When the Light Goes

by Larry McMurtry

  When he came to his cabin he felt so heavy that he didn’t even go in. The cabin had been his refuge and his peace for more than two years. It was the one place where he felt calm, safe and functional, deeply at ease.

  But now it just looked like a dusty, empty frame cabin, on a rocky hill.

  The moral, if there was a moral, was that no one place was sufficient for all the stages of his life. His needs, like the needs of most people, changed and varied.

  Duane didn’t want to be on his hill anymore—didn’t care about his cabin. He wanted to be with Annie Cameron. Duane turned his pickup and drove home fast, skipping the Asia Wonder Deli. Crab rolls could wait. He was hungry, but not for crab rolls or barbecued pork. He was hungry—really hungry—for his girl.

  44

  WHEN DUANE walked into the pool area of their apartment he found Annie by the pool, smoking and crying. He had never seen her smoke before—the sight was a shock, though he couldn’t have said why, since the oil patch generally was like a national sanctuary for smokers. He himself had smoked much of his life and didn’t regard it as much of a vice, certainly not in comparison to the drugs that were readily available in the oil patch generally.

  Annie was alone in the pool area. She wore a red bikini—the cups sat on her small breasts, giving a sad effect. She didn’t sunbathe much—her chest was freckled. The minute she saw Duane she jumped up and threw her arms around him. Her bikini top fell off but there was no one to see her but Duane.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Annie was sobbing so hard that he couldn’t tell whether she heard the question. She flipped her cigarette butt into the pool, which was a no-no but, for the moment, he was too concerned with getting her calmed down to worry about one cigarette in a swimming pool that nobody seemed to be using.

  He led her carefully up the stairs and into their apartment—he had come to think of it as theirs, rather than hers.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked again.

  “I thought you left me!” Annie sobbed. “You’re always here when I come home, but I got off early today and came to get the fish started and you weren’t here.”

  “But this is the time you usually get home and I am here,” Duane pointed out. Annie’s chest was still heaving.

  “Don’t try to be reasonable with me!” Annie said sharply. “This is not reasonable. I know it’s the time I usually get home. But when I did get home and you weren’t here the apartment looked so empty that I got scared.”

  “I was in Thalia. Dickie came by and said he was closing the old office, so I went over and had a look. I visited with Lester Marlow a few minutes. I meant to go to the Asia Wonder Deli but I got such a hankering to see you that I just came on home.”

  “Let’s don’t cook the salmon right now,” she said. “Let’s have sex.”

  She put her hand on him and squeezed, rather roughly.

  “Ouch,” he said, in a teasing tone—he knew by now that Annie was too inexperienced to know what she was doing sexually—she didn’t yet understand how sensitive the male equipment was.

  Annie didn’t seem to hear him. She stripped off her bikini bottom, squeezed herself against his thigh, and kissed him—a light kiss, not the hungry kiss that might lead into immediate sex.

  Rather than feeling aroused, Duane felt stalled—uncomfortable to a degree with Annie’s sudden invitation.

  “Whoa!” he said. “Let’s talk a minute.”

  Annie sniffled and let go of his penis.

  “I don’t think you want me,” she said. “I never did think you wanted me.”

  “I do want you—but you’re upset,” he said. “I want you to calm down—I’ll help you make dinner and then we’ll see about sex.”

  She looked at Duane hostilely.

  “I said I wanted to have sex,” she said. “I wish you would just take me at my word and fuck me, no discussion,” she said. “Why do we have to talk?”

  Duane knew that he didn’t really have the words to placate her—anything he said would just make her more angry. He put his hand on her, as if to give in, and found that she was completely dry. Instead of opening to his hand she tightened against it.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “Could we just sit on the couch for a minute and maybe have a drink?”

  “Are you so scared of me you have to get drunk to do the deed?”

  “I don’t know about the deed, Annie,” he said. “I don’t know about doing it right now. We sleep together every night. It’s not hard to slip into doing the deed when you’re in bed with a beautiful woman.”

  “I’m not beautiful—I’m just okay and I’ve got no boobs.”

  Duane went to the cabinet, got the whiskey and two glasses.

  “I want my drink,” he said. “This is the cocktail hour, which comes before the sex hour,” he said—he was trying for a bit of humor. But Annie didn’t smile—she was standing naked, right where she had dropped her bikini bottom. He got some ice cubes and poured the whiskey over them. When he handed Annie a glass she accepted it.

  “The sex hour can be anytime two people want to fuck,” she said. “I guess you don’t, really.”

  “And all this is because I wasn’t right here when you stepped in the door?”

  Annie shrugged. She went and got a shirt and a pair of cutoffs. She sipped some of the whiskey and gradually the tight look went out of her face—she looked like a confused child, but at least she was calming down.

  “My mother says that if you’re not actually fucking a man he’s always apt to leave you,” she said. “Since we’re not actually fucking I came in and saw you weren’t here and chose to believe the worst.”

  “Along that line there’s something you might want to consider,” he said. “Your mother could be full of shit.”

  Annie smiled her real smile—a smile of girlish delight.

  “Right on, partner,” she said.

