The Thanatos Syndrome

already flopped on one, dressed, filling it. She’s not passed out or even drunk, but open-eyed, dreamy, placative, and still smiling in the same moony way.
    Well then, turn out the light and—
    I turn out the light.
    â€œLights! “says Ellen.
    I turn on the light. True, drink and dark can make you sick. I know. But she’s smiling.
    I have an idea. “I have an idea.”
    She waits, smiling.
    â€œLet’s go downstairs to our old room.”
    â€œChandra.”
    â€œChandra’s not here.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œHow to get down? We can go down to the kitchen and take the elevator.”
    â€œAll right.”
    She seems agreeable. I am pleased.
    She’s not too drunk to back down the stairs to the kitchen exactly as we came up, smiling at the joke of me keeping her safe.
    Chandra’s room, our old bedroom, is spick and span. The Sears Best bed takes up half the room. There’s a photograph on the bed table of Chandra receiving the Loyola broadcast journalism award from Howard K. Smith.
    â€œUndress,” says Ellen.
    I begin undressing.
    â€œMe.”
    â€œWhat? Oh.” She’s leaning over toward me, arms outstretched, pullover blouse pulled half up. The neck drags across her short wiry wheat-colored hair, but it springs back into place.
    She waits for me to undress her, smiling and cooperative, standing when standing is required, sitting, lifting herself. I finish undressing her; she is standing, naked, smiling and turning. She is tanned all over. There are no white areas. Compared to the convent beds, the Sears Best mattress looks as big as a soccer field.
    Ellen starts for the bed. I start for the wall switch and turn out the light and head back.
    â€œLights!” says Ellen.
    Very well. By the time I’ve turned on the light and come back, Ellen is in bed but is, to my surprise, not lying on her side as she used to but is on all fours.
    Very well, if that’s—
    â€œWell, bucko?”
    Bucko?
    â€œCover,” says Ellen.
    â€œYou mean—” I say, taking the sheet.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI understand,” I say, and cover.
    â€œAll right,” says Ellen.
    It is all right, though surprising, because we have never made love so. Her head is turned and I miss seeing her face. There is only a tousle of wiry hair, a glimpse of cheek and eyes, now closed, and mouth mashed open. She utters sounds.
    Afterward as we spoon-nest in our old style, she drowses off but goes on talking. It’s a light, dreaming sleep, because the words I can understand are uttered with that peculiar emphasis people use when they talk in their sleep. It’s REM sleep. I can see her eyes move under her lids. I’m afraid to turn out the light.
    â€œSchenken or K.S.?” she asks in her dream.
    â€œSchenken?”
    â€œBlackwood shmackwood.”
    â€œAll right.” I think she’s using contract bridge words. She’s playing in a tournament.
    â€œMud,” she says.
    â€œMud?”
    â€œBermuda Bowl, but no Fresno.”
    I am curious. I think these are places where bridge tournaments are held. Why no Fresno? I give her a shake, enough to bring her up into a waking dream, enough to talk. It’s like talking to a patient under light hypnosis.
    â€œWhy not Fresno?” I ask her, using the same quirky tone of her sleep-talking.
    â€œYou want me to stand around at the partnership table with all those other women?”
    â€œWell, no,” I say. I didn’t think she’d been invited.
    â€œI’d feel like a dance-hall hostess. For open pairing you just stand there while they look you over.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œNoway.”
    I am silent. After a while her eyes stop moving. She’s going to sleep but still talking.
    â€œSchenken?” she murmurs, asking a question, I think.
    â€œNo,” I say, not liking the sound of it.
    â€œK.S.?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œRoth-Steiner?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAzalea?”
    â€œYes.” Azalea sounds better, whatever it is.
    â€œAzalea,” she murmurs drowsily, smiling, and as drowsily she straightens and turns on her stomach. Before I know what she’s doing, she has swung around on the bed like a compass needle, dreamily but nonetheless expertly done a one-eighty, buckled and folded herself into me, her wiry head between my thighs.
    We’ve not done this before either, but by now I’m not surprised and I’d