'You'll see.'
'Where's that good time?'
'Be a sport.'
'Be a big sport.'
'Don't forget that life is short.'
'It's only human nature after all.'
'When a fellow gets a girl against the wall.'
'Stop that. You'll break it.'
'Did you ever take it into your head to make money?'
'Just one,' she agreed dubiously. Her nostrils and bloodless lips were flaring and shaking skeptically and pugnaciously.
'Remember.'
'Just one.'
'I mean it. I'll scream. I'll tell the police.'
'Horseshit. There's no need to do that.'
'Pick.'
She picked me.
'Him.'
She looked at me for help with plaintive eyes. I thought my knees would buckle.
'Him?'
'Help me,' she said.
Hands pushed me toward her.
'Let her go,' I cried.
'She wants you.'
'We'll watch.'
'Go outside,' she bargained. 'Not while you're here.'
'No, sir. We want to make sure.'
'It's a free show.'
'We may have to show him how.'
'You'll lock us out.'
They were still touching her all over with greedy hands, taking things that did not belong to them.
'Let her go!' I screamed threateningly, in a voice that cracked and must have quavered with hopeless cowardice and resignation. 'I mean it.'
(I was her hero.)
My fists were clenched in adolescent fury (and my heart was fluttering in adolescent dismay). They could have beaten me up easily, either one (taken an arm and twisted it, broken it in its socket). I felt faint with misgivings. They stared at me with amazement and scorn. She slipped free of them. I hardly noticed her leave. When I heard the door click closed, I loosened my fists and waited. I did not want to fight. I did not want them to beat me up. I don't think I would have fought to defend myself. (I would have preferred to succumb. I was like my boy in the play group. I don't think I've ever wanted to fight with anyone except my wife, my daughter, my boy, and Derek, and with Derek's nurses.) I waited to see if they would beat me up.
'You prick,' they said (and I was relieved when I saw they were not going to beat me up. I was being set free).
'We could have had her.'
'We'll get her without him.'
That thought struck pathos into my soul. I was not allowed to feel like her hero for long. By the time I returned upstairs, she was at her desk chatting with both of them over what had happened, flirting brashly with them again, especially with the tough, coarse, sinewy one she hadn't liked (mending her torn silk stocking with colorless nail polish, lifting her breasts for him as she had always done for me, tilting her head and tempting him with her ruby, saucy smile. He was a tough, swarthy Italian, like Forgione, and I felt he had just shoved me out of the way again, as he had downstairs. I hated her. My feelings were hurt. I felt she would have fucked for him from that time on sooner than she ever would for me, if he was smart enough to pose and wait — 'I'm on my back, he's in my crack,' was part of another bawdy song she liked to sing to me — even though she still liked me better), and I felt pangs of jealousy. (What good did it amount to, being liked, if she wanted to fuck for people she didn't like?)
'You were jealous,' she said. 'Weren't you?'
I must have been gazing at her moon-eyed with all the pain of my broken heart flooding into my expression. I have never been able to cope with jealousy. (I wish someone would teach me how.) It leaves me weak and at a loss for honest words. I can't make jokes. My eyes water and I want to cry. (Marie Jencks would accuse me of staring at her like a mooncalf. Perhaps I did, especially after I found out about her and Tom in the storeroom. I wanted to be absorbed into her embraces also. I didn't like feeling left outside. I still do stare at girls who are attractive, and look away quickly if they stare back. Today, I chuck brassy, overpowering women of twenty-eight like Marie Jencks under the chin nimbly and pass them by with a half-hearted falsehood. Today, girls of twenty- eight don't try to boss me around. Derek's nurses do.) Other men go berserk with jealousy and fly into Herculean rages. I produce tears.
I was never jealous of her and Len Lewis. (I felt he should be jealous of me.)
'He wants to leave his wife,' she confided about him. 'He used to think I was too young. By now I've showed him I'm old enough. I like him, he's so shy. I like older men. I like younger men too. It's the ones in between I have trouble with. I don't like football players anymore. Maybe I do. Now I can teach
'Teach me.'
'Get a room.'
'I've got no money.'
'I'll chip in.'
'Where do you go?'
They went to empty restaurants for dinner one evening a week, sometimes two, and then sat in his car awhile and talked and petted. He lived far out in Queens and had to start back early. He didn't drink. She was teaching him how.
'He enjoys it. I make him feel young.'
'How?'
'I kiss him very softly and slowly like this. all over his face for a long time. Then I do it harder and faster. I breathe hard. He thinks I can't control myself. I like doing that to him. He says nobody ever kissed him the way I do.'
'I'll bet he's right.'
'I'll bet nobody ever kissed you the way I can.'
'Do it now.'
'His wife wouldn't know how. He's never had a modern girl friend. I slip my hands inside his shirt and rub my fingers against his chest. His hair is soft and curly. Like a kitten. Nobody ever did that to him before. He's fifty- five years old. I tickle him with my tongue. Soon I'll let him touch these.'
'Come outside.'
'He doesn't know I'll let him if he wants to. I talk a little dirty to him. He likes it. So do you. Don't you like my nipples? If you'd go slow once in a while, you'd see how pointy and hard they get. I like to talk dirty too. I love to say words like nipples, pointy, and hard. And tongue.'
I had my hard-on again.
'Come outside.'
'Well, hello, dear,' she greeted, winking at it. 'Good to see you again.' I reached for an accident folder with one hand and slid the other into the side pocket of my trousers. I blushed with pleasure.
She grinned, pleased with her prowess, widening her eyes with mock astonishment and pursing her lips into an open pink circle of admiration and surprise. I know now what that open circle was intended to suggest. (I've
