by Sally Mandel
“Mine.”
“Don’t you ever bend them a little?”
“I committed myself and I’ll go through with it.”
“How noble,” he said.
“Thank you.” Her words were stiff.
“But not very sexy.”
“Screw you,” she said.
“That’s much better.”
She stared at him. Her freckles were turning darker by the second.
“You know,” he went on, “I almost called to tell you to forget it.”
“Well, why didn’t you, then?” she asked.
“I decided you would never do anything you didn’t really want to do.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” she retorted.
“No. And it’s looking less likely every minute.”
“I’d really like to know exactly why you did this,” she said. “I mean, you’re not an easy person to figure out. You don’t grin, you smile. You don’t laugh, you chuckle. You don’t talk, you watch. Why the hell did you write that poem?”
He just looked back at her.
“It’s for damn sure you don’t like me very much. Was it just the challenge?” Her body, already impatient at sitting still, was leaning forward, perched on the edge of the chair. Intermittently her left toe hammered the floor, acknowledging Bach’s counterpoint.
Will ran long fingers through his hair. It was a weary gesture. “I’ll admit there was some of that in the beginning. But then I started to think about you, and watch you, and besides …”
“Besides what?”
“I knew you wanted it.”
“You arrogant bastard,” she murmured.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
“I could walk right out of here—” she said.
“But you won’t.”
She headed for the door. “Watch me.”
He stood as she passed him, and caught her by the waist. As she struggled he said her name softly, several times. Quinn looked up at him through tears of mortification and rage.
“Let me go,” she pleaded.
“Not yet.”
She tugged at his arms, but he held her fast. “Go flex your iambic pentameter someplace else,” she said.
He was silent until she stopped moving.
“Quinn,” he said again. “Listen to me. I want you. I want to make love to you.” Her body was rigid. “This isn’t how it should have been. I wish to Christ I’d asked you out months ago. Sent you flowers. Took you for walks. All that.”
The burning sensation was beginning in Quinn’s body, centering between her legs and radiating outward, tingling through her limbs. Will felt the tension along her spine where his hand rested, but she no longer tried to pull away.
“There’s no rule that says it can’t be done in reverse,” she said.
“Rules again.” He touched the back of her neck and lifted his fingers through her hair.
Quinn felt weak. “The … flowers and the … walk. Can come later.”
He drew her over to the bed, sat down, and pulled her onto his lap. Her eyes seemed a very clean blue. He could not imagine her capable of evasion or falsehood, not with those eyes.
“You promised to show me,” she said.
He kissed her carefully. His mouth felt softer than it looked, with lips that were curious rather than tentative, exploring hers in their own good time. He held her away from him and began to unbutton the flowered blouse. Again he was in no rush. She kept her eyes on his face. His lashes were dark against his cheeks as he watched his hands making her naked.
“Stand up,” he said. The blouse slipped off her shoulders. He unzipped her jeans and slid them off with her underpants. He kissed her breasts.
The power of Quinn’s arousal seemed to be melting her body from the inside out. She clasped her hands behind Will’s neck, clinging to keep herself from falling. Her legs had turned to hot liquid. Will reached behind her knees and lifted her onto the bed. As she watched him undress, the space on the blanket between them seemed like desolate terrain. She was deserted, everywhere abandoned, all the pieces of her hungry for more touching. When his bare chest finally brushed against her, she cried out, feeling the emptiness fill with fire.
She lay next to him, one arm stretched across his stomach. His body hair was pale and soft, and the light from the reading lamp in the corner made minute rainbows in it.
“You think I’ll get the hang of it?”
He turned his head on the pillow to smile at her. “I’d say there’s hope.”
“Have you done that a lot?”
“What’s a lot?” He picked up a tendril of hair from behind her right ear and began twisting it. Shivers scurried down her back.
“With a lot of different people, I mean.”
“Never under these circumstances, I assure you.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“One brother. Why?”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger. What is this?”
“I want to know what you think. What you had for breakfast. Everything.”
“No, you don’t.”
She lifted herself up on one elbow and stared into his face, “Oh, yes. Everything.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Some things have to stay inside.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody wants their guts on display.”
“I don’t mind. You want to see mine?”
“No. You should be allowed the privacy of your own intestines.”
“I’m an only child, I was spoiled rotten, my family’s poor, I don’t believe in capital punishment, I don’t have any phobias but I hate the idea of a bat getting stuck in my hair. Or a bird. My idol used to be John Wayne but now it’s Ted Manning because I’m going to have my own TV news show exactly like his and interview everybody who’s anybody. I went to a Catholic school and I don’t think it screwed me up much … Hey,” she said, and stopped abruptly. “You aren’t listening to me.”
“Yes, mostly.”
“You aren’t even interested in my guts.”
His eyes fell appreciatively to the soft curve of her stomach. “I’m sure they’re beautiful, as guts go.”
“Don’t condescend to me, you complacent—”
“Wait, wait …” He put a hand on her cheek, cooling it. “I was floating. I’m sorry. I feel so Goddamn good.”
