“So it really didn’t bother you, what I did?”
“At first, but now I understand. How did you think of something like that?”
“My mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Yeah. She told me that when my little brother was a baby, and he would cry for hours, that’s what she did to get him to stop.”
I had taken her to the nicest restaurant I could afford without using a credit card or writing a check. It was in the same town as the Hendrix Institute, but I didn’t worry about being seen with her. My home was in another county.
Violet was impressed with the food and the opulent-to her-atmosphere. After the meal, we talked. At first, our conversation was stilted-we were from different worlds, after all-but we soon picked up a comfortable rhythm.
“That’s incredible,” I said. “What do you feel when you do it? Is it like any other duty, or do you feel something?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
All of this, of course, was crazy. I had no business here with this girl. She looked cheap and unintelligent, but all the same, I was drawn to her. And seeing what I had seen had aroused me. It had aroused me deeply. I realized now that I had never been attracted to Rachel. We had sex, and I performed adequately, but I was only playing a role. Doing what I knew was expected of me. Doing, in the end, what I had to do in the institution of my marriage.
“I mean, do you get any satisfaction from it?”
She stared at me for a long time. I was sure she was going to get up, walk out. But she didn’t. She drank from her water glass. “Sometimes.”
Later, in the car, Violet wrapped her pale fingers around me. I could feel each of the gaudy rings she wore as she moved her hand over me. She cupped her mouth over mine. As I exhaled, she inhaled. We were as a single unit, our air circulating as one. And her hands were not human to me. They were beyond that. Something beautiful and strange working over me. My climax was the most intense I’d ever known. It erupted like a fountain of light. The semen went everywhere, and I thought, Not this one, Rachel. This is mine. You’ll never steal it from me. This time, I win.