To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. Lord Byron
April 2003, wings on my heels, I headed for my reunited Confessions Club. Before 9/11, I had braved rain, sleet—once a blizzard—to insure that our group would have a quorum. Hurrying from home in the West Village, due east, I passed my favorite coffee house, the Reggio, where I regularly sipped green tea made from the freshest leaves. I waved to the longtime waiter busy putting tables outside in anticipation of customers hearty enough to handle the crisp weather.
In the East Village a thrift shop with unbelievable bargains almost waylaid me. Writing and shopping are two of my fiercest passions. That day I neglected the latter to advance the former. Further east, I paused to admire lovingly tended neighborhood gardens. I felt akin to the buds about to flower after a dormant spell. Patrillio’s makeover had caused a few male heads to turn in my direction, silly smiles to brighten my face.
As I rang Marilyn’s bell, she opened the door immediately with news that Tiffany had phoned several times to say she would be late. It had been ages since I’d seen the Janus-faced character whose actions were as unpredictable as the causes she championed.
“Come, join the others,” insisted Marilyn. Taking my hand, she guided me into the downstairs parlor. Not having seen each other for almost two years, the atmosphere reminded me of a Sixties love fest—lots of hugs and kisses. Chloe had her arms around Sarah who smiled through tears that coursed down her cheeks.
Candy rushed over and kissed me smack on the lips, then announced: “Hey gang, I’m dancing again in a posh club in Red Bank. Swell to be home again!” Whooping, she did a shimmy around Sarah, Marilyn and me to music on the radio. Revolving round and round the room, eventually worn out, the curvy dervish tumbled onto Marilyn’s couch.
“Everybody follow me,” announced Marilyn. We trooped after our inventive hostess, up winding stairs to our original room. Marilyn threw open the door and we remained on the threshold to gape at the transformed space.
“So what do you think?” inquired Marilyn. Two of the three pusses, furrier than ever, stopped eating from fancy new bowls. Their presence completed our ecstatic reoccupation of Marilyn’s. Frequent meows indicated they were happy to see us. My favorite, Miss Mops, shyest of the trio, had wandered off at the approach of strange footsteps.
“Wow! Burgundy walls, satiny cushions in purple and gold, mirrors all around. The rug’s got pictures of nymphs and satyrs sporting naked. Is this a bordello or what?” gulped Sarah, shocked.
“Finally, I’ve redecorated, tossed out the dilapidated furniture. Our Confessions Club deserves a sexy atmosphere. Picture me someday reclining with a lover on these luxurious cushions.” Marilyn hugged herself.
“What’s that big chair doing at dead center of the room?” asked Sarah.
“Victorian, bought at an auction. While reading, I’d like each one to sit there and belt out her stuff. Agreed?” We assented, shuffled our papers and mulled over which work to share.
Pregnant with stories, I longed to sink into the comfortably padded chair—welcoming its support. Indecisive, I had thought about answering personal ads in New York Magazine and advertising online for a guy potent enough to cut the paté. But telling Tiffany, happily absent, about my plans was a more daunting proposition.
Tiffany’s response would be a harangue on the bourgeois practice of selling yourself to the highest bidder—never mind she had gone to the altar three times to accumulate rich settlements. She would pluck the details out of me like an eyebrow tweezer, hair by painful hair. If only she would emigrate to Cuba to act as Fidel’s minister of propaganda! Recently I realized that a rivalry, entirely on her part, defined her behavior toward me. I had a successful career, a rewarding marriage and lovers! She resented my happiness.
Candy, restored to her former splendor, riveted my attention. Today her newly dyed dark hair contrasted with gold colored bangs. Cut in a Louise Brooks style, it glistened with pomade. Her short black skirt clung to her shapely hips; a black silk blouse fit so tight the buttons kept popping. Long, fake black and purple fingernails made her resemble a character from a Charles Addams cartoon.
