He hesitated, then started to tell her what he’d done, the plans he had made and the way he had carried them out. He started out intending to summarize everything briefly and get it over with in a hurry, but something stopped him from carrying this plan to completion.
Instead he wound up giving her a very detailed picture of his activities from the morning he had left her to the present. Somewhere in the middle of it he began talking as much to himself as to her. It was a way of looking back, a way of getting the whole picture again. He sat in a straight-backed chair and she sat on the bed. He sipped his coffee from time to time and he talked. She listened without saying a word.
He didn’t tell her that he’d been impotent lately. He left this tid-bit of information out. It was just about all he left out, however.
When he finished they sat in silence for several minutes. He could hear the wind outside. It was blowing up a storm and looked like rain.
“You happy, Johnny?”
“I don’t know.”
She nodded. “I’m not,” she said. “But I don’t figure to be happy. I mean, I haven’t gotten any place or anything. I live from one day to the next and I sort of bide my time, if you know what I mean. I haven’t got any education like you do. I think a lot, but I haven’t got much to think about. And I can always tell myself that one of these days something’ll happen, a rich man’ll come and want to marry me or a million dollars’ll fall down and hit me on the head or something. You know what I mean?”
“I guess so.”
“So it must be worse for you. I mean, I haven’t got anything. If I’m not happy I can still think it’s going to be different and I’ll come out smelling like a rose. But you’ve got plenty. Just what you wanted. Don’t you?”
He nodded.
“So if you aren’t happy it’s a mess,” she said. “That’s what I mean.”
More silence. She was right, he realized. She had hit it on the nose. It was bearable when you had nothing, because then you knew that your life was ahead of you and you could only move in one direction — up. And it was better yet when you were moving and you got further along every day and you had something you were killing yourself to get.
But once you got where you were going, then it was time to watch out. Because then you were in a bind. You could only go one way — down. And you didn’t like it so much where you were, and it was a mess.
“Johnny?”
He looked at her.
“I’m not working tonight.”
He didn’t get it.
“I’m not working tonight,” she repeated. “I only hustle when I have to. The rest of the time I just sit around. Tonight I’ll just be sitting around.”
“Oh,” he said.
And I get lonely. Do you ever get lonely, Johnny? Probably not with all the things you got going for you.”
“I get lonely.”
“Honest?”
“I don’t know anybody. Not really. Unless I’m... working... I just stay by myself.”
“It sounds like a drag.”
“It is.”
“Johnny?”
He waited.
“Would you like to stay here tonight?”
He thought about himself and thought about the fact that he wouldn’t be able to make love to her. But she hadn’t even asked that. She asked if he wanted to stay, and he did want to stay even if he had to sleep on the floor. It seemed very important for him to be with someone this night. It was not entirely a sexual thing. It was more a matter of companionship.
“Yes,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”
She smiled. “Just sit where you are,” she said. “I’ll make some more coffee. Then we can talk some more.”
It was late. They’d had many cups of coffee and they’d talked about many things. He told her some of the places he’d been to and some of the things he’d done and people he’d met. He told her about things he read in books and things he learned and she listened most receptively. She talked, too, and he was interested in what she had to say.
Then it was time for bed.
“Johnny—”
She was standing now, a strange expression on her face.
“Johnny, sex is a business for both of us. You make more dough at it than I do but we both hustle ourselves for a living. So this is going to be silly, I guess. A busman’s holiday. But would you like to make love?”
I want to make love, he thought. It’s just a matter of communicating that desire to something that hasn’t been listening to me lately.
And he walked to her and took her in his arms.
“Let’s leave the lights on,” she said. “Like the first time. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Then kiss me.”
He hadn’t kissed a girl and meant it in a long time. He took her in his arms, felt the incredible softness of her warm young body against him, and his tongue darted into her mouth. He tasted the sweetness of her and his arms held her very close and very tight. His heart started to pound.
“Be gentle with me,” she was whispering. “Nobody’s ever gentle any more. Nobody’s nice or sweet or anything. Be gentle with me, Johnny.”
He lifted her in his arms and put her on the bed. He stretched out beside her and kissed her again. His hands found her breasts and he held onto them and felt how soft and firm they were.
“Nice,” he said.
“Nicer than last time. They keep on growing. Are they too big?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve got too many clothes on.”
“But no bra, Johnny. Just a sweater, see? I still don’t need a bra. No matter how big they get they still stand up all by themselves.”
“You’ve still got too many clothes on.”
“Then do something about it.”
He pulled the sweater over her head, threw it to the floor. When he caught sight of her breasts he had to stop. They were the most perfect he had ever seen. She was right — they had grown since he’d first made love to her. And they were firm, rich and firm, and he couldn’t keep his hands off them. They were cool to the touch and the nipples were suffused with desire a second after his fingers touched them.
“See? They’re still sensitive.”
“Do they like to be kissed?”
“Try them and see.”
He bent to kiss her breasts.
Maybe it was going to be all right, he thought. Maybe this time it would work for him. Maybe he would get excited, and then maybe he would be able to make love to her, and then maybe he wouldn’t be impotent again for the next fifty years. Maybe she would cure everything.
He hoped so.
But he didn’t care simply because he wanted to be cured, simply because he wanted to make love to other women and grow rich in the process.
Not now.
Now only one thing was important. Now he wanted only to make love to her properly and efficiently and spectacularly. Now all that mattered was what the two of them were going to do now, in her bed, in the next hour or so.
Nothing else mattered.
He wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman in his life. He wanted her badly, so badly he would have given anything for her.
And she wanted him.
“Johnny,” she moaned. “Oh, God, there wasn’t anybody like you. The others were a waste of time, the others were nothing; there was always you and nobody else. Nobody ever made me feel like this, Johnny. Nobody ever. You’re the only man who can make me feel like this.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like a goddess.”
“That’s how you should always feel.”
“Why?”
“Because you are a goddess.”
Her hands were busy with the buttons of his sport shirt. He’d taken his jacket off earlier, when the room had grown warm, and now her hands were inside his jacket, toying with his chest. He kissed her mouth, then moved lower to kiss her breasts again. He touched her leg at the knee and his hand began to travel.