Flesh

Alison found that she couldn’t smile.

“Hard night?” he asked.

“Hard afternoon.”

“Oh.” He took her hand and they started walking. “Nobody came into the room, by the way. I stayed until after five.”

“So it would’ve been perfectly all right, is that it?”

“Yeah. I knew it would be.”

“Good for you.”

“Hey, come on. We didn’t do it, okay? You won. So what’s the big deal?”

“No big deal,” Alison muttered.

They waited at a street corner for the light to change, then started across.

“Am I some kind of creep because I wanted to make love with you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Hell, we’ve done it in the park. Not just at night, either. What about Sunday afternoon?”

She remembered the bushes, the sunlight, the feel of the blanket, the feel of Evan. It seemed a long time ago.

“I don’t happen to see the big difference,” he said. “A park, a classroom.”

They stepped onto the curb and started down the next block. They passed closed shops, a bar with the sounds of clacking pools balls and jukebox music drifting from the open door, more deserted stores.

“So what’s the big difference?” Evan asked.

“There’s not that much,” Alison told him. “It doesn’t have to do with that.”

“You lost me.”

“It doesn’t have to do with the difference between the park and your classroom.”

“I still don’t get it.”

She looked at him. He was frowning. “The thing is, you dumped on me.”

“I see.”

“It didn’t bother me that you wanted to have sex. It was your reaction when I said no.”

“Just because I wouldn’t walk you to Gabby’s?” He sounded as if he considered that a silly reason to be upset.

“Sort of,” Alison said.

They reached the corner of Summer Street’s intersection with Central Avenue. Evan’s apartment was four blocks to the right, just off Summer. The house where Alison lived was straight ahead, two blocks past the end of the campus, on a road off Central. As she expected, Evan led her to the right.

She didn’t resist.

Her heart pounded harder.

Earlier, she had made up her mind against going to his apartment tonight. She had doubted that he would meet her after work, anyway, but if he did come, she would simply have to tell him no.

That kind of decision was easy, she realized, with Evan nowhere around and the confrontation sometime in the vague future.

It wasn’t so easy when the time came.

And it would get more difficult with every step. Before long, they would be at his apartment.

“Wait,” she said. Stopping, she pulled her hand free. Evan looked at her.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“You don’t think what?”

“Not tonight.”

In the dim glow from the street lamp, she saw his brow crease. “You don’t mean it.”

“I mean it.”

A side of his lip went up. He looked surprised, annoyed, disgusted—as if he had stepped on a mound of dog waste. “What is it with you?”

“I don’t like what happened, that’s all.”

“Christ,” he muttered.

“It changed things. It made me think. It made me wonder if all you really care about is the sex.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I don’t know—is it?”

“Of course.”

“Then you won’t mind too much if we…abstain.”

“You don’t want to make love tonight,” he said quietly, as if explaining the situation to himself.

“It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“But.”

“But I won’t.”

“I didn’t walk you to work, so now you’re going to punish me by holding out.”

“That isn’t why.”

“No? That’s how it sounds.”

“I’m ‘holding out,’ if you have to call it that, because I need to find out what’s there—what’s there without the sex. I mean…” Her throat tightened. “Do you drop me, or what?”

“Alison.”

“Do you?”

Evan looked confused and hurt. Raising a hand to the side of her head, he gently stroked her hair. “You know better than that.”

“I wish I did.”

“I love you.”

“Even without sex?”

“Of course. Come on now, let’s go to my apartment and you’ll see that I’m a marvel of restraint.” He took her hand.

“No, not to your apartment. We both know what would happen.”

“We’ll just sit down and talk. On my honor.” He smiled. “Unless, of course, you should happen to change your mind, in which case…”

“I’m going back to my place,” Alison told him. “Are you coming?”

“You’ve got roomies.”

She reached for her flight bag.

“Never mind, I’ll come along. Can’t have you wandering the streets alone—not with all these tips.”

The returned to the corner and crossed Summer Street.

“Another thing,” Alison said.

“You mean there’s more?”

“It’s not just for tonight.”

“This celibacy kick?”

“It wouldn’t mean anything, just one night.”

“Hey, it means a lot to me.”

“Obviously.”

“Come on, I’m just joking around.”

They walked in silence for a while. Finally, Evan asked, “About how long do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“A week, a month, sixty years?”

“It’ll depend on how things go.”

“What, exactly, do you hope to accomplish by this little maneuver?”

“I thought I already explained that.”

“You want to see what sort of relationship we have without sex?”

“That’s about it.”

Evan shook his head. “Can’t we vote on this?”