“Are you going to sulk about it?” Mandy said.
“To hell with it,” Howie said. “Nurse your child and leave me alone.”
They drank the second round of beers, and it got close to ten. Somehow or other Henry and Mandy got to holding hands under the table. When she drank from her schooner, she lifted it in both hands, and this made it necessary for her to release the one under the table temporarily, and during these times she would lay Henry’s hand on her knee and leave it there until she was ready to pick it up again.
“Maybe we’d better have another round of beers,” Henry said.
“I’m afraid it’s time to go,” Mandy said, “If I’m to be back by eleven.”
“It only took about half an hour coming,” Henry said.
“On the way back, we’ll be going uphill,” she said.
“That’s true,” Henry said. “We’d better go.”
They walked back across town and uphill. At a corner near Mrs. Murphy’s Poor House, Howie turned off by himself.
“Where you going, Howie?” Henry said.
“Home,” Howie said.
“Don’t you want to go with us?”
“To hell with it,” Howie said, and walked away.
“Do you suppose we hurt his feelings?” Mandy said.
“I hope not,” Henry said.
“So do I,” she said. “You never know what hell do when his feelings have been hurt.”
When they got to the dorm, they stopped in the deep shadow of a high hedge in front.
“Would you like to kiss me?” she said.
“I was just thinking how much I’d like to.”
“Go ahead and kiss me, then.”
He put his arms around her and kissed her, and she put her arms around him and kissed him, and after the first kiss they kissed twice more for a longer time each time. “I’d better go in now,” she said.
“I guess you’d better.”
“I liked you right away,” she said.
“Same here,” he said. “I liked you as soon as I saw you.”
“It doesn’t matter because you’re only a freshman.”
“I’m glad of it,” he said.
He went back to Mrs. Murphy’s Poor House and went to bed and thought about her. He didn’t see Howie again that night, or all the next day, but the next night Howie came into his room and talked for nearly an hour, and it looked like everything was going to be all right.
It wasn’t true, as Howie had said, that he was a virgin, but he had never felt for any girl the strange and disturbing mixture of lust and tenderness that he felt for Mandy. He had felt the former in numerous instances, satisfying it in two, and he had felt the latter for a particular girl in high school for six whole weeks on end, but he had not understood then that they could be compatible components of a single shattering emotional reaction. Mandy possessed, he learned in the weeks that followed, a fine capacity for passion, and it was only now and then that he wondered, for a moment at a time, if she had expressed before, or was even expressing now, the passion as freely with others as she did with him. He never asked, of course, because he was in no position to assume the right and did not, in any case, want to know. His major source of chagrin was that circumstances always prevented her free expression of passion from being quite so free as it might have been if circumstances had been more favorable.
In November, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday was to begin, he went over to the dorm in the afternoon to tell Mandy good-by. Most of the girls had already left, or were packing to leave, and the sitting room in which he waited was deserted except for himself. He felt very sad, as if he wanted to grieve for something unknown and to cry for no good reason. The holiday would be, after all, a very short one, only a few days, but it seemed to him to stretch ahead interminably. He waited and wallowed in his sadness for ten full minutes before Mandy came down from her room.
“Hello, Henry,” she said. “Have you come to say good-by?”
“Yes, I have.”
“I hoped you’d come, but I was afraid you’d gone without it.”
“I wouldn’t do that. You ought to know I wouldn’t.”
“Are you going to your aunt’s?”
“I guess so. There’s no place else.”
“When are you leaving?”
“I thought I’d go this evening. There’s a bus at six o’clock. When are you?”
“I? I’m not going anywhere. Did you think I was?”
“You mean you’re not going home?”
“No. It’s too far away for so short a time. I’ll wait until Christmas.”
“I’m not going either, then. I’ll stay here with you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to spoil your holiday.”
“I want to stay. Will you see me every day if I stay?”
“Isn’t your aunt expecting you?”
“I’ll write and tell her I couldn’t come. Wouldn’t you like me to stay?”
“Yes, I would, and if you do I promise to see you every day and every night.”
“It’s settled, then. I’ll stay.”
“We’ll have a marvelous time, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will. We’ll have the best time ever. I will, anyhow. I know that.”
“Is Howie going home?”
“He’s already gone. He cut his classes and went this morning. Everyone else at Mrs. Murphy’s has gone to 3.”
“Including Mrs. Murphy?”
“Well, no, not Mrs. Murphy, of course. She’s there.”
“Will you call for me tonight?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Come early. About seven-thirty. I’ve got to go back upstairs now. I’m helping my roommate pack.” They were still alone in the sitting room, and so she kissed him hard and held herself tightly against him.
“I’m so glad you’re staying,” she said.
“So am I,” he said.
