The girl looked to Corcoran as if she were lost, then bowed her head and offered a demurrer, sotto voce. “It’s nothing, really.”
“But you are discreet — at least that’s what Corcoran told me. You are, aren’t you?”
She began to say yes in a voice that got lost in her throat, and then she repeated herself, in a firmer tone. “Yes,” she said. “I’m discreet.”
“We can rely on you, can’t we?” Prok was giving her his sternest look. “What happens here in this house is strictly between those of us present, is that understood? And that no gossip, no mention of your assistance here with the research tonight is ever, ever, I repeat, to go any further than these rooms?”
“She’s all right, Prok,” Corcoran put in.
Rutledge, all but forgotten — wasn’t he the main attraction here? — sat over his urine-colored liqueur and tried for an anything-goes sort of smile that withered on his lips. He was nervous suddenly. And, frankly, so was I.
“But I want to hear it from Betty’s lips. Betty?”
“I understand,” she said, and her eyes dodged away from Prok’s to fix on Corcoran. “But are we going to sit here and gab all night? Because if we are—” She got to her feet then, a tall girl, anything but frail, the lineaments of her figure discernible in a sudden sweep and release of movement beneath her clothes. She never finished the thought, or threat or whatever it was, but just stood there glaring at us now, as if she’d thrown down a challenge we were loath to accept.
Prok rose now too. “You’re quite right, Betty,” he said, “and while it’s been pleasant to sit here and have a little chat, we do have business to get to, don’t we?” And here a look to Corcoran, then to Rutledge (a significant pause) and finally to me. “Well, shall we?” His voice faded into an echoing hollow, and I saw in that moment that he was anxious too. We all got to our feet. “Corcoran, why don’t you show Miss—Betty—upstairs?”
My heart was hammering. I’d already guessed at what was coming, but then I couldn’t be sure because we’d never done anything like this before, or to this degree, that is, not as a demonstration certainly, not live, not in public, and I couldn’t believe Prok was prepared to go this far. Watching a prostitute from a closet was one thing, but — but my gaze was fixed on Betty’s hips and rump as she ascended the stairs, her calves flexing and releasing as the hem of her dress rose and fell above them. I could smell her perfume, something I didn’t recognize, rose water, lilac, and it went right to my groin. “Yes,” Prok was saying, “just up at the top there, that door to the left, Corcoran, that’s right — we really haven’t done much to the attic, a bit warm up there, I’m afraid, but it’s cozy. And private. You’ll have to admit that.”
And then we were all milling round the attic room, all but Mac, that is — she’d elected to stay downstairs, to “tidy up,” as she put it. The room was stuffy and there was a smell of sawdust and varnish, as if the carpenters hadn’t got round to completing what they’d begun, the ceiling low and unfinished, the walls constructed of pine boards indifferently nailed to the studs. It hadn’t changed much from the first time I’d been there, just after Prok took me on — there was the single bed up against the wall under the slant of the roofline, the fishing rod in the corner and the children’s outgrown toys and athletic equipment. The only difference, as far as I could see, was that the Ping-Pong table had been removed and replaced by half a dozen wooden chairs arranged in a semicircle facing the bed.
There was an awkward moment, the girl’s presence overwhelming us all, even Prok, till Corcoran took charge. He was in a light summer suit, sportily cut, and he’d loosened his tie against the heat. His hair had been bleached by the summer sun — he was a great one for tennis, and, when he could find the time, for golf too — and his face was deeply tanned. He looked good. Very good. Almost as if he’d stepped out of a Hollywood picture about polo-playing swells or playboys cruising the Riviera. “Why don’t you all just have a seat and make yourselves comfortable,” he said, taking the girl by the hand, “while Betty and I get down to business.” And to the girclass="underline" “Are you ready?”
Rutledge gave me a look that was meant to convey perplexity, but I could see what his surmise had led him to and that he was excited. There was a scraping of chair legs as we sat — Prok, Rutledge and I — and adjusted the position of our seats and crossed our legs, trying to act casually and failing, all three of us. Corcoran, in the meanwhile, had begun kissing the girl, deep kissing, tongue to tongue, and he let his hands roam over her body, descending to her buttocks and rising again to massage her breasts, and she gave back in kind. Her hands moved like quick white animals over the terrain of his jacket and trousers.
Then they were on the bed, kissing even more passionately now, and Corcoran was unfastening the buttons that ran up the back of her dress, and as soon as her back was exposed he unclipped her brassiere and in a single movement jerked her arms away from the clothes so that she was peeled to the waist and her breasts fell free. Her hands became more animated, tugging at his shirt, tearing loose the buttons, a kind of frenzy building till they were both naked and Corcoran was on his knees, spreading her legs and performing cunnilingus on her while she snatched at his hair and ears and tugged as if she would pull him into her. After a moment they switched positions and she returned the favor, making a Popsicle of him, and then Corcoran lifted her back onto the bed and climbed atop her.
Prok was wearing his mask of impassivity, but Rutledge looked as if he were about to explode. He was aroused — his trousers were tented in the crotch — and though he tried to be surreptitious about it, tried to remain focused and detached, he began to move his hands in his lap. For my part, I fought to act neutral, for Prok’s sake and Rutledge’s too — no one there, but for Corcoran, seemed to know what was expected, and Prok, Prok, of course — but I don’t think it will come as any surprise if I tell you that I’d never yet been so aroused in my life and that the psychological factors and the setting and company certainly played into it. This was Corcoran — my colleague and friend, Corcoran who’d done just this with Iris, with my wife, this movement of the head and tongue, this sliding in and out of the female orifice with the slick rhythm and balance of a seal riding a wave ashore — and it was a spur to me, I won’t deny it, and I won’t deny that spurs draw blood either. I felt choked. I could barely breathe.
All at once Prok was out of the chair and he had Rutledge by the arm, dragging him forward till they were hovering over the scene. “You see, Rutledge, how invaluable this is?” he was saying, bending close now as Corcoran pumped and the girl heaved and snatched at his shoulders and sang out. “You see that?” Prok demanded. “Right there, see?” He was pointing an empirical finger to the girl’s left breast. “Do you see how the aureole has swollen and enlarged in arousal — and the tumescence of the erectile tissue of the nipples in both female and male? And see here — even the alae, the soft parts of the nose, have become engorged in the female …”
Prok was inches away, bent close, using his index finger as a pointer, and in a soft voice he asked Corcoran if he might turn the girl over in order better to study the physiologic metamorphoses in her rectal and genital areas. Corcoran complied. There was a confusion of limbs, a certain awkwardness, and then the girl was on top, the silver cross swaying rhythmically with the drive of her hips, and Prok lecturing and Rutledge hovering and the whole performance coming to its ineluctable climax.