working its way around the room for a few seconds before settling on a scene. When it found Martha she was naked and prone, kneestucked under her body, which was arranged as though in a kind of salutation, her feet and ass hanging off the end of the bed while her arms stretched out in front of her. She seemed to be waiting for him, and he approached with the camera in hand, focused on her unmoving body.
She gave way to him easily and he leaned into her, setting his free hand on the crook where her bony hip gave way to the soft thickness of flesh. Once he’d positioned himself there he didn’t move except to run the camera from her splayed ass up the long ellipses of her back to her shoulders and the cropped blond hair on the back of her head. Instantly that hair fixed the scene in time. Eddie remembered that she’d cut it to play Viola in a production of Twelfth Night. She rocked front to back on her knees, lazily at first and then with more purpose. The camera followed her for a moment before fixing in place as her head moved in and out of the scene.
After a few minutes of this, the view went sideways, as though he meant to put the camera down, until she looked back over her shoulder at him, and the camera went upright to catch the hungry smile on her face. She stared at the lens and rocked in front of him more deliberately. This went on for precisely two minutes and eighteen seconds, measured at the bottom of the screen, before she pulled herself off him and turned over, showing her whole body. She put a finger in her mouth and then reached down to hook it inside herself.
He had not up until then been aroused by watching the video, but now he was stirred in a sad, desperate way. She was perfect. He had always thought so. If he let this scene out into the world, this was the part that would be played over and over again. She moved with an odd innocence, the only emotion on her face a kind of curiosity. Eddie had the sense now that she was acting. Perhaps he’d understood as muchthen, because he turned the camera away from her, down to his own erection, as if to bring reality into the matter before quickly returning to her. When she withdrew her hand and brought it to her mouth again, he lowered himself onto the bed and her. The view turned awkward and uninviting—a bit of her shoulder, her jaw and ear, the headboard. Martha took the camera and turned it on him, lowering it slowly from his face to the point where his hips pressed against her thighs. The screen went blank.
Eddie closed his laptop, knowing that the only other option was to watch the thing again. More than once he’d been asked by a crude or drunk friend what it had been like with Martha Martin. He always shrugged the question off, not out of discretion but because he couldn’t really remember. Everything about that time—everything about her—had taken on a sheen of bitterness and regret, so that it was impossible to recover from it something so simple and pleasurable as two young people in love, enjoying each other.
He needed to get out of the apartment, to forget about things for a few hours. He ejected the disc and put it back in the case, which he placed on a shelf in the linen closet that Susan couldn’t reach without his help. He got in the elevator without knowing where he was going, but he quickly decided to head to Lexington Avenue to see what was playing at the movie theater. He would sit in the cool darkness of distraction. Susan would be home, soon after the movie was over, and they could talk about what they were going to do next. He got to the theater just in time for a showing of Mantis 3 : Slaying Mantis. Blakeman’s review of this installment in the series suggested that it was just the kind of mindless fantasy he needed. He found a spot near the front of the empty theater as previews started. The first was for another moviethat also starred Mantis, as part of a superhero collective that was fighting to save the earth from
She gave way to him easily and he leaned into her, setting his free hand on the crook where her bony hip gave way to the soft thickness of flesh. Once he’d positioned himself there he didn’t move except to run the camera from her splayed ass up the long ellipses of her back to her shoulders and the cropped blond hair on the back of her head. Instantly that hair fixed the scene in time. Eddie remembered that she’d cut it to play Viola in a production of Twelfth Night. She rocked front to back on her knees, lazily at first and then with more purpose. The camera followed her for a moment before fixing in place as her head moved in and out of the scene.
After a few minutes of this, the view went sideways, as though he meant to put the camera down, until she looked back over her shoulder at him, and the camera went upright to catch the hungry smile on her face. She stared at the lens and rocked in front of him more deliberately. This went on for precisely two minutes and eighteen seconds, measured at the bottom of the screen, before she pulled herself off him and turned over, showing her whole body. She put a finger in her mouth and then reached down to hook it inside herself.
He had not up until then been aroused by watching the video, but now he was stirred in a sad, desperate way. She was perfect. He had always thought so. If he let this scene out into the world, this was the part that would be played over and over again. She moved with an odd innocence, the only emotion on her face a kind of curiosity. Eddie had the sense now that she was acting. Perhaps he’d understood as muchthen, because he turned the camera away from her, down to his own erection, as if to bring reality into the matter before quickly returning to her. When she withdrew her hand and brought it to her mouth again, he lowered himself onto the bed and her. The view turned awkward and uninviting—a bit of her shoulder, her jaw and ear, the headboard. Martha took the camera and turned it on him, lowering it slowly from his face to the point where his hips pressed against her thighs. The screen went blank.
Eddie closed his laptop, knowing that the only other option was to watch the thing again. More than once he’d been asked by a crude or drunk friend what it had been like with Martha Martin. He always shrugged the question off, not out of discretion but because he couldn’t really remember. Everything about that time—everything about her—had taken on a sheen of bitterness and regret, so that it was impossible to recover from it something so simple and pleasurable as two young people in love, enjoying each other.
He needed to get out of the apartment, to forget about things for a few hours. He ejected the disc and put it back in the case, which he placed on a shelf in the linen closet that Susan couldn’t reach without his help. He got in the elevator without knowing where he was going, but he quickly decided to head to Lexington Avenue to see what was playing at the movie theater. He would sit in the cool darkness of distraction. Susan would be home, soon after the movie was over, and they could talk about what they were going to do next. He got to the theater just in time for a showing of Mantis 3 : Slaying Mantis. Blakeman’s review of this installment in the series suggested that it was just the kind of mindless fantasy he needed. He found a spot near the front of the empty theater as previews started. The first was for another moviethat also starred Mantis, as part of a superhero collective that was fighting to save the earth from
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