  45

  “CAN YOU EVER ORDER steaks from these overnight catalogues?” Duane asked, although he knew the answer. Left to himself during the day he often browsed through catalogues offering big thick porterhouses and excellent K.C. sirloins.

  “Of course you can order steaks,” Annie said. “But why would you if you have a ninety percent blockage in three major arteries.”

  She laid out a dill dip with the salmon. It was supposed to be wild Atlantic salmon and proved tasty. Duane had his doubts about the wildness but kept them to himself.

  “Didn’t you just get irrationally upset because I wasn’t here the minute you stepped in the door?” he asked.

  Annie looked at him defiantly.

  “What was so irrational?” she asked. “You will leave someday, unless we get ourselves a sex life.”

  “You think having a sex life guarantees that people will stay together?”

  Annie didn’t like the question, so she didn’t answer it.

  “What’s your opinion?” she asked.

  “I don’t think anything guarantees that people will stay together,” he said. “Lots of people who are having sex lives, and pretty good sex lives, don’t stay together.”

  “Oh fuck it! I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said. “I just want to feel like a woman rather than a girl. Maybe if we had sex I’d feel like a woman.”

  “How’d we get from steaks to sex?”

  “If you’re just going to start eating steaks then you must be suicidal—what am I even doing living with you?”

  “It’s just that I like a steak, once in a while,” he said. “I doubt that a steak every week or so is going to push me into a heart attack.”

  “It could,” Annie insisted.

  So could sex, Duane thought, but he didn’t say it. He was beginning to suspect that Annie Cameron had never really had sex—or never had full intercourse at least. Since he had moved in with her she had often talked about boyfriends who had tried to stick their tongues in her mouth or their dicks into her cunt but these complaints didn’t
entirely ring true. The stories seemed like a subterfuge, all aimed at keeping him from discovering the truth, which was that Annie was essentially virginal. Probably there had been efforts at penetration, but had any of them worked? He didn’t know.

  When they got up from the table Annie pointedly gathered up all the catalogues from overnight steak-suppliers, took them downstairs and threw them into the dumpster. It amused him but also annoyed him a little.

  “What do you expect that to accomplish?” he asked. “There’s a steakhouse six blocks from here. I can always get a steak if I want a steak.”

  Annie ignored the comment.

  “Could we take a shower together?” she asked. “I like taking showers with you. It’s like we’re under a waterfall together,” she said, stripping right where she stood but then carefully picking up her clothes and folding them.

  In the shower she stood as close to him as possible and reached down and grabbed his dick again. It came half up and she soaped it thoroughly.

  “Is it a turn-off that I’m so compulsive about germs?” she asked.

  “Nothing you do is a turn-off. Pretty much everything you do is a turn-on.”

  He reached back and increased the volume of cold water in the shower, which had the immediate effect of causing her nipples to pucker. He rubbed them a little while they were puckered, which startled Annie—she produced a little gasp.

  “You never touched my nipples before.”

  He continued to caress them lightly. Then he made the water warm again and they held one another close for several minutes.

  “I’m going to shave that stupid hair under my armpits,” she said. “Why should I imitate Jeanne Moreau?”

  Once they dried off Annie did shave the hair under her armpits.

  “What if I shaved my pussy—would that excite you?”

  “Annie, I am excited. You don’t need to do a thing but come to bed.”

  When she did come to bed he reached between her legs and began a very slow caressing—he felt her nipples pucker again, and, again, she gave a little gasp. Duane kept on, slowly rubbing a finger up and down her slit, up and down. He touched the little sheath over her clitoris—just a touch, which provoked a louder gasp. He kept rubbing until, eventually, she began to lubricate—but only a little. He dribbled a little saliva on one finger and gently pushed it into her.

  “Why’d you have to put spit in me?” she asked. “I don’t like spit.”

  “Why not? It’s clean and it’s useful.”

  “Just stick your dick in—you don’t have to use spit,” she said.

  She took hold of his penis again and squeezed it—he felt swollen but he knew he was not really erect. So he continued to caress Annie’s slit, which began to get a little wetter. She was still very tight. He had his finger in only to the first knuckle—when he tried to push farther in he had to push hard.

  “Ouch,” Annie said. “Can’t you just take your finger out and put your dick in?”

  He took his finger out and knelt above her for a moment—he had only the beginnings of an erection; when he he tried to penetrate Annie he got no farther than his finger had gotten. Then he became flaccid and slipped out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry.”

  “I guess you’re just impotent—bummer,” Annie said.

  “That’s not the whole story,” he said, putting his hand on her again. He put a finger in and, as he did, felt his penis rise a little. Annie was wetter now. He put a second finger in and in—she gasped but didn’t protest. She was gripping his fingers tightly—too tightly.

  “If you’ll let go for a minute we might get lucky,” he said.

  She let go and he eased himself into her—he didn’t have a full erection but he made a partial entry and gave Annie a moment to adjust to him.

  “I don’t know about this—you’re kind of big,” she said.

  Staying where he was he began to rub her labia.

  “Oh gee, yeah,” she said, and gave him a light kiss. “Oh gee . . .” Some tone or her little gasps aroused him and he was soon in almost full erection.

