“It’s what I wanted,” he said.
“The Christmas Assembly is on Wednesday the 23rd,” Lois said. She took the cigarette from her mouth. “Most places have a drink around Christmastime, sort of usher in the holidays. You think we’ll have a drink here?”
“I doubt it,” Rick said.
“I didn’t think we would. So I’ve got an idea, angel. Try it for size, Rick, if it’ll squeeze in under your halo. My idea is that we go out after the assembly and have a drink in a local bar. You can bring a friend along, if you like. How about Solly Klein? We’ll have a drink, and we’ll toast your wardrobe mistress, Rick, okay? We’ll toast her and boredom, and all the angels in the world, and all the sweet wives waiting for those angels to come home to them. We’ll toast everything, Rick. And we’ll toast the present I told you about, and maybe we’ll exchange gifts.” She paused. “How does the idea sound to you, Rick? Flutter your wings a little and let me know.” She paused again. “A sign, yes? Something I can read. Flash a light, angel doll.”
“I took a beating the last time I toasted anything,” Rick said dryly.
“You and Mr. Edwards. The Quitter. Where is the Quitter now, Rick?”
“I don’t know. I suppose he...”
“Or am I offending you? He was your friend, I must remember. But didn’t my invitation include a friend? I’m being a very good little girl, Rick, providing a chaperone and everything. No wife could object to Solly Klein, could she, Rick?”
“Let’s cut it out, Lois,” Rick said suddenly.
“Ah, the sign. There it is, the sign I asked for. Red light. Stop. The mistress remains in the wardrobe.”
“Lois, you’re assuming a hell of...”
“I’m not assuming a damned thing, Rick, not one damned thing, remember that. I read the signs and I obey them if I want to, like smoking a cigarette in this inviolate territory called the auditorium.” She sucked in a long drag, blowing out the smoke in a swift, emphatic stream. “Just like that. I’ve got the sign now, Rick, but it’s not the sign I wanted.”
“Then why the hell don’t we...”
“December 23rd,” Lois said. “What’s today, the 14th? 15th? Well, what difference does it make? It gives you a little time, Rick. A few drinks, a few toasts, a few gifts. A big present. An end to boredom. Oh, for an end to boredom. Oh, but this place is one big cancerous bore!”
“I’m going home,” Rick said.
“Me, too,” Lois agreed. “Me, too. Homeward bound.” She smiled and touched Rick’s arm. “Look Homeward, Angel.”
“Come on,” Rick said roughly.
They started up the aisle together, neither speaking. At the back of the auditorium, Rick snapped off the lights, and Lois was suddenly very close to him, standing so close that he could feel the brush of her thigh against his leg, could feel her breath when she spoke.
“December 23rd, Rick,” she whispered. “An early Christmas this year, and maybe a happy New Year, who knows?”
She leaned forward, expelling her breath, the rush of warm air caressing his face. She tilted her mouth up toward his, and her hand closed on his arm, and in that instant he pushed the auditorium door open and stepped into the brilliantly lighted corridor.
“I’ve got to hurry, Lois,” he said conversationally. “Let me know how you make out with the costumes, won’t you?”
He avoided her as much as possible after that. The cards were all on the table now, face up, and Lois Hammond was not of a mind to play footsie. Lois Hammond was bored with North Manual Trades, and there was nothing like an adventuresome little bout with a married man to relieve boredom. Except that Anne was bored, too, and Anne wasn’t complaining much lately, but he could read her face and he knew damn well she wasn’t enjoying this final stretch of her pregnancy. And whereas it would have been a simple matter to accept Lois Hammond’s present — he had no doubt it would be an interesting package indeed — he would not have been able to live with Anne after that, and worse, he would not have been able to live with himself.
So he avoided her except for brief discussions about the costumes, discussions in which Lois never failed to mention December 23rd and the promise of that future day. She dangled the promise before him like an extended carrot, but he did not nibble at it. There was something confident about her manner, and he wondered how he could have ever considered her a shy, naive little thing. It was almost as if she felt suggestion would accomplish whatever she wanted to accomplish. She used her voice, and she used her words, and she used her body, all bunched together into one powerful suggestive machine, all holding the promise, the glittering promise, a few drinks, a few toasts, a few gifts. A big present.
Rick ignored the promise. He ignored it, but it remained at the back of his mind, and he sometimes examined it secretly. It was like a satchel of bank loot which he’d stored beneath the floorboards of his mind. He knew it was there, but he couldn’t spend it — nor did he particularly want to spend it. And the knowledge that it was there illegally filled him with guilt, even though he had not robbed the bank or placed the satchel under the floorboards to begin with.
Lois Hammond was a master — or a mistress — at the art of insinuation, and she plied that art well until December 23rd became a date to remember, like a birthday or an anniversary. Before she began working on Rick in earnest, December 23rd meant only one thing to him: the day of the Christmas Assembly. It meant more than that now, and he honestly didn’t know whether he was really undecided about accepting her proposition, or whether he was undecided only because she constantly suggested that he was undecided. He’d thought that his mind was made up, made up from that day in The Trades Trumpet office when she’d done a modified strip for him. His resolve had strengthened the night in the auditorium when she’d offered her services as wardrobe mistress. He would have nothing further to do with Lois Hammond. He’d begun avoiding her, but it was difficult to avoid someone like Lois, and now he found himself doubting his own judgment.
She had an annoying knack of making him feel somehow unmanly. Sterile was the word, he supposed. As if he were behaving contrary to all the laws governing the sexual behavior of the human male as reported by, thank you. Dr. Kinsey. As if not accepting the gratuity were abnormal. As if a man with a wife in her ninth month should snatch at this opportunity. As if he were some sort of blind thing that had crawled from under a slimy rock. What’s wrong with you, Rick? No blood? No hormones? No cojones?
Maybe not, he reflected. Maybe the boys in the locker room at the golf club would snicker behind their palms at this creep “who passed up a good thing when it was offered up rare and not under glass. Maybe they would shake their shaggy heads and murmur, “Losing his grip, Dadier is. Shame. Nice chap otherwise.”
Maybe so, and maybe he was being a creep and maybe he had no blood, or hormones, or anything. He doubted that because he heard his blood every night when Anne curled up against him. He heard the blood loud and strong, and his hands passed over her flesh, lingeringly, gently, until he had to stop himself because he knew he was being foolish, and besides it wouldn’t be much longer.
And Anne? He knew she felt nothing now, and he could not blame her for that. And when she soothed him, and when she murmured, “Oh, my poor darling,” he felt somewhat ashamed of himself, as if he should not be feeling desire, not now when she was feeling nothing. She understood, and she helped him, but it was not the same because she was not a participant, and he felt more shamed because sex becomes an empty hollow thing when it is not shared.
But he had blood, all right, and Lois’ intimations that he was a neuter gender textbook insulted his masculinity. He knew that was part of her approach, a buildup which should normally lead to an “All right, you bitch, you’re asking for it!” attack. He saw completely through her, but he still reacted to her approach, and his masculinity was greatly offended whenever she used “angel” as synonymous with “eunuch.”