'On your scalp. You want to watch this, Anna.'
'You watch it for me, dearest.'
'Seriously,' he said, 'you know what this looks like? It looks like a tiny touch of androgenic alopecia.'
'Good.'
'No, it is not good. It's actually an inflammation of the hair follicles, and it causes baldness. It's quite common on women in their later years.'
'Oh shut up, Conrad,' she said, kissing him on the side of the neck. 'I have the most gorgeous hair.'
She sat up and pulled off his jacket. Then she undid his tie and threw it across the room.
'There's a little hook on the back of my dress,' she said. 'Undo it, please.'
Conrad unhooked the hook, then unzipped the zipper and helped her to get out of the dress. She had on a rather nice pale-blue slip. Conrad was wearing an ordinary white shin, as doctors do, but it was now open at the neck, and this suited him. His neck had a little ridge of sinewy muscle running up vertically on either side, and when he turned his head the muscle moved under the skin. It was the most beautiful neck Anna had ever seen.
'Let's do this very very slowly,' she said. 'Let's drive ourselves crazy with anticipation.'
His eyes rested a moment on her face, then travelled away, all the way down the length of her body, and she saw him smile.
'Shall we be very stylish and dissipated, Conrad, and order a bottle of champagne? I can ask room service to bring it up, and you can hide in the bathroom when they come in.'
'No,' he said. 'You've had enough to drink already. Stand up, please.'
The tone of his voice caused her to stand up at once.
'Come here,' he said.
She went close to him. He was still sitting on the bed, and now, without getting up, he reached forward and began to take off the rest of her clothes. He did this slowly and deliberately. His face had become suddenly rather pale.
'Oh, darling,' she said, 'how marvellous! You've got that famous thing! A real thick clump of hair growing out of each of your ears! You know what that means, don't you? It's the absolutely positive sign of enormous virility!' She bent down and kissed him on the ear. He went on taking off her clothes-the bra, the shoes, the girdle, the pants, and finally the stockings, all of which he dropped in a heap on the floor, The moment he had peeled off her last stocking and dropped it, he turned away. He turned right away from her as though she didn't exist, and now he began to undress himself.
It was rather odd to be standing so close to him in nothing but her own skin and him not even giving her a second look. But perhaps men did these things. Ed might have been an exception. How could she know? Conrad took off his white shirt first, and after folding it very carefully, he stood up and carried it to a chair and laid it on one of the arms. He did the same with his undershirt. Then he sat down again on the edge of the bed and started removing his shoes. Anna remained quite still, watching him. His sudden change of mood, his silence, his curious intensity, were making her a bit afraid. But they were also exciting her. There was a stealth, almost a menace in his movements, as though he were some splendid animal treading softly toward the kill. A leopard.
She became hypnotized watching him. She was watching his fingers, the surgeon's fingers, as they untied and loosened the laces of the left shoe, easing it off the foot, and placing it neatly half under the bed. The right shoe came next. Then the left sock and the right sock, both of them being folded together and laid with the utmost precision across the toes of the shoes. Finally the fingers moved up to the top of the trousers, where they undid one button and then began to manipulate the zipper. The trousers, when taken off, were folded along the creases, then carried over to the chair. The underpants followed.
Conrad, now naked, walked slowly back to the edge of the bed, and sat. Then at last, he turned his head and noticed her. She stood waiting…and trembling. He looked her slowly up and down. Then abruptly, he shot out a hand and took her by the wrist, and with a sharp pull he had her sprawled across the bed.
The relief was enormous. Anna flung her arms around him and held on to him tightly, oh so tightly, for fear that he might go away. She was in mortal fear that he might go away and not come back. And there they lay, she holding on to him as though he were the only thing left in the world to hold on to, and he, strangely quiet, watchful, intent, slowly disentangling himself and beginning to touch her now in a number of different places with those fingers of his, those expert surgeon's fingers. And once again she flew into a frenzy.
The things he did to her during the next few moments were terrible and exquisite. He was, she knew, merely getting her ready, preparing her, or as they say in the hospital, prepping her for the operation itself, but oh God, she had never known or experienced anything even remotely like this. And it was all exceedingly quick, for in what seemed to her no more than a few seconds, she had reached that excruciating point of no return where the whole room becomes compressed into a single tiny blinding speck of light that is going to explode and tear one to pieces at the slightest extra touch. At this stage, in a swift rapacious parabola, Conrad swung his body on top of her for the final act.
And now Anna felt her passion being drawn out of her as if a long live nerve were being drawn slowly out of her body, a long live thread of electric fire, and she cried out to Conrad to go on and on and on, and as she did so, in the middle of it all, somewhere above her, she heard another voice, and this other voice grew louder and louder, more and more insistent, demanding to be heard: 'I said are you wearing something?' the voice wanted to know.
'Oh darling, what is it?'
'I keep asking you, are you wearing something?'
'Who, me?'
'There's an obstruction here. You must be wearing a diaphragm or some other appliance.'
'Of course not, darling. Everything's wonderful. Oh, do be quiet.'
'Everything is not wonderful, Anna.'
Like a picture on the screen, the room swam back into focus. In the foreground was Conrad's face. It was suspended above her, on naked shoulders. The eyes were looking directly into hers. The mouth was still talking.
'If you're going to use a device, then for heaven's sake learn to introduce it in the proper manner. There is nothing so aggravating as careless positioning. The diaphragm has to be placed right back against the cervix.'
'But I'm not wearing anything!'
'You're not? Well, there's still an obstruction.'
Not only the room but the whole world as well seemed slowly to be sliding away from under her now.
'I feel sick,' she said.
'You what?'
'I feel sick.'
'Don't be childish, Anna.'
'Conrad, I'd like you to go, please. Go now.'
'What on earth are you talking about?'
'Go away from me, Conrad!'
'That's ridiculous, Anna. Okay, I'm sorry I spoke. Forget it.'
'Go away!' she cried, 'Go away! Go away! Go away!'
She tried to push him away from her, but he was huge and strong and he had her pinned.
'Calm yourself,' he said. 'Relax. You can't suddenly change your mind like this, in the middle of everything. And for heaven's sake, don't start weeping.'
'Leave me alone, Conrad, I beg you.'
He seemed to be gripping her with everything he had, arms and elbows, hands and fingers, thighs and knees, ankles and feet. He was like a toad the way he gripped her. He was exactly like an enormous clinging toad, gripping and grasping and refusing to let go. She had seen a toad once doing precisely this. It was copulating with a frog on a stone beside a stream, and there it sat, motionless, repulsive, with an evil yellow gleam in its eye, gripping the frog with its two powerful front paws and refusing to let go 'Now stop struggling, Anna. You're acting like a hysterical child. For God's sake, woman, what's eating you?'
'You're hurting me!' she cried.
'Hurting you?'
'It's hurting me terribly!'
