SANDRA SAID
Three men. That's what Sandra said. She had said it at dinner. She had said it when they passed church. Her voice was a whisper as they rubbed the juniper. Dean had heard her say it but he wanted to ignore it, pretend it wasn't out there, pretend he didn't hear it, like a priest, or a bird that madly whistles. But Sandra grabbed his hand and turned him towards her, the needles from the juniper bush stabbing him to attention as she said it slowly, definitely, with a slight smile, "Three men, two besides you."
And it was there in his mind, other hands, other bold backs. He would have to turn her into someone that could not want more than one. And the how started to invade him. Invade his days at the gym, panting. His times at school, writing on chalkboards. Plans came at night while watching TV or talking to Sandra on the phone. He bought books on lovemaking and practiced with himself or the whores he picked up in Chelsea, washing their smell from his bed with orange peels and vinegar. He listened through the walls of his apartment, trying to see if he could pick up traces of technique from the happy couple next door. He frequented sex shops and drug stores, bought magazines and oils imported from Asia; he made additions to her food.
Still Sandra said she loved three men and would not give up even a one. She said it when they bathed together in ginger steam. Her face beaded with sweat. His mind thick with men. Men that looked like his father, with strong beards and hands that trembled as they rolled cigarettes, turning their fingers yellow and greedy for flesh that they could pinch and taunt, hurt, men that were meek like his brother or his uncle that he despised, even men like his son with barely a beard or a mistake to call his own, dirtied his mind and their bath. The ginger and jasmine tainted water held pieces of their flesh, dead cells that had washed off floated. Floated between them like abdomens and hairy chests of men that could take Sandra places Dean could not afford. These men joined on outings to the park or the laundromat, he imagined them helping Sandra tip the bottle of bleach into the washer. Dean kept looking for something different in Sandra, a higher pitch to her approvals during lovemaking, a change in her clothing, her haircut. Nothing changed, not the rate she said yes. Nor the rate she refused him, said she couldn't come over to his house or out for a walk. What changed was Dean's mind, the way it thought when he saw Sandra. It stopped thinking about her waist, the vulnerable dent it made in her body. The meals she had made him were no longer in his memory, her haphazard combination of spices. What he thought about was what he thought she was thinking about, movies she enjoyed, meals with others. He could no longer talk to her without thinking about masculine gestures across her breasts, her back, faces over her own. He would smell at her like a dog, hungry for another man's scent, he craved it, expected it, desired it for arousal. He had more whores; they always smelled of others.
Sandra bored of her other men, never as passionate as Dean, they did not greet her at the door, they just left it ajar, stayed in bed for her arrival. They did not sniff or question her. They became lazy and only took her to movies or fancy meals when they were hungry for something that would satisfy their own pleasure; they dressed with boredom, undressed too. Sandra stopped trimming her hair, buying clothes. She spent days at the market looking for things she could add to her cooking, spices that would slide from Dean's pores, mark him as someone whose kitchen she had been in. Her curries stung his tongue. Even the whores were repulsed by Dean and eventually they began to refuse him and his money, balled up wads of cash accumulated on Dean's dresser next to the oils and magazines tabbed with post-its on the pages that Dean thought offered a position that Sandra would find particularly pleasurable, pink post-its for things they had never tried before, green ones for things that he had begged her for and she had refused, yellow post its marked positions they had been through and he felt he had handled particularly well. The oils left rings, markers. Circles of nights marked on calendars with no whores, no Sandra. On these nights Dean watched TV, took his son to dinner, slept. On these nights he flipped through channels and movie shows of hookers with bruised thighs, ratted hair in his mind. On these nights he made phone calls and meals of hamburger buns with ketchup, no meat, too lazy to get some. On these nights he perspired, refused to bathe, his smell brought Sandra and the whores. It made them appear in his room, visions without voices, bodies without minds, they danced against the wallpaper, flickered. They crawled to him in bed. They were out to beat one another, get the prize, win him, entangle themselves with each other, strangling. Sandra was nothing at this point, no trophy. She was just a girl that made him strange meals with odd spices. She was just some whore with stringy hair that had said she loved him and two others by the juniper. She was a girl that he thought he needed to have in order to settle with his father. She was a girl that he passed church with but never entered, she was not vibrant enough against the stained glass. Her skin had faults that couldn't be airbrushed, confessed away. Her clothes were bought in stores, wrapped up by sales clerks taking credit cards from other men. The dent in her waist, chiseled there by the touch of many men's hands. Her way with spices was just a sign of indecision, floundering. These things that he'd admired in her and had to own had become things that he could live without, refuse, his fingerprints on magazines proved that he could stay away. He didn't need to fill his room with her and her dented flesh, her hair in tangles from lack of combing, he didn't need her clothing on his floor. A mess. He stopped thinking about how to change her mind while he jogged on the treadmill or walked the aisles of the hardware store, searching for a hammer; this was bliss.
CARON PERKAL