Her breasts were warm under my touch, warm and firm. Her whole little body was warm and eager and excited. I could still feel the blood pounding in my temples as the wave of passion caught up with the two of us.
Faster.
Faster … and more intense.
Then peace.
And then she cried. Everything came out in a rush, all the things she had been bottling up inside her for so long, and her tears soaked into the pillow.
I let her cry, and finally she was through.
“Dan,” she said, looking up at me. “Dan, I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” I said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I don’t know what got into me.”
“I’m glad you did. Dan, I’ve been terrible.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
At that point she didn’t have to do anything so far as I was concerned. Just looking at her with her body so beautiful and her face streaked with tears was enough. Just the memory of the way her body had moved beneath mine, just the taste of her mouth on my mouth—that was more than enough. And I knew then that no matter what she did, no matter what she ever did from there on in, I would never be able to stop loving her. It was something that would go on forever.
“I want to talk about it. It’s something I have to talk about. And it’s something you have to hear. You’ll listen to me, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I—I’m not really a tramp, Dan. I never did anything like I did with Carol before, not until I met you. I’ve already told you how I had to prove I was independent, but I never forced myself to prove it to myself before I met you.
“You see, I fell in love with you that first time. It was something I couldn’t for the life of me help, and it was something that terrified me. I didn’t want to love you. I knew that if I let myself care about you, someday you would leave me and I’d be all alone and it would hurt. I hate being hurt, Dan. I was afraid to let you hurt me.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of that. I could never leave you, baby.”
“Maybe not—but I couldn’t be sure of that. And I was so afraid, Dan. So terribly afraid.”
She closed her eyes and I waited for her to go on.
“Dan,” she said, “I was afraid to love you. I wouldn’t let you make love to me because of that. Because it was so perfect with us. Each time it was perfect, and I knew that if I went on like that and let it happen every day I wouldn’t be able to give you up.”
“You wouldn’t even talk to me.”
“It was the same thing, Dan. Talking or making love or just seeing each other. Either way I was so happy with you—sitting here in this room and reading your novel and making love with you and everything.
“It had me scared. God, you don’t know what I used to go through when you would pound on my door and argue with me to let you in! I was going crazy, Dan. Half of me wanted you so much it was killing me, and the other half kept sayingbe careful, be careful. It was impossible.”
“I was in love with you from the beginning. I couldn’t help it and I didn’t try to.”
She nodded. “I tried,” she said. “God, how I tried! And when I let Carol … let her do what she did, it was a way of trying. I didn’t want it but I had to convince myself that I did. I had to prove that I didn’t need you or any other man. I had to, Dan.”
“How was it?”
She took a deep breath. “It was nice … nice, in a way. But when it was over there was nothing. Nothing at all, Dan. And when it’s over with you and me it’s different. It’s beautiful with us.”
“I know.”
“Really beautiful,” she said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced. There was nothing resembling that with Carol and there never could be. There never could be with anybody else, not for me. I guess I’m in love with you, Dan. There doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.”
I thought about the time I had slept with Carol; in a way, it was the same thing for me that it had been for Marcia. It was a sexual release, pleasing in that Carol herself was a proficient performer. But there was nothing afterward, nothing at all.
“I’m glad you’re in love with me,” I said. “I guess I’m in love with you myself.”
“Good.”
“I am,” I went on. “Do you know what I did after I saw you in bed with Carol?”
“What, Dan?”
I told her. I told her the whole thing from the subway ride to waking up in the alley. I left out the gorier details, but outside of that I gave her the whole bit.
“That’s terrible,” she said when I was finished. “Dan, I’m so sorry!”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Of course it was. Are you sure you’re in good physical condition now? Dan, you have to start taking care of yourself. All that drinking isn’t good for you.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I am.” Her eyes were very serious. “Dan, will you stop drinking? Not entirely, but no more drinking just to get drunk?”
“Why?”
“Because I love you,” she said. “Because I don’t want you to do anything that’s bad for you.”
“Honestly?” I grinned at her.
“Honestly, you big dope.”
I reached out and took her chin in my hand and blew a kiss at her. “I’ll stop then,” I said. “It’s just a question of substituting one habit for another. And I have an idea you’ll make a better habit than whiskey.”
Her eyes shined when I told her about the book—how the thing had sold to Lincoln House and how I only had a chapter to go with it. And, telling her, I was really beginning to get a kick out of the whole thing. I thought of the book getting advertised all over the place, selling a bushel full of copies, selling to Hollywood—
It was beginning to look pretty good.
And for the first time it all mattered.
“I’m so happy,” she said. “Dan, I’m so happy for you.”
I kissed her.
