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Page 20.
 Again looking back from far away, I think I understood more clearly than I would admit, amid all my denials—that I was truly in love with her, in moments when the age difference and the inevitable tearing asunder were not in my conscious thoughts. When you are making love, your event horizon shrinks down to the extent of your two bodies. Your time horizon is minutes and seconds, at most an hour or two. She was not ready to let herself fall into that velvet, shadowy room of the soul where clocks do not tick, where the sun does not move in the drawn shades, where no new flower petals drop from the vase to join those already scattered around the base.
That room, which is like a painting by a Dutch master, reminds me of what the poet Thomas Carew (the British Cavalier poet born in 1595) wrote:
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more where those stars 'light
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if east or west
The Phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
Even in Montreal, to jump forward, she was still aloof, though I understood her deepest hesitation and could not argue with it. So I was slow to continue seducing her, knowing that her slide into sexuality would also mean her slide into love, and I was entirely, sickeningly uncertain how I would handle myself there, if at all. Was it cowardice on my part? Some will think so. Nevertheless, this was a fire that warmed, and it was a flame that was meant to burn. Some great bonfires are ill-starred to be lit on an exceedingly windy night, and that probably best describes my love affair with H.
I wasn't earning much, but she was feeding me and my expenses were minimal, so I saved up a nice chunk of change. I was going to do something really nice for her for Christmas. I made the arrangements by phone from the yellow pages and some research footwork. "Honey," I told H, "I want to help you understand how beautiful you are, so I have a surprise for you."
"Oh really?" From her laugh, I suspected that she was more amused than surprised, and I realized that most women do really realize it if they are beautiful. Knowing you are beautiful, and accepting it, welcoming it, are two different things. If a woman is not happy with herself, it will actually anger her that men look at her in a certain way. If she doesn't like herself, she won't like men who are gentle with her, because they must be bigger losers than she feels herself to be. Such a woman seeks out rough, strong, and sometimes violent men who pay her the treatment she feels she deserves.
I unfortunately was always seen as one of the losers in those situations, and I learned to steer clear of women with such a lack of self-esteem. H was not like that, but she was severely wounded somewhere inside. So I drove her down to Manhattan on dry, chilly day. I had already made all the preparations and confirmed everything by phone. We bore wore nice clothes. "I have never seen you in a suit," she said with a mystified air. I told her in the car as I drove: "I'm giving you your Christmas present early."
She seemed delighted, like a girl. "I can't wait. Peter, what have you cooked up?"
I took her to a special place in Midtown, where they specialize in makeovers. Moreover, the deal is for a princely hunk of money, they take you in to a backroom and let you pick out clothing from a selection of thousands of suits and dresses. You can pick out a costume if you want, be Robin Hood or Caesar or Napoleon. I directed H to a section of movie star dresses. I have never seen a woman gasp so many times. For a woman who is generally very easy to please, she seemed overwhelmed. "Don't cry," I told her, "because we have a photo shoot coming up, and we can't have your eyes all swollen."
She got a light and very professional makeover that made her look like a Himalayan princess. Her small, even teeth glittered like sugar. She really looked royal that day, more so than her usual regal good looks. In another section of the building, she had a full range of portraits taken in the outfit she had chosen—a long white sheath with a black poufy shawl thing had looked like it was full of air as it floated over her bare shoulders.
She had costume jewelry and a matching purse, and her own high heels. They gave us each a glass of champagne, which made her chiseled cheeks glow. She had dimples by her smile that I had not noticed before. A gaggle of gay men came from several makeup rooms to admire her and fuss over her. Nobody had seen a beauty like her in a long time. She choked down her embarrassment and took it all in stride. The best part was yet to come. I draped a cape over her, that the costume lady had chosen, and handed her a bouquet. Two gay men brought a small tiara with glittering rhinestones that they placed on her head. One of them, holding ribbon in his teeth and laboring mightily, tied a white ribbon from the base of her skull in back to the noble crown of her forehead, which pulled in her long glossy black hair and emphasized the gorgeous curve of her skull. The other placed the tiara on top as the finishing touch. His companion handed me a large black umbrella just in case.
I walked her down six blocks of Midtown Manhattan, and thousands of people must have stopped to stare. I took her to a nice restaurant for a light lunch in elegant settings, and then to see a flustered and bemused little old lady named Mrs. Weinstein who had a little office full of stacked papers, photos, and posters. Mrs. Weinstein smoked incessantly, left red lipstick on her faux cork filters, and also reddened the rims of her paper tea cups. She had a deep burry voice and exclaimed, while examining the first proofs from the makeup place, "I think we can place you in some cosmetics ads. I have a job coming up next week. I'll send your pictures along."
H gasped, and clasped her hands together. Some photographer snapped us, and our picture appeared inside The Daily News with the tongue-in-cheek caption 'unknown princess with escort—arrival a state secret.' A month later, her picture arrived in a department store infold inside the daily newspaper, and I showed it to her. That was when she actually did cry, and kiss me, and said thanks once more.
By Christmas, when she probably felt a bit lonely, I was living more at her place than mine. We slept together at night, and made our brief but juicy sex each evening and morning. She made oatmeal with peaches and milk each morning, along with black coffee and a fat vitamin pill. I gained a few pounds in that period, because she complimented me and told me "you no longer look so gaunt and hungry." She bought me new jeans, a size larger though still skinny in the waist. She rubbed my behind and then patted it. "Nice!"
She was actually Buddhist, and had a wall altar dedicated to her Tibetan religion. She liked Catholicism, too, and had a Bible and some other Christian symbols. She felt that the pictures of both religions seemed alike in many ways, except that the people had different eyes. "Do you mind my eyes?" she once asked me in a hushed tone. "I love your eyes," I said sincerely, kissing each beaded lid. I had a hard time saying "I love you," but I had no trouble telling her how much I loved every one of her body parts.
Christmas Eve, while seasonal choral music played softly in the background, she gave me a few presents of clothing. "I want to see you in those." We had put up a midsize tree, and her features looked like stained glass as she regarded me in them. We sat under the tree sipping hot glogg and munching crunchy cookies from a tin. "You are a sexy man," she said. "Stay here." She left the room, and came back in a few minutes later ringing a sort of cow bell. I jumped, and then gasped in surprise before laughing delightedly. She had donned a red Santa suit with big baggy legs, a pillow belly under a red jacket trimmed in white, and a floppy red cone-hat with a white pompom on the end. She was about half a foot taller—this Santa had very high heels. "I couldn’t find enough cotton balls to make a beard," she said. I started to rise because I wanted to hug her, but she put up a hand for me to stay. First she changed the music to something more bumpy and grindy. Then she did a slow striptease. One by one, she peeled off the Santa layers, and I applauded and whistled with gusto. Finally, she was down to these two green and red knitted wool stockings that extended to mid calf. "You want to take them off for me?"
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