“Why did you turn him down?”
“He wanted me to sell this place and move to Tonopah and live in his house in town. Be a mother to his two kids. I wouldn’t have lasted six months in that kind of arrangement. I like running my own life, not three other people’s. And I like living right here where I am.”
“Alone.”
“I’m not alone. I’ve got Lonnie.”
“You know what I mean, Dacy. What happens when Lonnie gets older, moves out on his own?”
“Cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Do you miss being married? Want that kind of relationship again some day?”
“Sometimes. Most days, no.”
“Because you’re afraid of another failure? Or just of being hurt again?”
No response for five or six beats. Then, “Back off, Jim.”
“If I touched a nerve, I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you missed your calling,” she said sardonically. “Kind of questions you ask, you’d’ve made a good head doctor.”
He laughed, even though what she’d said wasn’t funny. “Head doctor, heal thyself.”
“Uh-huh. So what about you? You ever been married?”
“Once. A long time ago, in college.”
“Divorced?”
“Yes.”
“What busted yours up?”
He told her. All about Doris and their time together, Doris and the prelaw track star. He even found himself telling her an edited version of the incident at Candlestick Park, of what Doris had said to him on the ride home and how he’d only recently come to realize how right she’d been.
Dacy said, “That’s a sad story, too. Almost as sad as mine.”
“I know it.”
“Well, we’re a pair, aren’t we? Birds of a feather.”
“Ostriches. But I don’t want to be that way anymore,” Messenger said. “That’s part of the reason I came here to Beulah, why I’m still here.”
“Trying to find yourself?”
“No, a new self. The old one... well, Popeye applies there, too. You can stands so much, you can’t stands no more.”
“What’s this new self gonna do when you get home?”
“I don’t know yet. Cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“You’re a funny one, Jim. You really are.”
“Sure. Loco la cabeza.”
“Not hardly. Just a guy having himself a midlife crisis. You think?”
“I think,” he said, “I don’t want to think anymore right now.”
Again she was silent. A breeze had begun to blow, warmish at first, now suddenly cool. Carried by it, the pungent creosote odor of grease-wood overpowered the night’s subtler scents.
Dacy moved beside him. She said, “Chill coming on. We’d better get to bed.”
“All right.”
They stood up together, and when she turned toward him she was still close — close enough for him to feel the full warmth of her body and the softness of her breath against his chin. The loin stir began again, more urgent than before. His mouth was dry.
“Dacy...”
“I know,” she said.
“If you don’t leave right now...”
“Who said anything about leaving? I didn’t mean we should go to bed separately.” She took his hand. “It’s that kind of night, too,” she said.
She made love with more intensity than any woman he’d been with, Doris included. She held him fiercely with arms and legs and body, straining, pulling, clutching, as if she sought a fusion greater and more complete than the sexual. And she talked nonstop the whole time, urgings and entreaties, the words and her breath hot in his ear, now and then making little moaning sounds deep in her throat — all in a kind of desperate frenzy. It was over for both of them too quickly, even though he struggled to make it last. When her climax came it was in a series of shuddering spasms, as if she were being electrically shocked; and she pressed her mouth tight against his throat to muffle sounds that were almost like cries of pain.
It took a minute or so for her body to grow still afterward, her hands on him to relax. Panting, she whispered, “Oh Lord! Been so long I’d about forgotten how good it can feel.”
“Best, the best...”
“Now don’t pat yourself on the back, Jim.”
“I wasn’t. Other way around.”
“Look at us, half off this damn bed. Wonder we didn’t end up on the floor.”
“Wouldn’t have noticed if we had.”
They disentangled and lay close, letting their breathing settle. Then Dacy laughed softly and said, “Funny.”
“What is?”
“A week ago I didn’t even know you existed. Then here you come out of nowhere and half turn my life upside down. Next thing I know I’ve got you working and living here. And now I’ve let you screw me. Maybe I’m the crazy one. You think?”
“Is that all it was for you?”
“All what was?”
“Just screwing.”
“What was it for you?”
“Making love.”
“Come on, Jim, you don’t love me.”
“How do you know I don’t?”
“I don’t love you.”
“All right,” he said.
“Two lonely people with itches to scratch, that’s all.”
“I don’t think that’s all. I don’t think you do, either.”
“Well, you’re wrong. Isn’t this enough for you? Being together like this?”
“For now.”
“Now’s all there is,” Dacy said. “Now’s all there ever is.”
Outside the wind rattled something. A coyote yipped querulously in the far distance and then was still. Messenger shifted position, half turning so he could take one of her breasts in his hand.
Dacy said, “You like that saggy old tit?”
“It’s not saggy. Not old, either.”
“Maybe not quite. Pretty soon though.”
“How old are you, Dacy?”
“Not supposed to ask a woman that question.”
“I don’t really care. I’m just curious.”
“Well, it’s no secret. Thirty-four, next birthday.”
“Thirty-four’s young.”
“Not when you live in this desert, it isn’t.”
“Young,” he insisted. “Young and beautiful.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t say that word when you’re in bed with me.”
“Why not? It’s just a word.”
“I want to keep things clean between us.”
“Clean,” she said. “Whoo. No man’s ever said that to me before.”
“I’m serious, Dacy.”
“All right.” She yawned, stretched. “You should’ve seen them when I was eighteen. My boobs. So firm they hardly even bounced when I walked around naked. Skin so soft it was like satin.”
“Still like satin.”
She heard or sensed the change in his voice, the faint catch in the breath he took. “All this talk making you horny again?”
“Yes.”
“No surprise. Men are easy.”
“We don’t have to make love again’...”
“Did I say I didn’t want to?” She turned on her side, felt for him, and took hold of him gently. “So damn easy,” she said.
Someone was shaking him, roughly and urgently. Saying his name and telling him to wake up. “Wake up, Jim! Wake up!”
He struggled through sticky layers of sleep. The tugging hands lifted him; he sat up groggily. His eyelids felt glued together from sleep-grit. He couldn’t seem to blink them open, had to use his fingers to get them unstuck.