The Devil Tree by Jerzy Kosinski Read Free Book Online Page B

imaginary fable: Karen was the beautiful and always difficult-to-please Lady Forsythia, and I, Lord Willow of Brook, was her proud though shy lover and defender.
    Changing her voice, Karen would telephone my house as Lady Forsythia. Finally Mam’selle d’Arcy, my governess, feeling it was her responsibility to know about my friends, asked me how I had met this Lady Forsythia. “I was introduced to her by her friend, Lord Willow of Brook,” I replied. “They’re lovers, you know.”
    Now, even more curious, Mam’selle d’Arcy probed further. “And where did you meet this Lord Willow of Brook?”
    “Where else but in the house of Yugo Slav?” I said.
    “And who is that Mr. Slav?”
    “Yugo Slav? A nice chap from Yugoslavia. He’s also in love with Lady Forsythia.”
    Mam’selle d’Arcy was distressed. “You’re so young, and already you know the strangest people, Jonathan,” she moaned.
    •   •   •
     
    Although Karen talked freely about herself and described the sex she liked, I could not do the same; often I merely said yes or no to the questions she asked, or, silent, I would simply begin to kiss her, my hands moving over her shoulders and breasts, slowly and hesitantly descending toward her belly and thighs, stroking or kneading, teasing her flesh. Or I would start by sitting at her feet, stroking her calves, kissing and licking the inside of her knees, my hands and mouth grazing her thighs, circling around her flesh until she would start to force herself upon me, insistent and demanding, dictating my pace and the direction of my touch.
    Karen once said that it’s one thing if a guy is making it with a girl and she really doesn’t know how far she wants to go and then begins to be afraid and draws the line. But it’s another when a girl sets out to get finger-fucked and gives nothing in return. “Suppose you didn’t want to get laid by a particular guy,” I asked. “Would you still want him to finger you?”
    “Why not?” Karen answered. “If I can get an orgasm out of it, I don’t need any real fucking.” She told me she was embarrassed and frightened by me only once, on our first night near the beach, but as soon as she felt my fingers inside her she felt only pleasure. It was the night of her first orgasm.
    •   •   •
     
    I remember a night we spent in a motel. Karen, who had downed a glass of straight vodka, was particularly free and abandoned, demanding to be made love to, trailing me even into the bathroom. She insisted on saying aloud all that we did to each other, all that she wanted me to do, andall that she suspected I never would do. Her onslaught left me, at first, excited, then deflated, too quickly spent. Annoyed with my embarrassment and my reluctance to satisfy her with my hand and mouth, Karen suddenly pushed me away. “You’re hiding something from me, your lordship,” she said.
    “What?” I asked.
    “A fossil in a glass case: yourself.” Smiling despicably, she went on. “Do you recall, sir, how you died? Was it in a battle, in a victory, or were you taken prisoner and tortured to death? Better yet, did you die of an inherited malaise?”
    This was my first defeat at her hands, and I’ve never recovered from it. After that, everything seemed to lack spontaneity, as if it were premeditated by an emotionally dead child. Unable to respond, I felt she had infected me with her own deadness.
    I began to wonder: why did I choose a woman who cannot give of herself, whose love triggers in me a sense of competition and then makes me want to retreat? I see a ludicrous picture: it is after midnight; Jonathan James Whalen, the gray-haired, prematurely aged scion of Wealth, Health, Power, & Freedom Unlimited, is lying alone in his bedroom in his palatial home. Earlier in the day he has bragged to his psychiatrist that he has never conceded to a woman, yet Karen, his wife and the only woman he has ever desired, has for years preferred to sleep in a separate