“Finally, her cousin Stella remembered her, and took her in when Rita was fifteen or so. She’d been there from the time she was about a year old, Brian. And, in a way, she’s been looking for her father. She started with older men; she’s a real pushover. Didn’t even take money at first, until Stella wised her up, kind of broke her in. How old do you think Rita is, Bri?”
Brian considered for a moment, then guessed, “Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”
“She’ll be twenty in two months, Brian. And underneath that twenty-seven- or twenty-eight-year-old face, Rita’s about four or five years old, afraid, hoping something good is gonna happen.” He glanced toward the door, then told Brian, “Look, Bri. I don’t have any house rules for my friends but one. I expect my friends to be good to each other, okay? You want to make points with Rita, that’s up to you, but you treat her right or forget it, okay? I try to give her and Stella a kind of family up here; that’s what they give me. She’s been kicked around too much and I won’t let anybody hurt her if I can do something about it.”
“Jesus, Arthur,” Brian said admiringly, “you really are something, buddy.”
They heard the girls’ voices in the hallway and Brian opened the door. “Hey, let me help you. Wow, this is the biggest bottle of wine I’ve ever seen. Either the food isn’t all that good or you think we’ve got hollow legs.”
Rita licked her mouth uncertainly, then smiled. “We can sip it real slow. Arthur says you drink it slow and eat slow and that way it don’t make you dizzy.”
“Good,” Brian said quietly. “I’m getting dizzy enough just looking at a pretty girl.”
The first time, a few weeks later, Brian worked another four-to-twelve tour, instead of heading for the subway, he went to Arthur’s flat. He found Rita, curled in a chair, wrapped in a large bathrobe, frowning and squinting over a book. She was neither surprised nor alarmed to see him. It was almost as though she had been expecting him.
“Oh. Hi.”
“Hi.”
She held up the book and wrinkled her nose. “Arthur says I should read more. I don’t know why he likes it so much. Most of these books don’t make much sense to me. I always ask him to give me an easy book and he always says I should just take something off the shelf and jump right in.” She put the book on the lamp table and her fingers fidgeted with the long belt of her robe. “Arthur’s working a midnight.”
He had known that; somehow, he’d known that.
She drew herself deeper into the chair. “Gee, it’s chilly in here, isn’t it?”
“You feel cold?”
“Sort of.”
“Want to get warm?”
Rita stared at her hands; she wove the plaid flannel belt in and out, in and out, between her fingers. She nodded without looking at Brian. He glanced around, then went into the kitchen where he took off his off-duty revolver and put it into a high cupboard, behind some bowls.
Rita stood up and dropped her hands to her sides. The robe fell open but she was not naked and exotic as he’d half expected to find her; she was bundled into a large, heavy pair of flannel pajamas, with the sleeves and pants cuffs rolled up. The outfit made her seem very small.
She licked her lips and said, “I guess I look pretty dopey in this outfit.”
“You don’t look dopey. I just think you’d look better out of it,” Brian told her. She raised her face and waited and he helped her to undress, slowly. She was not as heavy as she had been the night of Arthur’s dinner. Her flesh was smooth and firm and rounded and her skin was startlingly white in comparison with the orange pancake make-up on her face. Brian stepped back and his eyes moved over her appraisingly, deliberately, carefully, lingeringly.
Rita turned from him and went to the couch-bed. She leaned her face against the dark-red fabric discreetly, not watching him, sensing his shyness while he undressed, but when he approached her she turned toward him and reached out for him.
Her incredible warmth and softness and fragrance and sweet fleshiness overwhelmed him. She moved carefully and languidly against his body, and when he wanted to plunge and rip and devour, she pushed a hand against his chest and whispered, “No. Not yet, Brian. Wait a little. A little longer, Brian, just a little longer.”
