Chapter 2

Rhonda is making espresso in the kitchen when Berkeley gets up. She is naked, tapping her fingers impatiently on the kitchen counter, waiting for the coffee to be done. “Wake up and smell the coffee, Berkeley,” she chirps brightly. Berkeley sidles up behind her, puts his arms around her, and cups her breasts in his hands. She sighs. He thrusts his pelvis up against her buttocks and she bends forward. The coffee machine is whining and sputtering. She pours out a cup of coffee as Berkeley slides his penis into her vagina from behind, and she bends farther over and then grunts loudly. She takes a sip of coffee and sighs. Clutching her big breasts, Berekely thrusts into her rapidly until Rhonda pushes him away and turns around. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she masturbates herself while Berkeley falls back into a kitchen chair and jacks himself off while they watch each other, Rhonda making a lot of noise breathing hard and fast, hooting animalistically as she comes. Berkeley, in a frenzy of excitement, stands while he comes, spraying Rhonda’s bosom. She nonchalantly hands him a cup of espresso, which he sips gratefully, and wipes her naked front with her hands, making her breasts flop up and down.

“This is the life, huh?” he says, sighing and setting down his coffee cup.

Rhonda laughs. “I guess it must be.” She looks at her wrist but is not wearing a watch. She laughs. “It must be time for me to go to class.” She looks at her hands and wipes them on her ample thighs. “I’ve got a nine-o’clock.” She runs to the bedroom and returns in a moment, dressed. “Got to run,” she says, “I’m late already--or I will be by the time I get there. I’ll try to come by tonight, but if not, you’ll have to content yourself with Dannis Briskin, I guess.” She kisses him on the lips and waddles energetically across the living room and exits. Berekely can hear her speaking to someone in the hallway. It sounds like Tanisha Wells. Berkeley calls Eustacia Hathorne on the telephone and makes a lunch date for the next day. Eustacia tells him she has good news. “I was going to call you. I’ve arranged a poetry tour for you at several colleges in the region. I’ll fill you in tomorrow.” Then he turns on his computer and writes poetry for the rest of the day. At nightfall, he goes into the hallway. The door opposite opens, and Tanisha Wells lurches into the hallway, smiling broadly.

“Mr. Hays,” she blurts out.

“Ms. Wells,” Berkeley answers in a low voice. She leans closer to him. Berkeley looks into her eyes and feels heat--that old familiar heat--passing between them. His face burns. They both turn as the sound of footsteps on the stairs culminates in the sight of a man coming down the hallway towards them, smiling. He is a tall, slender, dark, handsome young man with a shaved head and a mustache and goatee.

“Hi, Sugar,” Tanisha sings softly--a lilting purr. Sugar is clearly glad to see her. He is neatly dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans, and sandals. “Caprice Rahim, Berkeley Hays,” Tanisha introduces them, pointing fingers in opposite directions.

“I’ve read your poetry, Mr. Hays. I like it tremendously. So much of it has, it seems to me, a combination of earthiness and ethereality, of vulgarity and a delicate and delicious aesthetic quality.”

Berkeley smiled into his large, dark eyes. “Thank you.”

Tanisha, giggling, pulls Caprice inside her apartment. Berkeley goes back into his apartment and rolls a joint. Rhonda walks in as he is lighting it.

“I met Tanisha Wells this morning when I left your apartment.”

“The lady across the hall from me.”

“Yeah.”

“In the hallway?”

“Uh huh.”

“I thought I heard you two talking after you left.”

“She was leaving for work just when I was leaving. She’s very nice. She likes you. In fact, I got the sense that she was really intrigued to see me coming out of your apartment first thing in the morning, because it gave her the idea that you like fat women, one of which she is, as you no doubt have noticed.”

“I may be going on a poetry reading tour.”

“Of colleges?”

“Yeah.”

“To read your poetry to young scholars.”

“You make it sound so sordid.”

Rhonda laughs. “I’m hungry.”

“Me too.”

“What’s to eat?”

“Peanut butter and jelly.” He hands her the joint.

“Sounds great.”

“We could go out.”

“If we eat peanut butter and jelly, we can be naked.”

“We’ve never eaten out together, Rhonda.”

Rhonda guffaws and snorts.

“No, you know what I mean.”

“What if people see us together?” she asks and then takes a hit on the joint.

“So what?”

She shrugs and then after a moment blows smoke out her mouth and nose. “You’re the doctor. Better wear a sweater: it might get cool. I like that old wool cardigan on you.”

“I didn’t know you noticed my clothes.”

“You’re terribly obtuse.”

“I guess I must be.”

“You’re only wearing a sleeveless blouse.”

“Fat people don’t get cold like thin people.”

They go outside. He has the sweater tied around his waist. Rhonda takes his hand and holds it as they walk down Oak Street. They eat Italian beef sandwiches at The Hangout, a dark, narrow restaurant half a block from Old Main and facing the mall, a shady greensward in the middle of campus. They drink a pitcher of beer.

“Look at these walls,” Rhonda says as they get up to leave, “The walls are covered with a mural featuring dozens of naked people.”

“Sort of modernist, neo-primitive people.”

“To be sure,” Rhonda says, laughing a big belly laugh. They saunter back outside and stroll across the dark mall. Rhonda takes his hand again. In the shadows of some trees, Berkeley pulls her close to him and kisses her on the mouth. While they are kissing, she unzips his baggy chinos and grasps his penis and begins to massage it and tug on it. Berkeley wets his fingers with his tongue and puts his hand under her skirt to find she is naked beneath it. They move into the adjacent shelter of bushes lining the front of the English building facing the mall. Rhonda straddles the prone man and sitting astride him, wriggles and slithers and rises up and down rhythmically. She leans on top of him and whispers dramatically in his ear, “I’m sliding my plumpness up and down on you, Berkeley Hays.” When Berkeley starts to groan as he comes, Rhonda forcefully presses her hands to his mouth while she suppresses laughter with only limited success. Then, still enveloping Berkeley’s penis inside her, Rhonda masturbates herself to orgasm, biting her lip at the moment of climax. She stands up and straightens her skirt. Berkeley fastens his pants. Rhonda lights a cigarette. “My car’s at your house,” she says and they walk back to Berkeley’s house in the cricket-ringing silence, holding hands, Rhonda snuggling up to his shoulder.

“I like you,” he tells her as they reach the front of his building. She smiles up at him. Inside, he pours two glasses of whiskey and hands her one.

“I admire you,” she tells him and takes a slug of her whiskey. “You’re the greatest living poet.” She bites her lower lip coyly. She ducks around him, sipping her drink as she heads for the bedroom, her thickness making her swagger. Berkeley sips his drink. She calls him into the bedroom.

“Look, Berkeley,” she whispers when he walks in, “there’s whatsherface, Dannis Briskin, putting on a show for you--the little slut.” Berkeley squats down at the window next to Rhonda. “Oh god, look,” Rhonda says, “It’s Corky Briskin.”

“The mother.”

“It looks like she’s scolding the little slut for exposing herself. She’s closed the curtains.” Rhonda sits on the edge of the bed and lights a cigarette.