Read an Excerpt
One
Do you hear something?
Hmm?
Nick.
Hmm.
There. She turns her head toward the door. What is that?
He turns too, buries his nose in her hair and inhales.
Not too deeply. He doesn’t want to be weird about it.
It’s an alarm, she says.
What’s that scent, grapefruit? Verbena? It’s delicious.
Nick?
What is verbena, anyway? An herb. No. A flower.
Something to do with tea?
Do you hear it? she says. Sort of a faraway ringing?
Away. Far, far away. Like her voice, drifting toward him, looping and weaving through the glow, the fuzzy-edged haze of animal contentment that descends on him in these moments, sprawled on this bed, any bed, various beds at various times, always with her, breathing hard, limbs splayed, the glow hovering over him like a . . . like a what?
Never mind. This isn’t the time to strain for comparisons. A question has been posed, his attention sought on a vital point of acoustic interpretation. He rouses his wits. Come on, boys! Look alive! Letsgoletsgoletsgoletsgolets—
He raises his head. Listens.
The alarm stops.
He drops back on the pillow.
It’s nothing, he says. And now it’s over.
Stand down, men. The troops trudge back to their barracks, their card games, buffing their boots. His hand comes to life—just one, the rest of him still flattened, demolished by that astonishing, that really unbelievable—
He searches the folds of the duvet.
But what was it, do you think?
He finds her hand, lifts it to his line of sight. Nice hand. Lovely hand. My roving hands.
One of this joint’s exclusive amenities, he says. An orgasm gong.
An orgasm gong, she says.
He feels the joints of her fingers. The rounded edges of her nails. It’s the newest thing, he says. The staff ring it whenever two guests come simultaneously.
She laughs, her low, throaty chuckle, and the glow, which had thinned perilously as he was called upon to react, to think and speak, rolls over him again, thick and orangey-pink. Why orangey-pink? He doesn’t know. He’s just reporting here, okay? Just telling it like it is. Like how she’s turning to him now, resting on her side so that her beautiful breasts stack vertically, decline beautifully, breastily bedward—thank you, oh thank you gravity, all hail the Earth’s rotations!—and her face hoves into view, smiling at him.
Jenny. It’s been too long.
Now all he needs is her touch, the lightest, the least—
She drapes a leg over his.
Oh hail!
He can’t bear it. Steady on, men. What a relief his thoughts in these moments are private, not broadcast to the world, or to her. Whole joys. He’s an island, blissed out but well-fortified. Because happiness like this is asinine.
Who rings it?
Hmm?
Who rings the gong?
She’s resting a hand on his hip. Tapping her fingers lightly. To taste whole joys. He feels each tiny tap. The weight of her hand. Full nakedness, something something.
The gong, he says. Right. Well, as you might expect, they don’t assign this crucial task to any yahoo rolling in off the street. It’s the responsibility of a special employee. Carefully recruited, meticulously trained. They call him Gong Boy.
She laughs again. That husky chuckle!
He is purely, stupidly content.
The online reviews rave about him, he says. You’re going to start seeing copycat services in all the major hotels, but for now, this is the only gong in town. Hey, would you mind . . .?
She knows what he wants, and no, she would not mind. She slips a hand under him to scratch the nape of his neck. He shudders the length of his body, down and up, and down.
Whole joys right here.
A whole shitload of whole glowing joys.
It didn’t sound like a gong, she says.
True, but that’s Gong Boy’s genius. He shoves the pillow up to give her easier access to his neck. Always trying to be helpful. He interprets the intensity and essence of any given synchronous climax and translates it into sound compositions that accurately reflect the specific event.
Where does he come up with this shit? Honestly, it just flows out of him. Like his copious come into her glorious oh the scratching, the scratching, her nails on his skin!
It’s heaven. He shudders here in heaven.
So ours was fiery, she says. Alarming. Sounds about right.
Opening the door an hour ago—what was it she’d said? And everything that came after. Now, their rituals. The scratching. The idle conversation, grandiose because he knows she loves it.
Has Gong Boy ever screwed up?
He cranes his neck, a fresh wave of goosebumps coursing down his arms. It’s rare, he says, but he does occasionally misjudge the emanations.
What happens?
Well, it’s a serious problem. This place only opened last week. They have a brand to build. When he botches one, management has no choice but to administer correctives.
Oh no! What do they do to Gong Boy?
They beat him with a giant dildo.
She laughs. Jenny laughs! He makes her laugh, not to mention come, fierily, alarmingly. He kisses her. Souls unbodied, or something about bodies, clothes, where the f*** are these lines coming from? It’s on the tip of his . . .
Wait.
Something terrible is happening.
She’s going away.
The weight of her leg across his legs, her fingers in his hair, her boob stack nudging his arm—all withdrawn. Why?
He opens his eyes. She’s sitting up, feet on the floor.
No! No no no!
What—where are you going?
To the minibar. She’s standing, stretching. I want to grab a drink.
He reaches out, but just misses her. She can’t leave his side, not now. He needs her close, right after. He is lonely by himself in a still-warm bed. It’s always been that way. He’s never told anyone.
I brought champagne. He points to the ice bucket on the nightstand, the glasses, all within easy reach.
I’d love some sparkling water. She moves toward the lacquered cabinets lining one wall.
Would you? Funny thing. He scrambles up, propping himself against the headboard. Champagne is sparkling water. With bonus champagne flavor.
She pauses in the center of the room, taking it in. She moves to the window, which is huge, a wall of glass. They’re on the forty-second floor. Manhattan blazes all around them. Between above below. Snow is falling. Beyond the river and New Jersey there’s the faintest smudge of light in the February sky. The world’s glow. Also disappearing.
God, she says. In her faint midwestern accent it comes out Gad. Can you believe this view?
He can’t. Especially when she bends to scratch an ankle. Compensation for the loss of her proximity. One hand on the back of a chair for balance, one foot off the floor, hair spilling over her shoulder. Her ass, pale, rounded, slightly too large for her slender frame, and therefore perfect.
Gad, he thinks. Help me, Gad.
However many times you see it, she says, it never gets old.
Right you are, my lady. The shadowy cleft, the two deep dimples hovering above. The astonishing substantiality of it, its exquisite assness, which he gets to behold, to fondle, to (occasionally, if only superficially) probe.
Look at her. So at ease when she’s naked. At home in herself, able to wander a room unashamed, baring her remarkable everything. No self-consciousness, no restraint.
He pulls the duvet over himself. It’s chilly in here.
Jenny. Come back to bed.