She brought him along slowly, steadily, agonizingly, until he didn’t think he could bear another second, another instant. Every part of his body throbbed and ached and pressed against the nerve endings of his skin. His mouth filled with her flesh, sucked in the sweet-tasting whiteness of her shoulder and arm and breast, then pressed against her mouth ravenously in a way he had never done before. He was inside the center of her very being, drawn in and down, pressure against pressure, and he felt, heard, experienced her deep and shuddering, explosive release, which was his release, and a painful sob came from his throat or her throat, he couldn’t tell which and he didn’t care.
There were things between them that were unstated, yet they were both sharply, willingly, acutely aware of the necessity for certain guidelines. Rita Wasinski existed for Brian O’Malley, totally and completely, within the boundaries of Arthur Pollack’s apartment. She came to life on his arrival and vaporized with his departure.
The things she taught Brian were things she herself was learning. They taught each other, explored each other with fingertips, tongues, eyes, bodies, lips. She taught his body to prolong, defer, hold back, wait, build to a tension that was unbearable and bear that tension a little more, just a little more, so that they rose together, ached, swelled, burst together in a passion of movement and sound.
She taught him to control and use his quick-rising animal instincts and to feel pride in his self-mastery and in the pleasure he afforded her.
She taught Brian not to be shy of his body. He had never stood naked before a woman, yet he learned to take pleasure from the frank scrutiny and her evident delight. At first, he undressed in darkness or turned from her and covered himself afterward, but Rita pulled blankets away, ran her small, warm hands down the length of his body, as he stretched and flexed against the sheets of Arthur’s studio couch.
Her touch revived his lust over and over again until he thought of his body as a never-ending explosive, stronger and more powerful each time it rose from emptiness to new fulfillment. Her hands, curious, caressing, appraised parts of him he thought had no connection with his sexual being, yet through her touch, all parts of him related to that central force which throbbed between the two of them: his toes; the arch of his foot; the calf of his leg, hard-muscled and strong; his flat belly; her hands touched lightly, traced, brushed, twisted at black-haired chest, created sensation along his throat, behind his ears.
“Don’t move, Brian; don’t do anything, Brian. Let me, oh, Brian, let me do for you.”
Tongue tip in his eyelids, his eyebrows; tongue tormentingly soft and wet and strong and alive; inside his ear, his brain.
No, Brian, don’t move; let me do it this time. Let’s try it this way. A million ways, let’s try let’s try let’s try.
He relinquished the sense of himself as someone separate and apart from his own strong physicality with a sense of wonder and regarded everything they did together as something apart from any area of self-judgment. He discovered a deeper dimension than he had thought possible, and rather than satiety and a devouring sense of guilt, which he knew he should feel, Brian O’Malley felt a greater and stronger and more demanding energy and desire.
When he was not with Rita Wasinski, he thought about her, and when he was with her, he merged himself into her without hesitation, without reservation, without caution and generally with a wild sense of exaltation.
She made no demands on him other than the physical demands and those she increased steadily in perfect rhythm with his ability to fulfill. The greater the demand, the greater his power to respond. There was nothing he needed to know about her; her body was perfectly tuned with his own and through her body, he learned of his own uniqueness and potential.
One night, carefully, he as
ked her, “Rita, how come you bleach your hair so light?”
Her small hand touched a strand of almost whitened hair tentatively and a frown pulled her brows down. “I, well, gee, Brian, I guess because, you know, all the pretty movie stars and all.” She laughed softly and shrugged at her own audacity. “I guess I had this big thing about...you won’t laugh if I tell you?”
“I won’t laugh.”
“Well, I used to have this like daydream, you know, about being Ginger Rogers and dancing with Fred Astaire and all, in all those beautiful dresses and with all the music and all. Gee, isn’t she lucky, and all of them other movie stars, to have such pretty blond hair?”
“They’re not natural blondes, Rita, none of them are.”
Her mouth opened in surprise, almost in protest, but if Brian said something, she knew it for fact. Her fingers raked her bleach-stiffened hair thoughtfully. “But how come they always look so nice and natural, Brian?”
“I guess they spend a fortune at the hairdresser’s.”
“Gee. I buy this stuff in the five-and-dime. You know, peroxide. I guess it looks it, huh?” She giggled, laughed at herself.
