Thoreau Bound, page 30
To say thanks for the way he had complimented her she rewarded him with a feverish kiss, then together they fell laughing-laughing-laughing onto the adjacent bed.
As I observed the sparks between Penelope and Kosmos, they reminded me of those love-novels where the readers realize that the hero and heroine were made for each other, and everyone in the world can see it clearly except the stubborn He and She. Irene, her mouth as wide open as her eyes, stared bedward at the Kosmo-Penelopedic activities she had never observed before. She had learned some lessons from Beatrice, and now her mother was showing her more. I found the precious piece of paper, then I read the last stanza of Bea Loverly’s poem.
One lust night of wild adoring!
One last light the stars dare speak,
Two lost lovers cease exploring
Find the darkling paradise they seek.
The darkling paradise! ... I felt the seed of an amazing idea sprouting, but it slipped away when my hand was tugged by the gentle hand of Irene.
“Thoreau, please take off my nightgown. Aunt Bea said that I should let you undress me. She said that the only time men like to pick up clothes is when they’re on the body of a good-looking girl.”
In a moment, the shy young goddess stood before me in her splendid nakedness, and the sight made me sigh with joy. Deeply moved by my appreciation, Irene stroked my cheek to thank me for the admiring stares.
“Thoreau,” she said. “Tell me how beautiful I am.”
For this woman’s beauty there were no sufficient words. But half the job of a poet and a novelist is to describe those things that words cannot describe.
“Irene,” I said, truly astonished at her loveliness. “If all the olives in the world could speak they could not say how beautiful you are.”
She sat up and kissed me; she bathed my body with those same admiring glances that I showered upon hers. Believing at last she was desired, admired and beloved, the young woman glowed with her own new power. She trusted a man; to him alone would she open the full flower of her body and soul.
“Rub my body with this olive oil,” she said. “All over, please. I’ve never done this before but don’t worry, it’s one-hundred percent cold-pressed extra virgin oil.”
I poured the oil onto my fingers then rubbed her body with the oil. The woman had charm, warmth, effervescence: these things touched me and made me feel more tender, more sincere, more true. Irene hummed, trembled, purred.
“Aunt Bea said that every lovemaking session should begin with a massage. And she said that because I’m inexperienced you wouldn’t be sure if we should sleep together, but if I gave you the LMT — the Loverly Magic Touch — then you wouldn’t be able to resist me.”
One long minute later I shouted under a spasm of rapture too marvelous to imagine and too intense to be described. Looking at the proud Irene I wondered how she accomplished it. It seemed impossible that someone new to lovemaking could give so much pleasure to a partner the first time. How could a novice, who had learned how the chess pieces moved in the morning, play so well that in the evening she would demolish the world champion of chess? Ah, but chess was a war, a quest for individual supremacy, a fierce psychological battle. Whereas lovemaking, like love — pursued in the best spirit — brings us closer together as each member of the partnership strives unselfishly to grow.
“Irene!” I said, à la Dickens, with great expectations. “What else did Aunt Beatrice teach you?”
Irene kissed my lusting lips.
“She taught me what to do if a man in bed does nasty things that I don’t want him to do. The LSS: the Loverly Scrotum Scratch.”
And before I could respond to the obvious consequences of this remarkable remark, Irene unleashed her fingernails then demonstrated the self-defense which she had so adeptly learned.
Within seconds the mighty had fallen; parts that previously pulsed in pleasure now throbbed in palpitating agony. Like a rushing subway train I screamed. I rolled off the bed, tried to smile at Lady Loverly’s long-distance vengeance, then pressed my hands around my throbbing pouch. I had felt more pain than this once in my life: while carelessly zipping up my fly I had caught my nipper-nopper (as my grandfather called it) in the teeth of the zipper. A torturous experience which is the male equivalent of the pains of childbirth.
Penelope jumped to the rescue: she poured wine onto the wounded region and then dabbed it gently with a soft sponge.
“My god! If she keeps that up we’ll have to send for the village mourners to chant the dirges. She’ll murder the poor boy if I don’t teach her what to do!”
