of times before. After mutton chops and red wine, the world did seem a less gloomy place. Brandy afterwards didn't hurt, either. Blackford took out a cigar case. He waited for Flora's nod before choosing and lighting a panatela. Between puffs, he asked, 'Shall we go out dancing, or to a vaudeville show?'
Flora thought about it, then shook her head. She wasn't that happy. 'No, thanks. Not tonight. Why don't you just take me back to my flat?'
'All right, if that's what you want.' Blackford rose and escorted her out to his motorcar. The ride back to the apartment building where they both lived passed mostly in silence.
They walked upstairs together. The hallway across which their doors faced each other was quiet and dim: dimmer than usual, because one of the small electric light bulbs had burned out. As usual, Blackford walked Flora to her doorway. As usual, he bent to kiss her good-night. The kiss that followed was anything but usual. Maybe Flora was trying to make up for the day's disappointment. Maybe it was just the brandy talking through her. She didn't know, or care.
Neither, evidently, did Hosea Blackford. 'Whew!' he said when at last they broke apart. 'I think you melted all the wax in my mustache.'
Flora's laugh was shaky. Her cheeks felt hot, as if in embarrassment, but she was not embarrassed. Her heart pounded. She turned, wondering if the routine business of unlocking and opening her door would still the tumult in her. It didn't. She reached for the light switch by the door, then looked back to Blackford. 'Would you like to come inside?' she asked.
'Good-' he began, responding to the Good night she'd always given him before. Then he heard what she'd really said. He asked a question of his own: 'Are you sure?'
She leaned forward and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the end of the nose. He'd never pushed her to go further than she wanted to go. Pushing her would have done no good, as a lot of people, in Congress and out, could have told him. But he hadn't needed telling. He wasn't pushing now. She liked him very much for that… and for the feel of his lips pressed against her, his body pressed against her. 'Yes,' she said firmly.
/ could never have done this back in New York, she thought as they sat side by side on the sofa-not with everyone who lives in our apartment. But even that wasn't true. When Yossel Reisen was about to go off to war, her sister Sophie had found a way to give him a woman's ultimate gift-and he'd given her a gift in return, a gift that now bore his name, a gift he'd never lived to see. If you wanted to badly enough, you could always find a way.
She'd never dreamt she might want to so badly. When, in an experimental way, Blackford slipped an arm around her, she pinned him against the back of the sofa. This kiss went on much longer than the one in the hallway had, and left her feeling as if she might explode at any moment.
Blackford kissed her eyes, her cheeks; his mouth slid to the side of her neck, then up to her ear. Every time his lips touched her skin, she discovered something new and astonishing and wonderful. He nibbled at her earlobe, murmuring, 'You don't know how long I've wanted to do this, darling.' She didn't answer, not with words, but left no doubt about what she wanted.
But going into her bedroom with him a few minutes later was another long step into the unknown. She didn't turn on any of the lights in there. No matter how much urgency filled her, the idea of undressing in front of a man left her shaking. Even so, she sighed with relief as she slid off her corset. On a hot, muggy late-summer night, bare skin felt good.
Her bare skin soon felt quite a lot better than good. She was amazed at the sensations Hosea Blackford's hands and lips and tongue evoked from her breasts, and then amazed again when one hand strayed lower. She'd stroked herself now and again, but this was different: every touch, every movement, a startlement. The small, altogether involuntary moan of pleasure she let out took her by surprise.
But that surprise also recalled her partly to herself. She remembered Sophie's horror and panic out on the balcony of the family flat when her sister told her she was pregnant. 'I can't have a baby!' she exclaimed.
Blackford hesitated, studying her in the half-light. Had she made him angry? If he got up and left now, she would die of humiliation-and frustration. But, to her vast relief, he nodded. 'One of the reasons I care for you so much is for your good sense,' he said. 'We'll make sure everything is all right.' He bent so that his mouth went where his hand had gone before.
