Any Woman's Blues_ A Novel of Obsession - Erica Jong [103]
That must be the paradox of writing for publication, as it is even of journal keeping. You die into the word, and only silence can redeem.
Wayne calls.
“You’ve disappeared again,” he says. “Ada has fixed another scene for you. She’s gone out of her way. You don’t know her, but she never does this for anyone.”
“No,” I say.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” asks Wayne. “We’ve hardly begun.”
“I’ve done it,” I say, “seen my dark side, you win, I give in. Enough.”
“You’re scared,” says Wayne.
“Maybe so. Maybe I’m scared. And maybe I’ve learned what I needed to learn. But I’ve had enough for the moment.”
“Leila, this isn’t like you.”
“Good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, maybe the old daredevil Leila is growing up. Maybe I’ve had it with experience for experience’s sake. Maybe my thick skull is finally able to take something in. Enough. Genug. Basta. Give Ada my love. And take some for yourself. Come visit me in the country when you’re in the mood. I can’t deal with New York right now.”
“Boy—I really blew your mind, didn’t l?”
“I thought that was the whole point—blowing my mind. Or did I get that wrong?”
“You’re a quick study,” says Wayne. “Or else just chicken.”
“Maybe.”
“Leila, this isn’t like you.”
“You said that already.”
“Look—if you use the S&M material before I do, I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t worry. I’m working on something else.”
“What?”
“Myself. My sane mind.”
“You’re really nuts,” says Wayne.
A few days before I was to leave for the Viva Venezia Ball and meet Lionel (my would-be lover, whose dirty secret I now knew) and Julian (my astral pal), Dart called.
He called, sounding sane, measured, in control of himself. He proposed lunch. And I, feeling strong enough to deal with so moderate a request, accepted. Maybe lunch would confirm that I’d finally broken the obsession. Sybille and Emmie were against my going, so I went.
Lunch. Lunch between lovers. Dart and I used to joke that when you start having lunch and actually eating, it’s already over.
Once the date was set, I began preparing. Manicure, pedicure, facial, silk underwear . . . Apparently, meeting Dart is an enterprise that requires new clothes, a non-Thoreauvian enterprise, in short. Beware. Since AA, I have begun to measure everything in those terms.
The dominatrix requires new clothes, the Viva Venezia Ball requires new clothes, Danny Doland required new clothes, lunch with Dart requires new clothes. The message is clear. These are things I should avoid.
But the truth is, I’m not that free yet.
We meet at Da Silvano in New York. (Nice little irony in that.)
He’s late.
I’m wearing, over the silk underwear, a very tailored white linen suit with a modified miniskirt. I’m as excited as I was watching the dominatrix, and the feelings are not so very different.
He walks in looking dazzling: blue, blue eyes (or are they new blue contact lenses?), a new blue shirt that some besotted lady must have given him (I know it in my bones), khaki shorts, sneakers, Walkman.
We clasp hands. Conversation ignites. As if we’ve never been apart.
We sit at a table and talk, eye beams locked—as in the old days. It is all still here, the magic, the chemistry. If he touched my leg, I’d come.
Dart (leaning over the table, stroking my arm): “I’ve missed you so.”
Leila: “Me too.”
Dart: “I love you; there’s nobody like you. Nobody’s ever loved me like you did. Nobody ever will.”
Leila: “That’s true enough.”
He tells me about the bimbo, at my urging. “She loves me,” he says. Not: “I love her.”
Dart: “I’m doing what my father did—marrying a trust fund. She’s tough, has mean eyes. Not sweet like you.”
Leila: “Then why?”
He can’t answer this, but I could: her toughness makes him feel more secure than my sweetness did. He’s flipped from S to M. Now he’s the one getting beat.
Leila: “Who’s the boss in the relationship?”
Dart: “I am.”
I smile at him and stroke his hand, knowing better.
Dart: “We should have gotten married.”
Leila: “Darling, we are married—in our hearts. How could we be more married?”
He weeps. Dart has always