“No,” he muttered, straining still.
“I… I think we better stop. What you’re doing hurts awful.”
“No!”
And then he came, all over her. He gasped, then moaned.
She said, “What… what happened?”
Julian was definitely embarrassed. “I… I just, uh, they call it came.”
“Oh,” Peggy said. She knew what the word meant. “You mean you’re all through?” There was relief in her voice.
“I… I guess so. I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“Not very much. I, well, I don’t think you were doing it right. I don’t think you really… did me. Not completely.”
“I don’t think so either,” he said, a feeling of inadequacy coming over him.
She asked, “Do you have a handkerchief?”
He fished out his white linen handkerchief and handed it over.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. He rezipped his pants, averting his eyes from her attempt to clean herself up.
She slipped back into her briefs. With as much embarrassment as he himself was feeling, she said, “That didn’t work very well, did it? Maybe next time we can be in a bed or something. And… well, shouldn’t you have one of those rubber things or something?”
“Yeah,” he said, disgusted with the whole thing.
Suddenly the beam of a flashlight was on them and a gruff voice said, “Okay, you two, what goes on?”
The newcomer was in uniform.
Julian said, “We were just parked here enjoying the evening, Officer.”
“Oh, yeah? Then how come her skirt is halfway up to her belly button?”
Julian sighed and lifted out his wallet. He selected a twenty-dollar bill, and proffered it, saying, “I’m Julian West, Officer. It is a pleasure to meet you. The young lady and I were doing a bit of… necking. I’m sure you understand. Please have a beer on me at your favorite tavern.”
“Oh,” the other said. “You’re Mr. West’s nephew?”
“That is correct, Officer.”
The man, who had already taken the bill, tipped a finger to his cap. “Sorry to have bothered you. Have a good time, sir.”
“Golly,” Peggy said when he was gone. “I was afraid he’d run us in. It’s lucky he didn’t come up five minutes ago.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Julian said wearily, reaching for the car key.
The dream ended at that point, and Julian came awake to find Edith sleeping beside him, a deep gentie sleep of complete relaxation and health.
As he lay there, the rest of the sordid experience come back to him. He had never gone out with Peggy again. Somehow or other, he couldn’t bring himself to face her. Besides, shortly afterward he had met an older and considerably more experienced woman who had efficiently introduced him to the pleasures to be found in bed.
It was approximately seven months later that his uncle, aglint of amusement in his eye, said, “Did you know that you were about to become a father?”
Julian froze.
Albert West laughed. He went over to the sideboard and took up a bottle of the Scotch he had specially imported from Glenlivet, and splashed two generous portions into tall highball glasses. He returned to where his nephew sat and handed him a drink.
He said, “Mr. Ten Eyck was over this morning. He wants you to marry the girl—for which I don’t blame him, considering your financial position. Is the child yours?”
Julian knocked back some of the liquor. “No!” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“She says it is.”
Julian shook his head emphatically. “No. I was necking with her and tried to, but it didn’t work. I never went out with her again.”
“According to her doctor, the child was conceived in August.”
“The only time I ever went out with her was in June, last June. What can we do? I mean… what can I do?”
His uncle laughed and winked at him. “It’s already been done, Jule.”
“What do you mean?”
“1 pointed out to Mr. Ten Eyck that you were in London in August. All of August.”
“But I wasn’t, Uncle Albert. I was right here in Woodstock.”
“Yes, but can they prove it?”
“There must be people who could testify that I was here.”
The older man took a pull at his whiskey. “And I can get letters from London testifying that you were there. For instance, I could get a statement from the Duke and Duchess that you were a house guest of theirs. Whose testimony, here in Ulster County, would stand up to that? If necessary, I know a chief steward on the French Line who would gladly do me the favor of testifying that you were a passenger on his ship, both going and returning, during the period involved.”
Julian stared at him.
His uncle laughed again. “I gave Ten Eyck a check and told him to send the girl away for a few months. If they had come to me sooner, she could have had an abortion, but it’s too late for that now. See here, my boy, you’re getting to the age where you’re going to have to watch out for these things. Every woman you run into is going to have her eye on the West fortune. To be safe, why don’t you let me set up a little flat or house in Kingston for you? I’ll check with Polly Adler down in the city and we’ll arrange for a nice experienced girl to take it over. You can visit her when you, ah, have the urge.”
Julian experienced a great inner relief, but he said, “No thanks, Uncle Albert.”
“Suit yourself, but don’t worry about Ten Eyck. I warned him that if he took this to court, I’d hire the best lawyers in the state to defend you. And that when the case fell through, I’d prosecute both him and his daughter.”
It was the first time his family’s money had been ruthlessly utilized to protect him from his actions.
Chapter Eleven
The Year 2, New Calendar
In the three short decades between now and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world’s richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them, will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterizes our time. For them, the future will have arrived too soon.
He realized that Edith had opened her eyes and was watching him with an expression compounded of sleepiness, warmth, satisfaction, affection… and possibly a bit of humor.
He said, wiping his dream thoughts of Peggy Ten Eyck from his mind, “Good morning, Edie.”
“Good morning, darling. Did I make you happy?”
He took in her beauty. During past sexual experiences he had most often dreaded seeing his bed companion in the harshness of morning light; makeup smeared, hair a mop, breath heavy with the tobacco and alcohol of the night before, the animal smell of used sex and dried sweat. It didn’t apply to Edith Leete. She had never worn cosmestics in her life, her hair was short cut, she neither smoked nor drank beyond a bit of wine or beer with meals. And now that he thought about it, after their last bout with Eros, she had gone into the bath and showered. He was disgusted with himself for not having done the same.
Now she was fresh and beautiful.
He nodded and said, “Yes. Yes, Edie.”
“All right, then. Breakfast. Last one up is a rotten egg!” She threw back the single sheet that covered them and began to swing her excellent legs over the side of the bed.
He said, “Wait just a minute.”
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows mockingly. “What? After all that? Are you a satyr?”
He shook his head this time. “No. It’s not that. I just wanted to look at you, and perhaps… tell you I love you.”