“I mean it,” she said fiercely. “I believe in you. When something good happens for you, it makes me happy.”
I kissed her again. “You’re something good. I’m glad you happened to me.”
She smiled, her teeth flashing. I knew that I could never let her go. She wasn’t going to get away from me any more, not ever. I needed her, and with her at my side it was going to be easy.
Because I was beginning to make it. It was a long road and an uphill road from the gutter to the top, but it was no longer an impossible road. I could do it. I knew I could, and it was almost finished.
There had been some backsliding. There had been the drunkenness and the times that I almost gave up and threw in the towel.
But those times were over.
“Look,” I said to her, “no more of this independence nonsense. Understand?”
She nodded solemnly.
“You’re a big girl now,” I went on. “You don’t have to play games like a teen-ager. Okay?”
She stuck out her tongue at me.
“I mean it,” I said. “No more games. No more independence. You belong to me from now on and I’m not going to let go of you. I like what I’ve got. I’m holding on to it. And any time you start fooling around I’ll club you over the head and drag you back into the cave.”
“Pooh,” she said.
“No pooh about it. I mean it.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“We’re getting married,” I said. “Whether you like it or not.”
“I like it,” she said. “I like it a good deal.”
“You better.”
She moved her lips close to mine. “Dan,” she said, “what’ll we do when we’re married?”
“Huh?”
“I said what’ll we do when we’re married?”
“Why … I guess we’ll get a house and have some kids and—”
“Will we do what we just got finished doing?”
“Oh,” I
said. “Of course we will.”
“Maybe we should practise now. Just so we’ll be in good shape for it.”
We did.
Chapter Thirteen
THE RECEPTIONIST LOOKED UP and said, “You again!”
“Me again.”
“You’re all he ever talks about,” she said. “How does it feel to hit the big time?”
I wanted to tell her to relax and let the edge drop out of her voice, but I didn’t bother. It would only have gotten her fired. Her voice must have been the only thing that let her hold the job.
“You go right in,” the girl said, pushing the little black button. “He’s been ringing all day long to see if you got here yet.”
She pressed another button and I walked through the door and on into Lou’s office. He had a phone to his ear and snapped at somebody while he motioned at me to sit down.
I sat down.
“A story by Huby Randolph and you’re offering me $250?” he was saying. “250 I should take for a Randolph yarn? Maybe I should give it to you for nothing?”
The voice on the other end of the phone stammered something.
“A cent less than five yards,” Lou said, “is robbery.”
The voice stammered again.
“Good enough,” Lou said. “I’ll send a kid over for the check in a minute.”
He hung up and turned to me. “I feel good,” he said. “I just squeezed a bastard from $250 to $400 for one of the worst goddam stories I’ve ever read in my life. Sit down.”
I was already sitting down.
“Danny boy,” he said, “you are about to become famous.”
“Yeah?”
He reached for a cigarette. “Yeah. And yeah again. Lincoln House is putting everything into this one, kid. They’ll start off with a half-page in the Times and run it to a page the day before publication. By the time they’re done the name Dan Larkin will be a household word.”
I grinned. “You sure about that?”
“A household word,” he repeated. “Something you use around the house every day.”
“Like a condom?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”
I handed him the corrected galley-proofs for the book. “Here,” I said. “I read them and Marcia read them.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s very good. Clyber’s been on my ear for two days to get the galleys back already. And who the hell is Marcia?”
“Huh?”
“You said Marcia read the galleys. Or didn’t you?”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s right. I’m getting married, Lou.”
He put out his cigarette and lit another. “Tell me another.”
“Honest. I’m getting married.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m getting married.”
“To this Marcia?”
“To Marcia.”
For about five minutes he didn’t say anything. Then he said, “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in the last ten years, Danny Boy. That’s good news.”
“Isn’t it great?”
“It is indeed. Who the hell is Marcia, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“She’s my landlady.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded.
“Hell of a smart way to save on rent.”
I grinned.
“When’s it happening? I’ll have to send a present or something. Of course, if you happen to need a best man, I might be able to dig one up. I might be able to be one. I haven’t been anybody’s best man in a long time.”
I smiled. “It’s happening tomorrow,” I said. “But I don’t need a best man because Marcia and I are going to be the only two people at the wedding. She doesn’t want anything special. We’re going to drive down to Maryland for the wedding and keep going for the honeymoon.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You got a car all of a sudden?”
“Just got it yesterday,” I said. “Brand-new Cadillac.”
“A Cad. How does it feel to have money?”
“It feels wonderful.”
“Sit back,” he said. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it out in the ashtray and shook another one out of the pack. “Danny Boy,” he said, “you got money I haven’t even told you about yet. You’re going to have more money than God before this is done.”
