Other Plans by Constance C. Greene Page B

said. She whispered to Ceil that she, personally, knew of more than one hundred ways to perform oral sex.
    Oral sex? You mean kissing? Ceil said. Oh no, the purple-eyed siren said, opening the book. That wasn’t what she meant. This is what she meant.
    The memory of those sex manuals went with Ceil to her marriage bed. But Henry, after a few sorties resulting in a week-long crick in his neck, called it quits and returned to his conservative ways.
    Then, on their first Christmas, Henry bought Ceil a red-lace teddy, cut high on the thighs and low on the chest. He presented it to her somewhat shamefacedly, not wanting her to take his present amiss. Ceil, delighted by what she took to be an unleashing of Henry’s hitherto rather restrained sexuality, threw her arms around him and pushed them both toward the couch, the nearest thing to hand. But Henry consulted his watch and said, “If we’re going to be at your parents’ house by noon, we better get going, Ceil.”
    All right for him. After Christmas dinner, they went home and Ceil oiled and scented herself and put on her teddy. Henry, in the meantime, went out for an evening stroll. She waited for the sound of his key. When it came, she threw open the apartment door and stood with her fingers laced behind her head.
    â€œFor God’s sake, Ceil!” Henry slammed the door as if something fierce had followed him home and was even now snapping at his heels. “She might see you!” “She” was Mrs. Romero, their plump and affable neighbor across the hall. Mrs. Romero borrowed sugar and gin indiscriminately and liked to keep her finger on their pulse.
    â€œHow do you like it?” Ceil turned this way and that, a perfect lingerie model. “Don’t I look terrific?” She meant to say “Doesn’t it look terrific?” complimenting both herself and Henry’s taste. A Freudian slip; the best, the only kind.
    â€œYou l-l-look fine,” Henry said, stuttering a bit, as he’d done as a child. “Better put something on over that or you’ll take cold.”
    Ceil stomped to the bedroom, gritting her teeth, talking to herself. “What did he give it to me for?” she muttered in a loud voice. “What the heck did he pay all that money for if he didn’t want me to wear the damned thing?” She went to the closet and put on her old sneakers and a long gray sweater of Henry’s riddled with moth holes over her teddy.
    â€œOkay, mister,” she said, coming back to him, “my price is five for a half hour, ten for ten minutes. What’ll it be?”
    Henry patted his pockets, came up with two ones. “It’s all I have,” he said. “What will that get me?” He smiled his lovely quiet smile and the shivering started up.
    â€œThe works,” she said.
    Nobody ever really levels with you as to what the first baby really looks like. Fresh from the womb, Leslie was a shock. She had a full head of wild black hair and a high and raging voice that scared them both. “She’s an anarchist,” Henry said, trying to smile. “A beautiful anarchist.”
    â€œShe’s pretty ugly,” Ceil said. “If I’d known she was going to look like that, I never would’ve had her.” She burst into tears at this unaccountable sentiment, and Henry patted her shoulder to comfort her, though he felt in need of comforting himself. “She’s not ugly,” he said. “Don’t say that, Ceil. She’s beautiful.”
    Leslie’s livid umbilical cord refused to heal properly and fall off. It was still dangling there, staring up from her tiny middle like an angry eye when they brought her home from the hospital. Leslie would never have a pretty belly button, Ceil mourned. Never be able to wear a bikini. Oh, take her back, please. Bring me a pretty one.
    She decided she was an unnatural mother. Deeply ashamed of herself, she never told