He clouded up. “And I’m going to do just that. You better believe me. I’m coming back in one whole piece. I’m concentrating on it. She will not be a gold-star mother, if her only son can help it.”
They rode silently for a while, and when they reached the sea, her lovely face glowed as the awesome beauty of sea and surf and salty odor assaulted her senses and she was taken in completely, like a lover giving in at last at last. The sun in her face, the wind, the earth, the sea in her responsive body. She moved her leg against his leg and she stretched her trembling body, and her entire being seem to say, “Take me! Take me! Take all of me!” He felt a sweet salty taste in his own mouth and an aching in his loins and warmth throughout his body and a hurting in his stomach.
She said, “And to think I spent most of the time sitting at home and moping and feeling sorry for you, thinking you really had it tough, and all of the time you had all this.” She waved her pretty well-kept hands at everything.
“I’ve been having a natural ball,” he said.
They left the highway and turned abruptly from the sea as it licked its salty tongue against the continent, and a hundred feet away they entered Fort Ord Village, a place constructed and set aside for non-commissioned officers and their wives and children, with green lawns and white two-storied cottages. Solly had arranged for a room in a cottage on Monroe Street. He introduced Millie to the woman in charge of the cottage and she told them they were a beautiful couple and as a matter of fact they resembled each other enough to be brother and sister instead of man and wife. “Neither one of you nothing but children.” She took them to their little back room, clean and spotless with its two iron cots and its dresser and its two chairs and its chest of drawers. “Just make yourself right at home. Anything you want, just call Miss Langford. I’m just at your beck and call.”
The landlady gone, the door closed behind them, he went to her and put his arms around her and his hands on her and his lips against her lips and she pushed all of her body against him as if in terrible desperation, and for one brief moment she went to pieces in his arms, in a manner he had not remembered. But then she quickly got herself together.
He said, “What’s the matter?”
She looked around at the glorified telephone booth of a room, and suddenly it looked cramped and inadequate and miserable, to him, the way she looked at it, whereas the day before, when Mrs. Langford had shown it to him, it had seemed idyllic and romantic and just the thing for unpretentious lovers like Millie and Solly Saunders. Their second honeymoon, their only honeymoon. Now he looked at it as it was. An act of desperation, pure and simple.
He said, “It isn’t home, darling, but it’s clean and cozy.”
“It’s cozy,” she said. “There is that about it.”
He took her into his arms again. “It’s not as if we were leasing an apartment, baby, or buying a home. We’re just buying a little time to be together. And the important thing is—we are together.”
She held him tightly and she was like before again and he was warm again, but then she moved away again.
She said, “Do you have to go back to camp?”
He said, “I have to take the captain his jeep and do a K.P. Roster and get my night pass signed, and then I’ll get somebody to drive me back.”
She said, “Hurry back sweetheart. I’m tired from the trip and there’s no need to stir me up and leave me.”
He was shocked by her overtness. He remembered her as subtle, always subtle, and it was the way he wanted to remember her. Ladylike and subtle. He said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I’ll bring some goodies for you and Junior.”
A warm flush made her cheeks glow. She said, “And I’ll catch a nap and dream about all the goodies you’re going to bring me.”
He stared at her and said jokingly, “Junior has made you even more beautiful than you already were and that just about makes you the prettiest pregnant woman in this whole wide world. And it’s so wonderfully distributed.” His face softened and so did his voice. “How’s the baby been treating my baby? You don’t even show a thing. I mean—not hardly.”
The blood ran warm in her cheeks again. “Just fine. The baby’s fine and I’m fine.”
Solly said, “Did the doctor approve your trip way out here across the continent?”
She said, “You’re the only medicine I need, darling. Better than anything the doctor could possibly prescribe.”
He said, “And you’re the freshest sassiest pregnant woman I ever came across.”
She came to him and put her arms around him. “Hurry back and speak to me of love.”
He ate her up and drank her down with his hungry eyes and mouth and shook his head from side to side.
She laughed at him and moved in closer. “Darling, I’m so glad to be here. It wouldn’t matter if we were in a shack. I love you—I love you, and I missed you so much, and I hate for you to leave me. So please hurry back.” She kissed his mouth his eyes his nose. “I just can’t stand the suspense.”
He became unbearably warm and prickly things raced across his back and he grew large against her pregnancy. He said, “I’ve got to go. I really must.”
She said, “Go, silly, and hurry back. And don’t worry about me. This place will be our castle for the next few weeks. That’s the only thing that matters.”
He should have told her then and there. She was so lovely and so happy, standing there, he didn’t have the heart to tell her this was their first night in this place and tomorrow night would be their last. He held her close and squeezed her as if he would break her in two pieces, and then he left her hurriedly.
Buck Rogers drove him back from camp to the Village, and he knocked on the door and aroused her and introduced her with the sleep still in her face to Buck, and Buck stared at her and tears came to his eyes. She was so beautiful and nostalgic. When Buck left, Solly took her into his arms, and they lay on one of the cots and they kissed each other and felt each other and kissed each other and felt each other. And he smelled the kind of smell he half remembered, the special sweet moldish smell of her just after waking, mixed with the salty smell of her excitement. She caressed his ear with her delicious tongue and then she nibbled his cheek and tenderly bit his ear. And he lay on top of her, letting her feel the full weight of him, and he squeezed her till he heard her screaming softly in his ear and he felt her quivering in the middle of her and he put his mouth against her mouth and tongue to tongue, and when they came up for air, she said, “I feel so good I think I’m going to die!”
