Big Swiss(66)

OM:?Have you stopped making love?

FEW:?No. In fact, we’re having more sex than we’ve ever had.



“Pardon?” Greta said.


OM:?Has the sex changed? Or has your experience of it changed?

FEW:?It’s a whole other flavor. Sometimes the orgasms are so intense, I lose my hearing for twenty minutes.



“What?” Greta said. “What?”


OM: ?So, it’s mutually gratifying.

FEW:?For the first time, ever.

OM:?You’re no longer engaging in display sex. You’re no longer going through the motions. You’re no longer observing yourself from outside the window.

FEW:?I’m present in a way I’ve never been before. We keep our eyes open. We take more time with each other. He even asks me to wrap my arms and legs around him.

OM:?Is he still rough with you? I mean, does he still choke you?

FEW:?No. I imagine he’s choking other people now. On the mat. Anyway, there’s nothing bottled up about him anymore. And he doesn’t wait for me to initiate sex. He flirts, I flirt back, and then he picks me up and carries me to bed. He even lights all the candles.



“Candles!” Greta yelled.


OM:?These seem like positive changes.

FEW:?Maybe he just needed to have sex with someone else. Someone other than me. He’s had very few partners.

OM:?Is it possible you’re jumping to conclusions?

FEW:?I can tell he’s hiding something, some… entanglement. It’s all in his eyebrows. It’s hard to explain.

OM:?You sound more intrigued than upset. In fact, you don’t seem bothered at all.

FEW:?I’m dying of curiosity. I’ve even gone through his wallet, looking for receipts.

OM:?Have you thought about confronting him?

FEW:?I think about it constantly. But I’m not quite there yet.

OM:?Why the hesitation?

FEW:?I’m enjoying the mystery for now. Also, if I ask him to confess, I’ll have to do the same. I mean, I’ll have to confess my own sin.

OM:?Snooping?

FEW:?Cheating.

OM:?Sorry?

FEW:?I’m having my own affair.



“Record scratch,” Greta said.


OM:?[PAUSE] Since when?

FEW:?Few weeks. A month. I’ve been trying to ease my way into telling you about it.

OM:?Why would you do that?

FEW:?I’m usually judgmental of people who do this. And now here I am, doing it.

OM:?May I ask who it is?

FEW:?It’s a woman.

OM:?Detective Benson?

FEW:?Yes.

OM:?So maybe it’s you who needed to have sex with someone else.

FEW:?[PAUSE] My mind is so scattered lately, I’m having trouble remembering how it started.

OM:?She put her tongue in your mouth, as I recall, at the dog park.



“Does it get any gayer?” Greta said.


FEW:?And then I saw where she lives. Or how she lives.

[PAUSE 0:43]



“Hello?” Greta said. “How do I live?”


OM:?Does she live in a mansion?

FEW:?No, no, she lives in an eighteenth-century farmhouse. It has a lot of character, but it’s literally crumbling around her.



Greta laughed. “It’s brick, bitch. It’s been standing for three hundred years.”


FEW:?There’s no heat. If she doesn’t burn wood she’ll literally freeze to death. She sleeps with hot stones under the covers like it’s 1762, and the tap water is brown and disgusting.



“It’s well water,” Greta said. “It has sulfur in it.”


FEW:?She has these heavy linen drapes nailed over the windows—they’re fully lined, custom-made in Copenhagen or someplace—but when the sunlight hits them in late afternoon, you can see hundreds of dark spots. I always figured it was flecks of paint. Turns out it’s a bunch of stink bugs. “They’re hiding in the lining,” Rebekah said casually the other day, “waiting for spring.” Can you imagine?



“But what about the windows themselves?” Greta said. “The beautiful panes!”


FEW:?I don’t know why she doesn’t move. She could easily find a place in town, a place with a thermostat. But the only piece of real estate she’s interested in is my vagina. She talks about it like it’s an apartment she’s renting.



“Uh, that’s a gross misquote,” Greta said. “I compared it to the antechamber, because it’s ten degrees warmer in there.”


OM:?You must be getting something out of it, though. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing this. Right?



“Right,” Greta said.


FEW:?She’s very demonstrative. Warm, affectionate. Before we met, I felt frozen. Now I’m a puddle on the floor. It’s not always… comfortable.

OM:?How often do you see each other?

FEW:?Four days a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. But she refuses to call it an affair.

OM:?What does she call it?

FEW:?A fuckfest. I’ll admit it’s very passionate. Our eyes turn completely black almost every time.

OM:?How so?

FEW:?Your pupils dilate when they see something beautiful. Did you know that?