Bearfort Mountain was extensively forested, but the hang-gliding enthusiasts had located a stretch of clear terrain at least a thousand yards square on either side of the ridge. The green and white Rogallo made a ninety-degree turn into the wind and started to descend. Its manta shape increased in size as it crossed the face of the forested slopes to the west and approached the landing area. The figure in crash helmet and leather suit was definitely female. She was pressing the control bar forward to nose the sail up and get it in full flare for the landing.
Don set off down the slope in pursuit. As he ran, he lost sight of Sarah under the steep-angled kite. The touchdown was smooth. The Dacron fabric lost its tautness and rippled gently over her.
When he reached her, she had her gloves off and was unhitching the harness from the glider.
“Hi,” she said.
“Can I help?”
She put her hand on the buckle that secured the body harness below her chest. “You could unfasten this.”
It meant standing face to face. He moved close and she unstrapped her crash helmet and shook her hair loose. Her face was flushed from the wind and she was short of breath.
He was sexually aroused and he did not believe it.
He could not do much about it with Sarah holding a twenty-foot-wide sail that threatened at the next gust of wind to knock them both off their feet. When he had unfastened the chest strap, she asked him to hold the sail while she attended to the thigh straps that secured the padded seat to her own. Freed from the harness, she told him she was sorry but she would have to dismantle the glider before doing anything else.
He held the king post while she folded each sail and rolled it to the center. She worked briskly and surely, keeping the fabric stretched to eliminate creases.
“It looks like a lot of hard work for a few minutes’ flying,” he commented.
“No, it’s fun,” she told him. “I really enjoy this part of it.”
When the glider was reduced to a column of fabric and a triangle of aluminum tubing, he carried it for her to the motel, and they had a drink and a sandwich there. Sarah talked excitedly about her experiences while gliding. She showed none of the reserve that made their discussions about research such a pain. “You really should come out here and learn,” she told him. “You take it in stages, and it’s amazing how soon you get through the ground-handling and start to fly. Then the big thing is how high you can go, but in no time at all you’re thinking about time and distance, and after that you’re into maneuvers. Why not give it a try? You could learn on my kite if you like.”
She really meant it.
“You’re on. When do I start?”
“How about a week from today?”
“You’re forgetting something. There are the readings to do in the lab.”
“They don’t take long. Come out here for the afternoon.”
That was the plan they made.
When Don drove away from Bear Crossing with the paper on the cryptozoa next to him on the seat, he felt positively grateful to Jerry Berlin. Sarah away from the department was another person, relaxed, lively, and attractive. It was as if she had broken out of the personality he had known — or not known — for a year. Almost — he smiled to himself — like the molt of a spider.
For an instant there came into his mind Sarah in her black leather, toiling at the wires of the glider, winding them into a coil. I really enjoy this part of it.
Then more human considerations took over as he considered his first lesson in hang-gliding next Wednesday, and whether the invitation might be taken to mean anything more.
It was five o’clock and he was back in New York before he remembered the lunchtime dance rehearsal with Meg.
Thursday started routinely for Sarah with the drive down Highway 208 to New York City. Her mind was on Ed and how she could let him know, without being too obvious, that she was seeing more of Don Rigden. She needed to assure him that she had men friends her own age. He wanted to know that she was not alone in the world and looking for a father figure. If she could satisfy him on this point, he might be less guarded in his meetings with her. It mattered profoundly to her that Ed should let her get close. She didn’t care how much older he was. She wanted him.
She wanted, simply, to belong to him — not necessarily in a physical sense. If he desired her, she was his, but she would not insist on sex. In her experience it was no big deal. She had tried it enough times to know that it left her cold. The only truly stimulating experiences she could recall were when she was a kid of twelve or thirteen making her rebellion against her parents. The gang she had joined — the kids notorious for playing hooky and for vandalism — made bodily candor into a proof of loyalty. As a lapsed teacher’s pet, she had aroused exceptional interest. Her initiation in the back of an abandoned van — the sense of self-importance as they had taken turns to glimpse her new and gingery pubic hair, and the giggling indelicacy of having a penis rest in the palm of her hand — had been an intoxicating experience: pure sin laced with childish curiosity.
Full sex when it came at fifteen denied and destroyed the fantasies her adolescence had created. She met the soldier at a party given by a school friend, Jane Melford, in Cherry Hill. He told her it was his last night on American soil before being flown to Vietnam. She listened and felt sorry for him. When the party broke up, he said he wanted to drive her home. She figured he might try something, but he was sweet and a little scared and he might easily be killed by the VC, and — what the hell — she couldn’t keep it forever. If the rest of her class could be believed, she was the last but two, and they were creeps. He drove half a mile and pulled off the main road onto a golf course and switched off the engine. He didn’t force her, he pleaded with her. The one thing she had not expected was words. He didn’t lay a finger on her. Just begged. And she couldn’t get him to understand that she was not unwilling. In desperation she took off her panties and lay ready on the backseat. He had no erection. He was in tears. He lit a cigarette. She didn’t know whether to put her underclothes back on, so she just covered herself with her dress and sat up. When he had smoked two, he suggested they go for a walk. They got out of the car and walked along the fairway for maybe five minutes. Suddenly he said he was ready and pushed her down into a bunker. Wet sand chilled her buttocks. He penetrated her and she clenched her teeth to stop from crying out. He was finished in less than half a minute. Two weeks later she happened to see him on Walnut Street in Philadelphia. The uniform he was wearing was that of a mailman.
It took her three years to get over the humiliation. Then she had three guys in a month to find out if it could be better than the last time. There was less pain but no pleasure. One kept going so long she had to fake it to get him off her. Since then she had given most would-be seducers the brush. As for the few she had given it a try with, she could have had as much fun on an exercycle.
Yet she clung to the expectation that someday the right guy would know how to turn her on. It was possible it could be Ed. He had style. He treated her with understanding. He was positive but not insensitive. And he was beginning to turn up in her dreams.
The morning followed its usual pattern until just before noon, when Jerry Berlin walked into the lab and asked what she was doing Friday. He wore an unctuous smile that made her dislike him more than usual.
“Why — do you need me for something?”