And he put his mouth to hers again and his hand beneath her clothes and he felt her quaking wetness and smelled her wetness, and she moved from under him and stood up, and he said angrily, “What the hell’s the matter?” And then he said anxiously, “Did I lean too heavy on the baby?”
She said, “Silly—I just want to take a bath and freshen up. I was asleep when you came back.”
He said, “Come on, you don’t need a bath. Please—please.” His head reeled and his stomach ached. He wanted her now and now and now and now.
She said, “It was a long trip, sweetie, and I need a good hot bath.” She took her washrag, towel and soap and toilet water, her bathrobe and her nightgown, and she went up the hall to the bathroom.
It seemed like hours before she came back in her nightgown and her bathrobe, hours long and agonizing. And he was lying where she left him. Standing at attention. She stared at him and she took off her robe and stood before him, the pink sheer gown clinging to her profoundly beautiful body like it was hanging on in desperation and leaning against her wonderful breasts, honey-colored and cinnamon-nippled, and grabbing at her round slim thighs where they started from the dark V-crease beneath her slightly swelling pregnancy. He was hot all over and growing by the second and his head was getting giddy. Her gown went up over her head and she stood before him in all of her golden-olive loveliness. And great God almighty, her pregnancy was beautiful!—giving a subtle roundness to her belly that
was never there before. He swallowed the funny taste in his mouth and got up and went to take her in his arms.
She said impatiently, “What were you waiting for? Undress!” And she began to unbutton his shirt and the fly of his trousers. “Off! Off! Everything off!”
And now they stood there in their birthday suits, and she looked him up and down. She said, “Beautiful! Just beautiful!” And why shouldn’t she look at him like this? They were lovers, they were man and wife. She had just as much right to admire his body as he had hers. He was just a self-conscious old-fashioned mid-Victorian male-supremacist ass!
She said, “Take me up and carry me to bed.”
He took her up into his arms and carried her to one of the little iron cots, and they lay there locked together in their nakedness, fitting one into the other’s groove. There was not an nth of an nth of an inch between them. He wanted immediately to lose himself inside of her and escape the crazy world, but she said, “Not yet! Not yet! I want to just lie here next to you and feel you up against me and kiss your beautiful eyes and your sensitive mouth and your big ears and I want you to kiss me and kiss me here!” She cupped her breast. He kissed her sweet breast tenderly. She was breathing fast and furious and she stopped to catch her breath. And he looked at her and could not conceal his astonishment. He remembered her as forward and opinionated in other things, but in love-making she had always been the bourgeois lady. Coy and hard-to-get and always passive up until the final frantic moment when she went for all the marbles.
She said, “You think I’m acting like a common whore.”
He almost shook his head off his body. His face was burning up with guilt. “Don’t be silly.”
She said, “Yes, you do. And I’m ashamed of the way I’m acting, but I’ve missed you so much, and when you’re gone you’ll be gone so long I want to enjoy every minute of you the next few weeks and let it last the next few years if necessary. And you’re my husband and I’m not ashamed. Why should I be?”
He whispered, “Hush up, baby.”
But she spilled over. “You hate me for acting like a whore, don’t you? I can see it in your face. But I don’t care. I love you love you love you.” Her large eyes filled and overflowed.
And he was filled with love and pity and maleness and the nearness of her. He said, “I love you, goddammit.” And really meant it.
She said, “No, you don’t. I can tell by the way you look at me. I could tell by your letters. There’s somebody else, I know there is! I knew before I came. That’s why—that’s why—that’s why—” Her voice broke off and the tears spilled down her cheeks, and she was so lovely he couldn’t stand to see her like this. He could never have imagined her like this. His image of her was complete with pride and haughtiness and unattainability, sometimes almost calculating. Sometimes he had thought her heart was a mansion filled with expensive furniture but uninhabited by people.
“There’s nobody else!” he lied. “There never could be.” Ever since he had met her at the station in Salinas he had struggled successfully to keep the Fannie Mae image out of his mind, but it had been there all the time, lurking just out of sight, just waiting for the chance to appear and to demand to be compared with Millie, but he wouldn’t allow it—wouldn’t allow it! I’ve forgotten you, Fannie Mae. I don’t even remember your face. To hell with Fannie. I love Millie I love Millie Millie Millie!
Millie said between the sobbing, “I know there’s somebody else. You’re thinking about her now!”
