Judith’s cabin was the most poorly decorated of the ones Marney rented out. The walls were pine boards painted cabin-red, and here and there anachronistic, dime-store art hung at cockeyed angles throughout the living room—the ruins of Pompei on a thin canvas, a faded chuckwagon scene from the 1800s captive in a plastic frame, and a football-shaped plaque that said, GO BADGERS! It was a cabin, appropriately enough, having an identity crisis. This place is so boring it could actually benefit from a coat of white paint and a salt-and-pepper shaker of two copulating coyotes.
On the tiny patio, overlooking the lake, Judith was grilling burgers and making pleasant conversation about her home in Minneapolis and her dog, Wolfgang, whom she missed but couldn’t bring to the cabin, because he got distracted and chased squirrels. Me too, I thought.
I had barely finished eating when she began doubling up on the wine. Foreplay wasn’t exactly her strong suit. She tried holding my hand under the table during dinner, ruffling my hair as she cleared dishes, and then plopping down beside me on the couch, her arm draped over my shoulder, so she could rub my breast, all while asking me if I liked living in New York.
It seemed awkward, and I was clearly no help, because I was still trying to decide why I was even contemplating sex with Judith. Is it to get back at Levade? That would be infantile. Is it to get over Levade? I paused on that one, having to admit that losing Levade to the equestrian-creature was painful, because I felt emotionally attached to her, more emotionally attached than I’d ever allowed myself to be toward anyone. And that in itself is ridiculous, I thought.
I had to get Levade out of my head because Judith was right there in front of me, and it was obvious she wanted to race through the niceties as quickly as possible and rush to the bedroom. Within minutes, she was towing me in that direction. The small bedroom was cabinesque, with narrow pine-slat walls, a small bed covered in a well-worn quilt, and a rustic dresser with a bear-lamp on it. She kissed me several times and then suggested I get comfortable, and she’d be right back.
While taking off my clothes, I mused that this must be lesbian sex at forty-seven—no intrigue, no foreplay, just prepare to be fucked. I was sorry I’d gotten myself into this situation, and, frankly, I wished I could just call the whole thing off. This is truly an ill-conceived experiment and beneath me. I even contemplated doing my retching trick that had worked on Frank, but before I could launch into a pretend-puke performance, I heard her leave the bathroom, and seconds later, she appeared in the bedroom doorway naked.
I hadn’t really seen her body during the infamous midnight swim, but now I had the full view and thought she looked better naked, without the 1940s clothes. A pretty face, small firm breasts, a narrow waist, and then my eyes traveled south. She was wearing a velvet harness around her waist with straps extending down and around each leg. On closer examination, at crotch level, I realized part of the apparatus held a strap-on dildo that seemed partially erect. The harness appeared custom fitted to carry two additional smaller dildos that were thankfully “at rest,” kind of like Snap-on tools, in case size was a problem. She braced herself in the doorway with arms outstretched, head cocked, and pelvis jutting forward.
“Surprise package! Can you handle this, baby?”
“Oh, my God!” I don’t know what came over me, but I burst out laughing, and the more offended she became, the more I laughed.
“I find this an odd and somewhat insulting reaction,” she said, slouching a bit in her full-regalia genitalia.
“I’m so sorry, Judith. It’s just that I’ve been with men all my life, so I’ve seen all manner of penises. Never three on the same person, I grant you, but for whatever reason, none of them excited me. Nonetheless, they were all the real deal. So I decide to take a foray into lesbian sex and meet a woman, a very nice and lovely woman, wearing an entire set of rubber penises.” I began laughing again. “Life is so ironic.”
She took a step forward and then launched herself into the air, landing on me and flattening me like a WWF wrestler, then quickly covered my mouth with hers, probably to shut me up. I pushed her away so I could breathe, and she tried to penetrate me with her dildo. It was rough sex with strange toys. “Judith, hold it. Stop it! Let me up.”
When she realized I was serious about leaving, she made a last-ditch effort to save the evening, grabbed the harness, ripped it off her body, and flung it across the room. The larger rubber penis bounced off the wall and landed on the bear-lamp, sticking out of the top like a foreskin finial.
“I get it,” she said, still trying to have sex with me. “I know a local guy, good-looking and clean, and he loves threesomes.”
“Not my thing.” I pushed her off me again. “This doesn’t work for me. Not your fault,” I said, in the way I said it to men, when in effect it was their fault. “It’s just too complicated.”
I grabbed my clothes as she kissed my back and tried to convince me to stay, but I was out the door and across the lawn in an Olympic sprint. Sass scattered as I blew through the door. “Pussy!” I panted to the terrified feline. “Stay away from it!”
* * *
The next day the older boy I’d seen playing pool at Jensen’s passed me on the sidewalk, as I was getting out of my car in front of the hardware store, and he gave me a wink and a low wolf whistle. Was this kid the one Judith was calling for the threesome? I was paranoid and remorseful. This is what happens when you have no relationship for four years—well, virtually no relationship.
I was so depressed that I did what all good women do in a stressful situation. I stopped at the drugstore soda fountain and ordered a chocolate sundae. Casey, the freckled teenage version of Emma Stone, served it up.
“That bad?” she asked slyly.
“Looking for love in all the wrong places.”
“This whole town would be the wrong place, so I hope it’s not here.” She pushed strands of her strawberry-blond hair back behind her ear.
“You’re pretty savvy. Aren’t you just out of high school?”
“Yeah, but it’s a small town. You see it all because you know everybody.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“Used to.”
“Mind if I ask what happened?”
“He was into summer threesomes with some woman who was renting Jensen’s cabin every year. He thought it was all fine because it paid well. He’s a jerk.”
I blushed, thinking about who that woman might be. “I saw you going to the Point for a reading,” I said, happy to change the subject.
The fact that I knew she’d been there seemed to upset her. “That wasn’t me. You must have seen someone else.”
“Could be.” I thanked her for the ice cream and left. Why would she lie about visiting Levade?
I crossed the street to the hardware store and noticed, through the glass storefront, that Gladys, the owner, was behind the counter talking to Little Man, showing him some knives from the case. I was surprised that a Native American with access to an entire tribe of artisans wouldn’t just have the tribe make him a knife, which made me think that Nordic craftsmanship must be revered in this part of the country. I got in my car, making a mental note to go back to the hardware store and have a look at the artisanry when I had more time.
I turned on the radio, and the announcer, in a thick Norwegian accent, was welcoming listeners to the twenty-four-hour polka station, as he cued up the “Beer Barrel Polka.” What kind of loon listens all day to polka music? I thought, tapping my hand on the steering wheel and bobbing my head in time to oom-pa-pa and tra-la-la and somebody rolling out a barrel, surprised that, before I knew it, I’d polka-ed my way back to the cabin.