The weatherman smiled hopefully in Sara’s direction. She smiled politely back, then continued on her way, Stephen leading. Just then Sara noticed an acquaintance of hers staring at them, a glamorous sixty-year-old who had made millions through her last divorce. A notorious manizer, the femme fatale had frozen in mid-conversation, champagne glass in hand, while her eyes traveled up and down Stephen’s body, lingering at the crotch. Sara was momentarily reminded of a documentary she’d watched on the Discovery Channel about praying mantises titled Deadly Females: Cannibalism and Sex.
For a moment she felt deeply protective of Stephen—perhaps even maternal. It was fleeting, the emotion giving way to an immense rush of self-glory as the socialite gave Sara a subtle but definite thumbs-up and then mouthed, “Love the new boyfriend!” her cosmetically pumped-up mouth moving up and down like a fish’s. Behind Stephen’s back Sara returned the thumbs-up, then gestured to indicate the critic had a big penis. The socialite almost dropped her glass. Life was looking up, Sara decided. Without realizing it, the heiress straightened her back and began to walk taller as Stephen, oblivious to the exchange, led her to a table.
They sat over two almond croissants and a single cappuccino. For fortitude Sara had ordered a glass of decent burgundy, even if it was only eleven-thirty a.m. The wine trickled through her, casting an optimistic glow on the morning’s events. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the socialite flitting from one table to another, no doubt spreading the rumor that Sara Le Carin—normally a rather conservative mouse of a woman—had wasted no time in getting herself a gorgeous new lover since her divorce. Several people had already discreetly glanced over, evaluating Stephen’s assets. No doubt the gesture about the large penis was the clincher, Sara decided, and found herself wondering whether Stephen did indeed have a large penis. She was so distracted she found herself ordering another glass of wine. Still unaware of the excitement his presence was causing, Stephen dipped his croissant into his cappuccino, biting into it with a bestial gluttony that Sara found heartening.
“That last piece . . .” she ventured, hoping to engage him enough to prevent him from turning around and noticing the interest his presence had generated. “I suppose I was brought up to regard certain parts of the human body as sacrosanct. I mean, surely to remain erotic something has to stay at least a little mysterious?”
“I guess it depends on how you define mystery. Mystery can be internal, an implied narrative within, and not contained in the physical visual depiction.”
“We are talking vaginas?” she asked sweetly.
At this point Stephen nearly choked on his dripping croissant. Sara banged him on the back politely. He regained his composure.
“Here they are used very much as a symbol, above and beyond the need to shock—birth gates, death gates, the beginning and the end. To the male heterosexual eye, anonymous tight wet pleasure; to the female heterosexual eye, bald-faced vulnerability.”
Sara winced and crossed her legs. “But why this year? The last couple of years it’s been dead animal parts, a sort of butcher’s carnival, but now it’s . . . pussies, or what my grandmother used to call the ‘la-la.’”
“They do seem to be the leitmotif of the season, and it does seem to be de rigueur to own one. Perhaps you should consider buying one of your own?”
I have one of my own, she felt like replying, but stopped just in time, now a little tipsy.
“It might be a little confrontational for me at the moment, given the current state of my own love life.”
“Confrontational is good. It’s cleansing. Out with the old, in with the new. Perhaps it could be the start of your new collection.”
“I’ll drink to that.” And she lifted her wineglass to toast his coffee cup. To the curious onlookers, of which there were now quite a few, they looked like a loving couple toasting their good fortune.
• • •
That afternoon, with Stephen’s encouragement, Sara purchased a white china sculpture by a young Australian sculptress in the style of Louise Bourgeois that resembled a chintzy porcelain centerpiece of tulips and lilies, except when examined closely it was obvious the flowers were in fact vaginas, crinkly and delicately molded. A couple of the blossoms were decorated with the odd drop of clear glass dew sitting precariously on the petals/labia.
Sara couldn’t decide whether it was too kitsch to be art or too arty to be kitsch. Either way Stephen convinced her it didn’t matter—the artist was going to be “huge” and Sara could always resell at a profit if she found she couldn’t live with it. In truth Sara was both fascinated and appalled by the piece; a gapingly feminine sculpture, it seemed to fuse two aspects of womanhood—the domestic and the intimate. She particularly liked the way each vagina/blossom was bespoke—not cast but individually molded with painstaking precision.
The art dealer handling the sculptress promised to have it installed the next day, after they’d packed up the art show.
That night Sara had a terrible nightmare in which her own vagina grew so large it folded out and up over her head, incarcerating her in her own labia. The sensation, which was not the slightest bit erotic, was like being smothered to death. Convinced she was about to die, she woke herself up and found herself in the middle of a scream. Forgetting recent events, she reached across expecting to find the comforting body of her husband. Instead she encountered nothing but cold sheet. Memory rushed in, intermingling with the dream so that for a moment Sara wasn’t sure what was real and what was fantasy. Pitch-black, the bedroom felt stiflingly hot. It had been a muggy London summer night and the humidity had continued on relentlessly. The silence was broken by the faint wail of a police siren followed by the screech of brakes; a car was parking outside. Sara, fastened to the bed with fear, listened as she waited for her pounding heart to slow down. She glanced across at the bedside clock—it was only two a.m., still a civilized time on the West Coast of America. Without dwelling on what she was about to do, she reached for the phone and dialed the one mobile number she’d never been able to erase from her memory.
“Hugh?” There was a beat, a silence on the other end in which she was convinced she could hear her ex-husband thinking. He then burst into full baritone.
“Sara, darling!” It was his actor’s voice, the one he put on when he was being overheard.
“Are we friends?” Sara asked tentatively; she badly needed a truce.
“Of course we are,” he replied warmly, “what’s past is past.”
Suspicious, Sara pushed her ear closer to the receiver. In the background there was the excited crescendo of a party going on. It was interrupted by a young female voice asking Hugh who was on the phone. As if answering both her and Sara simultaneously, Hugh said, “My favorite ex-wife.”
“Your only ex-wife,” Sara growled into the receiver.
“So far,”
Hugh replied cheerfully. He sounded as if he’d been drinking or was stoned.
“Are you alone?” she couldn’t help asking, although it was evident he was not. Immediately the background ambience began to grow fainter. She glanced up across the bedroom, catching a faint glimmer of her reflection in the mirror, a ghostly outline. Somehow it made her feel pathetic, but she still did not put down the phone. There was a crackle on the line as Hugh returned.
“I am now. Are you all right, darling? It’s rather late for you, isn’t it?”
“I had a nightmare, Hugh, a very bad nightmare, involving labia and dying.”