Free The Ravine by Paul Quarrington Page A

narrative.) So I attribute Ellis’s lack of musicality to some genetic throwback. I will say this, though—Ellis can dance. She takes all sorts of lessons—ballet, jazz, tap and Scottish—competing in those disciplines that allow it (Scottish dancing is a highly competitive affair), performing whenever she gets the chance. She is a sturdily made little beast, with legs that would look more at home on a steroid-riddled sprinter. She inherited this tendency toward muscularity from her mother, Veronica, and I guess I can put this off no longer.
    I’m going to write about Ronnie.

    “Do you want me to talk sexy, baby, or do you want to talk sexy to me?”
    “You know, I just got through repeating my Visa number about forty times. My mouth is incapable of sexiness.”
    “You want
me
to talk dirty, then.”
    “Dirty, or sexy? I mean, I could probably talk dirty. Like I say, I just got through saying my Visa number over and over again.”
    “Okay, so go. Tell me what you like.”
    “Uh …”
    “Like tell me what you’d want me to do if I was there. What kind of thing? Do you like to have your cock sucked? ’Cause I would
love
to suck your cock.”
    “Well, yes, I mean, that can be very pleasant.”
    “I could lick your asshole.”
    “Uh-huh. Um … sure.”
    “What would you do to me if I were there?”
    “If you were here? Hmm. I’d probably be incapable of actual physical intimacy.”
    “Oooh, baby.”
    “What?”
    “Sorry, that was just kind of a habit kind of a thing.”
    “I suppose I could feel your breasts. I could try to do that very tenderly. You might enjoy it.
I
would
really
enjoy it, think what you will of me.”
    “I’d like it if you felt my titties.”
    “I suppose it’s kind of adolescent of me.”
    “Do you always analyze all this shit?”
    “I think so.”
    “So you’re gonna feel my titties, ‘the twins,’ I like to call them, and I should tell you, they are awesome.”
    “Awesome. I would fall down before them on trembling knees.”
    “And what else?”
    “Well. Good question. I guess I could, um …”
    “Lick my pussy?”
    “Just so.”
    “Tell me how you’d lick it.”
    “How much variance is there?”
    “You know what, you have to just take a deep breath and give yourself
over
to this.”
    “Huh?”
    “There are as many ways of licking pussy as there are tongues and pussies. An infinite array of motion and sensation. No other tongue has ever felt like yours, nor will any tongue feel like yours again.”
    “Uh-huh. I’m falling asleep, aren’t I? I’m drifting off.”
    “And the contact cannot help but be intimate. We will connect physically. It will be both fleeting and eternal.”
    “I am most definitely passed out here.”
    “Hang up the phone, darling, or this is going to cost you a fortune.”
    “All right. All right. Good night.”

8 | THE EX
    I FIRST LAID EYES UPON HER WHEN I WAS THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD. I WAS a young playwright who had met with some success, although in any other career this success would translate as dismal failure. My plays earned me very little money, and given the time I spent working on the things, my actual hourly wage likely didn’t top a buck. But my life was thoroughly enjoyable, because the theatre is a world that allows, even encourages, transitory, superficial relationships, the kind I liked best. And these relationships were typically with actresses, pretty and shapely and deeply insecure. It was hard not to hurt these women, sometimes it seemed avoiding it was impossible, so I had acquired a reputation as a rake and a cad, a reputation that gave me some small satisfaction.
    I was also reputed to be a prolific writer, churning out two or three plays a year, although at this period in my life I seemed to have dried up. Really, though, I hadn’t dried up, I had rather become all too sodden, liquor-logged. I would rise around noon, read newspapers and magazines until around six (a torpid activity to which I gave the name