She glared at him for another second, then mischief twitched at the corners of her mouth. “What do you suppose old Buxby would say if he could see us now?”
Will kept his voice dry and clipped. “Rather barbaric. Rather, uh, primitive. If you catch my drift.”
Quinn laughed and bent her head to kiss him. It began as an appreciative, friendly kiss, but soon became greedy. She fell back against the pillow.
“You know, the mythology is all wrong.”
“What?” he asked, stroking her hair.
“You didn’t take anything away from me. I didn’t lose anything. It’s like being filled up with … with beautiful things. Being showered with presents … shit, I can’t say it.”
“You do all right.”
“But Will …” She looked pained.
“What is it?”
“Well, sex is great and everything. I really like it a lot …”
“But?”
“First I’ve got to go to the bathroom, and then if I don’t get some dinner I’m going to wither up and die right here in your bed. When do we eat?”
Chapter 9
Quinn and Will plunged into the frozen night outside the dormitory. After the warmth of Will’s drowsy room each breath felt like the inhalation of something solid that filled their throats and lungs with microscopic icicles. The streetlights lining the sidewalk were great hazy globes, a parade of winter moons. Will put his hands over his ears.
“My brains are freezing,” he said.<
br />
Quinn laughed, took his hand, and tugged him across the grass. It crunched underfoot, each blade stiffened by frost.
“Aren’t you cold?” Will asked, eyeing Quinn’s open jacket with concern.
“How could I be cold after what we just did?” She held his palm to her face so he could feel the warm skin. With the toe of her sneaker, she drew a scalloped pattern in the frost.
A figure stopped under a light across the expanse of grass. “Ingraham, that you?” it shouted.
“Henry?” Will called back.
“Yeah! Got the History notes?”
“On my desk!”
Henry stood still, watching them approach.
“He’s trying to figure out who you are,” Will whispered.
“Quinn Mallory here!” Quinn shouted.
“Great!” Henry waved at them and walked into the darkness. “Good night, Heathcliff! ’Night, Cathy!”
“Will, you think everyone on campus knows what we’ve been up to?” Quinn whispered. “That we just … that you just … that I’m not …” She hopped a little, making quotation marks in the crystallized grass.
“In the dark from fifty yards?”
“Yeah, but I’m screaming it. Can’t you hear me? Tonight I am a woman!” Her toe traced an exclamation point. The ground was slippery, and she had to grab Will’s arm to keep from falling over.
Will smiled at the jubilation he saw on her face. “Nice. Quaint. Very turn-of-the-century.”
“Personally, I prefer ‘I have just been’ ”—she dropped her voice to a stage whisper—“ ‘fucked.’ ” Then, in her normal voice, she continued, “But they don’t let you scream that around here.”
“Where’d a little convent girl like you learn to talk like that?”
“I said ‘fuck’ in front of Ann once. My mom. And she smacked me across the face. It’s a perfectly good English word. Chaucer used it, Shakespeare used it, and if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for Mallory. Besides, there’s no substitute. Is there?”
Will ran through the euphemisms in his head. “No. Except maybe ‘grumpled.’ ”
“I’ve just been grumpled!” she shouted. Then she peered at him. “You made that up,” she accused. He grinned.
Quinn dragged on his arm, bringing him to a halt. “Look.” She pointed at the footsteps trailing off behind them. “Are there people who analyze footprints? You know, like handwriting?”
“Sure,” Will said. “Pedographists. My aunt was one.” Quinn looked up at him, fascinated. He returned her gaze sideways through half-open eyes.
The light dawned. “You turkey,” she said. “I think I’ll just trip you up.” She poked her foot out in front of him.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Will said.
Lou’s was an oasis of warmth. Faces glowed in the soft light of the jukebox while Diana Ross’s smoky Motown sound undulated and throbbed. Baby, baby, where did our love go? The booths were crammed with students drinking beer, consuming hamburgers the size of grapefruit and Lou Rizzo’s heavily embellished pizzas. Quinn and Will squeezed their way to the bar, ordered cheeseburgers, fries, and a pitcher of beer. Will began to talk about Professor Buxby.
“The man’s a true pedant,” Will was saying. Quinn reached out a finger and ran it along the line of his nose, across his lips, and down under his chin. “Don’t accuse me of not paying attention,” Will complained.
“I am. Our Buxby, a true pedographist. You’re craggy.”
Will shook his head. Quinn’s neighbor at the bar got up and headed for the jukebox, leaving an empty stool.
“Thank God,” she murmured. “I have to cross my legs.” After a moment she looked up at him plaintively. “It doesn’t help.”
“What?”
“In your experience,” Quinn said, “have you ever encountered a nymphomaniac?”
“Nadine Kowalsky in seventh grade.”
“How did you know?”
“My brother told me.” Will’s eyes were half-mast again.
“I think I’m one.”
“The Catholic kind are always the worst.”
“I wish we were back there in your bed.” She stuffed three french fries into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
“You just got started late.”
She offered him the catsup bottle. “You gonna help me ketchup?”
