He had already turned away. He set the coffee cup on the dinette table and walked on through the room to the bedroom door without looking at us. He opened the door and went through and closed it.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I went over to the couch and sat down, and put the carton and the loose-leaf notebooks on the floor.
“He says things like that to everybody,” she said. “He seems to think it’s funny.”
“Gave me a jolt, seeing him.”
She came over by the couch, speaking quietly. “I think he tries to prove he’s strong by talking like that. He hasn’t been quite right—mentally—for some time. I hate to say it, but I think he’s getting worse. He was always very sharp. He still is, but he says and does crazy things, sometimes. It worries me.”
She was at it again. Telling me her business. I decided to go along with it. “You told his doctor?”
“No.” She hesitated. “He’ll pay for staying up on his feet, like that. He shouldn’t be up at all. But the doctor lets him stay up for ten minutes at a time.”
She wanted me to feel sorry for her. “He’ll get well.”
“No.” She was firm. “He’ll only get worse and worse.”
“Until he dies.”
She nodded.
“How long?” I said.
“Hard to tell. It could go on and on.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute. She looked sad and tired, and she wanted me to know it.
“Sit down,” I said. “We’ll have a look at this stuff.”
Her voice was flat. “It would be a terrible expense if he were in a hospital.”
“Thought you said he was wealthy.”
“Oh, yes—he is. Very.”
“Why would it matter to him, then?”
“It wouldn’t matter to him.” She paused, then added quickly, “I mean, the expense wouldn’t matter. He could practically buy the darned hospital. But he just won’t go to a hospital. Not him.”
“I see. Well—here’s some things I’d like you to look at.”
She didn’t sit on the couch. She went over and dragged up a low chair, placing it at the corner of the couch where I sat. I put the box of literature and junk on the cocktail table. She kept watching me. She didn’t give a good goddamn about that literature.
“I was thinking,” she said. “You’ll need some sort of remote control. One of those cords, with the gadget on it. So he can work the TV from bed.”
“Thought of that.”
“Oh. Swell.”
“I brought along a couple of TV sets. But first, I’d like you to glance through these folders—ask any questions you want. Oh, by the way, I can give you a good allowance on your old set.”
“I thought I’d just stick that in the kitchen.”
“I see. A set in every room, to keep you occupied.”
“That’s what I thought. It gets so—” She shrugged.
She cupped one hand over her brow, looking down at a colorful folder in her lap. I couldn’t see her eyes. She didn’t say anything, staring down at the folder. Then I saw something. It jarred me. She was only pretending to look. It was a Westinghouse electric kitchen range showing on the folder. The TV blurbs were on the other side.
“That one’s a real hot seller,” I said. “We call it our oven-grille special.”
She didn’t move. Then, slowly, she turned the folder over and looked at the other side. She kept the hand cupped over her brow. I still couldn’t see her eyes. It was playing it close, but she wasn’t fighting it worth a damn. Eighteen years old, I thought. The nipples of her breasts showed through the thin white sweater.
I looked across at the bedroom door. It was closed but it was still nearby. Too near. I wondered what he was doing in there? Maybe playing leap-frog with his oxygen tanks.
“Wonder if I could have a glass of water?” I said.
She stood up fast. The folder fell to the floor.
“I’m sorry. I should have offered you a drink. I hardly ever drink, you see. It always makes me crazy. I do crazy things. I always seem to lose my head.”
“Water will be fine.”
Her eyes looked different from the way they had looked a moment before. Something passed between us— something direct and hot.
She turned and walked toward the kitchen, not making a sound, and I watched the way she moved, liking every bit of it. I picked up the folder and dropped it on the table and went out there.
I could walk softly, too. But not that softly. She made as if she didn’t hear me. She had the refrigerator door open. I went over beside her and looked at her and she stood there, holding the door, with one hand moving slowly in toward the water bottle. I caught the hand and it crawled up my arm. I put my other arm around her, and she came up against me, watching me with big round eyes, and I kissed her.
She made a small sound and said, “No.”
“What the hell do you want?” I said.
Then I thought for a second she was crying. She couldn’t be crying. I kissed her again.
I went nuts for her. Her lips were hot. Her mouth opened, full of tongue. She wormed her body against me, working her hips hard and fast, and began making little frantic sounds in her throat. I’d been right, there was nothing under the white sweater.
She drew her face away. Her eyes were clenched shut. Her lips were stretched back across her teeth with what looked like pain.
“Hold me harder.”
If I did that I’d snap her back.
She made a purring sound in her throat. “He’s asleep. He won’t wake up right now. The door—lock the kitchen door.”
I turned and closed and locked it, then held her again. She began to groan and moan, writhing wildly. She was a tiger. She tore at my belt, then began tearing at her clothes, her hair swinging across her face. She yanked her sweater up to her neck and I got as crazy as she was. Those toreador pants of hers were as thin as silk and as tight as skin. They wouldn’t come off.
“Rip ’em!”
I ripped. I got my fingers in the seam and ripped the front and left leg practically off. Her flesh was dead white. She dropped to the floor, dragging me with her.
I knew I’d never get enough of her. She was straight out of hell.
I came back to her place at two o’clock, after driving around and trying to think for a little over two hours. She had wanted me to stay for lunch, but I told her I had to get back to the store to take care of orders on electronic equipment. I didn’t go near the store. I drove out around Key Causeway and looked at the Gulf of Mexico, and at the light, cloudless sky, and at how brilliant and near-white the sun was up there. All I could think was how she was, with the rest of it a shapeless mass.
There was something about her. She was screwy. I knew that, but I didn’t know exactly in what way she was screwy. Not yet. But I thought, Just leave it alone. Get Pete Stallsworth to go out there and finish the installations. Maybe he’ll install something personal, too. Only the thought of anybody else with her was bad. Already, it was like that.
I kept thinking about it; what we’d had there on the kitchen floor. How young she was. The soft, smooth feel of her skin, and how hot she was, and the things she said and did. The look of her, lying there, as if she’d die it she didn’t get it, maybe.
There had been a lot of women, but never anything like Shirley Angela. And right then I knew I wanted her to be all mine. She made you feel as if you wanted to rape her, because that was the only way you’d get her, reach her. And you had to reach her.
All right. So I was screwy, too. But Shirley Angela was the works.
