A Matter of Love in da Bronx (41 page)

--...we would've gone up to the room.

--Yes. But the reasons we didn't are just as valid at this moment, believe it or not.

--Give me ten of them?

--We need only one: Our love is so beautiful; we must nurture it; we must treasure it; we must guard it.

--Oh! Come on, Sam! I don't want to sound like Desperate Diane with my last chance for a man, but you're making too much of it. We're just two people, casually going through a life that could've been kinder to us earlier. We're simple human beings who were fortunate enough to find a sincere response to the affection we hold, me for you--you for me. Millions of others have gone through the same thing...exactly. You fall in love, you have sex, you get married, have kids, and then you're on Social Security taking insulin shots, or in a wheelchair slackjawed drooling with a vapid look in the eyes. If we never met, and never fell in love, and never walked in Eden Farms how much different could the world be? Now answer me!

--Some love you have. A pessimist, rotten to the core. The world is a lousy place, and everyone--especially friends, relatives and mother and father--is out to stiff you. Everyone should get stiffed--and the sons-of-bitches that do it get stiffed the worst, like cancer of the testicles--it's like the seasoning of life...

--Answer me.

--Sure. Look.

--What?

--Up there. You know how big the sky is? I mean, you've got an idea in your mind, right? Big, huh?

--Yeah. Big. Immane.

--And you know about the universe. If everyone alive on earth right this second could think how big it is, we wouldn't begin to get close to the edge, right? That's BIG! So, see those two stars...those, sort of set apart from others, but kind of sidling close to each other? Well, those are just ordinary, common stars, casually doing what stars do, right? They're just like us: they're separate, but together. They share their separateness, they share the togetherness; together, they make a bigger light than when they're each alone. Now, remember how big is the universe, and hold your finger up in front of those stars and block them out of the sky. Does it change the sky?

--Why...of course!

--Yeah, Sweetheart, it changes the whole universe!

--You know what?

--What?

--Your distraction is rotten; I'm going to die if in ten seconds I don't get to kiss you!

That's when they discovered the haven.

Mary stepped in quickly bringing Sam with her. She put her back to the wall, drawing him tight to her. The kiss was explosive, hard, short. She looked up into his face. Passing car lights caused their eyes to sparkle at one another. Spontaneously, they both broke out in laughter when she grabbed and pulled his buttocks hard into her. --Oh! Darling! I love the feel of it! Push it harder into me! She moved her lips out to him as if she were trying to catch a falling drop of honey until the touch of his parted lips pulled them together, his tongue tracing her mouth before probing her soft wetness. Feeling her buttocks press into the brickwork she responded by tightening her muscles urging him more to her. Oh! So close! So damn close! We're not separated by more than a half-inch from Paradise. God! I wonder what that must feel like inside me? What happens? Exactly? I've seen it often enough at the movies across the street: it glides in and out and in and out with the camera showing the look on the girls face like she can't get enough; but, what causes that look? Like when I play with myself: the heavenly sensation that I'm about to rocket off this planet. But I don't remember everything leading up to coming. It drifts over me so slowly, like a gentle moving fog... Suddenly, Sam threw his head back and gasped, thrusting his pelvis violently into her several times.

--Holy Jesus Franklin Christ!

--Quite a seduction. Do you generally do a dry run for all the girls?

--I'm just a normal, horny guy with steaming blood in these Italian veins.

--I love it when I excite you...

Sam broke away from Mary. He took a step out of the black toward the sidewalk into the chiaroscuro. He put both hands to his face, fingers alongside his nose and pulled them down over his mouth and chin.

He barely felt her nuzzle his shoulder, a hand slipping around his chest unpossessively keeping him to her.

--Can't we go someplace? This is...like dying, the words lying softly across his shoulder. She could feel his heart beating; huge, deep breaths of air his arm pressing to trap hers. She felt as deeply, passionately close to this man as if he were her own child. And with that, God forgive her! She came to understand the rationale for incest which emotional quicksand she had to traverse before she could love beyond herself.