He said, “I love you and only you!” And he sought to kiss away her doubts and fears, her insecurity. He kissed her eyes till they were dry of tears and wet with his kisses. He kissed her nose he kissed the corners of her mouth and then full on her lips and she stopped crying and put her arms around his neck, and he kissed the nipples of her gleaming breasts of autumn and the valley in between, and he kissed the slightly swelling mound of her pregnancy at the belly button and kissed her mouth again, and she was moaning with delight, and he put his hand all over her, and the lips at the mouth of her sex vibrating now underneath his tender touch, and she put her hand all over him and she was panting and moaning and groaning, and he thought her heart would surely stop beating. She said, “No! No! No!” And then she murmured, “Now, darling, now!” And he was more than ready now, and he sank himself inside of her and they were locked in a sweet mortal combat. And wave after wave after wave, the ocean tossed them up and down and all about, together and against together, together and against together, and then he thought he heard her scream like he was killing her, her eyes closed, her mouth open, as she went for the highest wave of all, but he could not reach it with her. At the very last moment he made the image of Fannie Mae, even as he tried desperately to erase the image and reach the crest with her, but it was all to no avail, and it left him high and dry. The ocean’s edge receded now, wave after breathless wave, and she lay on the wet sand, breathing deeply, her eyes closed, her mouth open like she had eaten a sumptuous meal and sated her great appetite. She was somewhere all by herself now, lying in the shade of a swaying palm tree and purring like a motorboat. She opened her eyes and studied his face and put her arms around his neck.
“It was never like that before, darling. It was the greatest greatest greatest!”
He said, “Yes, it was truly great.”
She said, “It was never like this ever before. Did the room spin around and around with you like you were on a carousel?”
He lied, “Yes, the room spun around and around with me like I was on a carousel.”
She said, “Well, then now I know you love me.” She sat up and looked around the room. She said, “I’ll never forget this room. It is the nicest quietest loveliest soulfullest coziest sweetest tiniest profoundest sexiest room in all the whole wide world.”
They got up and she put on her robe and he put on his trousers and they went down the hall and took a bath and came back and got dressed and walked down to the highway and caught the bus to Monterey, near the sea the open sea, and probably the loveliest quaintest town that ever was and ever would be. They had a snack in a small café and they walked around the town together and everything was lovely and romantic to her and she drank it in and ate it up with her enormous appetite. But every now and then against his will he would catch himself thinking of how it would be in Monterey with Fannie Mae and comparing her with Millie and he was a dirty low-down dog, and he would put his arms around his wife to reassure the both of them.
They caught the bus back to Ford Ord Village, and when they got off the bus, instead of going rightward up the road to the Village, they went across the highway to the edge of the world and watched the dark and foamy sea beneath the moonlight playing tag with California. They stood breathless side by side, with her head upon his shoulder and his arm around her waist.
She said, “I’m the happiest woman in the world.”
He said, “And I’m the luckiest soldier.”
“Do you really mean it, Solly?”
“That’s the silliest question in the world.”
She looked up into his face and kissed him briefly on his lips and turned and looked away to sea again, where the full moon was a mighty floodlight making a highway from the ocean to the stars. “You’re not only the handsomest man in the company. I’ll bet you have the highest Intelligence Quotient.”
He laughed. “You’re just prejudiced, is what.”
“Well, aren’t you? Haven’t you? You’re the company clerk—you’ve seen all the company records.”
He said, “I plead guilty, your honor. Your most beautiful Grace. For some reason or other, mine happens to be the highest.”
“I’ll bet it’s even higher than your captain’s.”
“Guilty again.”
“And yet you’re nothing but a corporal.”
“Is that all I am?”
She said, “To me you’re everything. You know you are. But why? Why?—Why haven’t you followed the plan you had to get ahead in the Army? Why�
�re you no higher than corporal? What happened to Officer Candidate School?”
“It seems I didn’t have the proper attitude.”
She said, “What’re you talking about?”
“It’s a long complicated story.”
She said, “We have loads of time.”
She didn’t know how swiftly time was running out for them. And how could he explain to her in simple terms what had happened to his expectations? She had always lived a sheltered life, and he had contributed to the sheltering. He had not even told her of his one-night prison record or his visit in the hospital. How could he tell her about his CO, a man he hated and despised, yet almost clearly understood. A man who stood immovably between him and ambition and OCS and promotion and all the other U.S. Army ladders to success.
He said, “Some other time, my baby. Let’s not spoil this precious moment.”
He took her into his arms and kissed her as a sweet breeze came from off the ocean. And they turned their backs to the black sea with its white caps and went across the highway to the Village.
When they got back to their room they made love again and it happened all over again. The first act was the petting and building up the excitement and suspense, and Act Two was the delicious conflict, and in Act Three came the Moment of Truth and the Climax, but just as before, he imagined Fannie Mae, as hard as he tried not to, and just as before, at the very last millionth of a second he floundered and he foundered. It was as if you drank a cool glass of lemonade and felt it go down your mouth and throat but was robbed of its delicious taste. And afterwards, sated and contented, she talked greedily about it, and he agreed with her that it was the greatest ever ever.
And then she blew into his ear and said, “You know this is the first time I ever completely enjoyed it. This evening before we went out was the first time I ever reached an honest-to-goodness climax.”
He sat up on the cot and studied her contented face. It was different from Fannie Mae’s somehow. It was like the cat after she eats the canary, he thought, smug and arrogant. Fannie Mae’s glowed with love, Millie’s with a full stomach. He said, “You’re kidding.”
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 28