With each stroke of her fingers, he sank lower until, finally, he was lying beside her. Emma lifted herself on one elbow and kissed him on the mouth. Like a child kissing another child, her kiss was ingenuous. Prim at first, then authoritative. Dazed, he suspected she might mean business. Otherwise, why had she begun to kiss him with her lips opened, why was she slipping in her tongue. There was no doubt about it, this kiss was distinctly French.
She gave him a series of little nipping kisses on his face and neck. He felt woozy. Spots formed in front of his eyes and he wondered how they got there, two of them on the bed, so fast. He was dazzled by the speed with which he had moved. His head was as light and empty as a gourd. His body felt weird, like a jug into which some strange, combustible liquid had been poured, making everything inside tingle. His nerve ends were all hanging out. His insides were a mass of sensation. It was as if he were a puppet and Emma the puppeteer. The master puppeteer. No matter what he’d read and imagined and heard, none of it bore any resemblance to what was going on now.
She began to unbutton him. Slowly, slowly, she made her way. She had all the time in the world. Her fingers skimmed over his stomach, under his skivvies. All the while she was working on him, she made little chirping noises, like birds on a summer morning before the sky filled with light. Her body settled over him, very slender, very hard.
As hard as his; harder, even. Except for her little pointed breasts that came to rest against him from time to time, only to pull away, tantalizing him beyond belief. She smelled delicious. His breath was short, erratic. His chest was heavy, his eyelids leaden. Desire lodged in his throat like a piece of improperly chewed meat. Desire, newly felt, wasn’t always easy to recognize. Desire wasn’t lust, he thought, it was on a much higher plane than lust. A plane he had always wanted to reach. He watched as Emma shed her jeans and T-shirt. Underneath, she was all skin. Rosy, shattering, pink-and-white skin. She nibbled at his earlobe, which tickled. He tried to sit up and she pushed him back down. Her tongue fiddled around with his ear and entered it. Her hands were as light as a moth as she stroked and caressed him. It was the most exquisite agony he had ever known. She kissed her way from his collarbone to his navel, worked her way around it clockwise, then counterclockwise. Her moist little mouth sucked on his thigh, his kneecap. He felt her moving toward his feet and scrunched up his toes in an effort to make them smaller, smell sweeter.
She hummed as she worked, a queen bee. Her body moved rhythmically, light and drifting, like fog. He entered her. Unbelievably, he entered her.
He opened his mouth to tell her something, then closed it, unable to remember what it was he wanted to say. Words hung on the end of his tongue like shreds of tobacco. He shuddered in ecstasy, willing this to last forever. She continued to caress him, her mouth delicate, sure.
“Yes,” he heard her sigh. “Oh, yes.”
A cataclysm seized him, wrenching, tugging, pulling, sucking at his insides. In a throaty voice she said, “Don’t stop now, damn it.”
The sensation was indescribable. Ineffable. That’s what it was: ineffable.
She held him in a vise. “Keep it going, John,” her voice was husky, her eyes closed. “Don’t leave me behind. It’s not fair. That’s not nice, John. Don’t leave me.” He tried to go on, tried to hang on, but a sensation of falling took over; falling, falling into a deep place.
“Oh, Johnny, yes, that’s nice, yes, that’s lovely. Keep going, John. Keep going!”
He collapsed, like a balloon with the air let out, lay there flat on his back, smiling foolishly at her. “I’ll give you five minutes, kid,” she said briskly. “This time it’s my turn.” She rolled off him, got up, stretched, smiling at him over her shoulder.
“Want to try again?”
He nodded, awash in a sea of satiation.
“I have to go to the loo,” she said. “Be right back.”
He closed his eyes. He had dreamed it all. God knew he’d had plenty of practice, dreaming dreams like that.
“Here I am, love.” Was the five minutes up already? Emma stood by the side of the bed. He tried to look surprised, as if he’d forgotten she was coming back. She burst out laughing.
“You’re so cute.” She reached under the sheet and again her warm little hands went to work.