He leaned over to give her a kiss. He smelled deliciously of beer and salty potatoes. “Don’t do that,” Quinn cried, pressing her knees together hard.
On their way out they met Stanley and Van at the door. Will held the door for them as everyone said hurried hellos. Then Quinn ducked out under Will’s arm, turning to catch Van staring at her through the steamy glass pane. Her face was pursed with obstructed curiosity. Quinn flashed her a quick goofy grin. A debauched grin, Van told Stanley later over her whiskey sour.
Quinn lay in bed that night, trying to assess the evening. She had expected to feel changed, as if something momentous had happened. She wasn’t disappointed. At first it had been quite painful with him inside her. He seemed much too big. There was a burning, stretching sensation. But Will was gentle. He eased himself in and out of her slowly, carefully, until the time came when she only wanted that particular pain to go on and on, until her body arched toward his and her legs wrapped around his hips, urging him into her again and again. She didn’t think she had had an orgasm. She was confident that she would recognize one when it occurred, but in the meantime, the excitement of Will’s naked body against her naked body and of part of him buried so deep inside her, well, it hardly made sleep come easily. She smiled into the darkness. There was a scuff mark on the ceiling directly above her pillow, put there by a high-flying Statistics textbook in a moment of midterm exasperation. The splotch was invisible in the dark, of course, but she often imagined it there and pretended it was the footprint of an angel who guarded her sleep. Tonight she could see only the face and body of William Ingraham. Some angel.
The nuns at St. Theresa’s had warned her about sex, pointing their white fingers and whispering warnings about “going the way of Mary Frances DeFalco,” poor Mary Frances, who compensated for her flat chest and buckteeth by dispensing favors from the backseat of her brother’s Chevy. Well, Quinn had finally accomplished the unmentionable, and despite all predictions had not fallen under the wheels of a truck on the way back from Lou’s, nor had she become crippled, or blind, nor even, she was confident, pregnant.
She stretched, aware of the texture of the sheets against her bare legs. The things her body knew how to do—amazing. She would never get to sleep. Not tonight.
Fifteen seconds later Van poked her head through the door and whispered, “You awake?” There was no answer. Quinn lay on her back with arms flung out to either side in a posture extravagantly relaxed, like a sleeping child. The blanket had been kicked off onto the floor. Van retrieved it and gingerly covered her friend’s bare legs. She studied Quinn carefully, but was unable to determine a thing from the quiescent face. She left the room, tiptoed down the hall, and resigned herself to postponing the questions until morning.
Chapter 10
Will kept drifting in and out of his dream, not sure whether it was a good one and worth continuing. When it began, he and Marianne were on a large wooden raft that looked as if it might have been constructed by Thor Heyerdahl. Seagulls swooped overhead, and great mountains of turquoise water swelled beneath them. Marianne was explaining something unintelligible and sad, and Will was crying. When he half awoke from this section of the dream, his throat felt tight with a kind of nostalgic grief he sometimes felt when he remembered some perfect moment that was forever lost to the past.
He sank back into sleep, but now the wooden raft had become a haphazard structure beside a river that was too narrow to be the Salmon and too wide to be the creek that ran along behind the house back home. Fragrant smoke emerged from a hole in the roof, and Will was drawn inside. A na
ked girl sat cross-legged in the dirt. Her skin was golden in the firelight. Her hair was the color of the flames that she stirred with a long stick. She looked at him solemnly, then dropped the stick and held out her arms.
In the morning Will woke up feeling luxuriously warm and snug, but when he tried to recapture the dream, he could see only the water of the river rushing over dark stones.
There had been no romantic episodes in his life since Marianne’s accident nearly two years ago. Her death had siphoned off his vitality, as if he had lost a Siamese twin who had been attached to him in many crucial places. His brain no longer hummed and clicked. His heart was indifferent, continuing to beat out of a sense of obligation rather than joy. His perceptions were dulled by dispirited nerve fibers. That first year Will had marveled that he didn’t actually limp from the crippling effects of losing her.
As he lay thinking about Marianne with her quiet voice and serene intelligence, it occurred to him that what he had anticipated was someday meeting a similar woman who would plug in the holes and revitalize the parts that had died with her. What he had not expected was Quinn. Thinking of them both was like trying to compare pearls with sapphires. Will had spent the first quarter of his life with Marianne. He had only just begun to know Quinn. How could it be that he was already wondering about the children he and Quinn would produce? Would they be redheads? Would they be fiery and extroverted, or contemplative and withdrawn? Where would this new family live, in the valley near Will’s school, or would they build a place far up in the mountains?
These speculations seemed an affront to Marianne’s memory. But despite the guilt, Will was powerless to snuff them out. Quinn was not gradually healing his wounds. She was cauterizing them.
Will thrashed his legs, trying to untangle himself from the wreckage of his sheets. He felt as if these past two weeks he and Quinn had been living in a glass bubble. They floated just off the ground, rotating lazily together in their luminous sphere. Any separation—for class, for Quinn’s jobs, to say good night—seemed excruciating, as if the bubble were being shattered by a cruel thrust from the ice-cold winter reality outside.