Enough of Sorrow

by Lawrence Block

  “All right.”

  “Just that I don’t think I’ll be dating much. I’m not really interested, I guess. Once burned and twice shy, or something like that. I’ll leave it to you to be the Betty Coed of Nineteenth Street.”

  “Not me, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re not a man-hater too, are you?”

  Rae had a funny look in her eyes. She started to say something, then stopped and changed her mind. “Some other time,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  Rae changed the subject. She started to talk now about her own work, which Karen found quite fascinating. Rae had taken a commercial art course in college and had worked for a year in an uptown studio. Now she was free-lancing, doing occasional jobs as an illustrator of juvenile books.

  “You don’t get rich that way,” she said, “but I like the work, and the life that goes with it. It used to kill me to drag myself out of bed early every morning and hop onto the subway. This way I set my own hours and take things easy. And I like the work.”

  “Have you had many books published with your illustrations?”

  “A few.”

  “I’d love to see them.”

  “You won’t have to twist my arm. I’ve got a few around the room. I’ll show them to you later, if you’re interested.” She lit a cigarette. “Say, do you have room to work in your place? I don’t know how your room compares to mine in size—”

  “About the same. Which means small.”

  “Do you work there?”

  “I haven’t tried yet, actually. I’ve just moved in, and I’m not in the middle of anything at the moment. I have an assignment but there’s no rush at all on it and I can stall for a week or so. I’ve thought about it, though, and it may be tricky. The room isn’t exactly spacious and the lighting isn’t very good at all. I don’t need a perfect north light. God knows I’m no great artiste, but the light ought to be fairly decent and there should be more space. When you live where you work you need more space just to keep from going off your nut, whatever kind of work it is that you do.”

  “Won’t that be a problem?”

  “It might.”

  “Then…”

  “You see, I just took this room on a temporary basis, Karen. Sooner or later I’ll run into somebody who feels like sharing a place, and then I’ll have a decent apartment. So even if I’m cramped for awhile it won’t matter.”

  Maybe they could share an apartment, she thought suddenly. She almost said something before she realized how foolish it would sound. After all, she and Rae barely knew each other. You had to know someone pretty well before the two of you were ready to set up housekeeping together.

  Still, it was something for her to think about. How insecure you’re getting, she told herself. So hungry for a friend that you’re ready to sign a lease after an hour of conversation. It was crazy, but at the same time she couldn’t dodge the feeling that she and Rae were going to be a great deal more than just casual friends. She didn’t know why this was, but the feeling persisted.

  They settled the check, left the restaurant and headed back toward their building. The air had a chill to it. They walked quickly.

  Maybe it was the wine.

  They were in Rae’s room, a little cubicle very much like Karen’s room except that it was a flight up and its window fronted on an air shaft instead of the street. She had admired three books Rae had illustrated, one about a squirrel who buried a nut and couldn’t find it, one about a small boy playing with boats, and one with illustrations of different breeds of cats. Then Rae suggested cracking a bottle of wine, and now they were sitting around sipping wine, she on a chair and Rae on the bed, and her head felt wondrously light and she thought that she was probably a little bit drunk.

  She hadn’t planned on talking about Ronnie The subject came up of its own accord, and the wine probably loosened her tongue, and once she got started it was easier to go on than to stop. Like Macbeth, perhaps, so far steeped in blood that it was easier to go on than to turn back. A slightly mangled quotation, she thought, but one that would do for the time being.

  Rae turned the talk in that direction “just a pair of old maids,” she said. “We ought to live on Gramercy Park and keep a cat. On a nice night like this we should both be out with a couple of men, Karen.”

  “Not me.”

  “You sure make it sound bitter, don’t you?”

  “I’ve been feeling bitter.”

  “About men?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll show you something,” she said She leaned forward in her chair and held out her left hand palm up. Rae’s eyes fastened on the scars on her wrist.

