“Yes, they do. We just never do.”
He sighed, and rolled his eyes. “You see, the tyranny of women,” he said to Joshua and me. “How we are yoked and chained, but we submit.” He lowered his head like a bull. “I submit. Carry me off. Do with me what you will.”
After they’d left, Joshua shook his head and sighed. “The original wise guy.”
“Daddy didn’t like him,” I said.
“No one likes him.”
“Doesn’t your mother?”
“Are you kidding? How could anyone like him if they lived with him?”
“So, why doesn’t she divorce him?”
“I guess she figures why bother. He’s rich.”
“That’s gross, that she just stays with him for his money.”
“Yeah, well . . . I guess women do.”
“Joshua!” I looked at him indignantly. “Women do not! My mother doesn’t.”
“Your father isn’t rich.”
“He’s not poor . . . he says we’re comfortable.”
Joshua smiled. “Listen, Mom didn’t even want to go to the West Side to meet your parents. She was afraid they’d be mugged the second they went west of Fifth. She says she saw a cockroach walking up the wall of the restaurant.”
“Daddy liked her.”
“She liked him. She said he was very sincere.”
“He is.”
“Maybe we should fix them up,” Joshua said.
“Oh come on!”
“Why not?”
“My parents are happily married,” I said.
“Nobody’s parents are happily married,” Joshua said. “Some just put on a better front than others.”
“That’s really a cynical attitude.”
“Realistic.”
“Cynical.”
I glared at him. He came over in back of me and put his arms around me and hugged me. Then he slid his hands up under my shirt. “Hey, what’s this?” he said, touching my bra.
“I went out with Daddy this afternoon. He doesn’t like it when I go without a bra.”
“How does this work?” he said, trying to unhook it.
“It hooks in the front.”
He unhooked it and began stroking my breasts. “That’s more like it.” I could feel through his jeans he was hard already.
“Listen, I thought we were going to watch that movie,” I said, flushing.
“We can do both,” he said, reaching down to unzip my jeans.
“Joshua!”
“Why? You can’t do two things at once?”
“Not that.” I felt awful, that he would even want to.
“Hey.” He tilted my head up. “I was just teasing . . . it’s not on till nine.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“The study . . . my room’s a mess.”
Joshua’s room is always an unbelievable mess. Even Deel’s room, which Mom calls a “disaster area,” looks neat by comparison. His father’s study is really a big room with a fireplace and a big modular sofa that could seat around twenty people. I could tell that unless we fucked first Joshua wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the movie. He’s like that. If he gets horny, he can’t concentrate on anything. At first he tried to go slow, stroking me all over and kissing me, but then all of a sudden he began moving back and forth fast. His mouth was open on mine, hot, and he had his hands under my ass. “Oh, Rust,” he gasped. “Oh, oh—” Joshua really gets carried away when we fuck. Sometimes I almost feel scared, like he’s in a trance or something.
The bad thing is that I can’t get an orgasm when we fuck. I know you’re supposed to, but I can’t. Maybe I worry about it too much. But afterward when Joshua takes me in his arms and kisses me and strokes me, then I can do it. Maybe it’s partly because then he’s calm and loving, and I feel relaxed and good, whereas when we’re actually fucking, it’s like he’s a different person almost. I don’t make a lot of loud, groaning sounds like Joshua when I come. Joshua says I purr. He says I sound like their cat when you stroke her on her back a long time and she purrs and purrs.
Afterward he lay with his head propped up, leaning on his elbow, and stared at me with that intense expression he has.
“I’m scared,” he said.
“What of?”
“The movie . . . it’s opening in eight weeks.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I’m going to lose you,” he said dolefully.
“What do you mean?” I said softly. “No, you’re not.”
“You’re going to be surrounded by all these guys; older guys, suave, rich guys who’ll buy you champagne.”
“Joshua, come on . . . Think what a terrible person I’d be if that kind of thing mattered to me.”
“They’re going to feed you some line,” he said, ignoring me. “They’re going to tell you you’re gorgeous. They’ll have penthouse apartments, they’ll have coke in silver snuff boxes, they’ll have Japanese houseboys who’ll serve you pheasant under glass with seedless green grapes—”
I giggled. “Joshua!”
“Here I’ll be forlorn, mooning over your picture in the paper, going up to people at parties saying, ‘I once knew her, I once fucked her, she was once lying right in my father’s study staring at me with her big werewolf eyes.’”
“I’m going to love you forever,” I told him, putting my hand on his neck.
He melted. “No, you’re not, Rust.”
“I am, Joshua . . . why don’t you believe me?”
“Nobody loves anyone forever . . . especially at fourteen.”
“Juliet did.”
“No one in real life.”
“You’ll probably find some other girl. You’ll probably get together with Pamela.”
Joshua fucked with three people before he met me. Pamela was one. She’s in boarding school now, but she writes him these long, single-spaced letters and sends him copies of her poems in first drafts. She’s even had poems published in magazines. I saw her picture. She’s really tall and has a big nose and bright blue eyes. She looks like a better-looking version of Deel. Her parents were friendly with Joshua’s and they used to fuck in her parents’ roof garden in Scarsdale with all these plants and tropical birds all around. Joshua said one of the toucans shat on him once while they were doing it, right on his back.
He also once fucked with some girl at a party. They did it right there, at the party, under a big pile of coats. He didn’t even know her name till afterward. Her name was Georgette and he said she had great breasts. She went to Brearley and she’d already fucked with ten people. Evidently she liked to do it at parties. Anyway, they never saw each other again so I don’t feel so jealous of her.
Then there was Marjorie who was a mother’s helper for a family Joshua’s parents knew