--I love you, Mary Dolorosso. Do not trouble your precious heart with troubles that are not troubles to me. You find pain in mortal doings of which my feelings for you far transcend. Not that I do not see your caring in the expression of your concern, for I do; not that I do not feel the tenderness with which you probe the aching desire of this man, for I do; and not that I don't share the majesty of purpose in marshalling our senses for the assault on Paradise, for I do-- because... because I love you with such ardor they are the verymost easiest for me to do. He turned to her, put one arm around her waist, and the other hand went up to lie alongside her cheek to bring her face up to his. He moved slowly to take a quick, soft kiss. He pulled his head back so he could catch the spot of light caught in her eye, whispering to him, “Short in time, long in meaning.” He moved closer again, and with the tip of his tongue traced her lips. He kissed the tip of her nose, each eye, her forehead, then her chin. Finally, he covered her mouth with his, holding the kiss lightly so he could absorb the sensations that came through her heat, coming off of her ever so gently as if he was to leave, then, returning; repeating the pattern several times, each time she moved forward to search him out to regain the touch only to continue the teasing by pulling away minutely. As if by signal, they each moved their heads from side to side, pressing harder, burrowing further into one another, until the scorch of the brand on one another caused them both to break apart gasping.

--Sam! We've got to make love!

--I know...

--...or I'll die...

--Yes...or no. It makes no difference to me.

--You don't love me...?

--On the contrary. But consummating this love is not crucial to me.

--How can that be? Is something wrong? With you? With me?

--Without understanding the majesty with which I hold our love, certainly I'm crazy. Here, give me your hand. Palmside to, he brought it down against him until it covered his throbbing organ. He tensed, straining hard against her banding fingers.

So hard! So huge! So surprising! For the first time in her life, she had the feel and touch of a penis, erect and though covered by clothing nevertheless a real, beating, living male organ. So this was it! Around this flesh did the world revolve, not just sex, or the unimportant things, or just some of the important events; but!
Everything
. Not one iota of human activity escaped a tie-back to the erect male organ. And here it was. She was filled with desire to be indulged with discovering its secrets. She wished to watch it perform all of its rituals; she wished to feel it in every way possible; she wished to smell it and know of its separate odors; she wished to taste it until it was as familiar as her own spit; and she wished to idolize it so that the mere thought of it would transport her totally to fantasy's furtherest ecstasy. Despite all that, she knew, it would still be a wonderment. Instinctively she had begun to move her hand up and down along its length.

--Don't do that, it's dangerous . . ..

--Don't stop me, darling. Don't stop me!

--Yes, do stop. We deserve better than this. But first, let our love meet beyond the stratosphere where deep earthly satisfactions are mere fragmented bits of reflections of the magnificent reality of our devotion to each other.

--I still want to get laid by you.

--What do you suggest? In a cab? A humping ten-minute jounce for a joust?

--You know what I mean.

--Yes. And you know what I mean.

--Yes.

He drew her into the light. --A little less temptation out here. Look. You're not supposed to be sensible when you're in love or you'd know what you're getting into, and you wouldn't-- causing the world to come to a screeching halt. Before you ask if that's what's stopping me, that I can see what I'm getting into, that's the furthest thing. All I can do is try to explain what's going on in my head and heart. Finding you is the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. Before you, I was some kind of a shadowy form with a negligible purpose, and with no meaning nor understanding of life. In an instant, all that's been obliterated. Right at this moment, I have reason, rationale and direction given to me by you. All the more so, because you have the same feeling for me that I have for you. Understand, My Dearest, I didn't fall in love with you. It came to me all at a once, as full as the world. I've never been in love before: a crush, yes; a longing, of course; but never anything as consuming, as enravishing, as magnificent as my love for you. That, in itself, is not very much. There have been other Beatrices on the Bridge, loved just as much, but from afar--an unshared, piteous love. The marvel is that we love each other equally; we respond to each other in kind, we need only know what we feel inside ourselves to know exactly what is happening inside to the other. I don't know about the whole front and back and present of the world, but I don't have to know all that much to know what a rarity it is that we have. I told you, it is such a precious affection; I'm frightened constantly that some terrible force will become so envious they'll steal it from us to have for themselves. I ask a million questions a minute about it, a lot of them deal with my own worthiness to be so chosen. I am no spotless knight. I am no gallant warrior. I am no blushing hero. There is nothing romantic, or dashing, or exciting about me to earn such an honor. I've neither money, nor a gift of talent; not even the smallest of honors.