Flora had literally never imagined such a thing. She hadn't imagined how good it felt, either. When pleasure burst over her, it made everything she'd done by herself seem… beside the point was the best way she found to think of it.
If he'd done that for her, she ought to return the favor, though she didn't quite know how. Awkwardly, she took him in her hand. As she drew near, she saw he looked strange. From inadvertencies around the family apartment, she knew how a man was made. Hosea Blackford was made a little differently. He's not circumcised, she realized. She'd forgotten that consequence of his being a gentile.
She kissed him and licked him. He needed only a moment to understand she didn't know what she was doing. 'Put it in your mouth,' he said quietly. She did, though she hadn't imagined that only minutes before, any more than the other. The sound he made was a masculine version of her moan. Encouraged, she kept on.
She didn't need to keep on very long. He grunted and jerked and spurted. It caught her by surprise, and didn't taste very good. She coughed and sputtered and gulped before she could help herself. When she could speak again, she asked, 'Was that right?'
He put her hand over his heart, which pounded like a drum. 'If it were any more right,' he assured her, 'I'd be dead.' She laughed and lay beside him, still marveling that such pleasure was possible-and ever so relieved that, unlike Sophie, she would not have to worry about consequences nine months later.
'Atlanta!' the conductor called, stepping into the car in which Jake Featherston rode. 'All out for Atlanta!' He strode down the aisle, making sure no one could doubt the upcoming stop.
Featherston grabbed his carpetbag and sprang to his feet. His seat had been in the middle of the car, but he was one of the first people off it. He was one of the first people to a taxicab, too. 'The Kendall Hotel,' he told the driver.
'Sure thing,' the fellow answered. The hotel proved to be only a few blocks east of Terminal Station. Brakes squealed as the driver stopped in front of the massive brick building with Moorish-looking turrets and ornaments. 'That'll be twelve.'
'Here you go.' Jake handed him a $1,000 banknote and a $500. 'I don't need any change.' With the taximan's tip, he would have got back only a hundred dollars, two hundred if he wanted to be a cheapskate. He didn't. Anyhow, with currency the way it was these days, you had to be crazy to worry about anything as small as a hundred bucks.
A uniformed Negro porter came up to carry his bag. He gave the black man a hundred dollars. That was what such nearly worthless banknotes were good for. It was also, he thought, what nearly worthless black men were good for.
When Jake gave his name at the front desk, the clerk handed him his key and then said, 'I have a message here for you, Mr. Featherston.' He plucked an envelope from a pigeonhole and presented it with a flourish.
'Thanks.' Featherston pulled out the envelope and unfolded the sheet of paper inside. It read, Knight got in this morning. If you see this in time, have supper with us at seven tonight in the hotel restaurant Amos MizelL He stuck the note in his pocket. 'How do I find the restaurant?' he asked the desk clerk.
'Down that corridor-second doorway on your left-first is the bar,' the young man answered. Shyly, he went on, 'It's an honor to have you in the Kendall, Mr. Featherston. Freedom!''
'Freedom, yeah.' Jake was still getting used to people recognizing his name. It was, he found, very easy to get used to.
Another colored porter carried the bag up to his room, and earned another hundred dollars. Jake snorted, imagining a hundred-dollar tip before the war. He unpacked his clothes, then pulled a watch from his pocket and checked the time. It was half past five.
He didn't feel like sitting in the room for an hour and a half like a cabbage, so he went down to the bar and peeled off a $500 banknote for a beer. He nursed the one glass till it was time for supper. The last thing he wanted was to go to this meeting drunk, or even tipsy.
When he left the bar and headed over to the restaurant, a professionally obsequious waiter led him to a table in a quiet corner: not the best seating in the place for anyone who wanted to show off, but a fine place to sit and eat and talk. Two other men were already sitting and talking. Featherston would have pegged them both for veterans even had he not known they were.
