26

The bed: It was king-sized, white and warm, and hadn’t they had fun picking it out, in the department store downtown? They’d walked hand in hand among the displays while the sales help watched; but as soon as she sat down on one, a wide white mattress on a box spring with a curved wooden headboard looming over it, a man came over and said, Can I help you?

She laughed, and the salesman blinked for a second at the force of her delight. We’re just looking . . . for a bed. She laughed again at the very idea.

This is one of our finest, said the salesman. He was wearing a tightfitting blue suit, and he had a thin mustache. She wondered what his own bed was like, and who, if anyone, he shared it with. Well, everyone has a bed, she thought, but none of them are as fine and comfortable as ours will be. We’re getting married, she said to the salesman, and this is going to be our very first bed, so it has to be just right.

Well, there’s plenty to choose from, said the salesman. Right here we have every new advancement in mattress design. Now you take this . . . and he turned them toward another set. Go on and sit down on that, if you like. —She sat. —There are three hundred coils in that mattress, said the salesman. Three hundred coils to keep you well supported. Guaranteed, no restlessness at night, no backaches in the morning.

Hmmm, she said. Is this the best?

This is the best, the salesman replied.

Then we’ll take it.

That bed would be worn to a hollow, later by years. That was where he would discover how to make her gasp, how shameless she was with her mouth, swallowing him and asking for more; that was where he would smell the changes her body went through in a month. In that bed she would abrade her face on his rough evening stubble until her features were burned; they would invent words for rank things and jubilant things; they would sweat and shout. Bed of congress and stubborn slumber, where she would train herself to sleep on her side, with his hand cast over her bottom breast and his hot mouth at her neck; she would learn to abide his occasional thrashing through his dreams—but he was lovely when he slept, mannish and still soft. Bed on sugared, sour mornings, where they would turn to each other, turn again, and turn themselves all inside out.