Ah! What you do have, Sam Scopia is a heart. The most glorious Italian heart I've ever heard or known in my whole life. Even if you are a mere passing breeze, you have brought me enough to sustain all the rest of my days. I guess women are more realistic. Not so philosophical. We believe in ethereal symphonies, but we also know there is a tally that comes only with satisfaction of the flesh; with a demanding, lustful, co-joining interlude that further and definitely reinforces the foundation of so large a love. --What you have, Dearest Love of Mine is a huge, and seemingly infinite capacity, to love. To love voraciously, consumingly, completely. Think how I feel to be the object of such inspiration.

--Does this come to me strictly by chance? A lottery? Zap!-Zap! Some mysterious force says Sam and Mary shall share one of the world's greatest loves which will be so not because of notoriety, but through the emanation of its harmonics throughout the universe! What do you think of that? I love it! I never wanted to be Sam Scopia more than I do right now; and I don't want you to be anyone else in the whole blooming world than Mary Dolorosso, and I want us to be in this much love always. I could also wish we were in bed making passionate, heated love. As a man, as a mortal Oh! Wouldn't that be great fun! I would be fulfilling my role. But, I'm no fool! I wouldn't gamble so very much to gain so little! What I have is everything, so why should I not be willing to pay the price: a little celibacy. My concern about a physical union? That at the first split second of our first orgasm I will be struck on my forehead, right between my eyes, with the realization that I had gone insane, that you were a mere figment of a cruel hoax, that I was sent to Hell for daring to look upon such Gods' pleasure. I believe what I'm saying so much, I wish I could go home with you, and have my way with you in bed. What do you think?

Must you be so analytical, My Love. We're in love! Lovers make love! Forever! At least, how forever long they`re in love. You said it at the beginning, introspection is not conducive to lovemaking! None of us would do it if we reasoned our reasons for doing it. We would all seem like such...robots! Instinct! Commands! Such! Action! Phooey! I got hot pants. You got hot pants. I've never been laid. You've never been laid. Let's find out what it's all about before a goddamned bus knocks us on our asses! --Let's go to a motel.

--Tonight?

--Well... My folks... You know. And Wednesday night there really won't be much time. Darling! Darling!

--What madness!

--What does everyone else do?

--I know one thing they don't do.

--Yeah?

--Wait for a weekend motel room.

--Are you still hard?

--Are you still standing?

--We must do
something!

--Okay. Right here and now.

--Standing?

--Did you have something else in mind? Yo! Mary! My darling! I don't want to lose you because you think I think you'll lose your respect for me if we make love...

--Don't make fun. I love you, Sam. I love you with all my heart, and wanting you close is the most normal, natural thing on earth no matter who or what tells you to shut it out of your life.

--I agree! We have to have each other. We must. We'll die otherwise. Come on, move back into the darkness. Oh! Sweetheart...! Gently, he moved her into the recess, searching out her lips, kissing her hungrily as his hand moved down her hip to her thigh.

She pulled him to her, tightly, sharing the passion of the kiss, urging their bodies together, abandoning the least remembrance of any restricture. She thrust her mound at him, each time slightly more violent, demanding. He responded.

Exploding for air, for some slight relief from the intensity of their lustful searching, each gasped their devotion to the other, the loss of willpower, and the need to possess one another.

Mary reached to search out his zipper. --Do you have anything? Protection...

--You mean, like a...rubber? A condom? Funny you should bring up the subject!