“Are we ready to charge forward with our Confessions Club?” asked Marilyn. “Don’t be afraid to tell or write anything. Genuine Bacchantes refuse to accept restrictions in art or life. Agreed?” When no one objected—although Sarah frowned—Marilyn dropped her schoolmarm pose to assume a chef’s hat.
Several plates of appetizers—humus, hard-boiled eggs, hunks of Brie—provided our fuel. Marilyn placed a steaming pot of Jasmine tea on a low table. Cream-colored mugs covered with pictures of cats attracted the residents who peered quizzically at their feline representations.
While everyone else gobbled the tasties, Sarah painstakingly cut a few minuscule slices. Chewing each morsel, she took care not to speak with food in her mouth. What a tacky outfit! Her loose-fitting, checkered dress went out of style in the Fifties. Troubled by the Club’s anarchic drift, Sarah spoke in a voice louder than usual: “I think we should restrict ourselves to specific topics voted on at the end of each meeting. Otherwise things will get too chaotic.”
“Still the same Sarah,” responded Chloe, “either trying to control things or fretting. Let’s enjoy each others’ company. It’s been too long.” Chloe appeared listless. Was this woman the same imp who, at our last meeting in the Tribeca restaurant, giggled over her one night stand? Silver streaks stood out in her formerly luxurious black hair. Wrinkles etched around her eyes and mouth gave her face a pinched expression.
“Sorry, Chloe,” muttered Sarah. “Did you have fun in Greece, even though you went for a sad reason. You’re so lucky to have a large family.”
“You should know from Greek families!” Chloe pounded the cushion she sat on and groaned. “Mine did a job on me after my cousin died in the Towers. Every uncle, aunt, niece and nephew, beating their breasts, ganged up on me. If I went back to New York, they swore something terrible would happen to me. Now they phone to hammer home the same refrain. And my daughter’s at it again.”
“What daughter?” we chorused, as though acting in a Greek tragedy.
“Let’s not talk about her!” Chloe cleared her throat nervously. I’d heard that Chloe had a daughter, although she never mentioned her by name. Likewise, I didn’t discuss my extra-marital affairs. Each of us, for prudential reasons, had skeletons hidden away. Little by little, they were being trotted out to dance.
“Since it’s our inaugural day, let’s read whatever.” Expectantly, Marilyn glanced at each one of us.
“To get us moving maybe I should start off with a bit of Sappho, the greatest love poet,” chimed in Chloe. “My family bitched but I made a pilgrimage to her native island, Lesbos. Hiking along the rocks, I shouted her verses to the roaring winds.”
From memory, Chloe recited a fragment of “To Anactoria”—”Her lovely step and the brilliant glancing of her face I would rather see than the Lydians chariots or their infantry fighting in all their armor.” This poetic lament for a lost love, as we remembered our own disappointments, briefly transformed our exuberant mood to a somber one.
Then Candy made a beeline for the writer’s chair. As she settled in the padded chair, her stiletto silver ankle straps glittered in a dramatic contrast to the room’s dark decor.
“In San Francisco I spent weeks interviewing Fannie and Berta, a couple of senior cuties who used to dance in a burlesque hall on the Barbary Coast. So cool to hangout on Pacific and Columbus where the raucous saloons were during the Gold Rush. Now it’s Chinatown. My zippy burlesque girlfriends filled me in on the neighborhood’s history.”
“Hey, what are you reading? It’s not right to occupy the writer’s chair empty handed.” Sarah glanced around the room for support. Nobody responded.
“My stuff’s visual. Take a gander,” insisted Candy. She whipped out a scrapbook and showed photos of herself bookended by two frizzy-haired dames kicking their gartered legs up in the air. Assuming zany poses against the former burlesque theaters, they mugged for the camera.
Tapping her foot impatiently, Marilyn stared at Candy in the writer’s chair.
“In San Francisco, everything’s wow this and wow that,” Candy continued. “Nobody listens. I need to be heard by people who care about me.” Nervously, Candy twirled long rhinestone earrings like those for sale in 99-cent stores. “I’m still living in shitty Boundbrook till I earn enough to get my own place. There’s a complication. This guy I met at the Mexican restaurant on Thompson.”
