“What’s that?”
“Some nice yummy fucking without any hassles. We’re a couple of strangers. I’m from Maine and you’re from California and we just met in a bar in Toledo.”
“Nobody ever met anybody like you in a bar in Toledo.”
“You never know. Where are we going?”
He was driving onto the bridge, slowing the car to the fifteen-mile-an-hour speed limit. “Where do you want to go?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your place or a motel, whichever you’d rather.”
“My place, then.”
“I left my car in New Hope. Drop me and I’ll follow you out there. Then you won’t have to take me home. That’s if I can park the car where it won’t be seen from the street.”
“There’s a big driveway, and you can’t see anything from the street.”
“Then let me get my car. If we were going to a motel, I wouldn’t want to take it, but what’s the sense of you having to get dressed and drive me home?”
He dropped her a few blocks from her house and waited with the engine idling until she backed her sports car out of the driveway. He overtook her and she followed a half block behind. All the way there he kept glancing in his rearview mirror to make sure she had not turned off.
When they were in the house he took her in his arms and kissed her. She was considerably shorter than he was and stood on her tiptoes, clinging to him with her arms around his neck. She was wearing a great deal of perfume. He had not noticed it as much in the restaurant, or even in the Buick. He wondered if she had put more on before getting in her own car.
He kissed her again and they moved over to the couch and sat down clutching at each other. “I’m glad we’re not in a motel,” she said. “Just a bed and a dresser and a chair, and all you can do is get out of your clothes and get down to business. Let’s take our time, okay?”
“Why not?”
“Let’s fool around like kids and get each other so hot we can’t stand it, and then we’ll go to your bedroom and fuck like crazy.”
They kissed. Her mouth was eager, demanding. He put a hand on her bare midriff and stroked her. Her skin was as soft as it looked and stroking her was like petting a kitten. He dipped a finger into her navel and she moaned and writhed against him.
When he reached to unclasp the halter top she shook her head. “You don’t have to take it off,” she said. “Just pull it up. See?”
She pulled the top up and her breasts popped into view beneath it. They were large and perfectly firm. He stroked them and she purred, and he lowered his head to kiss her breasts.
“See? It’s sexier with clothes on.”
She was right. He did not know her age but knew she could not be more than twenty-five; Sully’s wives were never older than that. In speech and manner she was younger still, and this urgent clothed lovemaking made him feel he was in high school again. He kissed her breasts and put a hand under the band of the hot pants. The skin on the inside of her thighs was the same perfect velvet as the rest of her.
“No panties.”
“I didn’t think you’d be wearing them.”
“I was before. They’re in the glove compartment. I took them off as soon as I got in my own car. They were already wet by then. God, you’re good. You know just what to do to me.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“Oh, are we gonna fuck. You’re getting me so hot. Anything you want to do. What’s that?”
A car had turned into the driveway, and for a moment his heart froze. He could see Sully coming through the door with a gun in his hand. Then in an instant he recognized the unmistakable sound of the Volkswagen.
“It’s all right. It’s my daughter.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“She’s spending the summer here.”
She sat back, brushed her hair out of her face with her fingers. “You want to go upstairs before she comes in?”
“There’s no need.”
“Well, you want me to go upstairs?”
He shook his head. “We have a fairly open living arrangement here.”
“Well, open or not, you don’t want me sitting around with my tits hanging out.” She tucked herself back into the cocoa brown halter. She started to say something but stopped when the key turned in the door. He lit a cigarette and settled himself on the couch next to Melanie. He was taking a second drag when Karen and the boy came into the room. There was a glow in Karen’s cheeks and a firm smile on her face.
She said, “Dad, this is Jeffrey. Jeff, my father, Hugh Markarian. And you must be Linda.”
“That’s right,” Melanie said.
“I’m Karen, and I’m glad to meet you. Dad’s said a lot about you.”
“Well,” Hugh said. He got to his feet, shook hands with the boy. “You kids like a drink?”
“I think we’ll just go upstairs,” Karen said. “We wanted to listen to some records.”
There was no record player in Karen’s room. “Enjoy yourselves,” he said. He turned to put out his cigarette in an ashtray, and when he looked up again they were already on the stairs.
“Control.”
“How’s that?”
“What I noticed about you right away,” she said. “You stay in control. You don’t get rattled.”
He smiled. “Why should I get rattled?” He sat next to her and let his eyes note the rich young body, let his hands remember the feel of the rich young flesh.
“It didn’t bother you?”
He shook his head. “I told her she could bring people here. And that I would bring people here if I wanted.”
“Like Linda. Right. It would bother most fathers.”
“It didn’t bother me.”
“It didn’t upset you that he was black?”
“No,” he said, reaching for her. “Why should it?”
Ten
When Sully heard her car in the driveway he stayed where he was. He sat in his chair in the living room and did not move when her key turned in the lock and she entered the house. She said, “Honey? I’m home,” and he made no response. He sat in his chair and looked at nothing. There was a glass of applejack in his left hand and a cigarette in his right, but he was neither smoking nor drinking. He had poured the drink over an hour ago and had not yet taken a first sip of it. The ashtray beside him was filled with cigarette butts. He would light one and hold it until the heat of it warmed his fingers, then put it out and light another.
She came into the room and dropped down onto his lap, reaching out a hand to touch his ear and rub the back of his neck. “I’m home,” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Miss me?”
“You cunt.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to stop telling you about it?”
He couldn’t look at her.
“No.”
“I won’t tell you if you don’t want me to, Sully.”
She settled herself on his lap, her arms around his neck. The smell of her was heady, intoxicating. She waited, silent, and he knew he would tell her to speak and hated himself for it.
He said, “This fucking game we play.”
“You want to stop playing?”
“Shit. I do and I don’t.”
“It’s up to you, baby.”
He put out the cigarette. He raised the glass of applejack, looked at it thoughtfully, put it down untasted on the small mahogany table.
He said, “Who was it?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
Part of the game, part of their ritual, all of it carefully evolved during the past weeks by an elaborate system of trial and error. It was more exciting when he knew. He hated himself more, hated her more, but it was more exciting and that was what seemed to count in the long run.