May We Be Forgiven

of men watching two women kiss. I’ve never entirely understood why men like watching two women, or having two women at once. To me it just seems potentially confusing: four breasts, two whoosits, a lot of work to do. … I imagine blacking out from overload.
    “I remember hearing about them,” Cheryl says.
    “Hearing what?”
    “Something like this—that they did things like this—but I didn’t think it was true. I thought I was the only one.”
    “Clearly there’s never just one—there’s always some sort of a need.”
    At nine-thirty the referees announce a five-minute break, to be followed by a round of strip tag—every time you’re hit you have to take something off. Whoopee!
    I head for the bar, stopping en route to peek into the private rooms. It’s a lot of what we used to call dry humping—but would I do it in a mini-mall with people from the “neighborhood”?
    I hug the bar, drinking more than usual. Topless women with laser packs make themselves wine spritzers while men run around with semi-stiffies—and I can’t tell what’s got them more jazzed, the naked girls or the thrill of the game.
    “May I?” I overhear a woman ask Cheryl.
    “I guess,” Cheryl says.
    I look away—even in this place, people are entitled to their privacy. Out of the corner of my eye, like slow motion, I see the woman’s hand, her long thin fingers, the glint of her wedding ring as it extends towards Cheryl’s breast. The woman brushes Cheryl with her fingers, lightly, almost as if dusting the breast—touching without touching. And then she leans forward and kisses her. Cheryl kisses back. And then the woman is gone—vaporized by the experience.
    “I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I have to go to the city tomorrow morning and want to be home at a decent hour,” I say to Cheryl.
    “I let a woman touch me,” she says, apparently unaware that I was standing right next to her when it happened.
    “Was it your first time?”
    “Yes.” She pauses. “She touched me so lightly—it tickled.”
    “It sounds like maybe you liked it.”
    “I didn’t not like it.”
    “That’s what you call a double negative—do you mean that you liked it?”
    “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve felt a woman’s hands before—but always, like, in a doctor’s office—like, raise your arm, and they take your breast and smoosh it into the mammo machine—but I never had someone touch me just for fun. I had no idea a woman’s lips felt that soft. What about you? Any action?”
    “Yeah, a guy rubbed against me,” I say. “But I think he was just trying to get by. He rubbed me, then said sorry. It was the ‘sorry’ that made me uncomfortable. The rub was kind of interesting, but when he apologized I felt like a creep because I actually liked it.”
    “I think you’re reading too much into it,” she says.
    “Wouldn’t be the first time,” I say. “I’ve got to go,” I say, “it’s getting late.”
    “Do you have time for a coffee?” she asks. “We could debrief?”
    She laughs at her own joke. As we’re crossing the parking lot she says: “Can you believe such a place exists, right here, right next to the drugstore, the hospital supply, and the card shop? I buy cards for my mother-in-law in there.”
    Stinking of sweat, some of it other people’s, we go to Friendly’s.
    “I don’t think you were very into it,” she says as we’re sitting down.
    “Frankly, I was surprised by how depressing it was.”
    “Me too,” she says.
    “What can I get you?” the waitress asks.
    “Coffee,” I say.
    “Is that all?”
    “Coffee and apple pie?”
    “À la mode?” she asks.
    “Yes, please.”
    “Coffee and apple pie,” Cheryl says. “That’s what Grandfather used to order.”
    “Fine,” I say. “Eighty-six the apple pie, and I’ll have a clown sundae—with chocolate ice cream.”
    When the waitress leaves, I lean forward. “Why did you want to do this?” I ask Cheryl, who looks tearful.
    “I’m just really curious,” she says. “I would think you already know that about me. I want something different, something more.”
    My ice cream arrives, and she digs in.
    “You need a job,” I suggest, “maybe get a real-estate license, or go back to school and become a social worker.”
    “I got the real-estate license,” she says. “It just means you fuck strangers in other people’s houses.” Impromptu, she belches; the scents of white wine and chocolate ice cream blast across