“You do,” Howard said.
“She was positively scandalous in her day, but everyone adored her, even Nana. Though,” she laughed, “it was a little hard on her to have a mother who was known to entertain certain gentlemen to whom she was not married. Mother said she had a boyfriend up until the day she died—at eighty one. Reginald was the name of the last one... “
Amanda closed her eyes and Howard thought she had gone to sleep. He sat there for a half hour, sipping his beer, watching her.
He took his glass into the kitchen and used the bathroom. He found the cat in the writing room and picked her up and petted her, looking around at the shelves. He put the cat down and went back into the living room.
Amanda had not moved. Howard stood over her, watching her gentle breath rise and fall under the afghan. He reached out toward the hair that had fallen over her face, but refrained from touching it. He walked over and rested his hands on the mantel, looking down into the fire.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Amanda whispered.
He didn’t move. And then he said, “I don’t want to leave either.” When he turned around Amanda was in the same position, but her eyes were open, looking at him. He went over and sat down on the edge of the chair. He looked into her eyes for a long moment and then bent, slowly, and brushed his lips over her forehead. Then he sat up again.
Amanda looked at him for a long time. Then she brought up a hand from under the afghan, slipped it up around the back of his neck, and pulled him down to her. They kissed a long, gentle, dry kiss. And then Howard kissed the side of her mouth, and her cheek, and her temple, and her ear and then her mouth again. He took off his glasses. Amanda brought out her other arm from under the afghan and put it around him and Howard took her in both of his arms and they clung to each other and kissed each other and tried to climb inside each other.
They stayed in the chair for almost an hour. And then, gently, Amanda eased Howard back so she could see his eyes. “It is Saturday,” she said, “and you are Howard Stewart, and I want to make love with you.” He whispered something about contraception. She whispered for him not to worry, it was taken care of; she slid out of the chair, holding his hand, and sat down in front of the fire. Howard looked at her a moment, still holding her hand, and crawled down next to her. Amanda lay down and pulled him on top of her, and they kissed.
It happened too fast. Howard was fumbling with his belt; he was free of his pants; Amanda’s were down; and he was inside of her. And he came. Just like that.
“I’m sorry,” he said, forehead pressed against the rug next to her head. Amanda lay there, touching his hair. She pushed his shoulder, making him raise his head to look at her. Holding the sides of his face in her hands, she smiled. “You sure know how to flatter a girl,” she whispered, kissing him lightly. Howard closed his eyes, groaned, and let his forehead bang down on the rug.
“Howard,” Amanda said.
He opened his eyes.
“Look at me, please.”
He raised himself up on one elbow and did so, tracing Amanda’s nose with his finger as he did so. “Would you do something for me?” she said. “Would you let me have my way? Do exactly what I tell you?”
He nodded, swallowing.
“Wonderful,” she said, kissing him. “Follow me.”
They put their clothes back in place, smoothed each other’s hair, restored Howard’s glasses to their proper place, and Amanda, with a faint smile, took his hand, led him to the writing room and sat him down at her desk. Howard sat there, watching her, as she commenced to turn on every lamp in the room. Then, scanning the shelves of Catherine, Amanda took down a section of manuscript and plunked it down on the desk in front of him. She flipped open the inkwell compartment at the side of the writing surface, extracted several No.2 pencils, and placed them on the desk as well. “Read, please,” she said, walking out of the room.
Howard sat there, slightly dazed. He looked to the doorway, pushed at his glasses and called, “You sure know how to flatter an editor.”
A laugh from the kitchen. Amanda reappeared at the doorway. “We are having an editorial session,” she announced. “So please read, and I will rejoin you in a few minutes.”
Howard shook his head, smiling, and started to read. It was a chapter about how Catherine the Great had selected her lovers from the Imperial Guard. By the second page he was hooked.
She came back in a half hour. He turned at the sound of her approach and his expression must have been blatantly surprised, for she laughed and said, “Do not fear, Howard, it is only me.”