“Johnny.” She cocked her head and stood with her hands on her hips, smiling, shaking her head. “Take it easy, Johnny. Easy does it. Make it last. Move over.” She snuggled in. “Let’s see how it goes this time.”
Fearless, well-armed, dauntless in love, he plunged in. He lunged and parried and thrust, a true swordsman. Time passed, time stood still. Emma rose to meet him, his willing partner found at last. And he hadn’t even been looking. He felt as if he could go on forever. His pecker was okay, after all. No need for him to write Ann Landers.
“Oh, yes, please, yes, yes, now!” Emma cried out. He didn’t have to be hit over the head. He knew what she meant. It was okay to let go. A good thing. He’d been trembling on the brink for a long time. It was a question of balance, among other things.
The cataclysm came again, this time more prolonged, more cataclysmic. In all the room, nothing moved. He felt as if he’d had a near-death experience, like the guy who almost drowned. Maybe he had died and this was heaven.
“I could do this all night,” Emma said, eyes still closed.
Elated, he made quick plans for a raid on the kitchen, a quick trip to the head, then lock the door.…
From a great distance, he heard a telephone ringing. Emma heard it, too, and bounced off him, her stomach pulling away from his with a slight plop.
Stay! he cried silently. Don’t leave me! Let the bastard ring. But she was gone, as lightly, as unexpectedly as she had arrived. He could hear her talking, laughing.
Laughing! He sat up, clutching his camouflage suit to his chest, a virgin surprised by a unicorn. Presently he heard her returning and lay back in readiness. Through the slits of his eyes he could see her come in, bend to retrieve her clothes. He reached out. Her lips barely touched his forehead, like his mother checking him for fever. He grabbed out at her. His hands came up with air.
She’d be back. Probably she was taking another shower, getting set for him all over again. He smiled to himself. She didn’t need to bother. He liked her as she was. But why was she taking so long? Hadn’t she said she could make it quick if she wanted? It wasn’t nice of her to tease him. Maybe this is what girls did; they gave you a taste of honey and then they closed down the hive until they felt like putting out again.
A fuzzy outline of a gag—a hive pulsing with sex-crazed bees engaged in an orgy—passed fleetingly through his befuddled brain before he was overcome by a paralyzing lassitude. Weakly, he raised his head from the pillow. Did he hear her coming? Was she sneaking up on him, ready to assault him one more time? He certainly hoped so. There were lots of things he wanted to ask her. His head swam with myriad questions that had occurred to him.
He dozed. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it. When he woke, the room was almost dark. He was very thirsty and he had to go to the bathroom. He studied his face in the mirror and, even to his eye, it was not the face of a great lover. His hair stood in peaks, the ends looked wet, like a dog’s coat when it comes in from the rain. He was as pale as an oyster. He stuck out his tongue to see if it had turned black. Once, years ago, a kid told him you can tell when someone’s done it because their tongue turns black. Like so many bits of miscellaneous information he’d stored in the dim recesses of his brain, this one turned out to be fake.
He went to his mother’s room to look out. Emma was tripping down the front path, hanging onto a mountainous oaf with a thick neck, sixteen and a half, easy. They were talking animatedly and she reached up to pat the oaf’s cheek. Was that Ralph? Or was it the married man? He was helping her into his red Toyota.
He got dressed and went to the telephone to call Keith.
“Hello?”
“Guess what?” He could hear mus
ic playing. “I just got laid.” A baby wailed in time to the music.
At the other end, there was a pause. A man’s gruff voice said, “Wish I could say the same.”
He hung up. His head fell into his hands like a ripe coconut. He tottered back to his room and stood looking down at the bed.
He had been had.
16
He’d forgotten that Burrell, his boss, would be in Minneapolis for the rest of the week. Explanations wouldn’t be necessary, after all. On the train coming in, he’d prepared an elaborate story, too elaborate, like most lies, outlining the reasons for his sudden trip. The truth would have been so much easier, if only the truth weren’t so impossible right now.
“Book me on the first available flight this afternoon for Dallas, would you, Jane?” he said to his secretary. “I’ll probably be gone two days. If anything comes up, Allan can handle it.”
