Group Sex Read online

  Group Sex

  A Novel

  Ann Arensberg

  For Marie Brenner and Joanne Michaels

  Contents

  I Worm Life

  II Group Sex

  III Sex Life

  IV Love Life

  About the Author

  O, when shall Englishmen

  With such acts fill a pen,

  Or England breed again

  Such a King Harry?

  —Michael Drayton, Agincourt

  I

  WORM LIFE

  FRANCES GIRARD LIVED IN somebody else’s house. “You have real-estate luck,” said her friends when they first saw the narrow brick building attached to a row of houses on a tree-lined block. “It’s not fair,” said Edie Childs, who had come to visit; “you have a garden.” Frances lived under the roof on the garret story. There were four floors in all, and three long flights of stairs to climb. “Heat rises,” said Edie. “You’ll be miserable in the summer.” Frances had three large rooms, each with a marble fireplace and beaded moldings. The living-room furniture was covered in dusty-rose linen. The bedroom had a four-poster bed and a desk by the window. “A canopy? And curtains?” said Edie. “I hope you’re not allergic to dust.” Edie was unmoved by the Persian rugs and the mirrored sconces. She glanced at the claw-footed bathtub without a comment. She was absorbed in making a tally of the garret’s drawbacks: the fourth floor was not walled off into separate quarters; there was no private entrance, only the central staircase; Frances walked through her landlady’s house to get in or out. “You’re not a real tenant, Frances; you’re like a boarder.” She inspected the doors that opened onto the landing. Sniffing with pleasure, she announced that they did not lock. “I have an idea,” said Frances; “say something nice.”

  Frances and Edie had grown up in Cincinnati. They became best friends in grade school by a simple ritual. Edie walked up to Frances one recess and staked her claim: “Jody is moving to Pittsburgh. You’re my new best friend.” Frances said, “Sure,” since she had no other offer, and then they linked little fingers to seal the pact. Being best friends gave Edie certain rights. Frances never used her veto, if she knew she had one. Edie called every night to harmonize their costumes, to be sure they wore matching sweaters or matching socks. Edie saved Frances a seat on the bus or in the classroom. They shared their lunches when Frances brought a roast-beef sandwich. Edie attached herself to Frances at dancing classes. She was so fearful of sitting out dances that she made Frances turn away partners until she had been chosen. By the time Edie had been asked, all the boys were dancing, so it was Frances who waited alone on the row of gilt chairs. Edie had married Hilliard P. Childs when she was only twenty, to avoid the unthinkable prospect of sitting out life. Now that Edie was the wife of a New York City lawyer, she shared her matronly wisdom with her spinster friend. Frances did not always take her advice in a generous spirit. She was apt to turn sly and sulky and dodge her questions. A little evasiveness never discouraged Edie. She had Frances’s welfare in mind, so she stood her ground.

  While Edie examined the bathroom, which had no towel-rack, Frances slipped away to her kitchen to make some tea. When Edie came in, she found Frances on a stepladder, fumbling through cans and boxes on the upper shelf. Edie addressed her, but Frances appeared not to hear. Edie sat down and started to have her say.

  “I’ll make you a bet. It’s going to end in tears. You’re already watering her plants and sorting the mail.”

  The kettle was whistling. A can of tomatoes fell down and dented the counter. The can rolled off the counter and onto the floor, striking the legs of the ladder as it tumbled, making a racket, but not enough noise to hush Edie.

  “She knocked on your door when you were reading. You put on your robe and went down to sit by her bedside. You stayed up till two when she was ready to go to sleep. Did you bring her a hot-water bottle and tuck her in?”

  “She has terrible insomnia,” said Frances, filling the teapot.

  “You don’t,” said Edie. “If you don’t get nine hours, you’re apt to turn mean and cranky.”

  Frances filled the teapot too full. Water splashed on the stove and hissed on the electric coils.

  “You’re not like a tenant, Frances; you’re like a paid companion.”

  “She watered my plants last weekend. Plus she answered my phone.”

  “Hnff,” said Edie as Frances spooned out tea leaves. “I want mine weak.”