She was carrying a pot of coffee and coffee things on a silver tray. But she was wearing yards of a white silk-something. A caftan? A robe of some sort? It was difficult to tell. But it was white, and it was silk, and it trailed. There was a very deep V plunging between her breasts, and there was a sash of blue silk around her waist. She placed the tray down on the corner of the desk, drew up a chair to the left of him and sat down. As she leaned forward to pour the coffee, Howard did not fail to notice the view of her left breast as she did so.
“Uh,” he said, swallowing, “was there really a Countess Bruce?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, pulling a cup and saucer back to Howard. She leaned across his arm—her right breast gently resting on it—to see what page he was on. “Hmmm,” she said, reaching for the cream, her breast sliding down his arm to get it, and sliding back up to bring it to him. She sat back then and crossed her legs toward him, revealing that within the many folds of this white silk something there was a slit down there as well. She smiled at him—as though she had only just made his acquaintance.
“Uh,” Howard said, rubbing his chin, looking at the manuscript, “I’m not sure if people will believe this. I mean, the countess slept with the guards first to see if they were any good?”
“Yes,” Amanda said, raising her coffee cup. “After the physicians checked them for venereal disease.” She took a sip. “And then Catherine would come in to watch—to see for herself. They didn’t know, usually, for she had a secret door into—” She laughed, softly, putting her cup down.
Howard was looking down at her breast again, marveling.
“She had many secret doors in the palace. She would watch Madame Protassov as well.” Pause. “Howard?”
His head jerked up. “Um,” he said, touching his glasses, “right. Well, the way you have it here—uh,” he said, picking up a pencil and jiggling it. He dropped the pencil, rubbed his eyes under his glasses and looked at her.
She smiled, looking vaguely puzzled, tilting her head as if it would help her to understand him better.
“Okay,” he said, taking a breath and picking up the pencil again. “I think you’re perhaps sticking a little too closely to the facts.” He hazarded a look at her. She was looking at the manuscript, absently rubbing her collarbone. The movement offered glimpses of her breast again, and the motion of her fingers, spreading and contracting, spreading and contracting, had decidedly derailed his train of thought. “I think,” he started. He cleared his throat. “I think you need to... “She lowered her hand, shifted slightly, and leaned closer to the manuscript.
Now he could see both. Hanging there. Full. Beautifully heavy. Beautifully full and heavy and there, right there in front of him.
“If this part troubles you,” she said, drawing herself up, “then I’m afraid the hairdresser will positively make you despair.” She looked at him with the most innocent of expressions.
“Hairdresser?” His voice sounded very far away.
“Yes,” she said, recrossing her legs and reaching for her coffee. Now her leg was gently pressed against his. “Catherine was obsessed with the fact that she had to wear wigs. Her own hair—never mind.” She sipped her coffee, replaced her cup and propped her elbow on the desk to support her chin.
Howard didn’t dare look anywhere but her eyes. Yes, he might well be having a heart attack, he decided. He felt her foot gently curling around his shin. “Go
on,” he said.
“She didn’t want anyone to know. And so,” Amanda said, pausing to let her tongue run along her upper lip, “she locked her hairdresser in an iron cage in her room. For three years.”
“Did she?” Howard said, letting Amanda take his hand.
“Uh-huh,” she said, looking into his eyes. She brought his hand up and pressed it against the silk over one breast. “She did not want him to gossip about her wigs,” she murmured, pressing his hand harder, moving it in a circle.
Their eyes were still locked.
Amanda swallowed. Her voice faint, “So she kept him in a cage in her bedroom.”
Howard let a shaky breath escape. “Really,” he said.
“Yes.” She closed her eyes then, mouth slightly parting. Howard watched her face as he slid his hand under the silk to hold her breast. She took a deep breath, eyes still closed. He touched her nipple and she squirmed slightly in her chair, a low sound coming from her throat.