When he got to the airport and discovered the plane was a DC-10, he almost changed his flight. Then, ashamed of himself, he went on board.
He braced himself as the plane took off into a cloudless sky. If you made it through takeoff, you were almost safe. Home free. Landing was the next big hurdle. Everything in between was a piece of cake. He felt light-headed, lighthearted. Making it through takeoff was like making it through a doctor’s examination. You were safe until the lab reports came back. Lab reports were his landing. If he could get through the next couple of days, the rest would be gravy.
“Can I get you something to drink?” The stewardess was at his side with her drinks cart. It was eleven-fifteen in the morning. He’d checked in early for a one o’clock flight, and they’d talked him into going early on this plane, which was only half full. That in itself, he felt, was tempting fate. Better to stick with your original flight, he always said. A bit early for drinking.
“I’d like a Bloody Mary, please.” Tomato juice was high in protein. Or was it potassium? Ceil, if she’d been with him, would have drawn an audible breath and tugged at his arm. But she wasn’t. He was on his own. The stewardess was not young. Heavy makeup accentuated lines around her nose and mouth. Wash her face and she’d drop four, five years just like that.
In the old days, stewardesses had looked like runners-up in a beauty contest. Now they could pass for checkers in a supermarket. Where are all the pretty girls? he wondered. Gone, all gone. No more good-looking nurses, no more smashing stewardi. Maybe he was turning into a dirty old man. High time.
“You going to Dallas on business?” A woman had sat down in the seat next to him without his noticing. She overflowed the seat, her tiny feet scarcely touching the floor. Her fingernails were a work of art. Set into each talon was what looked like a tiny diamond. Her long-sleeved white blouse billowed out at him provocatively.
What business was it of hers what he was going to Dallas for?
“I’m visiting a doctor, an old friend,” he said pleasantly. “And you?”
She, it turned out, worked for the airline. Every week she flew to Dallas to check on her ailing mother. Left her kids in care of her husband, who ran their jewelry store in New Jersey. Something about the way she curved her lips as she spoke of her weekly trips tipped him off. He saw the ailing mother, shaving for the second time that day, lavishing pungent aftershave with a liberal hand, checking the drape of a new suede jacket.
Her flights, the woman informed him, cost her virtually nothing. She and her family had also traveled to Russia last year and were scheduled to go to Hong Kong in a few weeks’ time. Working for an airline had its drawbacks, she said, but the free air travel made up for them. The woman drank orange juice, dark eyes glinting at him over the rim of her plastic glass.
Lunch was baked chicken or soup-and-sandwich.
“Take the chicken,” the woman whispered. “I happen to know the soup’s left over from yesterday, and it wasn’t so hot even then.” She laughed merrily, exposing perfect teeth. He had trouble with nicotine stains and admired people with perfect teeth. He thought of complimenting her on her teeth, and decided against it.
Presently, when the NO SMOKING and FASTEN SEAT BELTS signs went off, the woman unstrapped herself and went down the aisle on her stiletto heels, greeting the attendants by name. He watched her go, watched her fulsome rear. It was very enticing and doubtless would have commanded respect in certain parts of South America, where well-developed behinds were held in high esteem, he’d read someplace. He liked watching women walk. No matter in what country.
They had both decided on the chicken. The stewardess delivering their trays said, “Gorgeous!” eyeing the fingernails. “How on earth do you get them that way?”
“Oh, they’re not real.” The plump woman laughed. “They’re phonies. I take them off at night.”
Did she mean the fingernails or the jewels?
They ate their chicken and limp broccoli. “You got children?” she asked, emptying the little packet of sugar into her coffee.
“Two,” he said. “And you?”
“Same. A boy and a girl. The girl’s giving me heat about getting her driver’s license. My husband says let her. I say not until she shapes up. Although, God knows, she’s shaping up sooner’n I’d like.” She made a face and he pictured the daughter, flat stomach, tilting breasts, the works.
“That kid of mine thinks she knows it all,” the woman said.
“That seems to be symptomatic of that age. My son’s sixteen, too.” It was a bond between them.