Casually, he pointed to his jacket which he had slung over the back of a chair. “Look in my pocket. Go ahead, in the right-hand side. I bought you something.”
Rita stood absolutely still, hand in her hair, and finally she shook her head slightly without looking at him. “Uh-uh. I don’t want you to buy anything for me, Brian.”
He’d expected her to be pleased and eager to see what it was but her face masked over and she hid within herself.
Boundaries between them; pleasures given and received only for the pleasure involved. No gifts. No payments.
Brian stood up abruptly and crossed the room, roughly yanked at his jacket, dug in the pocket for the small package. He reached into the bag and his hand came up with the gift.
“Look, dopey,” he said, “real big-deal present.”
It was dark-blond Nestle’s color rinse: eight capsules for a quarter. Rita emerged again, grinned, stood on her toes, reached for the package which Brian held over her head.
“Now you can’t have it.”
“Oh, Brian, give me. Oh, Brian, please.” She grabbed his arm and brought his hand down and pried the package loose. “Oh, Brian, let’s do it now.”
His hand cupped her breast and he teased. “Sure, any time, babe, no time like right now. Let’s do it now.”
Oh, no, not that. Let’s do my hair. Oh, please, Brian, please. Look, I could kneel over the tub and give it a fast wash. I only washed it yesterday, so it’s really clean, but I’ll wash it again and you could do the rinse for me. Oh, please, Brian, please.”
“My God, you’re a little nut, Rita.”
But somehow he understood why she wanted him to do her hair immediately. It was for him, to demonstrate her willingness to please him, to make up to him for misunderstanding.
She raced into the kitchen, took all the various items off the top of the tub, knelt, ran the water, scrubbed billows of soap into her hair, rinsed, prepared herself for him.
She made the solution and he poured it over her head and worked it into her hair; he kneaded and pressed and squeezed and felt a deep sensual pleasure, but beneath that was a deeper, calmer, kinder pleasure as his fingers moved slowly along her skull.
“Close your eyes; you’ll get this stuff in them. Will you stop peeking at me and close them?”
She squealed at the sharp stinging pain, reached out for the towel he handed her.
“I told you to close your eyes. You’re really a baby, Rita, you know that? Why the hell did you take your shoes off to kneel over the tub and wash your hair?”
“Gee, I don’t know. I just never washed my hair with my shoes on. Is it time yet, Brian? Can we rinse it off yet? Did you time it? Is it five minutes? Come on, the directions say to rinse it now in cold water until the water runs clear. Oh, Brian, that cold water gives me chills right down to my spine!”
The rinse toned her hair to a golden glow; it softened her, enabled the young girl to shine through. She pulled a comb through the damp hair, then reached for her round compact.
Brian caught her wrist. “Don’t, Rita. Don’t put any of that stuff on.”
“But gee, Brian, I don’t want you to see me like this. I feel funny if you look at me and I don’t have my ‘face’ on.”
He tilted her clean face upward. “Nothing,” he told her, “nothing at all, not even lipstick. Baby, you don’t need a thing. You taste like soap and water and Rita.” He nuzzled her, tasted her cheeks and neck, then whispered, “No make-up, okay?”
“Anything you say, Brian, anything you say.”
He never saw her when he worked the eight-to-four tour. It just didn’t seem right: in the daylight. His tours were opposite to Arthur’s and they rarely met; if Arthur happened to be home, they spent a few hours just visiting and Rita prepared coffee and sandwiches and they waited until the next time when they knew Arthur wouldn’t be around.
She never questioned him; she seemed to receive the part of himself he offered to her with pleasure and gratitude.
She was a simple, generous girl, warm, uncomplicated, easily delighted, somewhat stupid and shallow. Yet, at the same time, she was complex, shrewd, a knowing woman who would withdraw sharply, unexpectedly, completely at something he said, something she interpreted as threatening or an intrusion on the fragile, secret, private part of herself which she would not allow him.
