That thought called up another. Do what you want, they had said. Both of them. Do what you want. And that was a line I knew. While on Key Largo I’d read an Atlantic Monthly essay on pornography by some feminist. I wasn’t sure which one, only that it hadn’t been Naomi Wolf or Camille Paglia. This woman had been of the conservative stripe, and she had used that phrase.
Sally Tisdale, maybe? Or was my mind just hearing echo-distortions of Sara Tidwell? Whoever it had been, she’d claimed that ‘do what I want’ was the basis of erotica which appealed to women and
‘do what you want’ was the basis of pornography which appealed to men. Women imagine speaking the former line in sexual situations; men imagine having the latter line spoken to them. And, the writer went on, when real-world sex goes bad — sometimes turning violent, sometimes shaming, sometimes just unsuccessful from the female partner’s point of view — porn is often the unindicted co-conspirator. The man is apt to round on the woman angrily and cry, ‘You wanted me to! Quit lying and admit it! You wanted me to!’
The writer claimed it was what every man hoped to hear in the bedroom: Do what you want. Bite me, sodomize me, lick between my toes, drink wine out of my navel, give me a hairbrush and raise your ass for me to paddle, it doesn’t matter. Do what you want. The door is closed and we are here, but really only you are here, I am just a willing extension of your fantasies and only you are here. I have no wants of my own, no needs of my own, no taboos. Do what you want to this shadow, this fantasy, this ghost.
I’d thought the essayist at least fifty per cent full of shit; the assumption that a man can find real sexual pleasure only by turning a woman into a kind of jackoff accessory says more about the observer than the participants. This lady had had a lot of jargon and a fair amount of wit, but underneath she was only saying what Somerset Maugham, Jo’s old favorite, had had Sadie Thompson say in ‘Rain,’ a story written eighty years before: men are pigs, filthy, dirty pigs, all of them. But we are not pigs, as a rule, not beasts, or at least not unless we are pushed to the final
extremity. And if we are pushed to it, the issue is rarely sex; it’s usually territory. I’ve heard feminists argue that to men sex and territory are interchangeable, and that is very far from the truth.
I padded back to the office, opened the door, and behind me the telephone rang again. And here was another familiar sensation, back for a return visit after four years: that anger at the telephone, the urge to simply rip it out of the wall and fire it across the room. Why did the whole world have to call while I was writing? Why couldn’t they just . . . well. . let me do what I wanted?
I gave a doubtful laugh and returned to the phone, seeing the wet handprint on it from my last call.
‘Hello?’
‘I said to stay visible while you were with her.’
‘Good morning to you, too, Lawyer Storrow.’
‘You must be in another time-zone up there, chum. I’ve got one-fifteen down here in New York.’
‘I had dinner with her,’ I said. ‘Outside. It’s true that I read the little kid a story and helped put her to bed, but — ‘
‘I imagine half the town thinks you’re bopping each other’s brains out by now, and the other half will think it if I have to show up for her in court.’ But he didn’t sound really angry; I thought he sounded as though he was having a happy-face day.
‘Can they make you tell who’s paying for your services?’ I asked.
‘At the custody hearing, I mean?’
‘Nope.’
‘At my deposition on Friday?’
‘Christ, no. Durgin would lose all credibility as guardian ad litem if he went in that direction.
Also, they have reasons to steer clear of the sex angle. Their focus is on Mattie as neglectful and perhaps abusive. Proving that Mom isn’t a nun quit working around the time Kramer vs. Kramer came out in the movie theaters. Nor is that the only problem they have with the issue.’ He now sounded positively gleeful.
‘Tell me.’
‘Max Devore is eighty-five and divorced. Twice divorced, in point of fact. Before awarding custody to a single man of his age, secondary custody has to be taken into consideration. It is, in fact, the single most important issue, other than the allegations of abuse and neglect levelled at the mother.’
‘What are those allegations? Do you know?’
‘No. Mattie doesn’t either, because they’re fabrications. She’s a sweetie, by the way — ‘
‘Yeah, she is.’
‘ — and I think she’s going to make a great witness. I can’t wait to meet her in person. Meantime, don’t sidetrack me. We’re talking about secondary custody, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Devore has a daughter who has been declared mentally incompetent and lives in an institution somewhere in California — Modesto, I think. Not a good bet for custody.’
‘It wouldn’t seem so.’
‘The son, Roger, is . . . ‘ I heard a faint fluttering of notebook pages. ‘ . . . fifty-four. So he’s not exactly a spring chicken, either. Still, there are lots of guys who become daddies at that age nowadays; it’s a brave new world. But Roger is a homosexual.’
I thought of Bill Dean saying, Rump-wrangler. Understand there’s a lot of that going around out them in California.
‘I thought you said sex doesn’t matter.’
‘Maybe I should have said hetero sex doesn’t matter. In certain states — California is one of them homo sex doesn’t matter, either . . . or not as much. But this case isn’t going to be adjudicated in California. It’s going to be adjudicated in Maine, where folks are less enlightened about how well two married men — married to each other, I mean — can raise a little girl.’
‘Roger Devore is married?’ Okay. I admit it. I now felt a certain horrified glee myself. I was ashamed of it — Roger Devore was just a guy living his life, and he might not have had much or anything to do with his elderly dad’s current enterprise — but I felt it just the same.
‘He and a software designer named Morris Ridding tied the knot in 1996,’ John said. ‘I found that on the first computer sweep. And if this does wind up in court, I intend to make as much of it as I possibly can. I don’t know how much that will be — at this point it’s impossible to predict — but if I get a chance to paint a picture of that bright-eyed, cheerful little girl growing up with two elderly gays who probably spend most of their lives in computer chat-rooms speculating about what Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock might have done after the lights were out in officers’ country . . . well, if I get that chance, I’ll take it.’
‘It seems a little mean,’ I said. I heard myself speaking in the tone of a man who wants to be dissuaded, perhaps even laughed at, but that didn’t happen.
‘Of course it’s mean. It feels like swerving up onto the sidewalk to knock over a couple of innocent bystanders. Roger Devore and Morris Ridding don’t deal drugs, traffic in little boys, or rob old ladies. But this is custody, and custody does an even better job than divorce of turning human beings into insects. This one isn’t as bad as it could be, but it’s bad enough because it’s so naked.
Max Devore came up there to his old hometown for one reason and one reason only: to buy a kid.
That makes me mad.’
I grinned, imagining a lawyer who looked like Elmer Fudd standing outside of a rabbit-hole marked DEVORE with a shotgun.
‘My message to Devore is going to be very simple: the price of the kid just went up. Probably to a figure higher than even he can afford.’
‘ If it goes to court — you’ve said that a couple of times now. Do you think there’s a chance Devore might just drop it and go away?’
‘A pretty good one, yeah. I’d say an excellent one if he wasn’t old and used to getting his own way. There’s also the question of whether or not he’s still sharp enough to know where his best interest lies. I’ll try for a meeting with him and his lawyer while I’m up there, but so far I haven’t managed to get past his secretary.’
‘Rogette Whitmore?’
‘No, I think she’s a step further up the ladder. I haven’t talked to her yet, either. But I will.’