, and she said oh, baby, oh, baby and he said yes, yes, meaning yes I am almost there, meaning yes come with me, come with me, and the door opened and they went through it, together.
She said, “Carnal knowledge.”
He took the cigarette from her lips and drew on it. She watched the smoke hanging in the still air. Smoking was not supposed to be enjoyable if you couldn’t see the smoke. The room was just light enough so that the smoke was visible.
“Wha’d you say?”
“Carnal knowledge. Tree of knowledge. And Adam knew Eve. And on her thirtieth birthday, ladies and gentlemen, Andrea Benstock suddenly discovered the meaning of phrases she’d known all her life.”
“You’re a nut.”
“How do you like doing it with an older woman? I’m supposed to be exciting and mysterious.”
“What else is new? You’ve always been exciting and mysterious.”
“Am I improving with age? Like a vintage wine?”
“Like ripe cheese.”
“You’re almost too romantic for words. Hey, gimme a drag on that butt, buster.”
“What I love about you is you’re refined.”
“Yeah, I got all this couth shit down pat. I was well brought up.” And, in her own voice, “It’s been a big day.”
“I was afraid it would be a little on the dull side for you. The usual day around the house, then the enormous novelty of a family dinner at the club. I was trying to think of something exotic to do.”
“Like flying down to Acapulco for a midnight swim?”
“Like driving up to Toronto for dinner and spending the night. But we’d already made plans with your parents and I didn’t want to spoil it for them.”
“You’re a sweet man.”
“What brought that on?”
“I don’t know. Toronto’s always fun but I’d rather do it some other time. I wanted to spend tonight doing just what we did. Doing ordinary things.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It must be past midnight, don’t you think? Oh, I’m sure it is. So I’m past my birthday. I am thirty years old. I am entering my thirty-first year. I can’t play ingenue parts any more, baby. The dew-eyed number is a thing of the past.”
“Listen, I’m going to be thirty-five soon.”
“So?”
“Speaking of big birthdays.”
“That’s not for a while.”
“No, but it’s lurking around the corner there.”
“Thirty-five’s a great birthday for a man.”
“It is?”
“Are you kidding? Of course it is. When a man’s thirty-five it means you can start taking him seriously. Thirty-five’s a sensational age for a man to be.”
He was silent for a moment. Then, leaning away from her to extinguish the cigarette, he said, “I won’t be promising any more.”
“Huh?” She rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Won’t be promising what?”
“The adjective, not the verb. Right now I’m still a promising young attorney.”
“Correction, you’re a successful young attorney.”
“Uh-uh. Promising. I’m too young to be a success or a failure. I can be leaning toward one or the other but unless I’m a millionaire or panhandling on Chippewa Street I’m still in the promising category. But that stops at thirty-five. By then you either keep the promise or you don’t.”
“Oh, wow.”
“So it’s a big birthday. Not to take away from the enormity of your being thirty, my dear, but I’d say thirty-five is a fairly significant moment for a man.”