  Frances set the cups and teapot on the table. “Pour it when you think it’s ready. You haven’t met her.”

  “I don’t have to meet her,” Edie said; “it would warp my judgment.”

  Frances snorted with laughter. Self-awareness from Edie always won her back. When Edie was acting like the barbarian hordes, mowing down all resistance to her notions, Frances dug farther and farther down her mole hole. When Edie made fun of her Hunnish alter ego, Frances scurried out and followed her where she led. There were two Edies: one meant well, and one meant mischief, and Frances was not always able to sort them out. Frances wanted some of Edie’s gumption and Edie’s malice, but when she borrowed them, she often found they did not fit. At the moment, she felt like playing by Edie’s rules, so she threw her a meaty bone to worry clean.

  “Just a second. You have too met her. Two years ago, at Mother’s eggnog. On Christmas Day.”

  “I remember your ma put green crème de menthe in the eggnog.”

  “That wasn’t Mother. That was Mother’s second husband.”

  “It wasn’t Henry’s idea to wrap brandied cherries in bacon.”

  “Madeline was there,” said Frances. “I know you met her.

  “Weed Bissell brought her. You must remember him.”

  “Not fondly,” said Edie. “I thought her name was Burdick.”

  “She dropped Weed and married George Burdick. They lasted six months.”

  “That should teach her to steer clear of men whose names start with B.”

  “George was a villain. Poor Madeline. She told me she thinks that life has passed her by.”

  “Just a lonely grass widow, devoted to worthy causes.”

  “The orphans loved her. They came here last Sunday for supper. She read them stories. They never misbehaved.”

  “Of course not. They’re biding their time. The first sound you hear will be Madeline’s dying shriek.”

  “Don’t be a pit viper, Edie. They were six-year-olds.”

  Had Edie stamped her foot beneath the table, or had Frances heard the radiator knocking? A purple flush spread over Edie’s cheekbones. The radiator showed no change in color.

  “You stop it, Frances. That’s a wormy trick.” She bipped the table with her open palm. “You make me say bad things when you’re too scared to.”

  “I like Madeline.”

  “You’re just saying so to spite me.”

  “Why do you have to have opinions about my friends?”

  “That’s what you need me for. To have opinions.”

  “Will you let me like her, please? I have to live here.”

  “The only thing you have to do is pay the rent.”

  Up the stairwell drifted a medley of new sounds: a thud, like a closing door; a creak of footsteps; several voices, growing louder, then receding.

  “Oh, blank,” said Edie. “I’ll have to deal with Madeline. I’m never coming back unless she’s out.”

  Frances felt too embattled to demur. “We’ll get your coat. I put it in the closet.”

  Frances led the way and opened the closet. The light went on. Edie elbowed her aside. She yanked down a dress that had been thrown over the clothes rack.

  “This is new,” she charged. “You’re always keeping secrets.”

  Edie riffled through a group of garment
s hung on hangers, tearing the cleaner’s plastic with greedy fingers.

  “Evening pajamas? Taffeta with flounces? I must say, Frances, they don’t look much like you.”

  “Madeline was cleaning out her closets. The rest of them went to cancer and mental health.”

  “How nice for them. Do her clothes have healing properties?”

  “Can it, Edie. Would you kindly keep your voice down?”

  “Is she paying to have these lovely cast-offs altered? They’ll be too small. She wants you to feel fat.”

  Edie could go on stinging like a swarm of bees, and Frances had never perfected an antivenom. The barbs raised welts, but the stings were well deserved. Frances had whetted Edie’s appetite for aspersion, and served up Madeline on a garnished platter. Edie had grabbed the bait, but Frances had salted it. For that matter, Edie did not need a lure. All the actors in Frances’s life were Edie’s prey. She did not have to know them in order to make a meal of them, as long as she could gnaw on a single toothsome detail. Frances had mentioned that Ruthanne Marvin, her secretary at the Harwood Press, wrote fine reports and had a talent for editing. “Get rid of her,” Edie had said. “She wants your job.”

