“Sometimes,” she said. “Not always.”
“Is he big?”
“Tall? Not…”
They had been speaking very softly, and now Hooper lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t mean tall. Is he… you know… big?”
“Usually,” said Ellen, and she chuckled. “Huge.”
“Is he black?”
“No. I’ve heard that some women have fantasies about being raped by black men, but I never have.”
“Tell me another one.”
“Oh no,” she said, laughing. “Now it’s your turn.”
They heard footsteps and turned to see the waitress approaching their table. “Is everything all right?” she said.
“Fine,” Hooper said curtly. “Everything’s fine.” The waitress left.
Ellen whispered, “Do you think she heard?”
Hooper leaned forward. “Not a chance. Now tell me another one.”
It’s going to happen, Ellen thought, and she felt suddenly nervous. She wanted to tell him why she was behaving this way, to explain that she didn’t do this all the time. He probably thinks I’m a whore. Forget it. Don’t get sappy or you’ll ruin it. “No,” she said with a smile. “It’s your turn.”
“Mine are usually orgies,” he said. “Or at least threesies.”
“What are threesies?”
“Three people. Me and two girls.”
“Greedy. What do you do?”
“It varies. Everything imaginable.”
“Are you… big?” she said.
“Bigger every minute. What about you?”
“I don’t know. Compared to what?”
“To other women. Some women have really tight ones.”
Ellen giggled. “You sound like a comparison-shopper.”
“Just a conscientious consumer.”
“I don’t know how I am,” she said. “I haven’t anything to compare it to.” She looked down at her half-eaten chicken, and she laughed.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“I was just wondering,” she said, and her laughter built. “I was just wondering if — oh, Lord, I’m getting a pain in my side — if chickens have…”
“Of course!” said Hooper. “But talk about a tightie!”
They laughed together, and when the laughter faded, Ellen impulsively said, “Let’s make a fantasy.”
“Okay. How do you want to start?”
“What would you do to me if we were going to… you know.”
“That’s a very interesting question,” he said with mock gravity. “Before considering the what, however, we’d have to consider the where. I suppose there’s always my room.”
“Too dangerous. Everybody knows me at the Abelard. Anywhere in Amity would be too dangerous.”
“What about your house?”
“Lord, no. Suppose one of my children came home. Besides…”
“I know. No desecrating the conjugal sheets. Okay, where else?”
“There must be motels between here and Montauk. Or even better, between here and Orient Point.”
“Fair enough. Even if there’s not, there’s always the car.”
“In broad daylight? You do have wild fantasies.”
“In fantasies, anything is possible.”
“All right. That’s settled. So what would you do?”
“I think we should proceed chronologically. First of all, we’d leave here in one car. Probably mine, because it’s least known. And we’d come back later to pick up yours.”
“Okay.”
“Then while we were driving along… no, even before that, before we left here, I’d send you into the ladies’ room and tell you to take off your panties.”
“Why?”
“So I could… explore you while we’re on the road. Just to keep the motors running.”
“I see,” she said, trying to seem matter-of-fact. She felt hot, flushed, and sensed that her mind was floating somewhere apart from her body. She was a third person listening to the conversation. She had to fight to keep from shifting on the Leatherette bench. She wanted to squirm back and forth, to move her thighs up and down. But she was afraid of leaving a stain on the seat.
“Then,” said Hooper, “while we were driving along, you might be sitting on my right hand and I’d be giving you a massage. Maybe I’d have my fly open. Maybe not, though, because you might get ideas, which would undoubtedly cause me to lose control, and that would probably cause a massive accident that would leave us both dead.”
Ellen started to giggle again, imagining the sight of Hooper lying by the side of the road, stiff as a flagpole, and herself lying next to him, her dress bunched up around her waist and her vagina yawning open, glistening wet, for the world to see.
“We’d try to find a motel,” said Hooper, “where the rooms are either in separate cabins or at least not butted fight up against each other, wall to wall.”
“Why?”
“Noise. The walls are usually made of Kleenex and spit, and we wouldn’t want to be inhibited by the thought of a shoe salesman in the next room pressing his ear to the wall and getting his kicks listening to us.”
“Suppose you couldn’t find a motel like that.”
“We would,” said Hooper. “As I said, in a fantasy anything is possible.”
Why does he keep saying that? Ellen thought. He can’t really be playing a word game, working up a fantasy he has no intention of fulfilling. Her mind scrambled for a question to keep the conversation alive. “What name would you register us under?”
“Ah yes. I’d forgotten. These days I can’t conceive of anyone getting uptight about something like this, but you’re right: we should have a name, just in case we ran into an old-fashioned innkeeper. How about Mr. and Mrs. Al Kinsey. We could say we were on an extended field trip for research.”
“And we’d tell him we’d send him an autographed copy of our report.”
“We’d dedicate it to him!”
They both laughed, and Ellen said, “What about after we registered?”
“Well, we’d drive to wherever our room was, scout around to see if anyone seemed to be in the rooms nearby — unless we had a cabin to ourselves — and then go inside.”
“And then?”
“That’s when our options broaden. I’d probably be so turned on that I’d grab you, let you have it — maybe on the bed, maybe not. That time would be my time. Your time would come later.”
“What do you mean?”
“The first time would be out of control — a slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am deal. After that, I’d have more control, and the second time I could prepare you.”
“How would you do that?”
“With delicacy and finesse.”
The waitress was approaching the table, so they sat back and stopped talking.
“Will there be anything else?”
“No,” said Hooper. “Just the check.”
Ellen assumed that the waitress would return to the bar to total the bill, but she stood at the table, scribbling and carrying her ones. Ellen slid to the edge of the seat and said as she stood up, “Excuse me. I want to powder my nose before we go.”
“I know,” said Hooper, smiling.
“You do?” said the waitress as Ellen passed her. “Boy, that’s what marriage will do for you. I hope nobody ever knows me that well.”
Ellen arrived home a little before 4.30. She went upstairs, into the bathroom, and turned on the water in the tub. She took off all her clothes and stuffed them into the laundry hamper, mixing them with the clothes already in the hamper. She looked in the mirror and examined her face and neck. No marks.
After her bath, she powdered herself, brushed her teeth, and gargled with mouthwash. She went into the bedroom, put on a fresh pair of underpants and a nightgown, pulled back the bedclothes and climbed into bed. She closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would pounce upon her.