The Passionate Poetess

On every second Wednesday during the summer, Wrose Wrigley, the poetess laureate of our swank section of town, held intimate alfresco suppers, during which she favored guests with recitations of her verse and prose. Naturally only the most cultured were invited to these gatherings; one had either to belong to the Book-of-the-Month Club or to know somebody who did.

As a culture-conscious young man, I had long yearned to attend a Wrose Wrigley party, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would ever be invited. (My wildest dreams, incidentally, are pretty wild. The other night, for example, I dreamt I was attending a polo match aboard the Queen Mary. All the spectators except me had pencil sharpeners with which they were putting points on frankfurters. So distressed was I at not having a pencil sharpener that I burst into tears, whereupon a nude young woman tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that I had just been elected lieutenant governor of Vermont. At this intelligence I became very excited and climbed the young woman, who had now turned into a ladder. Then I woke...) A psychoanalyst friend of mine (well, he isn't actually a psychoanalyst, but he had recently read the first volume in the Works of Sigmund Freud) told me, after I had described the dream to him, that its meaning was quite obvious: I had an unfulfilled desire to visit Yellowstone Park.

But I digress. I was explaining how a literary neophyte like myself happened to be invited to a Wrose Wrigley party. Actually, my wife was the one who received the invitation, and she told me I could tag along if I wanted to. This was doubly exciting. For on top of the thrill of attending a Wrigley affair was the no small pleasure of an evening with my sweet spouse. Following a series of minor misunderstandings, my wife had begun spending many of her nights away from our little home, and I looked forward to the opportunity of conversing with her, even in the presence of others.

As soon as we arrived at Miss Wrigley's, my wife began gulping (continued on next page) martinis. She was skunk drunk within fifteen minutes and I didn't see her the rest of the evening.

How shall I describe our hostess? Where to begin? Her eyes, perhaps, were her most arresting feature. Minute and milky, they seemed at first glance like a pair of ball bearings; in moments of passion, as I was to discover later, they rolled back into her head and quite disappeared. Her nose was piquantly kiltered. An inscrutable smile played over her dentures. Moles and related tumescences gave her face an attractive irregularity.

Her body can best be described as womanly. A peekaboo blouse revealed a full, checkered bosom (the result, I learned later, of sun-bathing behind a lattice). A multi-colored dirndl strained at her commodious hips. Her conical legs ended in the smallest adult feet in the Occident. It was difficult to guess her age, so I asked her. She replied with a tap of her fan that broke the skin on my forehead.

Beyond her, in the garden, I could hear the sounds of well-bred revelry. How the mots justes must be crackling, I thought, how delicious must be the badinage--a thrust here, a parry there, an endless contest of wit and literacy, endlessly delightful. I gave a little shiver.

Many of the guests were people I had met at the little revelries my wife had held in our own home. But although the cast of characters, so to speak, was largely the same as had graced those earlier events, the nature of tonight's gathering was entirely different. Where my wife's parties had frankly been vehicles for relaxation (orgies practically), this soirée, while no less pleasurable, had behind it a more serious purpose--to promote the arts, to instruct, to edify, to discuss, to shed light on those aspects of American culture that touched the lives of all us members of the upper-middle class.

I was a listener, rather than a participant, in most of the conversation that evening. I took notes on as much as I could. Let me quote an excerpt from my notes, a typical sample of the kind of talk that went on at Wrose Wrigley's party:

Mr. Oxnard: I read a mighty interesting book last night.

Mrs. Holloway: I just never get time to read any more, what with--

Mr. Herwig: (interrupting): What was the name of the book?

Mrs. Holloway: Name of the book? Lord, I just never get time to read any more.

Mr. Herwig: I meant the book Ed (Mr. Oxnard) was reading.

Mr. Holloway: Oh.

Mr. Oxnard: I forget exactly. Mae (Mrs. Oxnard) would know. Mae?

Mr. Sundberg: She went to the john.

Mr. Oxnard: Well, when she comes back she'll know. (Note: As it turned out, Mrs. Oxnard never did come back.)

Mr. Atterbury: I understand there's a lot of money in the book game.

Mr. Benson: The movie game, that's where the money is. Why, I hear Gregory Peck spends fifty thousand dollars a year on milk baths alone.

Mr. Bradbury: I've got a cousin in the weather-stripping game out in California, he tells me Rita Hayworth is bald as an egg.