“Tell everything,” Chloe urged. “At least one of us is getting some action.”
“Jorge lives in Williamsburg in a roachy dump, bathroom in the hall, no heat. Guess what he does for a living?”
“Porn!” exclaimed Marilyn. “Sometimes, after midnight, I watch the Robin Byrd show. Well-endowed guys and busty babes show off their equipment. Last week I almost called to rent a stud who reminded me of my first boy friend.” Sarah, drinking juice, gulped noisily.
“Jorge’s an Argentine elevator operator at the Carlyle Hotel. Always dressed in black, he reminds me of a fugitive from a noir film.”
“Bet he’s got greasy hair and greasy skin. He might have a sexual disease,” warned Sarah.
“We use condoms,” replied Candy. “We make out on a lumpy cot pushed against the wall, panting strangers in the night.” She checked our faces to see if we caught the reference to the Sinatra song.
“Poor Jorge’s dead broke. He breaks dates or stands me up. Why do I turn down offers to go great places for his crummy four walls?” Answering her own question, Candy lit up. “It’s his damn cock that can stay inside me for hours. I get so wet I nearly flood the bed. Am I obsessed or what?”
Positively occult, it was happening again. Last time, at our Tribeca restaurant dinner, Chloe and I had similar one-night stands in Greece. Tonight, Candy’s Argentine lover brought back my affair with Roberto, a devil whose memory still haunted me years after our dance ended.
“On the subject of Argentines, does anyone mind if I read a short poem about my obsession with tango and the man who taught me?” When nobody objected, I read my poem “Tango Argentino,” careful to explain that bandoneon meant an Argentine accordion:
Teasing dance of wet dreams
My gypsy soul sighs
for the Pampas
I slink into mists of longing
Pursuing a dark stranger
Bewitched, we tango
Under diamond stars
Nose to nose, torsos taut
We coil legs around each other
Slithering flesh to flesh
Quick as rattlers, our tongues
Dart in and out
Kisses scorch our eyelashes
Sheathed in black silk
Bones and sinews crackle
Bewitched by a rippling bandoneon,
breathing quickly
My spine vibrates
In his velvet palms
The beat quickens
So does my pulse
Suddenly, my sleek caballero
vanishes
I tumble into an abyss of sobs
To awake shivering.
“Wow,” sighed Candy. “That guy really pressed your buttons. Speaking of pressing, Jorge knows exactly where to touch me. Not like those fumblers I’ve met who couldn’t find a woman’s G spot if she shined it in their eyes like a traffic light.”
“Does Jorge tango?” I asked.
“Do bats eat insects? Jorge’s promised to take me to this Milonga on West Fourteenth Street above some Spanish restaurant.”
“I’ve been there many times,” I responded. “I’m amazed it still exists.” I remembered trying not to stumble in front of the intense crew of rapturous tango dancers.
“Milonga, a tango dance thing, right? Just across town. I’d like to go,” piped in Marilyn, ready to put on her dancing shoes.
“Think I ate paella in that restaurant once,” added Chloe. “Casa something or other.” She pulled out her BlackBerry to check if she included it on her recommended restaurant list.
“I bought these ‘fuck me’ shoes for the Milonga at one of those stores selling sex paraphernalia. Like them?” Candy kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toenails, polished ruby red. “Watch the step Jorge taught me last week.”
Candy did a jerky box step. Instead of holding her upper body straight according to tango dancing protocol, it bent like a flower stalk in the wind. The opposite of elegant and mysterious, Candy improvised as though with a rock band. Demeter the cat twisted and curled her fore legs trying to keep time with Candy’s gyrations.
As Candy thrust herself about, I imagined myself on the dance floor with Roberto again, now and then executing a barrida or a gando, gliding counter-clockwise to the intense beat.
“Say girls,” I butted in, “I’ve got a story about tango and me. Want to hear it?”
“Go ahead!” they all chimed in.