The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [55]
“Oh, yes, Daddy, smoke one,” she said, child-like, as if it would be a big childish treat for us all.
The living room looked in on the bedroom. I remembered earlier scenes on that bed, Leonarda there, offering me her voluptuous breasts. The apartment was inhabited by these ghost scenes, her coming out of the bathroom with a mustache on, kissing me in the hallway. Suddenly, I felt irritated all over again, thinking how those scenes must be mixed in her mind with similar scenes she’d lived here with him.
Miguel lit a pipe, embarrassed, delighted, exposing himself. Could the guy stop for a moment exposing himself? Angry, I looked away. This is going to be interminable, I thought, suddenly depressed, and I sat down on the couch. Leonarda sat with me. She was all wiggly, squirmy. At the touch of her squirminess, I felt squirmy too, despite myself. He was standing by his desk, smoking, watching us. He turned his neck, stretching, and an enormous tendon stood out.
“Ohhhhh, look at that!” Leonarda said. “Do that again.”
He did it again. Once again I was picking up on her giddiness, getting lost inside the evil of the moment, its playfulness. It was also the touch of her squirmy legs. We were under the operating-table lamp. Her breast was pressed against my arm. I could feel the stiff nipple.
“Oh, wait,” she said, getting up on her knees, leaning over me, her large full breasts against my shoulder, then neck, then cheek, then the top of my head. I turned my mouth to suck them. She was adjusting the lamp, so it was more directly on us. “There,” she said, but without coming down from her knees. Now her breasts were near my face. She pressed them into my face, looking over her shoulder at him.
“She likes to suck my breasts,” she said, “you should see how she sucks them.”
I made a sound. I had my eyes shut now. I tried to get her nipple in my mouth.
“See, I told you, she gets so excited,” she said. “I don’t let her suck them at first and then I do.”
She was moving her breasts around in front of my face, not letting me latch on. I grabbed one and bit the nipple through the shirt—she cried out—then sucked.
“Oh,” she said, “see, I can’t stop her.”
She was wearing the striped T-shirt of a boy. She lifted it. I pulled at her bra. Eyes still closed, I wanted her breast in my mouth. I pushed the bra up so the breast spilled out.
“See,” she said, “you’re not the only one who desires me.”
I wanted to devour her breast, take the whole thing in my mouth.
“See now, wouldn’t you like to be fucking me right now?” she said.
He must have started to move.
“Don’t move!” she said. “Stay right there, just take off your pants. I want to see your ugly horn sticking out.” He, staying over by the desk, slowly removed his pants.
She touched my hair. “You know what she likes? She likes it in the ass. I told you about her splendid ass. If you do what we say, she’ll offer it up to you.”
I made a sound of protest.
“Don’t worry, she’ll do it, if I let her keep sucking. She does whatever I say. You know what I pictured? After this, what I picture? You know the ham on the spit in the kitchen? I pictured the two of us putting you under this lamp, and cutting you up like a pig on a spit—”
I saw the image very clearly, him cored on a spit, his long lower limbs dangling off. Suddenly, the whole thing seemed horrible to me. I jerked my head away from Leonarda’s breast, pushed her off of me.
“That’s it, I’m going,” I said.
Finding my way to the door, I glanced back once as I closed it. He was standing, pants down, rabbit teeth showing. Leonarda was still up on her knees on the couch. Moments later, I was on the street walking fast past the zoo, the animals breathing on the other side of the wall. Leonarda called me but I didn’t answer. Later, I checked the message: “Hey, why did you leave?” it said.
nineteen
There was a puddle of water outside my door when I got home.