Mrs. McEwen: It's those milk baths. They clog your follicles.

Mr. White: Speaking of follicles, Leopold Stokowski is coming to the auditorium next Friday.

Mr. Kraft: I hear he's got a cork leg.

Mr. Atterbury: I understand there's a lot of money in the cork-leg game.

And so it went all evening long, I sitting there listening avidly and regretting I had never learned short-arm so I could catch every word.

At midnight Miss Wrigley cried cheerily, "Soup's on!"--her charming way of indicating that supper was ready. The guests flocked to a gaily festooned table on which peanut-butter sandwiches were arranged to spell out: ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS. "What the hell does that mean?" said several, feigning ignorance of this classic Greek phrase. With many a laugh and cheer, the tasty repast was dispatched.

Supper over, Miss Wrigley lighted candles and announced with a blush that she would now read her latest work. "Good heavens, look what time it's getting to be!" cried everyone, glancing at his watch. Hastily they made their good-bys and departed.

Thus it became my privilege to be the sole member of the audience at the first reading of Wrose Wrigley's latest work.

"Dear me, this always happens," said Miss Wrigley, watching the last of the guests leaping over the hedge. "Well, no matter," she smiled. "I'll read to you," she said to me.

"Sweet," I murmured.

"It's a poem," she said, "called My Garden."

"Sweet," I murmured.

She read in her ringing baritone:

"My garden it is fragrant,

The blossoms they do bloom,

So wild and free and flagrant

Out of the earth's sweet womb.

"When you pass it, neighbor,

And see the flowers grow

Do you realize the labor

It took to make it so?

"The hoeing and the weeding,

The spraying and the work,

For the art of flower breeding,

It never lets you shirk.

"A gardener is wiser

The moment that he knows

It takes a heap of fertilizer

To make a rose a rose."

"Jolly!" I cried. "Capital!"

"I write prose too," she confessed. "Stories, essays, mottoes."

And now I had a confession to make. "I'd give anything to be able to write," 1 said, rubbing my toe in the turf.

"But you can!" she exclaimed. "I'm sure you can."

I smiled bravely. "No. I've tried a million times. I just never know how to start. I think if I could get past the beginning, the rest would come easily."

"I know, I know. Beginnings used to be difficult for me, too, until I learned the secret." She slipped her hand inside my shirt and tapped my chest to emphasize her words. "The beginning of a story must excite the interest of the reader, must make him eager to know what is coming."

"Ah," I said, comprehending. "You mean the beginning of a story must be arresting and startling."

"Exactly."

"Now let me see if I can think of one." I knit my brows in thought. Miss Wrigley gripped my upper thighs to help me concentrate. Suddenly a perfect beginning occurred to me. I leaped up excitedly, upsetting Miss Wrigley upon the lawn. I brushed her off--twice, at her insistence.

"I've got it, Miss Wrigley," I shouted.

"Splendid," said my hostess, drawing me down beside her on the glider.

"Don't you want to hear it?" I asked.

"Later," she said.

Suddenly--I could scarcely believe it--her lips were on mine and she was wrenching at my clothing.

I tore myself away. "You're mad!" I cried hoarsely.

"Yes. Yes. Mad for you." She resumed her advances.

"Miss Wrigley," I said coldly, "please desist. I'm just not that kind of a boy."

"Nonsense. You're a normal human being with normal impulses. Why deny them?"

"May I remind you that I am a married man?"

"But what has that to do with us?"

"Why, everything!"

"I know what you're going to say about fidelity and all that outmoded rot."

"Outmoded rot! Why, it's the very foundation stone of marriage."

"Silly boy! Have I suggested that you leave your wife?"

"No, but--"

(continued on page 28) Poetess(continued from page 14)

"Have I proposed any long-term arrangement between us?"

"No, but--"

"All I ask is that the two of us while away an idle hour with a very natural and pleasant act."

"It's more than that. To me it's one of the most beautiful and important things in the world."

"Who's arguing?"

"Well, then--"

"Look. Do you know what repressions are?"

"Sure. That's when everybody's out of work."

"No, no. Repressions."

"Oh ... No."

"That's when you stifle a natural instinct. Very bad for you. Makes you nauseous."

"Maybe so, but I can't do it. I can't do anything that I can't tell my wife about. I don't think married people should have secrets."

"Ridiculous. Nobody tells his wife everything. There are certain things you do in private, like clipping the hairs in your nostrils."

