What Do Women Want

that.”
    Her college was close to 100 percent white; her friends were an insular group of black women. They talked often of the black pop stars and students they fantasized about, of the superiority of black men—the size of their penises, the hairlessness of their skin. Her gay friends now—white, Asian—did the same. And all the while what she felt was that to be the focus of a white man’s violent need—“all of my fantasies are of a white man; and except when he is faceless, he is beautiful, beautiful beyond words; he is tall, with azure eyes and thick, dark hair”—would be to know, in the most absolute way, that she was desirable.
    The waiter was tall enough, broad-shouldered, with blue eyes and dark hair. “He was gorgeous,” she said later. She stepped into the bathroom; he followed, turning on the faucet, opening the tap fully, the water loud. How much noise is kissing going to make? she asked silently, as they began. He leaned back against the wall, pulling her toward him. She braced her palms against the tile on either side of his shoulders; his fingers spanned her ass. At some point, he slid his cock out of his pants; she felt it rigid near her waist. She wished she was the one with her back to the wall, but it didn’t matter—the thought was crushed by the strength of his hands.
    The faucet went on providing its white noise. “Suck it,” he told her.
    Even more than his features, his voice now seemed to spring directly from her imagination, her moments of private lust: the way the two words he repeated held not even the undertone of a question.
    She lifted her hands away from the wall, straightened, took a step back. Again, he told her what he wanted.
    “I have to go,” she said.
    “No, you don’t.”
    “I have to go.”
    “Stay.”
    When she tried, when she turned, she couldn’t get the lock unbolted.
    “I’ve been drinking,” she protested. “I have a boyfriend.”
    “Do you really?” He held her forcefully.
    “I have a boyfriend,” she lied. “I need to go.”
    Something shifted in his face, and when he spoke again the presumption was thoroughly washed from his voice, as though by the impact of a wave. He looked disoriented, lost. “Okay,” he said. This time, she managed the lock.
    Her friends were in a clamor when she emerged. They assumed she’d gone further than kissing. David insisted on a description of his cock. He often regaled her with the dimensions of his conquests. “I’m not going to talk about that,” she said. Seconds later, she confessed that she hadn’t carried it through. When they groaned, she apologized, and when they asked why, she answered that she didn’t know. “I just couldn’t,” she told them. Then she went home and lay down and let the scene unfold—differently, from the moment of his demand, from her inability to unbolt the door—as she touched herself, let it unfold until she came, let it splinter her mind, obliterate her, obliterate her again the next morning, again the next night, again on more mornings and nights than she could count.

Chapter Seven
    Monogamy
    A lison’s husband, Thomas, was a youth league basketball coach. He taught the pick-and-roll, the defensive stance, the proper way to catch a pass, the correct preparation for a free throw. He believed in fundamentals. He believed that if his eleven-year-old players learned nothing else, and if they never touched a basketball again after their season with him, their practices and games under his tutelage would be worthwhile if they gained a set of twelve basic basketball skills, or at least recognized their importance. Life, in his opinion, was a matter of fundamentals as well, and his hope was to have some part in getting kids ready not to win at a sport but to thrive in the years ahead. He was also a corporate lawyer. But he looked forward to the Blazers’ Wednesday evening practices and Saturday morning games a good deal more than to anything he did at his high-paying job.
    Alison knew the twelve skills by heart, or anyway nine of them, or at any rate she had been able to list nine four years ago when their son, Derek, had begun his basketball career. But two years ago, Derek had retired. He had become the official G.M., scorekeeper, trainer, and unofficial towel boy for his father’s team, and since then Alison’s recall for the fundamentals had dwindled.
    Derek’s retirement had been brought on by his realization, as a fourth grader, that he just wasn’t much