Woman Aroused | Page 4

shoes
and the new-look coat to end all new looks. It may have been I was too
old and set for Flo.
We hit it off well in bed, but when we decided to have a kid (and never
did) she even spoiled that by a sort of efficient mechanical approach,
asking me, "Darling, will this be it? Oh dearest be sure and do
everything right. Make this the one. Are you doing everything right?
Darling, will we make a boy or a girl?"
Our days became a series of fights and we separated and she got a job
as a bookkeeper for a smart dress house. It was the ideal job for Flo: it
pleased her efficiency to handle a thousand and more details, and she
was right in with the very newest styles. Her analyst thought it was the
right job for her, and I suppose he really did her a world of good,
although it was on his advice she got the divorce. In the settlement, she

took the house, which only had one other tenant beside myself--the
upstairs apartment that had once been the chauffeur's apartment
(although we never had one; my father loved to drive the big car
himself) was rented to a quiet old retired man named Francis F.
Henderson. He'd been living there for years and paid eighty a month for
his three rooms. I gave her the rent money, and took care of the house
and paid the taxes for my rent.
For about a year after she finished her analysis I didn't see Flo--she was
busy analyzing all her friends. Then we began having tearful and
wonderfully tender reunions--and just as tearful partings. Our reunions
always seemed to come when I was fed up with being lonely, began to
think about girls too much, glance at the bra ads in the subway with
more than admiration for the copy and layout. I had to see her every
month anyway to give her the rent, so spending a few days together
every other month seemed to do us both nicely.
When the disc jockey said it was three o'clock I decided I'd better call
the coffee pot after all--I needed the nine dollars. I dialed the operator,
told her I wanted a coffee pot--a restaurant--on the West side of
Lexington Avenue, near 80th Street No, I had no idea of the name or
street number. After a moment she gave me two phone numbers and the
first one I dialed turned out to be the right one.
The counterman said, "One of my partners comes on now, so I was
counting the cash. Soon as I saw I was nine bucks over, I says, 'I
short-changed some guy.' Then I remember you because that redheaded
ba--your wife--was dancing in the red coat and the drunk said..."
"What did the drunk say?" I asked.
"Never mind, he was drunk. You..."
"What did the drunk say? I'm curious."
"Mister," the counterman said, his voice soft over the phone, "I don't
even know the drunk. He said something about her legs. Look, you call
for the money in the afternoon, after three, that's when I come on."

"Fine."
"Don't worry, it's safe."
"I know that. And thank you." I hung up.
I took out my blending bowl and mixed some tobacco, lit my pipe. I
felt badly: I wanted to wake up in the morning and have Flo next to me,
hear her chatter as we read the Sunday papers, feel the good warmth of
her body against mine. The damn house seemed too quiet.
I sat around, had another drink. Even my cat was out. Flo had her own
place on 16th Street. Maybe by the time she reached there, she'd cool
off, take a cab back. I could phone her but that would only start more
talk. Besides, I wanted her to come back to me. (You're so right--I
wasn't exactly a dilly to live with either.)
By four I went to bed but I couldn't sleep and by five I was too restless
to even lie down--I could smell Flo's perfume on the bed. I got up, put
on sweat pants and a red sweat shirt, wool socks and tap shoes, and
went downstairs to dance.
The basement was a long room with a neat oil burner at one end. A
mirror ran along one wall and the room was completely bare of any
furniture except a phonograph with an automatic record changer.
When I was a kid we lived in Washington Heights in fairly comfortable
circumstances. My father was a hard working plumber. He started
manufacturing bathroom fixtures and the money rolled in. When he
bought the big brownstone on 76th Street and this garage which went
with the house, we weren't trying