When he returned at seven thirty, she was already downstairs waiting for him.
“What shall we do?” she said.
“I don’t know. What would you like to do?”
“Do you have much money?”
“About twenty dollars.”
“I thought we might go downtown and have dinner. Do you think that would be fun?”
“Yes. Let’s do that. While we’re having dinner we can decide what we want to do later.”
“I already know what I want to do.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you when it’s time.”
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“Never mind why. You keep thinking about what it could be and then let me know if you guessed.”
They walked downtown to a good restaurant and sat knees to knees at a small table for two. It was the last time they’d had dinner together in a restaurant, and it made Henry feel special and very rich, as if he had a thousand dollars in his pocket instead of only twenty. It took quite a while to get served, and quite a while longer to finish eating, and by the time they’d finished and had coffee and a cigarette apiece, it was nine-thirty, or nearly.
“Have you been thinking about what I’d like to do?” she said.
“I’ve been trying,” he said, “but I can’t think of anything special.”
“Shall I tell you?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to buy a bottle of wine and go to your room.”
“At Mrs. Murphy’s?”
“Yes. It seems to me we ought to have a celebration to begin the holiday, and I’d like to go there and have it.”
“We’d have to be careful Mrs. Murphy didn’t see us. She’s deaf, though. We could probably slip in.”
�
�It would be fun. Don’t you think so? Will you take me?”
They went to a package store for the bottle of wine. Henry was afraid the clerk might embarrass him by asking him his age, and he was prepared to lie if necessary, of course, but the clerk apparently thought that he was old enough, or did not care if he was old enough or not. He was not familiar with wines, moreover, and hadn’t the least idea of what would be the best kind to buy.
“What kind would you like?” he said to Mandy.
“Dark port would be nice,” she said. “It’s not so dry as some of the others, and besides, it’s stronger than most of them.”
“You mean it has more alcohol in it?”
“Yes. Port has around twenty percent and most of the dry wines have only twelve or fourteen.”
“That’s a good thing to know. I’ll remember that.”
“Oh yes. Port is six or eight percent stronger.”
“A bottle of dark port, please,” Henry said to the clerk.
“I’d like to suggest a New York wine, if you don’t mind,” Mandy said. “It may be only imagination on my part, but it always seems to me that New York wines are better.”
“A bottle of dark port from New York,” Henry said to the clerk.
The clerk put a bottle of Taylor’s dark port in a brown paper sack, and Henry paid for it. He was surprised to discover that it was so cheap. He had somehow expected a bottle of wine from New York to be quite expensive. With the bottle under one arm and Mandy holding onto the other, he started uphill for Mrs. Murphy’s Poor House.
“Do you think Mrs. Murphy will be asleep?” Mandy said.
“Probably. She goes to bed early usually, but sometimes she sits up and watches television. It’s all right, though. Her sitting room is at the back of the house. If we’re careful we can get in without her seeing us.”
“What would she do if she saw?”
“Raise hell. Report me to the dean.”
“That would be too bad. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“In my opinion, it would be worth it.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I surely do.”
“Well, that was a very nice thing to say, and I promise that I’ll do something nice for you in return.”
“What will you do?”
“Wait and see. We must remember, after we get upstairs, not to get careless and make too much noise. Isn’t this the house?”
“Yes. You wait out here, and I’ll see if the hall’s clear.” He went up across the porch alone and into the hall. The hall was clear, with only a small light burning on one wall, and he signaled Mandy from the door to come on. She came up and into the hall without the slightest sound, except a soft giggle of excitement that was hardly more than a whisper, and they went upstairs together to his room. Henry drew the blinds and turned on a light.
“It’s very small, isn’t it?” Mandy said.
“Yes, but it’s handy. I can lie on the bed and reach damn near everything in the room.”
“It’s cozy, all right. I think it’s very cozy. Do you have some glasses?”—
“Dixie cups.”
“Dixie cups will do nicely. Will you please pour the wine?”
He opened the bottle and poured dark port into two Dixie cups. The wine was sweet and strong, and he could feel it almost immediately in his blood. By the time his cup was empty, his head was feeling strangely and pleasantly light, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. Mandy came over and stood in front of him between his knees, and he put his arms around her hips and leaned his head comfortably against her flat belly. After holding her so for a minute or two, he drew his hands slowly down over her hips and flanks and up again under her skirt.
“You’re sweet,” she said.
“You,” he said. “You’re the sweet one.”
“I promised I’d do something nice for you. Do you want me to?”
“Yes. Please.”
“It would be nicer if the lights were off. If you were to turn off the light and raise the blinds, we could still see each other, but no one could see in.”