  “Oh gee . . . maybe you better come out—it hurts,” she said.

  “What was that you were reading me from some poem?” he asked.

  “You’re right—I gotta tough this out,” she said. “This is the part where I get rent . . . ooh!”

  She seemed to tighten even more around him and in a moment he felt himself come. It took Annie a moment to realize what had happened. Duane was gushing into her, though only briefly.

  “I guess you put a lot of goo in me,” she said. “I don’t like semen very much—it’s going to drip on the couch.”

  “It’s just protein,” Duane said.

  “Didn’t you want me to come too?” she asked, looking hurt.

  “Of course I did—and I do,” he said. “But this takes practice—you’re just starting out.”

  “You didn’t fuck me very long,” she said, reproachfully.

  “No, I didn’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. But we’re at different stages: you’re just starting out and I’m just finishing up. We’ll get better at it and one day soon you’ll get there.”

  “You mean have an orgasm—I doubt it,” Annie said. “My mother’s never had one. My sister Spence claims to have had one but she’s a fucking little liar. I don’t think any of us has had one. There’s just something wrong in the Cameron family.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Duane said. “You’re just inexperienced. I have to learn what you really like.”

  She looked at him with a sly smile.

  “You think you’ll live long enough to find out what I really like?”

  “I hope to.”

  “Then you better lay off the steaks, buddy,” she said. “That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  46

  THE NEXT DAY, in an effort to recover his energies, Duane got up when Annie did. They showered together—that was getting to be one of Annie’s favorite things—but, apart from a little nuzzling, didn’t indulge in any sex play. Annie was compulsive about not being late for work.

  It surprised her that Duane got dressed, as if he were going to work too.

  “I’m going to see Bobby Lee,” he said. “I’ll probably be back before you are, but if I’m not don’t worry.”

  “I won’t be worried but I might be pissed,” Annie told him. “I might want to try a little more of that sex stuff.”

  “We can try it,” Duane said. “It may be that the more we play around the more you’ll come to like it.”

  Annie thought that over. She gazed at the couch, as if trying to remember exactly what they had done.

  “It hurt a little but I guess I did like it,” she said. “It felt real, at least. It was messy because you shot all that goo into me but at least I really wanted you. I think that was the first time I really wanted you.”

  “That’s good to hear,” he said, and they left.

  Duane had not been to Bobby Lee’s crappy house for years and had to poke around among the many inlets of the large lake before he found him. When he did find him it was because he spotted Bobby’s new red pickup.

  Bobby Lee, wearing an undershirt and cutoffs, was down at the water’s edge, where he had just caught a small green turtle. He seemed uncertain as to what to do with the turtle.

  “I’m getting tired of catching these little green bastards,” he said to Duane, without preamble.

  “Then you may have to give up fishing,” Duane said. “Catching turtles is just part of the fishing experience.”

  Bobby cut the hook and pitched the turtle back into the lake.

  “Did you bring your rod?” he asked.

  “Forgot it.”

  “You can use Jessica’s,” Bobby Lee said. “She only used hers once and got her hook stuck in her ankle that time.”

  “I hear Jessica’s going up for a while,” Duane said.

  “A while is right—she had a whole car
ful of dope,” Bobby said. “I’m forced to face the fact that my beautiful wife is a goddamn drug dealer.”

  “Let’s go out in the boat,” Duane suggested. “I need to sit and look at water—it might soothe me a little.”

  Bobby Lee had a small boat with an old outboard that had to be carefully coaxed into life, but he eventually got it going and they were soon far out in the middle of a very large lake. The water was brown. Lots of turtle heads protruded from the murky surface.

  “A game warden came by and told me they figure there’s thirty thousand goddamn turtles in Lake Kemp alone. There’s plenty in Kickapoo and Arrowhead too. Why do turtles flourish when I don’t?”

  Duane put a little stink-bait on a hook and cast a few times. Nothing took the stink-bait but a perch much too small to keep.

  “How long will Jessica be in the pen?” Duane asked.

  Bobby shrugged.

  “Probably six or seven years,” he said. “I should be over her before she comes out, but of course there’s no guarantee.”

  “Let’s hope you’re over her—how about you and Jenny?”

  Bobby Lee smiled.

  “Jenny’s my salvation,” he said. “If we hadn’t had a little itch for one another I’d have had to get through life with hardly any sex at all.”

  Duane was still trying to remember whether he had ever slept with Jenny Marlow—it would have had to be in the 1970s, during the boom, when he and Karla had both strayed. He thought he remembered being in bed with a woman with bony shoulders and big front teeth, but there were several women of his acquaintance who shared those attributes. His memories of Jenny might only have been a fantasy, and, anyway, it was not a matter he needed to discuss with Bobby Lee.

  “How are you and Miss California?” Bobby asked.

  “We’re doing better—I’m pretty smitten,” Duane said.

  Bobby didn’t pursue the matter.

  “Why do you suppose life’s got so muddled up?” he asked. “I’ve been confused at times through the years but I don’t remember being this muddled up.”

  “In my humble opinion you’ve always been muddled up, Bobby,” Duane said.