“Jeff—”
When I took her in my arms the contact of our naked bodies nearly killed me. It was that exciting. I couldn’t stand up and if the bed hadn’t been next to us we would have wound up on the floor.
We tumbled onto the bed. I heaved myself on top of her and her arms were locked around my neck. We kissed and it was as though a volcano had erupted in the neighborhood. That’s how it was.
“Jeff—”
For a minute I remembered what she and Caroline had done but now it didn’t sicken me any longer. Now it didn’t matter. It was as though it had never happened.
“Jeff—”
Then I remembered what I had done with Caroline. This also passed away from me. There was nothing but Candy and myself and the mutual passion that enveloped us and drove through us.
For just an instant the dream came to me. I saw myself alone and proud and independent, alone on an island in the Florida Keys getting back in shape and learning how to be a man again. The dream came and the dream was suddenly gone. It was a good dream, a beautiful dream, and if I had never met Candy I might someday have realized that dream.
Now it was gone forever.
“Jeff—”
I planted little kisses all over that face. I kissed her throat and the nape of her neck and the softness of her skin drove me out of my mind.
It was a time of discovery, of rediscovery. It was as if I was finding and falling in love with every curve and valley of that perfect body for the first time; simultaneously it was a return to a body I had known and loved as no man had ever known and loved the body of any woman.
“Jeff!”
“You like this, don’t you?”
“Make it last forever …”
Kisses and caresses and a whirling world. Make it last forever.
I could neither see nor hear nor smell or taste nor feel. I could do nothing but love her with all the strength of my being.
Her nails raked my back and drew blood. My teeth sank into the lobe of her ear; they also drew blood.
She screamed once shrilly. I do not know what word she screamed or if she screamed any word at all.
The scream was very loud in my ears.
Then it was over.
It was over and we lay side by side, our bodies touching, our breathing loud in the silence of the room.
I felt half-dead, weak and drained and empty, used up and ready for the incinerator.
I also felt alive, fully alive for the first time in an eternity.
I had her now. She was mine and I swore to myself that I would never let her go. The time without her, the overwhelming emptiness of life without her, vanished and ceased to be. We were together now and we would be together until death, and whether we were bound by love or hate or hunger ceased to matter.
“Jeff—”
I broke off my thoughts and listened to her.
“I’m glad you did it, Jeff. For that it was worth it. That was wonderful, Jeff.”
I smiled gently at the ceiling.
“It’ll be tough, Jeff. You did a horrible thing but we’ll get away and everything’ll be all right.”
Something was out of focus.
“I still don’t see how you did it, Jeff. I can understand why you would want to do it, but I can’t see a man like you doing a thing like that. It just isn’t the sort of thing you would do.”
“What?”
“What you did.”
I was lost.
“What are you talking about, honey?”
“You know.”
“If I knew I wouldn’t ask. I’m afraid you’ve got me running around in circles.”
She shook her head and I leaned over her on one elbow, looking down at her and thinking what a beautiful woman she was. There was a clock in the room somewhere and I could hear it ticking loud and strong, hear it beating out a rhythm as primitive as the one Candy and I had just finished.
I put out a hand and cupped one of her perfect breasts. I stroked the nipple and Candy purred at me soulfully.
“Honey,” I said again, “what were you talking about?”
She pulled me down on top of her and bruised my mouth with a kiss. I returned the kiss and we worked that one out for a while.
“You know,” she said after a while.
“But I don’t know.”
“Caroline.”
“Your lessie girl friend?”
She nodded.
“Hell,” I said. “I thought we were over and done with that little episode. It happened and it’s finished. That’s all there is to it. I’m sorry about it and all but it just happened and I couldn’t help it.”
She had a very strange look in her eye.
“Jeff—”
She paused and I got the feeling that the two of us were talking on two entirely different levels of meaning. It was a very strange feeling and, I’ll admit, an eminently distressing one.
I banished it by devoting renewed attention to her breasts, but she didn’t let herself get carried away. She pushed me away and looked deeply into my eyes.
“Jeff,” she said, “either you’re the coldest man I ever met or you’ve got things mixed up.”
“Cold?”
She nodded soberly.
I did something to prove that I wasn’t cold and she giggled. Then she seemed to remember what we had been talking about and the giggle broke off sharply.
“Jeff,” she said, “about Caroline—”
“To hell with Caroline. She should drop dead.”
“Oh, God.”
“What’s the matter?”
“You don’t know,” she said. “I can’t believe it. You don’t know!”
“What don’t I know?”
“Caroline is dead,” she said patiently. “You killed her.”
Chapter Ten
JEFF FLANDERS.
Unemployed.
Rapist.
Philanderer.
Incipient alcoholic.
I was only thirty-four years old and the list was already on the impressive side. Those thirty-four years were by no means wasted. Hell, I’d done a lot of things.
But the list was not complete. It lacked one rather intriguing item, one little eight-letter word that would fill in the blank space.
Murderer.
I sat up on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall while Candy filled in the blank spots in my brain. I had, it seemed, a very blank brain. I felt like letting my brain get a little air by the expedient process of knocking a hole in my fat and useless head.
“She was alive when I found her,” the light of my life explained. “She was alive when I went into the apartment and she lived just long enough to tell me what you had done to her. She told me and then she died. I was holding her in my arms and her face went pale and then she just stopped talking and she was dead. She died in my arms, Jeff.”
I got up and walked over to the window. The window faced out on Broadway and I looked through it. The street was glutted with traffic. People wandered back and forth, all in a hell of a hurry to get nowhere in particular.
A heavy-set, well-dressed man with a pretty little brunette on his arm hailed a taxi. He helped the girl into the back seat and got in beside her. The cab headed downtown.
“She’s dead, Jeff. You killed her. I thought … thought you knew what you did to her. But she wasn’t dead when you left so I guess you didn’t realize it.”
The sun was still shining and it was warm outside. I felt sorry for all the office-workers who would mob together in the stinking subway for the long ride home. They were pushing and shoving each other on the street and it would be one hell of a ride on the BMT that night.
“Jeff?”
I left the window, walked back to her and sat down on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t talk or think or move. I was tense as a wire and limp as a wet rag all at once and my mind responded by shutting itself off. I knew she was speaking my name but I couldn’t answer her.