  “I saw that,” Rae said. “How—”

  “The other wrist is the same way. I used a razor blade.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Uh-huh.” She started to take a small sip of her wine and wound up draining the glass. Rae filled it from the bottle. “It’s a long story,” she said. “An ugly one.”

  “Tell me.”

  Once she got started, the words came surprisingly easily. She had been trying to avoid thinking about the whole affair with Ronnie, the beginning and the middle and the ending, all of it. But you couldn’t force yourself to forget something like that. You could only push it back where it lay waiting to spring out all at once. It sprang out now in a rush of words, and she talked non-stop, running on and on like an endless tape recording, babbling and sputtering and spilling out words.

  It was good for her. She realized as much while she talked. It was good to tell about it, good to let it out of her system. And the simple act of talking about it seemed to draw her closer to the blonde girl on the bed. She stopped from time to time for a sip of wine, and she thought from time to time how odd and wonderful it was that she had found someone to whom she could talk this way. It was no good to keep everything inside you. If she had had a really good friend right after the break-up with Ronnie, maybe she could have unwound a little instead of going on to tense up more and more and finally making a crazy try at suicide. She had had no one, and thing had grown worse instead of better.

  “Anyhow,” she said finally, “I lived through it.”

  “You poor kid. God what a mess.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell myself that all men aren’t as bad as he was. Maybe someday I’ll be able to believe it, but for the time being I’m not running around looking for a man.”

  “They’re all bad, Karen.”

  “Are they?”

  “Most of them are worse. At least your guy turned out honest. He didn’t try to con you forever. He showed himself the way he was. Other men just drag you along endlessly. They use you and they enjoy themselves and that’s all there is to it. I’ll tell you something—you’re a damn sight better off this way.”

  “Am I?”

  “I think so. You lived through it. Oh, you’ve picked up a couple of scars, some on the outside and some on the inside. But you’ve learned a thing or two.”

  “I guess I have.”

  She thought that she seemed to be slurring her words slightly. Take it easy on the wines she told herself. But Rae filled her glass again, and the wine was very smooth and very dry, and she did feel good, after all, and what was the harm in sipping it slowly like this?

  She wasn’t much used to wine. When she and Ronnie sat drinking with Ronnie’s friends they usually had beer, or sometimes mixed drinks. The wine was no stronger than some things she had had, but she wasn’t quite used to it. This seemed to make a difference. It was nice, though. It gave her a good feeling, a warm feeling. Outside it had started to rain, and she could imagine what it was like outside, the air cold, a wind lashing icy rain about. This made the warmth and lazy comfort of the room all the more important.

  “Karen? I’m glad you could talk about it.”

  “About what?”

  “About what happened to you. About that man.”

  All about Ronnie, she thought. That was a s
ong title. Chris Connor sang it. All About Ronnie—the melody hummed in her head, lazy and crystal cool.

  “I feel very close to you now, Karen. It’s as though we’ve known each other for such a long time.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  “Sit next to me.”

  She got up from the chair, and moved to the bed. She sat beside Rae and Rae filled their glasses again. They drank and she felt dizzy but not unpleasantly dizzy, and it was as though she could actually feel the warmth of the girl sitting beside her, and…

  Rae was kissing her before she was aware of what was going on. Rae had turned toward her, and Rae’s arms were around her and the clean sweet girl-smell of Rae was everywhere, and Rae’s lips—so red, so full—were on her own lips, and she could feel the gentle pressure of Rae’s body against her own yielding flesh, and Rae was kissing her and she did not know what was happening.

  The wine, the warmth, the wind outside.

  Rae’s voice, a whisper in her hair. “Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet Karen. Poor girl, poor lost girl. We’re together now. You and I, together, and everything will be all right baby, poor baby.”

  Her heart was beating faster and she felt blood pulsing in a vein on her temple. She did not understand. Rae kissed her again and she submitted to the kiss, receiving it passionlessly. Rae kissed her a third time, and something happened deep inside her and she felt her own arms going around Rae and her lips opening to accept the kiss.

