Kissing the Beehive

"I heard an interesting story today. A friend of mine owns a restaurant up on Sixty-eighth Street. A few months ago, a man came in and ordered filet mignon. My friend prides himself on buying the absolute best and freshest meat every day. I don't know anything about it, but the food tastes pretty good to me. So the customer had the filet and when he was done, said it was the best steak he'd ever eaten. The place is expensive, but every day for the next week he comes in and orders another filet. Big tipper, completely satisfied, always full of compliments.

"One day my friend didn't get to the market, or something went wrong, whatever, they didn't buy fresh meat. It was like from yesterday, but who cares, right? The customer comes in for his filet. When it's served, instead of taking a bite, he immediately bends over and sniffs it. Then he cuts a tiny piece, tastes it, and puts down his silver. 'This meat isn't fresh.' Calls for the bill and walks out. They never see him again. My grandmother used to say, 'Love and eggs must be fresh to be enjoyed.' What I can't understand is why they didn't just tell the man the steak isn't fresh today – have something else."

"Come on, Veronica, you don't lie at all?"

She emptied her drink. " 'It's easy to believe in yourself when you're lying, because you're talking about someone else.' You wrote that. I have it stuck above my desk."

I put up both hands in surrender. "But writers are notorious liars. You have to be."

"Could I ask you not to lie to me? I promise I can take a punch. You don't have to impress me because I already am. I like what you look like, and I swear to God it doesn't matter to me if you were on the varsity football team or know aikido."

"What if I tell you I was married three times and all my exwives think I'm a dog?"

"I knew about the wives because I read all the articles I could find about you. I don't care about them because they're them and I'm different. Give me a chance and I'll show you."

"Boy, you really take it to the hoop, don't you?"

"The day we met, at your book signing? I was dying to talk to you. But when we did, I chickened out. I wanted to tell you . . . No, I can't do it even now. I'm afraid."

"What about the truth you were talking about?"

"Okay. I guess there's no difference between chickening out and lying. I want to go out with you, I want to be with you."

"No boyfriend?"

"No boyfriend. No AIDS. I'm not a feminist and I'm not promiscuous, but sitting here with you this close, I just want to kiss your mouth for a long time."

She sang in her sleep. It was only one of a number of unanticipated discoveries I was to make that eventful night. We went back to her apartment, but everything happened so fast after we got there that I forgot to look around the place to see how she lived.

We walked in the door, she kicked it shut with her foot – boom! – and took me straight into the bedroom. No matter how much experience you've had, no matter how cool or worldly you think you are, nothing prepares you for a woman who leads you into the bedroom two seconds after you've entered her apartment on the first date. I felt twelve again and as i

A thick silver belt buckle that she unhitched with a couple of quick movements of her hand – right, left, open. The khakis were open as quickly and then that sound any man will remember when he's old and horizontal and gasping for his last breath – the hiss of a zipper going down. Black panties. Off.

"Come here."

I'd been sitting on the bed but stood quickly and went over to her. She wouldn't let me touch her until she'd undressed me. "Not yet. Enjoy no for a few minutes."

Unlike her own strip, she undid the buttons on my shirt very slowly, stopping frequently to look at me and smile. I could smell her hair. It was some i

When my shirt was on the floor, she ran her fingertips across my chest, shoulders, down my arms and across my hands. She came in close and her hands went up my back. When I bent to kiss her, she shook her head no and turned away, although her hands continued to move.

"Veronica?"

Her hands stopped and she pulled back.

"I don't have a condom."

She bent down, reached into the pocket of her trousers and brought out a handful.

"How could you know?" I tried to sound lighthearted and skeptical in one.

"I didn't. I hoped."

Although my novels are much too full of sleazy sex, I won't even attempt to describe what it was like to sleep with Veronica Lake. Translating sex into words is not meant to be. Sure, you can whip up all sorts of steam and whipped cream for dummies by verbally throwing body parts together, but it's so far from the real thing that it's like saying a picture postcard looks like the place itself.

Much of what she knew and did I had experienced before, but what thrilled me was the combination of her fluidity and ardor. Like being out on the floor with a superb dancer who knew every step, never wanted to sit down and made you feel like you were Fred Astaire.

I don't know when we fell asleep but I awoke in the middle of the night with her hair across my throat and a quiet, sleepy voice somewhere nearby singing Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." At first I thought we'd left the radio on, but then remembered there had been no radio on. Then through the cobwebs of sleep I thought it came from out on the street until I realized the singing was too close. I pushed the hair off my face and turned toward the woman I'd fallen asleep next to.

"Veronica?"

"Uptown Girl . . ."

"Veronica?"

"You've been livin' . . ."

"Veronica?"

Her head was turned away from me. It came slowly around. "Hi," in that same sweet singing voice.

"You sing in your sleep!"

"I know."

"You were singing 'Uptown Girl'!"

"Press my nose and the song'll change. Kiss me?"

In the morning I woke before her and had a chance to look around. Her apartment and the things in it kept saying the word shipshape to me. It was tidy but not obsessively clean. There were a few hairpins and women's things lying around the bathroom, some dirty cups in the kitchen sink. Despite that, there was an overall pleasing neatness and order to the place. There was only a bedroom and a living room that doubled as her study. The nicest thing about the apartment was sun, which came through the windows making everything feel more airy.

Writers are inveterate snoops and these are some of the other things I noticed about my new lover's home. She read mostly books on film, some history, poetry and biographies of artists. The furniture was cozy rather than sleek and her living room was full of exotic cut flowers in vases of wildly different colors and sizes.

What was most interesting was an unfinished letter that had been left on her desk. I glanced at it, then looked again because the handwriting was magnificent. If I hadn't known it was hers, I would have thought a man had written it. Each letter was bold and perfectly vertical, extremely distinctive and artistic. Nearby was a fountain pen. Very large, it was a luminous blue with gold cap. I carefully picked it up.

"Isn't it a beauty?"

"I love fountain pens."

She came over and leaned her chin on my shoulder. "Are you looking around? That's what I like to do too after I've spent a night with someone. See them through where they live. What conclusion did you reach? Don't lie."