'Go have dinner with Frank!' Franny suggested.
'I had lunch with Frank!' Lilly cried.
'Go have dinner with Father!' Franny said.
'I don't even want to eat,' Lilly said. 'I've got to write -- it's time to grow.'
'Take a night off!' Franny said.
'The whole night?' Lilly asked.
'Give me three more hours,' Franny said. I groaned quietly. I didn't think I had three more hours left in me.
'Aren't you getting hungry, Franny?' Lilly said.
'There's always room service,' Franny said. 'And I'm not hungry, anyway.'
But Franny was insatiable; her hunger for me would save us both.
'No more, Franny,' I begged her. It was about nine o'clock, I think. It was so dark I couldn't see anymore.
'But you love me, don't you?' she asked me, her body like a whip -- her body was a barbell that was too heavy for me.
At ten o'clock I whispered to her, 'For God's sake, Franny. We've got to stop. We're going to hurt each other, Franny.'
'No, my love,' she whispered. 'That's exactly what we're not going to do: hurt each other. We're going to be just fine. We're going to have a good life,' she promised me, taking me into her -- again. And again.
'Franny, I can't,' I whispered to her. I felt absolutely blind with pain; I was as blind as Freud, as blind as Father. And it must have hurt Franny more than it hurt me.
'Yes you can, my love,' Franny whispered. 'Just once more,' she urged me. 'I know you've got it in you.'
'I'm finished, Franny,' I told her.
'Almost finished,' Franny corrected me. 'We can do it just once more,' she said. 'After this,' she told me, 'we're both finished with it. This is the last time, my love. Just imagine trying to live every day like this,' Franny said, pressing against me, taking my last breath away. 'We'd go crazy,' Franny said. 'There's no living with this,' she whispered. 'Come on and finish it,' she said in my ear. 'Once more, my love. Last time!' she cried to me.
'Okay!' I cried to her. 'Here I come.'
'Yes, yes, my love,' Franny said; I felt her knees lock against my spine. 'Hello, good-bye, my love,' she whispered. 'There!' she cried, when she felt me shaking. 'There, there,' she said, soothingly. 'That's it, that's all she wrote,' she murmured. 'That's the end of it. Now we're free. Now that's over.'
She helped me to the bathtub. The water stung me like rubbing alcohol.
'Is that your blood or mine?' I asked Franny, who was trying to save the bed -- now that she had saved us.
'It doesn't matter, my love,' Franny said cheerfully. 'It washes away.'
'This is a fairy tale,' Lilly would write -- of our family's whole life. I agree with her; Iowa Bob would have agreed with her, too. 'Everything is a fairy tale!' Coach Bob would have said. And even Freud would have agreed with him -- both Freuds. Everything is a fairy tale.
Lilly arrived coincidentally with the room service cart and the bewildered New York foreigner who delivered our multi-course meal, and several bottles of wine, at about eleven in the evening.
'What are you celebrating?' Lilly asked Franny and me.
'Well, John just finished a long run,' Franny said, laughing.
'You shouldn't run in the park at night, John,' Lilly said, worriedly.
'I ran up Fifth Avenue,' I said. 'It was perfectly safe.'
'Perfectly safe,' Franny said, bursting out laughing.