  Rae’s tongue slipped between Karen’s lips, and the kiss grew and spread, and she tasted Rae’s mouth all wine-sweet and passion-warm, and all of the wine caught up with her and she was lost, caught up in something she did not understand and too drunk with wine and with Rae to stop long enough to figure it out.

  She could neither think nor act. She could do nothing but go along with whatever Rae began, could do nothing but receive whatever Rae bestowed.

  The wine, the warmth, the wind outside.

  Rae went on kissing her, and all at once Rae’s hands were all over her, everywhere, reaching to hold her breasts and press them and bring them awake to passion. She gasped as Rae touched her breasts. She did not understand this. This was the sort of thing a man would do to you, and she was afraid of a man doing this, but Rae was not a man, and it did not make sense to her.

  And it was so different from the embrace of a man. Slowly gently, Rae began to undress her. Slowly, gently. Rae guided her so that she fell back tenderly upon the bed, and Rae removed the last of her clothing, and Rae turned out all of the lights but one small lamp on the dresser, and Karen watched in the soft hazy glow of the lamplight as Rae took off all of her own clothing as well.

  Rae was beautiful. Rae’s breasts were large, larger than her own, and they were perfectly formed and shaped. Rae was a big girl but there was not an ounce of fat on her frame, just smooth sweet girl-flesh. Rae was next to her, on the bed with her, and Rae kissed her again, a long kiss, and this time their bare bodies met and pressed close, and the effect was twice as intoxicating as the wine had been, twice as dizzying, twice as maddening in its intensity.

  She had never felt this way. Nothing had ever been like this, and she did not understand it and did not attempt to understand it. She felt the exquisite sensation of Rae’s bare breasts against her own bare breasts, the pressure, the warmth, and she knew only that she needed this warmth, that it was heavenly and wonderful and good for her. Rae’s body was a warm sweet cave, and she could crawl into it and surrender herself to it and be safe within it.

  So different from a man. With Ronnie it had always been fast and urgent, a swift desperate plunge after pleasure which was pleasure for him more than pleasure for her. A handful of preliminary caresses tossed at her as a peace offering, and then he invaded her. And then it was over and she was shaky and he was ready for nothing but sleep and snoring.

  So very different, as night from day, as dark from night. Rae played upon her warm sweet body as a virtuoso violinist upon his instrument, drawing from it notes and tones unlike anything the violin had ever emitted before. Rae touched her and kissed her and her flesh sang.

  Her breasts. Rae’s hands cupped her breasts and whispered to them, the tips of Rae’s fingers so firm and yet so gentle on her taut flesh, teasing until her nipples stiffened with yearning, gentle, gentle, tender and gentle, and her body crazy from the love but her mind nevertheless strangely calm.

  It was all so strange. There was none of that awful urgency, no need to hurry, no need to rush. There was just a beautiful glow of warmth that spread and spread at its own pace, with sensation piling on top of sensation and her head swimming and the winds of love roaring in her ears.

  Her breasts and Rae’s hands on her breasts, and Rae’s mouth on her mouth. And then, ever so gradually, Rae moving upon her, moving slowly, and Rae’s mouth leaving her mouth and a rain of kisses all over her face, on her cheeks on the tip of her pointed chin, over her throat and shoulders.

  Her breasts and Rae kissing her breasts, with lips so soft and gentle. Rae’s tongue bathing the soft skin on the undersides of her breasts like the summer rain on a flowerbed, gentle, soft, tender, pitching her passion inexorably higher.

  The cool sweet feel of Rae’s cheek on the flat of Karen’s waist.

  The welcome probing of Rae’s hands on Karen’s legs.

  There was a moment, brief but definite, when an awful clarity came to it all. There was a moment when she saw at once that something very strange was happening, something darkly shadowed, something forbidden. There was that moment, filled with fear, shaky, the moment, perhaps, of truth.

  And the moment passed. The moment came and went, and resistance never entered the picture and surrender remained the sole theme, surrender, yielding, acceptance. There was Rae, bestowing a caress so intimate, so perfect, so tender, so wonderful, and there was Karen, soaring higher than she had ever soared before, caught up entirely in passion, floating on wings of shadowy love.