Holding a towel around his belly with one hand and a first-aid kit in the other hand, Kosmos examined my magic wand.
“Dhen eena teepota, it’s nothing!” he declared. “Just a little love scratch, a superficial wound. No blood shed, nothing severed, no parts to sew back on, no beans out of the pod. So the dowry does not need to be refunded.”
Forgivingly, Kosmos kissed Irene’s forehead, then he slapped my shoulder with great affection.
“I’ve got to get back to the trenches. Good luck, Thoreau. If you need anything —,” he winked as he stepped backwards through the doorway “— just holler.”
A statuesque Irene stood over me, hands prayfully folded, waiting for the moment of judgment. At last she could no longer wait.
“I’m so sorry, Thoreau!” she said, biting the offending fingernails. “Do you still love me?”
I stood up sooner than I might have done had I been alone, with no women to impress.
“For a few seconds I stopped thinking about you, Irene, but I never stopped loving you.”
She screamed with joy then threw her arms around my neck and then kissed me a dozen times and hugged me with all her might.
The lovers were separated by Penelope.
“Irene, you’ll choke him to death!” she cried. “Sit down and listen up. Thoreau, forget about your sexual uphangs and pay attention. Touch her in a way that says, without words, how much you care about her.”
Yangly I touched, touched, touched, and touched; yinly Irene smiled, moaned, melted, and sighed. But Penelope was far from satisfied.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Thoreau!” she shouted. “That’s the breast of a woman, not the udder of a goat!”
I released the breast then sat on both my hands. Penelope shook her head.
“Irene!”
“Yes, mother!”
“Imagine that you are the snake, a python, in the first Garden of Paradise. The python can crush animals much larger than itself, but it only gets its crushing strength when it secures its tail around a tree. Go ahead now.”
“I don’t see any trees in the room, Mother,” Irene cried.
“Embrace Thoreau’s tree!” Penelope yelled. “It’s right under your nose!”
Irene looked blankly, and Penelope continued shouting at her until the flustered young woman burst into tears.
I stood up, walked across the room, put my hand around the doorknob then pulled opened the door.
“Penelope,” I said. “Don’t take this personally, but this isn’t working out. One of us needs to leave.”
Penelope strode to the doorway, faced me, poked her finger into my chest.
“What’s the matter with your memory, Thoreau! Now you threaten to abandon us, and ten minutes ago you promised to treasure her love and treat her tenderly! And besides, who made you the king? There are three people involved here. Let’s take a vote.”
I voted for Penelope to leave; Penelope cast an opposing vote; and then Irene, saying “She’s my mother!” also voted for everyone to remain.
“Ha!” shouted Penelope. “One vote says I leave and you stay, two votes say that everybody stays. A two-to-one landslide. Do you believe in democracy and equal rights for women, Thoreau? Then kiss my cheeks, kiss Irene’s lips, and go stand up next to the bed!”
I closed the door, kissed the cheeks and lips, then strolled back and stood beside the bed. Penelope, from her purse, removed a thumb-sized container of dark-red lipstick. After studying me for a minute — tilting her head this way then that way like an artist — she drew red lines all over my powerful body, dividing the body into segments like a carcass of fresh beef. There was chuck, ribs, shank, brisket, plate, flank, loin (tenderloin and porterhouse), sirloin, rump, round, brains, ears, lips — and tree.
Into each of my segments Penelope wrote a number, so that she could continue her instructions to Irene with paint-by-number accuracy. Penelope shouted advice like: “Irene, hands on one! Lips on four! Legs around fourteen!”
The lesson continued and Penelope, now armed with an accurate map of the territory, commanded like a general marching her troops to the climax of a rousing victory.
“Irene, dearest,” she would say, again and again, “he’s beautiful, we know, but concentrate on what you’re doing. Always concentrate.”
I admired Penelope’s original mind almost as much as Irene’s original body. But after the third assault I peered down at my subdivided self, and then I shook my head.
