"I could do that," Zoe Kohler said suddenly.
"What?" Ernest shouted. "What did you say? I can't hear you."
She shook her head. Then they sat and watched. They drank many glasses of wine. They felt the heat of the dancers. What they witnessed excited them and diminished them at once, in a way they could not understand.
Finally, long past 1:00 a.m., they rose dizzily to their feet, infected by sensation. Ernest had just enough money to pay the bill and leave a small tip.
Outside, they stood with arms about each other's waist, weaving slightly. They tasted the cool night air, looked up at stars dimmed by the city's blaze.
"Go home now," Ernest muttered. "Don't have enough for a cab. Sorry."
"Don't worry about it, dear," she said, taking his arm. "I have money."
"A loan," he insisted.
She led him, lurching, to Park Avenue. When a cab finally stopped, she pushed Ernest into the back seat, then climbed in. She gave the driver her address.
"Little high," Ernest said solemnly. "Sorry about that."
"Silly!" she said. "There's nothing to be sorry for. I'll make us some black coffee when we get home."
They arrived at her apartment house. He tried to straighten up and walk steadily through the lobby. But upstairs, in her apartment, he collapsed onto her couch and looked at her helplessly.
"I'm paralyzed," he said.
"Just don't pass out," she said, smiling. "I'll have coffee ready in a jiff. Then you'll feel better."
"Sorry," he mumbled again.
When she came in from the kitchen with the coffee, he was bent far forward, head in his hands. He raised a pale face to her.
"I feel dreadful," he said. "It was the wine."
"And the heat," she said. "And that smoky air. Drink your coffee, darling. And take this…"
He looked at the capsule in her palm. "What is it?"
"Extra-strength aspirin," she said, proffering the Tuinal. "Help prevent a hangover."
He swallowed it down, gulped his coffee steadily. She poured him another cup.
"Ernie," she said, "it's past two o'clock. Why don't you sleep here? I don't want you going home alone at this hour."
"Oh, I couldn't-" he started.
"I insist," she said firmly. "You take the bed and I'll sleep out here on the couch."
He objected, saying he already felt better, and if she'd lend him a few dollars, he'd take a cab home; he'd be perfectly safe. But she insisted he stay, and after a while he assented-but only if she slept in her own bed and he bunked down on the sofa. She agreed.
She brought him a third cup of coffee. This one he sipped slowly. When she assured him a small brandy would help settle his stomach, he made no demur. They each had a brandy, taking off their shoes, slumping at opposite ends of the long couch.
"Those people…" he said, shaking his head. "I can't get over it. They just don't care-do they?"
"No, I suppose not. It was all so-so ugly."
"Yes," he said, nodding, "ugly."
"Not ugly so much as coarse and vulgar. It cheapens, uh, sex."
"Recreational sex," he said. "That's what they call it; that's how they feel about it. Like tennis or jogging. Just another diversion. Isn't that the feeling you got, watching them? You could tell by the way they danced."
"All that bare flesh!"
"And the way they moved! So suggestive."
"I, ah, suppose they have-they make-they go to bed afterwards. Ernie?"
"I suppose so. The dancing was just a preliminary. Did you get that feeling?"
"Oh yes. The dancing was definitely sexual. Definitely. It was very depressing. In a way. I mean, then making love loses all its importance. You know? It means about as much as eating or drinking."
"What I think," he said, looking directly at her, "is that sex-I mean just physical sex-without some emotional attachment doesn't have any meaning at all."
"I couldn't agree more. Without love, it's just a cheap thrill."
"A cheap thrill," he repeated. "Exactly. But I suppose if we tried to explain it to those people, they'd just laugh at us."
"I suppose they would. But I don't care; I still think we're right."
They sat a moment in silence, reflectively sipping their brandies.
"I'd like to have sex with you," he said suddenly.
She looked at him, expressionless.
"But I never would," he added hastily. "I mean, I'd never ask you. Zoe, you're a beautiful, exciting woman, but if we went to bed together, uh, you know, casually, it would make us just like those people we saw tonight."
"Animals," she said.
"Yes, that's right. I don't want a cheap thrill and I don't think you do either."
"I don't, dear; I really don't."
"It seems to me," he said, puzzling it out, "that when you get married, you're making a kind of statement. It's like a testi-monial. You're signing a legal document that really says it's not just a cheap thrill, that something more important is involved. You're pledging your love forever and ever. Isn't that what marriage means?"
"That's what it's supposed to mean," she said sadly. "It doesn't always work out that way."
She pushed her way along the couch. She sat close to him, put an arm about his neck. She pulled him close, kissed his cheek.
"You're an idealist," she whispered. "A sweet idealist."
"I guess I am," he said. "But is what I want so impossible?"
"What do you want?"
"Something that has meaning. I go to work every day, come home and fry a hamburger. I watch television. I'm not complain-ing; I have a good job and all. But there must be more than that. And I don't mean a one-night stand. Or an endless series of one-night stands. There's got to be more to life than that."
"You want to get married?" she asked in a low voice, remembering Maddie's instructions.
"I think so. I think I do. I've thought a lot about it, but the idea scares me. Because it's so final. That's the way I see it anyway, I mean, it's for always, isn't it? Or should be. But at the same time the idea frightens me, I can't see any substitute. I can't see anything else that would give me what I want. I like my job, but that's not enough."
"An emptiness," she said. "A void. That's what my life is like."
"Yes," he said eagerly, "you understand. We both want sorne-thing, don't we? Meaning. We want our lives to have meaning."
The uncovering that had started that afternoon in Central Park had progressed to this; they both felt it. It was an unfolding, a stripping, that neither wanted to end. It was a fearful thing they were doing, dangerous and painful.
Yet it had become easier. Intimacy acted on them like an addictive drug. Stronger doses were needed. And they hardly dared foresee what the end might be, or even if there was an end. Perhaps their course was limitless and they might never finish.
"There's something I want," she said. "Something. But don't ask me what it is because I don't know, I'm not sure. Except that I don't want to go on living the way I do. I really don't."
He leaned forward to kiss her lips. Twice. Tenderly.
"We're so alike," he breathed. "So alike. We believe in the same things. We want the same things."
"I don't know what I want," she said again.
"Sure you do," he said gently, taking her hand. "You want your life to have significance. Isn't that it?"
"I want…" she said. "I want… What do I want? Darling, I've never told this to anyone else, but I want to be a different person. Totally. I want to be born again, and start all over. I know the kind of woman I want to be, and it isn't me. It's all been a mistake, Ernie. My life, I mean. It's been all wrong. Some of it was done to me, and some of it I did myself. But it's my life, and so it's all my responsibility. Isn't that true? But when I try to understand what I did that I should not have done, or what I neglected to do, I get the horrible feeling that the whole thing was beyond my…"