She opened her eyes. With each movement of his hand, there was a trace of a wince and a creak from her chair, but she did not stop looking at him. “Maybe I should have—” she started to say, breaking off as Howard worked again at her nipple. Her eyes fell half closed. “Written a biography,” she murmured.
“No,” Howard whispered, “I don’t think so.” He glanced down, twisted at the waist, and brought his other hand up to her other breast. If—with each deep movement of his hands, of his fingers—Amanda had not made soft sighing sounds, he might have thought she was fighting death. Her eyes were barely open; her leg had, at some time, hooked around his and was locked into position; her left hand was in a fist, bearing down on the desk.
“I, I—” she said, her eyes opening. She was breathing heavily. “I’m not sure I can continue working.” And then she closed her eyes, reached up to his head, and pulled him down to her breasts.
He was half out of his chair, but still, he managed. He parted the silk, freed one breast, and sank his mouth onto it. Her back lurched in an arc, and her chair creaked-creaked-creaked-as she strained against the back of it. “Oh, my,” she said, pulling his head harder against her. “Oh, my, yes.”
Mouth still at her breast, Howard slid his hand down between her thighs. They were clamped shut. His hand shot under her knee, lifted her leg, uncrossed it, and then slid back, his palm plunging smoothly down against her.
Amanda groaned, pulling his hair.
He left her breast, mouth running up her chest, her neck, and finding her mouth. “Come on,” he said, hoarse, sliding out of his chair. He leaned over, slid an arm behind her back and under her legs, muttered, “Three,” and heaved her up into his arms.
Amanda’s head fell back, laughing.
He carried her out of the writing room and down the hall. Amanda had her arms around his neck now and was gently licking his ear. “All the way down,” she whispered, when he paused at the first door. “All the way down.”
There was a fire burning in the bedroom. And the bed was turned down. Howard stood inside the doorway, still carrying her, and laughed. “It appears I was expected,” he said, kissing her.
“Mmm,” she said, tasting his mouth. He walked over to the bed and laid her down. He took off his glasses, put them on the night table, and started to unbutton his shirt.
“No,” Amanda said, bolting upright. “No, please, let me.” She slid off the bed and stood in front of him. She undid the buttons and then looked up at him, smiling, as she drew the shirt down off his shoulders. She tossed it on the floor. “Up,” she said, patting his arms, and he raised them, and she took her time pulling his undershirt up over his head. That, too, ended up on the floor, and Amanda got distracted by his chest, by kissing it. He used the time to untie the sash around her waist.
Sinking to her knees, Amanda unbuckled his belt and let it hang. She slid her hands around his waist and rested the side of her face against the rise in his pants, sighing. Then she kissed the rise and unzipped his pants, taking hold of them at his waist and tugging them down to the floor. He stepped out and kicked them behind him. And then she held him around the waist again, nuzzling the fabric at the place where it strained most. She sighed again, softly. “Mmm,” she finally said, pulling back, working his Jockey shorts down. Then she gazed at the sight before her, made a sound in the back of her throat, and looked up at him.
The fire crackled; the light flickered.
“You are magnificent,” she said.
She bent down to kiss his ankle and gently dragged her mouth up over his shin, his knee, his calf, his thigh, to there.
He was a wonder. She closed her hand around him, her thumb scarcely reaching her middle finger. Lifting him gently, she kissed him, very softly, underneath, first one side and then the other. She drew back slowly, her mouth breezing over him, lifted him slightly, and then opened her mouth to take in of him what she could.
His buttocks locked and his head kicked back with an intake of breath. His hands were buried in her hair. “Amanda,” he whispered, feeling her mouth moving around him. “Oh, Amanda.” And then he eased her head back, slid his hands under her arms, and lifted her to her feet. He looked at her, kissed her around her mouth, took her in his arms, and held her for a long moment. “Amanda,” he sighed, rocking her gently.
She stepped back and raised her arms. “Please,” she whispered. He lifted the silk over her head, and she laughed, softly, as he tried to find an end to the material. Finally it was off and she fell back onto the bed, her arms outstretched.