“Penelope!” I said. “I’ll never forget you for this. I’m a whole man, not an animal hanging in a butcher shop. Am I going to be made love to, or eaten alive?”
“Thoreau!” Penelope replied. “I can see that you’ve never had sexmaking with a woman who knows what she’s doing. Made love to or eaten alive? What a question! You know what the answer to that is? It’s five simple words. An old wise woman in Paris told me, and now I’m telling it to you.”
She stroked my cheek affectionately, then squeezed my lips together with her hand.
“Be beautiful and shut up!”
29
Decline and Fall of the Kosmos
Whoever wrote the Latin proverb “Post coitum omne animal triste est” — “After sexual intercourse every animal is sad” — must have been doing it all wrong. Blazing with my enthusiasm and aroused by my god within, the women in my embrace quaked with rapture, quivered with awe, quibbled with devotion, trembled with thankfulness. And afterwards they would have re-written the dusty proverb to say: “After intercourse every animal wants more.”
Feelings like these had deeply moved Irene! This new-woman, ever wandering the worlds between realities and dreams, had dived headfirst into the fishy sea of sex. I marveled at her curiosity, her spontaneity, her youthful poise. Unspoiled by fierce neurotic notions or by false romantic hopes, she abandons herself wholeheartedly to this enchanted realm. She is a child playing games, an artist splashing paint against a canvas, a kitten wrestling in the fond embrace of brother cat. Sex for her is not sacred, not ordinary, not obscene: sex is natural and playful and fun. Her sex is a gift and her love is present. She kisses the joy as it flies. She clings to her sweetheart but never with the plodding desperation of a turtle trapped under its shell. She enjoys each moment happy as a lovebird in a nest of love.
The sky was greying and a breeze cooled the air with the invigorating scent of rain. Irene, Penelope, and I — now as close as friends can be — held hands as we strolled back toward Dembacchae along the deserted beach. The lovely evening listened to us talking and praising one another by singing simple songs. Now and again Irene kissed me and whispered sweet lovethings to my ear, while Penelope eyed me with the glance of a fond big sister, stroking my forehead and my hair. Each time the wind gusted it blew open the women’s robes. We laughed at the naughty wind, and at the beauty of our bodies, and at the joy of every living being on our earth.
Soon we reached that scenic stretch of seashore that Kosmos had always called ‘my kaliparalea’. As we walked across this beach the warm winds whispered and the pagan voices sang. The same sweet thought tempted all the minds: how lovely, lovely, lovely it would be to lay down here on sandy beds to touch bodies, smile eyes, and play at love! ... We walked on; we ignored the sacred voices; we trembled with regrets as winds blew once again, a cooler breeze that scattered all desires.
Over this playful piece of beach we passed; we walked more; and at last we saw the first houses on the hilltops on the outskirts of the town. Quickly, with the lusty wind pushing behind our backs, we walked over the sand then through Dembacchae’s deserted streets. We remembered one more member of our family; we would find him now and share our joy.
In the garden of Kosmos, sitting alone behind a wooden table, we found the man. He had a tear on his cheek, a carrot in his mouth, a one-page letter in his calloused hands. And when he noticed his three sacred friends holding hands as we entered his garden, his face unwrinkled from a grimace to a smile. He placed the letter on the tabletop, then he waved to us to gather near. Shaking his head, he spurted an embarrassed laugh like a man who’d fallen on the ice and landed on his well-padded backside.
“Beeg fuckeeng problems!” he murmured. Kosmos stared into the clouding sky and two huge tears dripped from his wild eyes into the jungle of his beard.
“Nothing really matters in a man’s life except three things: his house, his women, his vitality. If you’re having problems with only one of these, then sing and give thanks for your blessings. Trouble with all three all at once? Then you’re like a lamb on the chopping block: all you can do is bleat and pray for help. At this auspicious moment I’ve been cursed with two of these colossal problems. There might be a way out, but right now I don’t see a way.”
He shook his head, took a deep breath, slammed his fist against the tabletop.