I waited.
“You’re not the only one who’s been reading galleysthis week-end. MGM’s been reading galleys too. MGM’s been reading the galleys for your book, Danny boy.”
“And—”
“And MGM bought the movie rights over the phone for a cool quarter of a million a little over an hour ago. I thought it might sort of interest you.”
It interested me. It interested me very much, and after Lou brought me back to consciousness by sprinkling a little water in my face I had a chance to tell him just how much it interested me.
Hell, it interested him too. 10% of it was $25,000, and that would buy a lot of toys and food for the Harris family.
It was very interesting, all things considered.
“You’ll make a goddamn fortune,” he went on. “The advance orders on the book have been pouring in over at Lincoln House, and once the ads hit theTimesand once the reviews start coming out all over the place the book’ll sell ten thousand copies a week.
“We got a bestseller on our hands, Danny Boy. It’s going to be a runaway bestseller—one that gets up near the top of the list and stays there.”
“Why?” It didn’t seem fair even to ask—it was like wondering why the sky was blue or why you were happy or something like that. Maybe I should just sit back and be glad about it.
“Because it’s a good book, Danny.”
“Is that the only reason?”
He thought for half a second, which was a long time for him. “No,” he said. “No, that’s not all. There’s also the fact that you’ve already sold the thing to Hollywood. They want to be damn sure the book sells so that the movie will have a good publicity deal behind it. You’llget mentions in Hollywood columns and all the rest of that junk.
“And Lincoln House is a big house—they can lean on some of the reviewers and make sure the book gets a big play. The reviewers might pan it, but that doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference. They’ll talk about it, and if they spend their time saying how lousy it is you’ll still sell one hell of a lot of books.”
He stopped and I let my eyes drop shut for a minute. It was almost too much to believe, to be perfectly corny about it. It wasn’t just the money any more. It was being in first place, with all the fame and prestige that goes with it.
Hell, there’s no sense lying about it. The notion of fame was a very appealing one. I wrote stories at the beginning to get checks, but I still got one hell of a kick out of seeing my name in print. I have a hunch that every writer who writes much of anything gets that kind of a kick when he hears people talking about his book or sees his name on the cover.
There’s the oldie about the author who manages to get introduced to some biddy at a cocktail party. “Did you read such-and-such?” asks the biddy. “Read it?” he answers. “Madame, I wrote it.”
It’s an old gag, but I might even get a chance to pull it now.
“Hey!”
I looked up. Lou was still sitting at his desk with a cigarette in his mouth. “What’s a matter? Daydreaming?”
“I guess so.”
“Hell,” he said. “What do think this is—the corner saloon? This is a business office. Get the hell out of here so I can get some work done!”
As I went through the door he called after me, “Happy Wedding—I’ll send a present one of these days.”
I found out later that afternoon that the female lead in the movie—the role of Tony’s girl—was tentatively earmarked for Allison King. When Lou let me know I almost dropped the phone. There was something cockeyed about it—something that served to make the whole thing develop i
nto a completed circle with the ends properly closed. I didn’t know whether or not to be pleased by the news.
So I told Marcia.
She thought for a long minute and then turned her eyes to me. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”
“It is?”
“Don’t you think so?”
We were sitting on the edge of my bed looking across the room to the window and I slipped my arm around her and caressed her back through her sweater. Her skin was warm and smooth.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I wanted to know how you would feel about it.”
“I think it’s good, Dan. You see, she’ll do a good job with the part.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. Of course she’s a good actress, but why should she be particularly good at this role?Because she used to know me? I suppose that might give her more insight into the way I conceived the character, but—”
“Not just that. Sheisthe girl in the book. Isn’t she, Dan?”
I pulled up her sweater and slipped my hand under it. Her skin felt much better without the sweater in the way and I wanted to pull her to me and make love to her then and there. Just looking at her made me wanther. This was something new; before whenever I got to the point where a woman really wanted me I stopped wanting her. It was very nice for a change to have the desire completely mutual and more intense than ever before.
So thinking, I kissed her on the cheek. Then she turned and kissed me. Then we kissed each other a few times.
And that was nice, too.
“I suppose she is Tony’s girlfriend,” I said when we put a temporary halt to the kissing. “The similarities are there, all right.”
“She is.”
“And Tony is me?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Tony used to be you, Dan. Or maybe it’s that you used to be Tony. But you’re different now, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
“You changed,” she went on. “You’re a better person than Tony was. Tony was good deep inside, but you’re a very good person all the way through. You always were good, but I think there was a time when you weren’t quite as good a person as you are now.”
“I think you’re right. Marcia, do you know what makes the difference?”
A Strange Kind of Love Page 13