Chant Royal

    by Susan Stevens

However can I get her on her back?  he mused.
Dear God, she intellectualizes everything.  Just what
will move her to quit thinking?  I want to see this thing fused
now-—I've got a picture of my hands moving over her.  It's not 
that what we have already—-what we say—-doesn't excite me.  Lord
knows, her voice is a rousing strip-tease.  But when I move toward
her, she cringes like a cornered hare, her eyes in desperate furor
and prohibitive!  I tell her then, "I'd like to know you in more
ways than through our poems and chats, and let things, too,
resonate with the body part. . . ."   She's going!  Should I try humor?
"Lady, don't!  Lie down—-I want to talk to you."

She's wary.  Amazing how I always get these reluctant ones, confused
about their sexuality, me, or how they got in this spot.
How can I get her on her back, without making her feel used?
(That seems to be their main complaint, even when they're so hot
I'm never enough.)  Actually, I think women are dreadfully bored
by men's desires:  always deficient in true regard and reduced to stored
sperm instead of tenderness.  My wanting to have her on the floor
or plowing her atop this table, as Gauguin did it in The Wolf at the Door,
makes me churlish and indelicate.  No matter the plan, she'll think me too
peremptory.  Her words as I drift bedward settle it (temptress? or 
lady?):  "Don't lie down!  I want to talk to you."

She wants to talk to me.  Just talk.  I swear, I'm not used
to waiting this long for something physical.  How many sonnets have I got
to write before she lets me "act out the rest," as Donne rapped while he perused
some lovely's physiognomy?  And how often has she said she's not
buying the body-mind dichotomy?  (If that's the case, one word
leading to another should have a corollary in the bedroom.)  Sure, I've heard 
the virtues of waiting, leading-up-to, teasing—-all the ploys of the whore;
but this one's had practice of a different kind.  She's more
inviting than she wants to be, or knows.  "What should I do,"
I ask her, "die for want of you?"  She smiles.  "Would you cajole this poor
lady?  Don't lie.  Down!  I want to talk.  To you."

I've been reading to her for hours.  And it's kind of nice, amused
both of us, actually.  If I was trying to get her in the sack, I forgot
why, since words are more provocative than I'd guessed.  Oh, I've abused
the notion of intimacy before, feeling foolish after the sex was shot.
Right now I've got a good feel of her sense of life, and a general disregard 
for, say, her breasts, although she'd find it devilishly hard
keeping them out of my face.  I keep thinking what we've got in store
for each other.  What is that perfume?  Gardenia?  Lilac?  I'm more
desperate than I've ever been, and she knows it.  What I want to do
with her defies words.  "Please, no more questions.  And don't be sore,
lady.  Don't.  Lie down.  I want to.  Talk?  To you,

I suppose I'm some sort of intellectual release.  In lieu of sex, you choose
a fine idea.  You're telling me that somewhere along the way, brains begot
pleasure.  Now tell me how long you'll keep a man at arm's length!  And who's
going to believe we had this conversation?"  -—I can see I have a lot
at stake:   my reputation, pride, credibility.  Without a single word
I wanted her.  Instead, she's had her way with me, stirred
things up philosophically.  Now: is a certain tension more
alluring than the crashing together of bodies (and letting passion make poor
our desire)?  Passion.  What's passion?  Ladies will construe
it in cerebral patter.  Let them.  What follows is détente.  "Sure,
lady.  Don't lie down.  I want to talk to you."

		Envoi

Men, realize when they talk, it makes you want them more;
their resistance makes you crave it in a closet, on the floor.
Eventually.  Don't try to tell them what to do.
Be patient, not grasping.  Here's what you must say when your
ladies don't lie down:  "I want to talk to you."