  Frances found Edie’s coat and shut the closet. The door was hinge-bound, so she could not make it slam.

  “You don’t want me to have other friends. That’s how it sounds.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Edie, kissing her goodbye. “What I mind is that I’m not allowed to pick them.”

  Frances was holed up in her office behind closed doors. Panda Wattel (who pronounced her name “Wattelle”) had come in to have a conference about her manuscript. The working title of her novel was “AfterBirth” (one word, with a capital A and a capital B). Frances had never inquired how Panda got her own first name, for fear it was because she was overweight and round-eyed. Panda Wattel was Mr. Harwood’s only niece, and Mr. Harwood had quickly palmed her off on Frances, the youngest editor and least likely to rebel. Albion Harwood, the president and founder, was only fifty, but his hair was white. His pale gray eyes seemed fixed already on eternity. He loved books but lived in dread of those who wrote them, since authors, not to mention authoresses, were walking vessels of petty grievance and conceit. Authors never perceived, as painters were obliged to, that once a work was finished it passed beyond their reach, like a child who has grown up and left the nest. Mr. Harwood had built a bathroom in his office, not because he was modest or undemocratic but in order to vanish during an author crisis. According to the friendly office wag, Mr. Harwood could hear an author demanding more advertising from one end of the corridor to another, even if the demand was made over the telephone.

  In the case of Panda Wattel, or Wattelle, Mr. Harwood was right to expect an author crisis. Besides being his only sister’s only daughter, Panda claimed to have been the favorite student of Philip Roth during one of that famous writer’s teaching stints at a Boston program for adult education. Mr. Harwood had not read his niece’s novel, though he had picked it up and ruffled through the pages. Frances had told him that it was a “woman’s book,” and a strange expression had darkened his kindly visage, as if he were a guest at the table of an Afghan chieftain and had been presented with a special dish of roasted sheep’s eyes. Like her book, Panda filled her uncle with disquiet. He did not want to be kissed in front of the receptionist, nor hallooed at from his doorway during meetings. History does not record his feelings on those occasions when he discovered her hairbrush in his private bathroom. Early this morning, Frances had found him in his office pointing a ruler at the center of the rug, as if he had been measuring the area to cut out a trapdoor. Before she could manage to capture his attention, he walked over to the bank of windows and looked down. Poor Mr. Harwood. There was no exit through the windows. The Harwood Press was on the twenty-seventh floor.

  Frances shared her employer’s visions of quick escape. Her own office had turned into Panda’s pied-à-terre. Panda had left behind, or stashed for her convenience, a portable typewriter, an overnight case, and a raincoat, as well as three shopping bags full of outlines and revisions. There was another suitcase full of notes on cards, and typed biographies of all the characters in her book. Panda felt that any novelist worth her laurels should know everything about the people she imagined, including family trees as far back as Columbus, although most of these facts were left out of the plot. It was no wonder that “AfterBirth,” in its first version, had weighed in at nine hundred pages, with no margins.

  Frances and Panda were working on the love scene (the love scene with penetratio, not the clothed one), which explained the PLEASE KNOCK sign taped on Frances’s door. Before the meeting, Panda had unrolled a giant chart and tacked it up over Frances’s favorite book-fair posters. The chart demonstrated that episodes in the novel were synchronous with important world events. Thus the big love scene (in which the heroine inserts her diaphragm) took place while Dr. Barnard performed his first heart transplant, and the clothed love scene (which happened in a toolshed) coincided with the death of Boris Karloff.

  Frances peered at the chart for several tactful minutes. Panda read her silence as all-consuming interest.

  “That’s how I work,” she said, with a little laugh. “My characters stand for something larger than themselves.”

  Panda’s characters certainly had a monstrous aspect, but that was not Dr. Barnard’s fault, or Mr. Karloff s.

  Frances geared herself up to ask the fatal question. “Are you saying you want the chart put in the book?”

  “Oh, no,” said Panda, casting her round eyes downward as if Frances were paying her an undue honor. “Don’t you think it would overload the average reader?”

  “I’m with you there. Let’s spare the average reader.” Frances hoped her relief did not show on her face.

