seemed to expand then, holding her firm body against mine, smelling her hair and the smell of soap on the back of her white neck, feeling her breasts against my breast, her stomach against mine, her hand, now, caressing the back of my neck.
I began to feel an arousal that I had never felt before. My whole body felt it. I let my hands slide down her back until they held her hips, pulling her against me. I began to kiss her throat.
Her voice was nervous, soft. “Paul,” she said, “I just woke up. I need to wash my face and comb my hair…”
“No, you don’t,” I said, bringing my hands together behind her, pulling her tighter to me.
She put the palm of her hand against my cheek. “Jesus Christ, Paul!” she said softly.
I took her hand in mine and led her to the large bed she had made from the python cage. We undressed, watching each other silently. I felt stronger, more certain than I had ever felt with her before.
I helped her into the bed and began to kiss her naked body—the insides of her arms, the place between her breasts, her belly, the insides of her thighs, until she cried out; my heart was pounding furiously but my hands were steady.
Then I pushed myself into her slowly, stopping for a moment and then going deeper. I was transported by it, ecstatic; I could not have spoken.
We continued to move with one another, looking at each other’s face. She became more beautiful as I watched her, and the pleasure of what we were doing together was astonishing, unbelievable. It was nothing like the sex I had known about and been taught. I had never even suspected that such lovemaking was possible. When my orgasm came it was overwhelming; I shouted aloud as it happened, holding Mary Lou to me.
And then we fell back from one another, both of us wet with perspiration, and stared at each other.
“Jesus,” Mary Lou said softly. “Jesus, Paul.”
I lay there on one elbow, looking at her, for a long quiet time. Everything seemed different. Better. And clearer.
Finally I said, “I love you, Mary Lou.”
She looked at me and nodded. Then she smiled.
We lay together silently for a long while. Then she put her gown back on and said softly, “I’m going up to the fountain to wash my face.” And she left.
I lay there for several minutes, feeling relaxed, very happy and calm. Then I got up and dressed and went out to be with her.
It was dark out. But then she must have turned on a switch, for lights came on at the fountain and a kind of carousel music began to play.
I walked up the path toward the light and water and music. She was bent over the fountain’s pool, washing her face vigorously with her hands. When I got within a few feet of her she still had not seen me. She stopped washing, sat down, and began drying her face with the hem of her gown, pulling the gown up past her knees to do so.
I watched her for a moment. Then I spoke. “Do you want to use my comb?”
She looked up at me, startled, and pulled her gown down. Then she smiled self-consciously. “Yes, Paul,” she said.
I gave her my comb and sat down beside her on the edge of the little fountain and watched her combing her hair in the light from the spotlights that shone on the water.
With the tangles out of her hair and with her face now scrubbed and bright, she looked shockingly beautiful. Her skin was luminous. I did not want to speak; I stared at her, just enjoying the sight of her, until she lowered her eyes and smiled.
Then she spoke hesitantly. “Did they let you out of prison?”
“I escaped.”
“Oh,” she said, and looked back up at me, as if seeing me now for the first time. “Was it bad? Prison, I mean?”
“I learned some things while I was there. It could have been worse.”
“But you escaped.”
The strength of my voice surprised me. “I wanted to come back to you.”
She looked down again for a moment, and then back up to me. “Yes,” she said. “Oh Jesus. I’m glad you came back.”
I nodded. Then I said, “I’m hungry. I’ll fix us something.” I turned and headed down the path.
“Don’t wake the baby…” she said.
I stopped and turned back to her. She looked a little lost, confused. “What baby?” I said.
Suddenly she shook her head and laughed. “My God, Paul. I
I stared at her. “Then I’m a father?”
She got up quickly, with her face all youthful, and ran down the path to me and threw her arms around my neck and, like a young girl, kissed me on the cheek. “Yes, Paul,” she said. “You’re a father now.” Then she took me by the hand and led me into the House of Reptiles. And I realized what the white cloths inside were; they were diapers.
She took me to one of the smaller cases, where the iguanas had been, and there, lying on its fat stomach asleep and wearing a big white diaper, was a baby. It was pale and chubby-looking, and it snored quietly. There were bubbles of spit at the corners of its mouth. I stood there looking at it for a long time.
Then I said to Mary Lou softly, “Is it a girl?”
She nodded. “I’ve named her Jane. After Simon’s wife.”
That seemed all right. I liked the name. I liked being a father. To be responsible for another person, for my own child, seemed like a good thing.
Then I tried to picture the three of us together as though we were a family like the families in the old black- and-white films; but nothing in the films was remotely like this, standing there in the House of Reptiles with the diapers hanging from empty snake and lizard cases, with the smell of warm milk in the room and the soft sounds of snoring. I tried to imagine myself as a father the way I had thought of it back in prison when I had yearned so much for Mary Lou in that impotent, suicidal way; but I saw that I had thought of any children I might have as being half- grown— like Roberto and Consuela. And those two, I realized, belonged to a world of friendly postmen and Chevrolets and Coca-Colas, and not to my world at all.
But I did not need that world of postmen and Chevrolets; this world, slight as it could be, would do. This fat and warm-looking and smelly little thing lying with its face pressed into a pillow in front of me was my daughter. Jane. I was happy with that.
Then Mary Lou said, “I can get us a sandwich. Pimiento cheese.”
I shook my head no, and then walked outside. She followed me silently. When we were out there she took my arm and said, “Paul. I want to hear about your escape.”
“Later,” I said. And then, “I’ll fix some eggs for us.”
She looked at me surprised. “Do you have
“Come on,” I said. I led her around to the side of the building where the thought bus was parked. Then I went in ahead of her with my lamp, and hung it from the ceiling. I lit the other lamp, using my prison lighter, and turned the flame up as brightly as possible.
I brought Mary Lou inside. She stood in the aisle and looked around. I said nothing.
At the back I had made a bookshelf by turning one of the seats over, and my books were all in a neat row on this. Biff was curled up, asleep, on top of the books.
Next to my books my new clothes hung, along with those I had brought for her. Halfway down the bus, across from my sleeping place, was my kitchen area with a green camp stove and pans and dishes and boxes of preserved food and five of the coffee cakes I had made with Annabel. I looked at Mary Lou’s face. She seemed impressed, but said nothing.
I put my omelette pan on the burner and began heating it up while I broke the eggs and stirred them with Tabasco sauce and salt. Then I grated some cheese of a land that Rod Baleen made from goat’s milk and mixed it with a little parsley. When the pan was hot enough I poured half the egg mix in it and began stirring it briskly while sliding the pan back and forth over the fire. Then, before the eggs browned and while the center was still moist, I