“Learn something from my folly, Thoreau. Don’t wait too long to start to free yourself. Begin today, begin right now! It’s easier to escape from the lioness’s lair than from her clutches, and it’s easier to escape from her clutches than from her jaws.”
I glanced down at the ominous envelope.
“You’ve just received a letter with bad news, Kosmos? Tell us everything. And don’t gild the manure or sugar-coat the sour truth.”
Kosmos drummed his fingers on the table, wondering whether he should tell. Older women and men, Kosmos believed, should not burden young persons with their own troubles or the troubles of the world. Let youth be a time for play, for learning, and for happiness! Yet at last he decided to hide nothing. His family — Thoreau, Penelope, Irene — were strong enough: his honesty and loving care had nurtured them and made them strong. Briefly they would share and feel his pain, then they would forget and find their joys again.
He asked us to sit around the table, and then he raised his hands to signal we should all hold hands.
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” he began — and he pronounced the words slowly as if his meandering pace could postpone the real event and make tomorrow never come. “Tomorrow I am leaving to live for a while in ‘the big olive.’”
“The big olive?” I said. And I grasped the meaning the instant my question escaped.
“Athens,” Kosmos replied. “That’s where my two wives are living. Tomorrow morning I will be officially arrested then taken to Athens’s finest jail. This house and all my possessions will be confiscated then sold to pay, to pay — how do you say the word in English? In Greek it is pronounced ‘ameevee’.”
“Compensation!” said Irene.
“Thank you, dear child. To pay compensation for the mental anguish I inflicted on my two obnoxious wives.”
He looked up at the swelling clouds, glanced at our fearful eyes, then swallowed the last drops of bouzo from his glass.
“Another Don Juan caught by the silent statue and dragged down to the hell he deserves. The hell he made for himself when he charged through life like a young bull, thinking about nothing at all except his own selfish pleasures. His arrogant motto: ‘Breed and feed, what more do you need?’”
Penelope stepped behind the seated Kosmos, untied his shoelaces, then clasped her arms around his broad shoulders.
“I won’t let that heartless statue take you!” she shouted. “I’ll pull you up, the stone demon will pull you down, then I’ll kick him where it hurts and send him tumbling down to hell with nothing in his hands except your holey shoes! And then, thanks to that struggle, you’ll be all stretched out and taller and more handsome, too!”
Kosmos laughed at this fable while Penelope took a deep breath and filled herself with resignation.
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving now,” she said. “It’s not Friday night, I know. If I stay five minutes longer then we’ll start fighting like spiders and wasps. Thoreau and Irene will cheer you up.”
Smiling, Kosmos rubbed his hand along her forearm then squeezed her hand.
“Stay here with us, will you Penelope? I’ll make a nice dinner for everyone, and after dinner we’ll tuck these young lovebirds under the covers in the bedroom. And then — if you’re willing and I’m able — Penelope and Kosmos will make love like the immortal Olympians, outside in the raging thunderstorm.”
Joyful Penelope! There are words, and there are words, words, words. The instant that Kosmos had asked her to stay she squeezed him in a great embrace. Her eyes danced with delicious delight from a time and a place long ago, half-forgotten, far away.
“No!” she shouted.
“No?” Kosmos disappointedly replied.
“No! You cook for me every week. It’s my turn now to cook for you. You’ll need to save all your strength for me for tonight.”
As tears streamed down her cheeks, the triumphant woman looked up across the table at the lover of Irene.
“All this is thanks to you, Thoreau,” she said. “When you arrived, he saw his own reflection in your eyes, he found a friend to share his secrets, he remembered the best of his young self.”
This tender moment was interrupted — as so many tender moments are — by rumblings from the too-much-with-us world. First came the pittering patters of footsteps; soon afterwards four flat-footed messengers arrived.
Dressed like bellhops, they had come to Kosmos to deliver — from the notorious Judge Skleerokardos — a singing telegram. The tallest of them blew into a pitchpipe, then they began their message in a four-part a capella harmony.