  “Could we get to work?” Panda liked to be in charge. She flipped through her manuscript and found some marked-up pages. The marks were Frances’s and Panda was frowning at them. Frances noticed a little pile of yellow thumbtacks that Panda had spilled and left underneath the chart. No doubt she assumed that the maid would pick them up. Her editorial maid-of-all-work had cleaned up her prose, but her frown implied that she thought the job was faulty.

  Panda handed a page to Frances, then pulled it back. “Why won’t you let me say ‘Their need-ends met’?”

  Frances tried to invoke the spirit of Philip Roth. How had that phrase slipped past His caustic eye? She captured the page, but it took a little tugging. She found the sentence in question and read it slowly, moving her lips as if the words were foreign. Then she read it out loud, enunciating clearly.

  “‘Their need-ends met, and they entered The World Apart.’”

  When she looked up, Panda was smiling a far-off smile, entranced by her choice of imagery and language.

  “Panda?” Frances broke the spell. “Tell me. What are ‘need-ends’?”

  Panda reached for the page, as if to refresh her memory. She held it up close; then she held it at arm’s length.

  “‘Need’ is need,” said Frances, “but what are ‘ends’? Is that ‘ends’ as in ‘means to an end,’ or nether parts?”

  “They’re in bed,” said Panda.

  “I gathered that,” said Frances. “And while we’re at it, where is The World Apart? Is it on a map? It’s spelled with capital letters.”

  Panda pressed the page to her bosom like a shield. “Mr. Roth never raped my work. I got an A.”

  Mr. Roth had never raped Panda in any sense, which probably inflamed her present sense of injustice. Frances decided to retreat and fight another day. She did not want to sneer at Panda or hurt her feelings. She did not want to hear Panda’s lecture about the artist, that lonely pilot soaring above the herd, dropping cargoes of hope and meaning to upraised fingers. Art, with its letters scrambled, came out “rat,” a fact that Panda would be advised to ponder. Even less did she want to hear her views on sex, a gagging brew of smegma, sperm, and spirit (“spirit”
as in “soul,” not alcoholic content). Frances thought about her newest writer, Gloria Cohen, whose book was almost ready for the printer. Gloria would never put viscid juices in her stories, or rods or shafts, or tender ripening buds, or pubic hair likened to a bunch of grapes, unless she wished to play a scene for humor. For the rest of the day they worked on smaller issues, like Panda’s habit of ending a sentence with a series of dots. Frances was saving her thunder for tomorrow’s session, which would probably end in tense, high-pitched debate. She was ready to bargain if Panda stood her ground; she would trade her “The World Apart” for one stunning sentence: “Her breasts were as pink and ripe as sweet summer fish.” The critics would have a field day with those fish. Why didn’t Frances throw Panda, fish first, to the critics? She could not expose good Mr. Harwood to their spite, and besides Panda worked very hard, which compelled respect. In the course of a year she had written a thousand pages. Whatever might be the content of those pages, she had sat down and built a towering pile of paper. Frances had never committed herself to such a task. She had never risked public scorn or adverse judgment. Panda wrote so hard that she was forced to eat in restaurants. One day, while she was planning the opening chapter, she had taken a roast of meat out of the freezer, but the thought of it thawing and breathing on the counter had preyed on her mind and destroyed her concentration. Frances wondered if she would have been as much afflicted by a smaller item, like a package of frozen carrots. Because she was a writer, she was more sensitive than Frances. She lived in horror of foods with seeds, like squash or melons, and always cracked eggs with two bowls at the ready in case she opened an egg and found a blood spot. One day—not a working day—she had made a milkshake, putting milk and strawberries into an electric blender. When she saw the black specks floating in the mixture, she had swooned with fright and passed out on the floor. Creative people paid a heavy price, and Frances had put herself in the service of such people. Perhaps she had done so because she wished to be more like them, although she knew she belonged to another, lesser species, the race of people who answer their phones and fold the bath towels, who never prowl the city streets at midnight, and who are not allowed to have a nervous breakdown.