“You were spying on me, Nathan, weren’t you?”
“I didn’t take any pictures, Amy.”
She flung the camera. It smacked into the far wall, carving a notch in the plaster, springing open like a jack-in- the-box, exposing the unshot film, which unspooled, pieces of the camera flying off, broken to shit. Now I really was expecting a call from the manager.
“I thought we were friends,” she said, voice quavering with anger.
“I was hoping we might be more than that,” I said. “But I guess I’m not your type.”
She slapped me.
It rocked my head and my cheek stung like a burn, tears springing to my eyes, and I tried like hell to keep them there. The wounded like to cling to their dignity, shredded though it may be.
“And here I thought you were for equal rights,” I said.
She spit the words at me: “What are you talking about?”
And I stood and got almost nose to nose with her and, my cheek on fire, spit words back: “God help the man that raises a hand to
She sucked in air and raised a fist, as if to hammer me with it, only it froze there, her eyes going to that fist, as if her hand had had a life of its own and was surprising her with its actions.
Then her hand wasn’t a fist anymore, it was an open palm that covered her mouth and then both hands were enveloping her face as she seemed to crumple, and I caught her in my arms, folded her close to me, and surprisingly, she let me. Maybe she was just too upset to stop me.
“That was cruel of me,” I whispered in her ear.
“No…no…I should never have struck you….”
She pushed away a bit and, still in my arms, looked at me; the eyes, bloodshot though they were, were lovely and clear, more blue than gray, the color of a clear winter sky, and she fixed them on me, her tear-streaked expression regretful as she touched my cheek, gently.
“I’m sorry, Nathan…sorry. Forgive me….”
“I deserved the slap. I’m a lousy goddamn bastard and I don’t deserve your apologies….”
She was shaking her head side to side, the tears welling again. “I don’t believe in hitting people. I hate being struck, and yet I struck you….”
I placed my hands on her shoulders and looked right at her. “I hit you in another way. I betrayed our friendship, and Christ, I couldn’t feel like a bigger heel. Amy, I’m sorry.”
She hugged me, her hands warm on my bare back.
“It’s not you,” she whispered. “It’s G. P. He’s a corrupting influence…. No one knows that better than I.”
“Amy, I wasn’t lying,” I said into her ear, in a rush of embarrassed words. “I didn’t take any pictures. I would’ve quit this dirty job days ago if I hadn’t got jealous of Mantz….”
She pulled away a few inches, her expression quizzical and almost amused. “Jealous?”
“Guess that’s kind of silly now….”
“I never knew you felt that way about me, Nathan. I thought we were just…pals.”
“We are pals, Amy. And I won’t say a word to that son of a bitch you’re married to.”
She touched my cheek again, just with her fingertips. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
“Stop it,” I said gently.
She kissed my cheek. A tender little kiss.
I smiled at her. “Still friends, then?”
She smiled back. “I don’t think so….”
And she kissed me again, only not on the stinging cheek, but full on my mouth, not at all tenderly, but urgently, eagerly.
Those warm, full lips were everything I’d hoped they’d be, salty with her tears, and this was no friendly kiss, it was passionate, a hungry confession of feelings that she’d harbored, too, and her hands clutched at my back, desperately, and if I’d held her any closer, I’d have crushed the life from her. We kissed again, and again, and I was crying too, and it wasn’t from the slap, it was the emotional fucking roller coaster I’d been on this evening, tears of joy because a woman I desperately wanted and had abandoned hope of ever having had her tongue in my mouth.
Then we were fumbling at each other’s paltry clothing, my hands unbuttoning the man’s pajama top, exposing the creamy skin beneath, and she was unbuckling my belt, then tugging my pants down over the white boxers, both of us flailing in comical, out-of-control desire.
And then she was nude to the waist, justifiably unashamed of a shapely form that might have belonged to a teenage girl, not a woman approaching forty—small, beautifully formed tip-tilting breasts, prominent rib cage, and a waist I could put my hands around. Confronted by the tentpole at the front of my white boxers, she had a sudden burst of modesty and reached over and switched off the bedside lamp.
Then she stepped out of her baggy dungarees and the white cotton step-ins beneath, and I got out of the boxers, and we rolled as one onto the bed, embracing, kissing, caressing, saying nothing except each other’s name occasionally, and when it was time, under a framed cactus print, she rolled the lambskin onto me and mounted me.
