I tried not to think too much about what was happening, what had become a regular thing with Larry and me. He seemed to need this—to touch me, fondle me, suck on me—as much as four or five times a week, enough that it seemed to have become a permanent part of my life in this house, of my relationship with Larry and even Charlotte. I grew to the point that, whenever he made his advances, I no longer felt the dread I did at first. Or the nausea. I figured I was getting used to it, enough that I didn’t notice it much anymore, like the smell of your dog or stale cigarette smoke in your house that just seems to go away if you live with it long enough. In some ways it was as if nothing was happening at all. I’d become, I think, like the prostitute who could eat an apple or read a book while her john did all sorts of things to her body. I thought—those infrequent times when I actually thought about it—this was the small price I had to pay for all the other good things in my life, the nice house, the clothes, the food, and what I still saw as genuine love from Larry and Charlotte.
I could never tell Larry these things, of course. I couldn’t talk to him at all about what he was doing, just as he himself never once uttered a word about it. I thought if I ever did ask him what he was doing, he’d likely have said, “What do you mean?” The way the man in the cartoon says, “What elephant?” As if it hadn’t been his hand pulling at my dick, he hadn’t any idea what I was talking about; he’d been busy driving or watching TV or sleeping. I think he knew I would never ask. Perhaps that was why he kept coming back to me again and again and again. I couldn’t say anything.
Apparently, neither could Charlotte. I sometimes thought Larry was being reckless, the places and times of day he chose to do this. Surely, Charlotte had seen. How could she not? She acted as if she had no clue what was going on. I can recall several occasions when I lay on the couch next to Larry, watching TV as Larry’s hand steadily worked away on me beneath the blue and white afghan, sometimes to the point that I actually came and had to roll over to keep from crying out—while Charlotte sat in the easy chair maybe seven or eight feet away from us, chuckling at Mr. Ed or Dick van Dyke or Lucille Ball, smoking her cigarette, sipping her iced tea. I wondered if there was something wrong with her eyes and ears.
Or had she just been playing the game all along with Larry and me?