God knows where it came from. But even I knew where it was supposed to go, and it suddenly seemed absolutely essential that I put it there as soon as I possibly could. It didn’t seem to matter if she was ready or not, although I guess she must have been ready for the past eight years. All that mattered to me was to get into her, and I shucked my pants and rolled on top of her and jabbed at her with all the subtlety of a tomcat.
It went straight in on the first shot as if she had a magnet in her cervix. She wrapped her arms and legs around me as if she was scared I would take it away. She had nothing to worry about. I kept taking it a little ways away and then putting it back, as fast and as hard and as deep as I could.
Throughout all of this, there was something slightly schizophrenic about the whole thing. Because it was as though there were two Chip Harrisons. One of them was banging away at the poor woman as if he was trying to splinter her pelvic bone, and the other was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, watching the whole thing and not quite believing what he was seeing.
It went on for a long time, this totally unsubtle relentless sledgehammer screwing, and she came about half a dozen times, and then so did I.
“We’ll go to your room now,” she said. There was a little puddle on the couch. She put a doily over it, put her dress and my pants over her arm, and took my arm with her free hand. “We’ll go to your room,” she said, “and do it some more.”
“Uh—”
“We’ll fuck,” she said. “We can try different positions. I would like to try it with me on top, if that’s all right with you. That way you can pinch my breasts while we do it. You may pinch them as hard as you like. I won’t mind.”
“Uh—”
“You may even bite them if you like.”
“Your mother,” I said.
“She sleeps very soundly.”
“Well, uh, I’m not sure I can do it again. It took a lot out of me.”
“I know. Most of it is running down my leg.”
“Uh.”
“You’ll be able to,” she said confidently, giving my arm a happy like squeeze. “I just know you will.”
She was right.
Afterward, it seemed as if there ought to be something to say. I asked her about her husband, and if he died before the kid was born. Seven months before the kid was born, she told me.
And how long had her mother been a widow?
“Eight years also.”
“That’s really terrible,” I said. “You must have lost them both about the same time.”
“Exactly the same time.”
“Gee,” I said. “An automobile accident, I suppose.”
“They committed suicide.” She was lying on her back. She had taken her hair down and it looked much better. The pinched-in expression was gone from her face. Sex certainly does wonders for a woman’s appearance.
“You probably don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she assured me. “It happened the very day I told them that I was pregnant. That very day, I told them, my husband and my father, and they went downstairs to the basement and into the tool room, and they got the shotgun, and they put the barrel in their mouth and pulled the trigger and blew off the top of their head.”
“Oh.”
“I was never married,” she said.
“Oh.”
“It started when I was twelve. He came to my room and told me I was a big girl and it was time I learned how to fuck. I hope you don’t mind my using that word.”
“Not at all.”
“And then he fucked me. I didn’t like it, but my mother said it was my duty because he was my father. She read from the Bible. About Lot and his daughters. I didn’t like it at all for the first few years, but then I got to enjoy it pretty well.”
“Oh.”
“What I didn’t like was he would always pull it out just before the end. And when he couldn’t in time I was always lucky, until one time when I was twenty-six years old and I found out I was pregnant and he shot himself.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t see why he shot himself,” she said reasonably. “There was no need.”
“Oh.”
“I went to Kansas City, and then mother told everyone that I was married, and I had the baby, and then mother told everyone that Mr. Cooper was killed in an airplane crash and I would be coming back to live with her. But I think everybody knows. Wouldn’t you think so?”
“Maybe.”
“I think they must. Especially with the baby being an idiot and all. I wish they had told me right away he was an idiot. I would have drowned him. But by the time I knew about it I was attached to him and I couldn’t do it. That happens, you know. You get attached to them, even if they are.”
She went silent then. Thank God. After a while I said, “Uh, I’m kind of exhausted. I have to get to sleep, and you probably ought to go to your own room. I mean, you wouldn’t want your mother to find out about this.”
“Why not?”
“Well,” I said, “I would be embarrassed.”
“Oh,” she said. She thought about it, then nodded. “All right,” she said, and off she went, her dress over her arm.
I was just falling asleep when the door opened again. There she was, carrying a cup and saucer. No dress this time. She was still naked.
“I brought you a surprise,” she said gaily.
“If that’s my tea, I don’t really want it.”
“It’s not,” she said.
“I still don’t want it.”
“Well, it’s not for you.”
“Huh?”
“Lie down and shut up,” she said. “It’s for the surprise.”
“What surprise?”
“You’ll see. You’ll like it.”
“Look, all I really want is to go to sleep.”
“You can go to sleep in a minute. Lie down.”
“What’s in the cup?”
“Just warm water,” she said, and filled her mouth with it, and leaned over me.
Oh, the hell with it. I wasn’t going to mention it but it’s too perfect, and if it ruins her reputation that’s just the way it goes. I don’t think she’ll mind, anyway.
It was Waterloo, Iowa. I swear to God.
Sixteen
There were some other girls during the rest of the summer. Some I got to and some I struck out with. None of them were very important.
Seventeen
I drove into Madison a couple of weeks after the fall term started. I would have gotten there earlier but I kept putting it off until finally I knew it was time. The old Cadillac got me there in good shape. I started looking around for a tourist home like the ones I had been staying in for the past half a year, and I drove around for a long time without seeing any of the usual signs. Then I remembered that Madison was a university town, and that people with rooms to rent would take in college students by the year.
And I also remembered, just about the same time, that if Hallie was here and stuck in some dormitory it might be pretty stupid to room with some widow. So I got a room at a motel. Sixteen bucks, and payable in advance, and it wasn’t even all that much of a room.
I didn’t care. I was in pretty good shape financially, with almost two hundred and fifty dollars, which was more than I had had when I left Bordentown. Even with all the gas that the old car burned, I had been earning money faster than I spent it.
I unpacked in my motel room and put my clothes away. I took a shower and shaved, although I had already shaved and showered in the morning. Then I got dressed and noticed I was sweating, and I took another shower and put on a clean shirt and made myself stretch out on the bed and calm down so I would stop sweating.
The campus was huge. It sprawled all over the place. There were a lot of kids sitting in groups under trees and other groups of kids hurrying here and there. I couldn’t understand how they could possibly find their way around. It was immense.