  The wine, the warmth, the wind outside. And Rae, and Rae’s delicious love

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Morning. Cold, grey, dreadful. Rain fell steadily and soundlessly, a thin and washed-out rain that dropped cheerlessly through dead still air. She sat, unmindful of the rain, on a wet bench in Gramercy Park. She had been walking and she had reached the park gate just as a man was leaving. He held the gate open for her without questioning her right to enter, and she walked in and found her bench. The gates were once again locked, and one could not leave without a key. Sooner or later, she knew, someone would come to permit her to leave. Until then she was quite content to sit on her bench and be washed by the powdery rain.

  Morning. Wine leaves a wicked residue in the body and the spirit. No headache, no dizziness, no sharp little pains. Just a general malaise, an overall combination of uneasiness and discontent. An upset stomach, a bad dose of heartburn, and unquenchable thirst—these were the aftereffects she felt.

  Above and beyond them, superimposed upon them, was an overwhelming devastating sense of sin.

  What had she done? What had she permitted? What, heaven help her, had she so dreadfully enjoyed?

  She did not want to think about it. And, inevitably, she could think of nothing else, The impossible memory of what she had done and what had been done to her blanketed everything. She sat on the bench, fighting the sense of sin and trying to conjure up a satisfactory vision of her personal self. She was trapped, suffocating, stomach turning over and heart on fire, and she could not even think straight.

  Words and phrases, creatures of memory, rushed at her like men with drawn bayonets. They came bereft of punctuation, devoid of intonation, racing though her mind in a river.

  Karen Karen darling I love you its all right its all right believe me don’t you understand you never did this before did you did you oh its good darling believe me its good I swear it Karen Karen look at me darling its not wrong its not wrong nothing is wrong at all not when two people love each other Karen men are no good for people like us you se
e that don’t you it’s true Karen darling I knew it the day I saw you do you believe that and I plotted this I admit it and if you want to think I’m a devil for doing it you may and I love you and need you Karen I’ve been with men and I know they’re no good and a woman has to love and be loved it’s a necessity Karen don’t look at me like that Karen oh darling don’t you see I couldn’t help myself I couldn’t I loved you from the minute I saw you Karen believe me its true…

  Rain descending, falling steadily. A slight breeze whipping the rain along. Words, ribbons of words, all unwinding.

  Karen where are you going Karen don’t leave now Karen stay with me please you have to let me explain God there are so many things I have to tell you Karen please wait oh Karen I’m sorry I’m so sorry…

  Flight. Down hall, down stairs. Her own room, her door slammed abruptly shut, as securely shut as a closed coffin lid. The lock turned, the room embracing her like a grave.

  Let me in Karen you have to let me in you have to let me talk to you oh God how could I let this happen how could I be so stupid Karen you know what we did you know it was good Karen it was good for both of us and you have to admit it Karen I’m sorry forgive me please let me in Karen just say that you forgive me and I’ll go away and leave you alone Karen say that much or I’ll stay here all night I swear it just give me that much darling oh Karen I’m sorry Karen I’m going now and I’m sorry I mean it it’s the truth I really am sorry Karen…

  Footsteps trailing down the hallway and disappearing. And a long time of sitting and staring and wanting to weep. No tears came. At last she got out of her clothes and into her bed and the wine worked quickly and carried her off to sleep. But there was morning, inevitably, and now she sat in Gramercy Park, locked inside, letting the rain wash her and knowing that nothing, not even the rain, would be enough to rinse her clean again.

  Damp and chilled, feverish, she left the park somewhere in the early afternoon and found her way back to her room. The day seemed to last forever but finally drew to a close. She went to sleep around midnight, tired and drawn, without having seen Rae at all that day. She got into bed expecting to toss and turn for hours and certain that bad dreams would wake her all through the night. She surprised herself. Sleep came quickly, and morning came as quickly and if there were any dreams they were forgotten entirely when she awoke.