Read Online Frog by Stephen Dixon - Free Book Online

like this some more, begin to quarrel, have a couple of fights where they don’t speak to each other for an hour, a day, and soon agree they’re not right for each other anymore and should break up. When he’s packing his things to take back to his apartment, she says “I’m obviously not ready to be with only one man as much as I thought. I’m certainly not ready for marriage yet. As to having a child—to perhaps have two ? I should really get my head looked over to have thought of that.” “Well, I’m still ready,” he says, “though maybe all this time I’ve been mistaken there too.”
    He meets a woman at an opening at an art gallery. They both were invited by the artist. She says she’s heard about him from the artist. “Nothing much. Just that you’re not a madman, drunk, drug addict or letch like most of the men he knows.” He says “Gary, for some odd reason I don’t know why, never mentioned you. Maybe because he’s seeing you. Is he?” “What are you talking about? He’s gay.” “Oh. He’s only my colleague at school, so I don’t know him that well. I know he’s divorced and has three kids, but that’s about it. May I be stupidly frank or just stupid and say I hope you’re not that way too? Wouldn’t mean I’d want to stop talking to you.” “I can appreciate why you’re asking that now. No, as mates, men are what I like exclusively. I didn’t come here to meet one, but I’ve been in a receptive frame of mind for the last few months if something happens along.” They separate at the drink table, eye each other a lot the next fifteen minutes, she waves for him to come over. “I have to go,” she says. “The friend I came with has had her fill of this, and she’s staying with me tonight. If you want to talk some more, I can call you tomorrow. You in the book?” “Hell, here’s my number and best times to reach me,” and he writes all this out and gives it to her.
    She calls, they meet for a walk, have dinner the next night, she takes his hand as they leave the restaurant, kisses him outside, initiates a much deeper kiss along the street, he says “Look-it, why don’t we go to my apartment—it’s only a few blocks from here?” She says “Let’s give it more time. I’ve had a lot of rushing from men lately. I’m not boasting, and I started some of it myself. It’s simply that I know going too fast, from either of us, is no good, so what do you say?” They see each other about three times a week for two weeks. At the end of that time he says he wants to stay at her place that night or have her to his, “but you know, for bed.” She says “I still think it’d be rushing. Let’s give the main number some more time?” Two weeks later he says “Listen, I’ve got to sleep with you. All this heavy petting is killing me. I’ve got to see you completely naked, be inside you—the works. We’ve given it plenty of time. We like each other very much. But I need to sleep with you to really be in love with you. That’s how I am.” She says “I don’t know what’s wrong. I like you in every way. I’m almost as frustrated as you are over it. But something in me says that having sex with you now still wouldn’t be sensible. That we’re not ready for it yet. That what we have, in the long run, would be much better—could even end up in whatever we want from it. Living together. More, if that’s what we ultimately want—if we hold out on this a while longer. It’s partly an experiment on my part, coming after all my past involvement failures, but also partly what I most deeply feel will work, and so feel you have to respect that. So let’s give it a little more time then, please?” He says “No. Call me if you