Any Woman's Blues_ A Novel of Obsession - Erica Jong [87]
Born, died, never begotten—what is the difference, really, if all is one? The moon is dead yet gives light. Dolph and Theda are dead, yet they stomp through my Connecticut woods at will. Even all my old dogs—Renascence, Robbie, Tara—come sniveling at the silo door on rainy nights, begging to be let in. The dead and the living are all here in a primal dance. Psychics see them, hear them. We only pretend not to, so as to keep our heads. Too much static! Too much input! We screen the dead out and embrace the night.
Goodbye.
I wander into the twins’ room and sit on the edge of Ed’s bed, watching her breath move, feeling her hot cheeks with my lips. Then I move to Mike’s bed and say a prayer over her sleeping head. I smell her neck—brownish, pre-pubescent, premenstrual, puppyish, premoon. Her dead brother’s soul flies into her.
Little girl clones, you will do for this life. I love you. The withered penis in the moonlight wasn’t meant to be.
15
Lie Down, I Think I Love You (or That’s a Good Question, Young Lady)
You got the right string, baby, but the wrong yo-yo.
—Piano Red
From a spiritual awakening to a visit from Lionel Schaeffer—how literally can you take the phrase “the sublime to the ridiculous”?
The chopper lands. The twins, Natasha, Boner, Lily, and I all run out to greet this cosmic apparition, this voyager from another galaxy—the galaxy of Mammon! A UFO on our property! Wall Street comes to Litchfield County!
The air churns. The eggbeater whirs. I fear the twins will be decapitated and hold them back.
Lionel jauntily descends from his helicopter, wearing a Turnbull and Chung suit. He carries a handmade briefcase from Cellerini of Firenze.
“Pussycat!” is the first word out of his mouth.
The twins titter and pretend to be shy. Natasha tugs on the safety pin in her ear. Lily announces that there will be roast chicken for lunch in fifteen minutes. And I stand amazed, wearing a rhinestone-studded Lily Farouche T-shirt, skin-tight jeans, and a maxipad soaked with the blood of the Zandbergs.
“Come to the silo,” I say, leaving Lily and Natasha to cosset the pilot with coffee and doughnuts. The twins scamper off, giggling and elbowing each other. Another swain. A suitor. They find it immensely funny. In my sane mind, so do I.
Into the silo we go. I invite Lionel to take off his jacket and tie, but he refuses, perhaps wanting this formality, this contrast between Litchfield and Wall Street.
I offer him a seat on the red velvet Victorian chaise I keep for posing sitters, or—in the past—for fucking visiting swains. (It was important to make love in the studio—I used to feel—in order to keep the creative vibes energized.)
The red velvet chaise is not without its white markings, and these Lionel immediately notices.
“Naughty girl,” he says.
“That’s what you like about me,” I toss off, though my womb is aching.
“True,” says Lionel. “You give good dialogue,” he says. “I wonder if you give good head.”
“How can you doubt it?”
“Okay,” says Lionel, “show me the latest mistress-pieces.”
I begin moving canvases—the twin portrait of the twins, the rejected film stills of Dart—and set out the three best of the maenads and crystal series. Funny how it takes a stranger in my studio to make me appreciate my own work. Alone, I molder in my creative compost heap, thinking nothing of my gifts, enjoying the process but not being able to rate the product. With a stranger in my studio, I am able to feel the value of the work. I show Lionel the maenads and crystal, suddenly wishing there were more to show.
Lionel steps back and looks at the canvases. “Mamma mia,” he says. “You wanna sell me one now, without telling André? C’mon, baby, I’ll give you a hundred grand—McCrae’ll never know.”
“He’s your best friend, Lionel—and my dealer. That’s immoral.”
“You show your age when you use words like ‘immoral. ’ Immoral, schmimmoral—this is business. André’ll take—what? fifty percent? I’ll