“He on anything?” The woman stirred her coffee vigorously.
“On anything?”
“You know. Like marijuana or coke.” She lifted her cup to her mouth, little finger extended. She was very dainty in her habits, he could see.
“Not that I know of,” he said. “John’s all right; a little flaky, but he’s basically sound, doesn’t give us much trouble. Doesn’t seem to know what he’s going to do with himself, where he’s going. My daughter’s nineteen, a sophomore in college.”
“She living with anyone?”
“She’s got a roommate in college.”
“Male or female?” Her teeth weren’t as perfect as he’d thought. Perhaps she took them out at night, too.
He laughed. “Leslie’s been in and out of love so often I figure when it’s for real, it’ll be a relief.”
“Well,” the woman shrugged, “sounds like you got it made. My boy’s fourteen, already been picked up for B and E. Possession of illegal drugs, too. My husband says throw him out, he doesn’t toe the line. Give him a curfew, he breaks it, out he goes. I say no. He’s my boy. I love him. I lay awake at night and figure out ways to keep him safe. Then I tell myself there’s no way to keep him safe. No way.” He looked into her swimming eyes and put his hand into his pocket in search of his handkerchief. She dove into her handbag and came up with Kleenex. He was embarrassed, feeling responsible for these sudden tears.
The stewardess took away their trays. He closed his eyes and settled back in his seat. Better not to talk to strangers.
The pilot’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “This is Captain Schultz. Passengers please fasten their seat belts. Flight attendants be seated, please. We’re headed into a little turbulence.”
“Oh, boy,” the woman said.
Once, years ago, he’d been in a terrible electric storm, lightning and thunder bouncing off the plane, having their way with it. Terrified, he’d prepared himself for death. He hated electric storms, on land or in the air. He was ashamed of this unmasculine weakness and had never told anyone about it, not even Ceil.
The plane dropped. He put his hand over his mouth to keep himself from crying out. He was sure they’d been hit by lightning. He waited for the smell of burning plastic to fill the plane’s cabin. Behind him, a baby cried.
They were flying at about 32,000 feet. One time he’d figured how long it would take a plane to hit the ground at that altitude, but now, when it mattered, he couldn’t remember. The first few moments would be the worst. Those moments when you realized you
were going down, that nothing could stop you. Airline inspectors, doing their job after a crash, were frequently quoted as saying, “Those on board never knew what hit them.” How did they know what passengers knew? That seemed presumptuous to him.
Look at the bright side. No long illness, no hospital bed, no evil smells. Disagreeable odors were always mentioned in stories of terminal illness. He hated the thought of being surrounded by his own stench. A plane crash, at least, would be quick. Clean. And Ceil could collect from the airline for loss of his services.
Relax. His hands gripped the arms of his seat. If he had a deck of cards, he would ask his seatmate to play gin. His father had always played gin on planes. His father knew no fear, had told him with relish of flying over the Alleghenies in a single-engine plane, dodging mountains, caught in downdrafts. On a flight to California, he and his father had orbited San Francisco for hours, waiting for clearance, playing cards, his father chuckling and declaring “Gin!” in the same resounding voice he used when he was safe in front of the fire.
Last month he’d read of a particularly bad plane crash in which more than 200 people had died. Newspaper stories of the aftermath of a crash always seemed distressingly graphic to him, and this one certainly was. Two arms, buried in the wreckage, the hands clasped, were found by rescue workers. The hands and the arms of a man and a woman. No bodies, only arms. He found it impossible to get the image of those two arms out of his head. Now, out of the corner of his eye, he stole a glance at the woman beside him in her billowy blouse. She looked calm. The storm’s intensity grew until it seemed unbearable, yet the crying baby had fallen quiet. He imagined the plane suddenly swooping toward earth, a gigantic, flaming bird. Would he and the woman hold hands, gaining comfort and strength from each other as they plunged toward the ground? Would they, perhaps, make some pledge of endearment, as that other pair might have done? Had those arms belonged to husband and wife, sister and brother? Lovers? Or total strangers? It was something to contemplate in the night’s small hours.
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