I let that pass. Kathie seemed uninterrupted.
“Him too,” she gasped. “Both at once if you wish.” She was almost boneless, sprawled on the bed, arms and legs flung out, her body wet with sweat.
“Kathie, you gotta find some other way to relate with people. Killing and screwing have their place but there are other alternatives.” I was croaking now. I cleared my throat loudly. My body felt like there was too much blood in it. I was nearly ready to paw the ground and whinny.
“Please,” she said, her voice now barely audible “please.”
“No offense, honey, but no.”
“Please,” she was hissing now. Her body writhed or the bed. She arched her pelvis up, as she had when Hawl searched her in Amsterdam. “Please. ” I still held her hands.
The more I held her and denied her the more she seemed to respond. It was a form of abuse and it excited her. Embarrassing or not, I had to get up. I slid out from unde the sheet and slipped off the bed, rolling over her legs as I did. She used the space I’d left to spread out wider in a position of enlarged vulnerability. One of the animal behaviorists would say she was in extreme submission. I was in extreme randiness. I took my Levis off the chair and put them on. I was careful zipping them up. With them on I felt better.
Kathie was alone now, I think she wasn’t even aware of me. Her breath came in thin hisses as it squeezed out between her teeth. She writhed and arched on the bed, the sheets a wet tangle beneath her. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like sucking my thumb but Hawk might come in and catch me. I wished Susan were here. I wished I weren’t. I sat on the other bed in the room, both feet on the floor, ready to jump if she came for me, and watched her.
The window got gray and then pink. The bird sounds increased, some trucks drove by somewhere outside, not many, and not often. The sun was up. In the other half of the duplex, water ran. Kathie stopped wrenching herself around. I heard Hawk get up next door and the shower start. Kathie’s breathing was quiet. I got up and went to my suitcase and took out one of my shirts and handed it to her. “Here,” I said. “I don’t have a robe, but this might do. Later we’ll buy you some clothes.”
“Why,” she said. Her voice was normal now but flat, and very soft.
“Because you need some. You’ve been wearing that dress for a couple of days now.”
“I mean why didn’t you take me?”
“I’m sort of spoken for,” I said.
“You don’t want me.”
“Part of me does, I was jumping out of my skin. But it’s not my style. It has to do with love. And, ah, your, your approach wasn’t quite right.”
“You think I’m corrupt.”
“I think you’re neurotic.”
“You fucking pig.”
“That approach doesn’t do it either,” I said. “Though Lots of people have used it on me.”
She was quiet, but a pink flush smudged across each cheekbone.
The shower stopped and I heard Hawk walk back to the bedroom.
“I guess I’ll shower now,” I said. “You ought to be out of here and wearing something when I’m through. Then we’ll all have a nice breakfast and plan our day.”
22
My shirt reached nearly to Kathie’s knees and she ate breakfast in it, silently, perched on a stool at the counter with her knees together. Hawk sat across the counter, splendid in a bell-sleeved white shirt. He was wearing a gold earring in his right ear, and a thin gold chain tight around his neck. The Bouchers had left some eggs and some white bread. I steam-fried the eggs with a small splash of white wine, and served the toast with apple butter.
Hawk ate with pleasure, his movements exact and sure, like a surgeon, or at least as I hoped a surgeon’s would be. Kathie ate without appetite but neatly, leaving most of the eggs and half the toast on her plate.
I said, “There’s some kind of clothing store down Boulevard St. Laurent. I saw it when we came up last night. Hawk, why don’t you take Kathie down there and get her some clothes?”
“Maybe she rather go with you, babe.”
Kathie said in a flat voice, softly, “I’d rather go with you, Hawk.” It was the first time I could remember her using his name.
“You ain’t gonna make a move on me in the car, are you?”
She dropped her head.
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll clean up here and then I’ll think a little.”
Hawk said, “Don’t hurt yourself.”
I said, “Kathie, put on some clothes.”
She didn’t move and she didn’t look at me.
Hawk said, “Come on, girl, shake your ass. You heard the man.”
Kathie got up and went upstairs.
Hawk and I looked at each other. Hawk said, “You think she might be about to break the color barrier?”
