Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 82
the time, waited for the end of the thunderstorm that was
frightening Helen, waited for the bus, the boat, the train, the
plane, the hydrofoil, the helicopter, the ski lift, the five o’clock
whistle and the fire alarm to deliver his beloved into his arms. It
seemed that he had spent an inordinate amount of his life and his
energies waiting, but that waiting was not, even when no one
came, an absolute frustration; it took some of its nature from the
grain of the vortex.
But why did he long so for Jody when he had often thought that it
was his role in life to possess the most beautiful women? Women
possessed the greatest and the most rewarding mysteriousness.
They were approached in darkness and sometimes, but not always,
possessed in darkness. They were an essence, fortified and
besieged, worth conquering and, once conquered, flowing with
spoils. At his horniest he wanted to reproduce, to populate
hamlets, towns, villages and cities. It seemed to be his desire to
fructify that drove him to imagine fifty women quickening with
his children. Women were Ali Baba’s cave, they were the light of
the morning, they were waterfalls, thunderstorms, they were the
immensities of the planet, and a vision of this had led him to
decide on something better when he rolled naked off his last naked
scoutmaster. There was a trace of reproach in his memory of their
splendor, but reproach was not what he meant. Considering the
sovereignty of his unruly cock, it was only a woman who could
crown that redness with purpose.
There was, he thought, some sameness of degree in sexual
possession and sexual jealousy; and accommodations and
falsehoods were needed to equate this with the inconstancy of the
flesh. He had often overlooked anything expedient in his loves. He
had desired and pursued women who charmed him with their lies
and enchanted him with their absolute irresponsibility. He had
bought their clothes and their tickets, paid their hairdressers and
their landlords and, in one case, a facial surgeon. When he bought
some diamond earrings he had deliberately judged the sexual