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Authors: John D. Casey
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anywhere.”
When I was fourteen this cousin took me out to lunch. She was a beautiful woman—or at least glamorous in the style that was then just passing: large shiny lips framed in rouged cheeks and a massive set of hair, broad shoulders swaggering with fur. She was as impressive as a ship entering a small harbor.
I choose that simile for a reason. My first effort to entertain this magnificent woman was this: Why is the
Queen Mary
coming into dock like a woman getting into her girdle? Answer: Because it takes a lot of little tugs.
Cousin Josie laughed politely. She said, “Well, I certainly hope you didn’t have me in mind.”
I blushed. It was a childish joke. I struggled to get to the surface of my feelings. I often had the sensation of drowning in a turbulent river of my feelings in her presence. In fact, her presence and my feelings were one fast-flowing confusion.
I said I didn’t imagine she wore a girdle.
She laughed. I sensed her small ripple of pleasure. It engulfed me.
I popped back up to say that there was something she could tell me that I was curious about: what did it really
feel
like to be a beautiful woman?
She laughed again, but she was pleased on a larger scale. I was ready and dog-paddled to the crest of this wave.
She said, “Well, that’s awfully sweet … but it’s a hard question. It reminds me—a friend of mine asked me once what it was like to kiss a man with a mustache.”
The thought of cousin Josie kissing a man with or without a mustache submerged me again.
She said, “I told her it was like eating an oyster with a toothbrush. Oh, dear—I shouldn’t have said that. Oh, well.”
I didn’t get it. Kissing was still a mystery to me. I thought, for some reason, that you sucked your lips dry before applying them.
Later on during lunch I told Josie she reminded me of Fabrizio’s aunt in
The Charterhouse of Parma
. She hadn’t read it, so I had the pleasure of telling her the plot. I turned it to fit what I took to be the facts of our case even more snugly.
Although cousin Josie was considered by my parents to be racy (she was divorced and talked about men and women a lot), she was in fact a conventional woman. She remarried when I was sixteen, after the fever of my affections had peaked. I had carried a torch for her for more than a year and a half. During that time I wrote poems to her, one of which I finally mailed. By that time I had learned a complete version of the facts of life—second-hand, to be sure, but I think they struck a richer chord than any possible first-hand encounter might have. But what I had learned at fifteen and a half was enough to push some of the poems I wrote from the ethereal to the erotic.
At Thanksgiving, cousin Josie took me aside for a talk. We went to the library and she closed the door. She half sat on my father’s desk. She asked how I liked school. I felt that for the first time I might have the upper hand. It was a wonderful nervous sensation. Josie finally took the poem out of her pocketbook. The plot was not entirely original—a young man falls in love with the statue of a goddess, who comes to life and loves him for his love which brought her to life.
Josie put on her glasses to read. Watching the stems slither under her hair, finding their way between the top of her ear and her scalp, was a light sea I took well.
Josie looked up and said, “You know, I showed this to a friend of mine who knows a lot about poetry and he said that you have a lot of talent—he was amazed when I told him you’re only fifteen.”
I said, “I didn’t think you’d show it to your friends.”
She said, “Well, I was a little worried about it. You see, Imay have been a little dumb. I’m afraid I may not have understood. This may sound awfully silly … you see, I’ve always been just as fond of you as I could be.”
I turned away and paced impatiently. It was a gesture only; I still didn’t know what was bound to come.
Josie said, “I
When I was fourteen this cousin took me out to lunch. She was a beautiful woman—or at least glamorous in the style that was then just passing: large shiny lips framed in rouged cheeks and a massive set of hair, broad shoulders swaggering with fur. She was as impressive as a ship entering a small harbor.
I choose that simile for a reason. My first effort to entertain this magnificent woman was this: Why is the
Queen Mary
coming into dock like a woman getting into her girdle? Answer: Because it takes a lot of little tugs.
Cousin Josie laughed politely. She said, “Well, I certainly hope you didn’t have me in mind.”
I blushed. It was a childish joke. I struggled to get to the surface of my feelings. I often had the sensation of drowning in a turbulent river of my feelings in her presence. In fact, her presence and my feelings were one fast-flowing confusion.
I said I didn’t imagine she wore a girdle.
She laughed. I sensed her small ripple of pleasure. It engulfed me.
I popped back up to say that there was something she could tell me that I was curious about: what did it really
feel
like to be a beautiful woman?
She laughed again, but she was pleased on a larger scale. I was ready and dog-paddled to the crest of this wave.
She said, “Well, that’s awfully sweet … but it’s a hard question. It reminds me—a friend of mine asked me once what it was like to kiss a man with a mustache.”
The thought of cousin Josie kissing a man with or without a mustache submerged me again.
She said, “I told her it was like eating an oyster with a toothbrush. Oh, dear—I shouldn’t have said that. Oh, well.”
I didn’t get it. Kissing was still a mystery to me. I thought, for some reason, that you sucked your lips dry before applying them.
Later on during lunch I told Josie she reminded me of Fabrizio’s aunt in
The Charterhouse of Parma
. She hadn’t read it, so I had the pleasure of telling her the plot. I turned it to fit what I took to be the facts of our case even more snugly.
Although cousin Josie was considered by my parents to be racy (she was divorced and talked about men and women a lot), she was in fact a conventional woman. She remarried when I was sixteen, after the fever of my affections had peaked. I had carried a torch for her for more than a year and a half. During that time I wrote poems to her, one of which I finally mailed. By that time I had learned a complete version of the facts of life—second-hand, to be sure, but I think they struck a richer chord than any possible first-hand encounter might have. But what I had learned at fifteen and a half was enough to push some of the poems I wrote from the ethereal to the erotic.
At Thanksgiving, cousin Josie took me aside for a talk. We went to the library and she closed the door. She half sat on my father’s desk. She asked how I liked school. I felt that for the first time I might have the upper hand. It was a wonderful nervous sensation. Josie finally took the poem out of her pocketbook. The plot was not entirely original—a young man falls in love with the statue of a goddess, who comes to life and loves him for his love which brought her to life.
Josie put on her glasses to read. Watching the stems slither under her hair, finding their way between the top of her ear and her scalp, was a light sea I took well.
Josie looked up and said, “You know, I showed this to a friend of mine who knows a lot about poetry and he said that you have a lot of talent—he was amazed when I told him you’re only fifteen.”
I said, “I didn’t think you’d show it to your friends.”
She said, “Well, I was a little worried about it. You see, Imay have been a little dumb. I’m afraid I may not have understood. This may sound awfully silly … you see, I’ve always been just as fond of you as I could be.”
I turned away and paced impatiently. It was a gesture only; I still didn’t know what was bound to come.
Josie said, “I
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