Joseph and Winnie stood for a minute longer in the dim light of the farmhouse-style living room with its peanut shells and work boots and its oddly contrasting 1932 Duesenberg.
'Well, good luck, Joseph Duggan,' she said at last very quietly, her eyes on his prize, his dream.
He shook himself from his reverie and tugged on her neck. 'Come on, let's go run. I think I know just the place.'
They ran around the quarter-mile of Osseo Senior High School, only a few blocks from his house. They drove over in the Haynes and left it parked in the middle of the deserted parking lot. Silently they crossed the blacktop, made their way inside the chain-link fence surrounding the football field and track and peered at the white-painted lane lines that were barely visible in the deep night.
Then they were running side by side, puffing hard, their breathing coming in long controlled intakes and exhalations. There was only the sound of it and the slap of their rubber soles on the blacktop.
She thought of what a joy it was to run beside a man who enjoyed it as much as she.
He thought of what a damn fool old Hildegard was, to show no interest in sharing this with her.
She thought of what Joseph Duggan's legs must look like inside his navy sweat pants as the muscles flexed and stretched.
He pictured the curve of her buttocks, her flanks, her thighs reaching rhythmically along the track before him-naked.
She wondered if he'd ever get his Duesenberg. He wondered if she'd really marry a silicon chip.
She wondered if he did this with the Perkins hostess.
He wondered who'd do this with her once she married the wrong man.
She thought she could run like this beside him forever.
He considered asking her to.
They'd circled the four-forty eight times when they approached the place from which they'd started.
'Want to go around again?' he asked without breaking stride.
'No, I've had enough.'
They veered off the track, breathing hard, but not hurting. To their right rose a high set of metal bleachers, standing out like white ribs beneath the quarter moon that hung in the southwestern sky. They slowed to a cool- down pace and reverted to walking side by side, blowing and flexing and shaking their limbs. They padded on silent grass in the middle of the oval, heading for the break in the chain-link fence.
The city was silent-it was perhaps three o'clock in the morning. The only sound came from a diesel truck that rolled off down the highway beyond the far side of the football field, then all was still but for their labored breathing. They stopped on the black track-by now their eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and its white ribbons of paint stood out like writing on a blackboard.
She flexed forward at the waist, bracing her hands just above her kneecaps, hanging that way. He hung his hands upon his hipbones and leaned backward, blinking, then studying the stars. They both straightened at the same time, facing each other with nothing but three feet of night between them.
He saw her upraised face, bathed in star shine, and the hair upon her temples-damp tendrils clinging down her cheeks below the braided headband that crossed her forehead. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly. He could smell the vestiges of Chanel No 5, brought again to life by her warm sweating body.
'Forgive me for doing this, Winn, but it's got to be done, so I'll know…' His left arm circled her just beneath the ribs, and his right hooked over her opposite shoulder. He pulled her flush against his warm damp body, burying her lips beneath his in a kiss that was wholly different from that shared in the front seat of his Haynes or those exchanged in the gazebo. This was elemental, forceful, like two planets that have been reeling off orbit for several light years and finally collide in a shower of meteorites.
His mouth was open, hot and wet, and his tongue delved into her mouth with ripe demand for response. She gave it, satisfying her own need for this man, telling herself she would satisfy it no further, that this would surely be enough. But she had scarcely thrown her arms around his neck and back before she realized her mistake. This would never be enough-not with this man.
Their sweat suits were damp and scarcely concealed the firmness of the flesh beneath. Hers was equally as toned as his, equally as healthy. Holding her, kissing her with an almost frantic meeting of tongues, he slipped his hand up beneath the ribbed waistband, finding the small of her back damp and inviting. He ran his hand up, up, across the hard flesh just beneath her shoulder blades, collecting the sweet moisture from her skin as he went, moving left to right across the constricting band of her bra where it scarcely depressed the firm muscle.
She, too, slipped one hand beneath his shirt: warmth, dampness and rigid muscle greeted her caress. Their breathing, already labored from the two-mile run, became torturous now as their emotions swelled, and temptation brought their bodies to a fine-tuned peak of readiness.
And, Judas, he felt good. Hard, so hard. Against every surface that touched him, there was nothing less than hard. The soft moldable cotton of their garments conformed to their limbs, leaving little bulk between them to disguise how eagerly they strained toward one another. He stepped forward, placing one leg between hers, and their mutual height made the conformation of their bodies totally complementary. She followed his lead and widened her stance, allowing his hard thigh to press upward against the warm juncture of her legs, and answered the quest for familiarity by exploring him likewise, lifting a knee that was buttressed on either side by his firm thighs. Against the soft hollow beneath her hip, his urgency was transmitted by the thrust of his pelvis. It brought him undulating rhythmically against her, and she answered, in kind.
Inside her sweat shirt his hand went clear up to her neck, circling it, and threading fingers up into her scalp, which also was warm and damp, and exuded the scent of hair spray, not wholly unpleasant when combined with her own female scent.
Perhaps it was the scents that triggered the violent sexual reaction they both felt. Perhaps it was the sheer exertion of running that prompted them to seek something more that was totally physical. And certainly it was the romantic residuals of the wedding that put them in a frame of mind where each was eager to know and explore the other, after the countless times their eyes had met, their words had enticed, and their looks had conveyed both attraction and curiosity.
He broke away, ending the kiss with his mouth only, for it went ardently down the remainder of her body while his ragged voice rumbled near her ear.
'I knew it. Oh, God, I knew it.'
'What?' Her own voice was slightly gruff and throaty. Her heart was thudding as if she were still pounding around the track at a full sprint.
'That it would be like this when I really kissed you and held you the way I've been wanting to.' Suddenly he clasped her head in both hands, compelling her to stoop slightly. 'Here… feel.' Her cheek and ear were pressed against the wall of his chest which rose and fell with torturous speed while, inside, the vibrant force of his heart seemed as if it would crash its way through. He lifted her face, cradling her jaws, and held her that way while he kissed her mouth hard and sure. 'That's what you do to me. It's been happening all day, since last night even, at certain times when I'd look at you and allow myself to fantasize.'
No matter what she was feeling now, tomorrow, guilt would certainly outweigh any satisfaction she'd realize tonight if she let him continue this sexual foray. She removed his hands from her jaws and stepped back.
'I can't do this to Paul.'
'You've never cheated on him?'
'Never. And I won't start now.'
He studied her, scowling, then seemed to make a decision. 'Good. I'm glad. I might not admire you as much otherwise.'
She ran her fingers against her scalp, tipped her head back as if in pain and spun away from him. 'Don't say things like that!'
'What? What did I say?'
'You know what you said-one minute loyal, the next untrue. It mixes me up.'
'Winn.' He pulled her hand down from her head and turned her to face him. 'How are things, really, between you and him? If you're mixed up, it isn't because you just met and kissed me. It goes deeper than that.'