He crawled onto the bed between her legs. Crouched on his knees, he leaned to kiss her mouth and then her neck. She drew up her knees to either side of him and squeezed. “Please, I want you now.” And she lowered her legs, pushed him slightly to the side, and pulled his hand down to touch her. “I am so ready for you,” she whispered, urgent, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. “Please.”
He moved on top of her and, resting his weight on one elbow, made way for her hand that was reaching down for him. She held him, murmuring something he could not hear, and led him to the way inside her. She was breathing heavily and made a sound, releasing him, and brought her hand away to rest on the small of his back. Howard looked down into her eyes and then gently pressed into her, not far; he eased back and then pressed forward again, moving a little deeper; back, and then down, slowly, further, deeper, into her. And then he pulled back and pushed himself all the way inside of her, making Amanda’s face crumble and her head jerk to the side.
He started to move, slowly, steadily, gaining a rhythm that altered her breathing. “Howard, yes,” she breathed, moving with him, thighs tightening around him. “Yes,” she said with each drive into her, “yes, yes, yes...”
He was moving faster now, a slick friction between them. “Yes—Howard—yes—yes...”
Her head started to move from side to side, and he took tighter hold of her, lowered his head, and broke into hard pace. She started muttering, groaning, and her hips started to climb, and climb, and climb and then her body went rigid and she gasped, “Hold it—hold—” and he froze, and she was fighting for her breath, hanging there, straining, teetering, and then she cried, “Now,” and he plunged down into her and she was clinging to him, shuddering, her sounds frantic, and he felt her spasms grip around him and then he was climbing and it was coming and he groaned and he thrashed and he twisted, straining into her, and he came, in waves, he came, teeth clenched, he came, pouring his everything into her.
He slowed, ebbed, slowed, slowed to a stop. A tear trickled down his cheek. He shuddered again suddenly, pressing into her once more, and he stayed there, holding there, clinging there. To her. He choked back a sob.
“My darling, my darling,” she whispered, stroking his hair, kissing the side of his face. “My darling.” And she pressed her face into the side of his and he could feel the tears that were not his but hers.
17
HARRIET AND SAM
Sam was sitting in bed, arms folded, glaring at th
e bookcase across the room. “You’re wasting your breath,” he said. Whether she was or not, Harriet was going to continue, he knew. She was not in her most imposing dress. The flannel nightgown had little Mickey Mouses dancing on it (picked out as a gift from Samantha); and her hair was wrapped in toilet paper, secured with bobby pins.
She smoothed the sheet in her lap. “But you know better, Sam. You know he didn’t know what he was saying.”
“He called our daughter a nigger.”
“Sam—” He wouldn’t look at her. “He’s as ill and confused and frightened as you once were.”
“I was never that bad,” Sam said. He climbed out of bed and walked out of the bedroom.
After a moment Harriet got up too, put on a robe and followed him out. She found him in the kitchen. Leaning against the doorway, she said, “I’m only suggesting that maybe one of your friends could help the Cochrans. Not you.”
Sam was standing with his back to her, looking at the calendar on the refrigerator door. “It doesn’t work that way. People get sober because they want to, not because they need to.” He turned. “I’ll help anyone who asks me—I don’t have to help anyone who abuses my kids.”
Harriet sat down at the kitchen table and propped her head up on her hands. “You also don’t have to attack them.”
He turned back to the calendar. “Do you think I feel good about it? When I heard him—I lost my temper,” he said.
“Yes, Sam, you lost your temper.” Harriet sighed. “And you don’t want to talk to Essence—”
“Not that again,” he muttered.
“And you don’t want to talk to me, either.”
He yanked the refrigerator door open and then slammed it shut without looking inside. He crossed his arms and fell back against it, making the refrigerator rock slightly. “I’m under a lot of pressure,” he said.
“Glad to hear you say so,” she said, sarcasm edging in. “It explains everything. “
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