"How did you know?"

"So, you see, you really have no argument. Let's get going."

"But I don't love you."

"This has nothing to do with love. This is pure friendship. You are a fine, sensitive person, the kind I want for a friend, to be close to. And nothing brings people closer together than the act I propose."

"It does that," I had to admit.

"This above all, dear boy, to thine own self be true. Be true to the natural, normal instincts that are your strength, your very life--not to the bigotry and superstition and sickness that others would impose on you. That's your choice here: between sickness and health, between progress and reaction, between light and darkness. Which will you choose?"

I made a choice that all who prefer health to sickness, progress to reaction, and light to darkness would have to applaud.

• • •

I sat in my office the following afternoon spinning in my swivel chair and thinking about Wrose Wrigley's party and all the things I had learned about literature and repressions and outmoded morality.

I rang for my secretary, Mrs. Hargreaves, and she came in with her notebook.

"Take a letter, Mrs. Hargreaves," I said. "To Mr. George Bugleform, Allied Manufacturing Corp.: In reply to yours of the 5th, I cannot go along with your suggestion. I am strongly affected ... uh ... strongly affected . . ."

And strongly affected I was this minute as I looked at Mrs. Hargreaves on the divan. Her sheer summer dress clung enviably to her abundant curves; the pretty pink tip of her tongue kept darting out of the side of her mouth as she concentrated on her Gregg. I glanced at her speculatively for a while. At length, "Why not?" I said to myself and rose from my desk. I walked over to her side.

She looked up. "Yes?" she said.

In lieu of reply I seized her in my arms and rained kisses on her bee-stung lips.

She tore herself away. "You're mad!" she cried hoarsely.

"Yes. Yes. Mad for you." I resumed my advances.

"Sir!" she said coldly, "please desist. I'm just not that kind of a girl."

"Nonsense. You're a normal human being with normal impulses. Why deny them?"

"May I remind you that I am a married woman?"

"But what has that to do with us?"

"Why, everything!"

"I know what you're going to say about fidelity and all that outmoded rot."

"Outmoded rot! Why, it's the very foundation stone of marriage."

"Silly girl! Have I suggested that you leave your husband?"

"No, but--"

"Have I proposed any long-term arrangement between us?"

"No, but--"

"All I ask is that the two of us while away an idle hour with a very natural and pleasant act."

"It's more than that. To me it's one of the most beautiful and important things in the world."

"Who's arguing?"

"Well, then--"

"Look. Do you know what repressions are?"

"Sure. That's when everybody's out of work."

"No, no. Repressions"

"Oh ... No."

"That's when you stifle a natural instinct. Very bad for you. Makes you nauseous."

"Maybe so, but I can't do it. I can't do anything that I can't tell my husband about. I don't think married people should have secrets."

"Ridiculous. Nobody tells her husband everything. There are certain things you do in private, like clipping (continued on page 35)Poetess (continued from page 28) the hairs in your nostrils."

"How did you know?"

"So, you see, you really have no argument. Let's get going."

"But I don't love you."

"This has nothing to do with love. This is pure friendship. You are a fine, sensitive person, the kind I want for a friend, to be close to. And nothing brings people closer together than the act I propose."

"It does that," she had to admit.

"This above all, lovely lady, to thine own self be true. Be true to the natural, normal instincts that are your strength, your very life--not to the bigotry and superstition and sickness that others would impose on you. That's your choice here: between sickness and health, between progress and reaction, between light and darkness. Which will you choose?"

Confidently, I closed in on her.

She pushed me away. "But what if I get pregnant?" she said.

"Hmmm," I said. This had not come up last night. "Excuse me," I said.

I went to the phone and dialed Wrose Wrigley for instructions, but her maid said she was out buying hormones. There was nothing to do but ad-lib it.

I returned to Mrs. Hargreaves. "What was your last statement again?" I asked.

"I said what if I get pregnant."

"Oh.... Well, that's better than being repressed."

That sounded a little lame.

"And it's too hot," said Mrs. Hargreaves.

"Heat's nothing but a repression," I said.

That didn't sound so good either.

"Look," she said, "if you feel this way, why don't you go home to your wife?"

"That's all you know about it," I said, kicking the rug. Sighing, I got to my feet. "Well, we might as well go back to work."

We dictated twenty-seven damn letters that afternoon.

"You're a normal man with normal impulses," she said. "Why deny them?"