Rita was rarely moody or tense yet on occasion she was both. He resisted the temptation to probe her moods as conscientiously as she tried to conceal or overcome them. They both knew that they could exist for each other only through the voluntary suspension of reality. Any violation of this fantasy, either through his questions or her replies, would shatter and destroy what they had created for and with each other.
It lasted through three cold, bitter winter months and ended as spring invaded winter. The end was directly related to his job.
TWENTY-TWO
BRIAN LIKED WORKING THE midnight-to-eight tour. There was something exciting and secretive and special about starting out when everyone else was ending the day. The few subway riders he encountered on his way to work were hunched in the corners of wicker seats, eyes heavy, mouths pulled down with weariness, heads nodding, folded newspapers dangling. They traveled toward gray and unexciting routine. He moved toward possibilities they could not begin to imagine.
Though generally nothing very much happened, he knew that anything could happen, and more importantly, he knew that if anything did happen, he would be the one responsible for taking action: would know what to do.
The day had been lightly crusted with winter, but beneath the freeze, touches of spring came through. The sky had been blue before it turned gray and the midnight sky was pierced with bright March stars. Some of the men turned out with raingear and complained when the sergeant informed them it wasn’t going to rain. They knew damn well it was going to rain; they’d be stuck on patrol in heavy, wet uniforms.
Brian walked his post with a growing sense of familiarity and ease. The day and evening people were gone. The night people, arriving, leaving, hanging around, established time as accurately as his wristwatch.
Two cab drivers on Eldridge Street, a father-and-son team, worked twenty hours between them. As the father pulled up to the curb, the son strolled over, listened to whatever instructions or comments his father had, nodded, and took off. The old man, cap pulled over one eye, hands jammed into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched, invariably said the same thing to Brian.
“Tough way to make a buck, huh, officer?”
Invariably, Brian answered, “Yeah, I guess so.”
The newsy on Delancey Street put in about fourteen hours a day but half the time he seemed to be asleep. Most people thought he was blind because of the huge German shepherd who shared the booth with him, and he’d confided to Brian that he didn’t go out of his way to correct t
he false impression. “It makes ’em feel they’re doin’ a good deed. So what’s the harm?”
Three old women walked together slowly on feet that ached but their faces were animated and they argued and laughed good-naturedly, before they entered three different tenement buildings, all in a row. Cleaning women, returning from a round of office buildings. Brian wondered what they said to each other, what would make three tired, hard-working old women laugh as though they were carefree schoolgirls. They always greeted him in a language he couldn’t understand but which sounded friendly and he always touched the brim of his cap to them and slowed his pace until all three were inside their houses.
Rain started without warning and he ducked into a doorway to wait it out. There was a rawness in the wind and he felt his skin pull away from all the heavy layers of his clothing and tingle with coldness. All the street people who had a place to go disappeared; the few derelicts found places for themselves. The empty streets became lonely and he tensed, listening to the sound of running. A man, young, wiry, swift, sure-footed, ran toward him, stopped some distance away, waved his newspaper over his head in a sort of salutation. Brian followed the direction of the gesture; there was a woman, seated at a window, waiting for him, relieved to see him home. A wife or a mother, or whoever she was. Probably had something hot for him to eat, to warm him up.
The rain didn’t slacken for more than an hour and a half, but the wind increased and that kept the streets cold and unpleasant. Brian walked from doorway to doorway, slowly down the street. He tossed his nightstick into the air from the leather thong around his wrist and caught it in the palm of his hand. It was a tricky maneuver, not as easy as it looked. He tapped the stick against a lamppost, then flipped it quickly.
The end of the nightstick caught him across the bridge of his nose and brought tears to his eyes. Christ, it hurt. Stupid damn thing. Goddamn stupid thing.
Brian jammed his hands into his heavy coat and fought the tears and hoped he wouldn’t have a lump on his nose: it felt bruised back to his sinuses. His feet were wet and numb, his ears ached with cold, he was hungry, and Rivington Street was black and slippery and lonely as hell.
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