He got up and turned off the light and raised the blinds. Turning, he stood with his back to the window until his eyes had adjusted to the shadows. She was standing in the precise place and position he had left her, and he could sense her excitement and expectancy as surely and as strongly as he could feel his own.
“Shall we have a little more wine first?” she said.
“If you wish.”
“I think a little more wine would be nice.”
He filled their cups again, and when they had drunk the sweet and heady wine, she turned around and said, “Please unbutton me,” and he did so with great difficulty, and then, when he had at last accomplished the unbuttoning, she turned back to face him and unfastened his jacket and the shirt under the jacket, throwing both to the floor. Then she came hard against him, clutching him close so that the hard nipples of her breasts rubbed teasingly across the flesh of his chest. Instinctively their mouths met and fused in a kiss that was filled with hunger and yearning. They remained locked together like that as if they could not get enough of each other.
Finally, Mandy drew away slightly and in the faint, uncertain light of the room he saw the svelte, exciting lines of her nude body. Her skin held a rich, pale glow, her breasts were high and firm, her waist narrow and flat, the hips having a wide flare, then narrowing into smooth, slender legs.
“Darling!” she whispered and drew his head to her bosom. He kissed the mounds of her breasts, his mouth lingering on the pink buds of her nipples, then coursing along her ribs, while desire mounted in a powerful tide in both of them.
Her own hands began a feverish stroking of Henry’s body while they kissed and kissed again. Finally, in blind impatience they stumbled toward the bed and fell upon it, their arms and legs intertwining, their hot, moist lips still joined. And afterward the lingering and deliberate revelation of each to the other was mounting and tempestuous excitement that grew to intolerable intensity and shattered at last to the crying of a voice that might have been his or hers or both.
“Was it nice?” she said afterward. “Did I please you?”
“Darling,” he said. “Darling Mandy.”
“Do you love me a little?”
“No. Not a little. I love you so much that it hurts and hurts and I can hardly bear it.”
“I’m so glad you love me, even if it’s only a little, and it makes me happy to know that I’ve been able to please you.”
She was then so quiet for so long that he thought she had gone to sleep, and time had passed from one day to another, to the day of Thanksgiving, when she spoke again and asked what time it was.
“After twelve,” he said. “About ten minutes.”
“Oh, God, I’ll have to go. I have to be in by one.”
“Even on a holiday?”
“Yes. Isn’t it depressing? School nights we have to be in by eleven, but weekends and holidays it’s one.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go.”
“So do I. I wish I could stay all night and wake up and please you in the morning.”
“Will you come back again?”
“Tomorrow night, if you like. We’ll have a wonderful holiday, won’t we?”
They barely beat the one o’clock deadline at the dorm, and the next night was wonderful and pleasing, as was the holiday altogether, but in the time that followed from Thanksgiving to Christmas they were sometimes almost in despair, partly because circumstances again made certain things difficult, if not impossible, and partly because it was a time leading inevitably to another period of time when they would be unable to see each other at all in any circumstances whatever. Henry’s despair increased as the dreaded Christmas holiday drew
near, and then, a few days before it was to begin, something happened to Howie that reduced his own affairs to insignificance and made him feel that he had committed a hideous wrong in having been so excessively concerned with them.
The evening of the day it happened, Henry was in his room, trying to study but not being very successful at it, when Howie came in and sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor between his feet.
“I expect this will be my last semester here,” he said suddenly.
“Last semester?” Henry looked up from his book. “Why?”
“Well, I’m not doing so well. I’ve got behind in all my subjects. I’m sure to flunk at least three of my semester exams.”
“Exams aren’t until the middle of January. If you worked hard between now and then, you could catch up.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Anyhow, I won’t do it. I know that. For some reason or other, I can’t seem to get interested in anything. The old man will raise hell, but I guess it doesn’t make much difference. I’ve been thinking about not coming back after the holiday.”
“I hope you will.”
“Why? I’d only be dropped after exams.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you’re being too pessimistic about your chances.”
“No. There’s no chance at all of getting by unless I work like a dog between now and then, and there’s no use kidding myself that I’m going to do it. I just haven’t got it in me.”
“I don’t want you to leave school, Howie. I’d miss you if you did.”
“Oh, balls. You wouldn’t miss me as long as Mandy’s around.”
“Yes, I would. Mandy would miss you too.”
“Cut it out. She hardly ever sees me as it is, and she isn’t very happy about it when she does. You’ve heard the way she talks to me.”
“Well, you invite it, Howie. You know you do.”
“I suppose so. I’m an unpleasant son of a bitch. I don’t really want to be, though. It’s because I’m afraid of being disliked or something, and so I deliberately try to make everyone dislike me. It gives me a kind of excuse. You’ve probably figured out for yourself by this time that I’m a goddamn phony.”
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