She found a new person to make love to or a new way to make love.
The thought was passing through her mind then as she looked at her body in the mirror. She remembered the previous night and something about it bothered her. It seemed as though every sexual encounter of late was getting just so much more depraved and twisted. Ordinarily this didn’t bother her; she looked upon perversion and depravity as the natural outgrowth of sex.
But something seemed wrong. She had to do something to make herself feel better.
She knew what to do.
Humming softly to herself she went to the bedroom and dressed quickly. Then she returned to the living room and picked up the receiver of the phone. She made herself comfortable on the couch and dialed a number.
After several rings a man’s voice said: “Hello.”
“Jimmy?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Stella James, Jimmy.”
“Hi, honey. What can I do for you?”
“I’m having a party,” she said. “Tonight. I wondered if you’d like to come.”
“Love to. I’ve never missed a party of yours yet, have I?”
“Swell. Drop up about nine.”
“Will do.”
“And Jimmy—”
“Yeah?”
“Bring some stuff,” she said. “You know what I mean.”
“Gotcha. How much?”
“Enough for about a dozen people,” she said. “We’ll have a real blast.”
She hung up and relaxed on the couch, smiling happily to herself. Then she lifted the receiver again and dialed another number.
“I’d like to paint you some time,” Ralph said.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe sometime.”
“I mean it, Susan. You’re a very lovely girl.” She looked away.
“This isn’t a line,” he went on. “And I enjoy being with you. Hell, you’ve broken down my painter’s block. This is the first time I’ve felt like painting anything in a long while.”
“I’ve never posed before, Ralph.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I probably wouldn’t be a very good model.”
“You’ll be all right.”
She thought for a moment. “Where would you do it? Your apartment?”
“If there’s no place better. The lighting’s kind of weak. What floor are you on?”
“Fourth floor front. Why?”
“You get a good north light there,” he explained. “I could paint there, if you’d let me. It would be a lot better than my place.”
She nodded absently. Then she took a puff of her cigarette and studied the glowing tip of it for a moment before she spoke.
“Ralph,” she said, “how would you paint me?”
“In oils.”
“I know that. I mean… nude?”
“Not if you’d rather not, if you prefer I’ll do a head and shoulders study of you. But I’d rather do you full figure, with or without clothes. Your head and your body go very well together.”
“They’ve been together a long time.”
He laughed. “That’s not what I meant. An artist looks at everything a little bit differently, especially people. Sometimes the various parts of a person complement each other more than other times. Your particular head looks better attached to your particular body, and vice-versa.”
“Naturally,” she said. “Either of them would look kind of silly just rolling around by themselves.”
“That’s not what I—”
She laughed, delighted. “I know what you meant, silly. I was just teasing you. But I do think it might be nice to pose for you, if you really want me to.”
“I do.”
“I will, then — and we can use my apartment if you’d rather. I think I might be embarrassed posing at your place anyway.”
“Whatever way you want it.”
“And… Ralph?”
“What, Susan?”
She closed her eyes for a minute. Then she opened them and said: “I know you told me before that you weren’t a guy on the make. But I have to make sure, Ralph. I… I’m not looking for anything remotely resembling a sexual relationship. Not for the time being and not for the foreseeable future.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t want to keep harping away at this,” she went on. “It’s just that this is such a standard set-up in the Village. Village artist meets Village girl and asks her to pose for him and they go to an apartment and crawl into a bed. I don’t think that’s what you want but I want to get everything set straight at the beginning so that neither of us will be disappointed.”
“I understand,” he said again. “Besides, there’s already a girl. I told you.”
“I know. But down here it’s not too uncommon for a person to be sleeping with more than one person at the same time.”
Thanks for telling me, he thought, thinking of Stella.
“But I really would like to pose for you,” she said. “I like you, Ralph. As a person, I mean. I like you very much and I think I’d enjoy getting to know you better. But only as a person.”
“I like you, too, Susan. We hit it off pretty well together. I usually have trouble talking to people.”
She smiled softly. “So do I. But I want to emphasize that no matter how well I get to know you or how much I get to like you, our relationship will have to stay on a purely platonic level. Just friends.”
“Okay,” he said. “And I’m just as glad that you put everything out in the open at the start. Down here if a guy doesn’t make a pass at a girl the first day he meets her she feels insulted, or else thinks he’s a fruit or something. If you hadn’t said something I might have had to throw you a pass just to keep up appearances.”
“Don’t ever do that. Maybe we’ll be very good friends, Ralph. That’s a rare enough thing.”
“Right,” he said. “Hello, friend.”
“Hi,” she said. “Hi, friend.”
She insisted on paying half the check. Then they left the restaurant and walked back to 69 Barrow Street, walking slowly with the sun beating down on them. Ralph glanced at his watch and noted that it was close to noon. Where had the time gone to? Evidently they had been talking for quite a while.
The traffic was getting heavier and he could hear trucks and buses rolling by on Seventh Avenue. Barrow Street was filled with neighborhood children playing the myriad games that children played in New York, where there was no place to play but the street. Stickball, stoop-ball, chinese handball — the kids never seemed to tire of the street games, never lacked a way to amuse themselves.
Just like Stella, he thought. She can always find a way to amuse herself. And it’s usually in a horizontal position.
Not always horizontal, he realized. Stella had a marvelous imagination.
At 69 Barrow he opened the door for Susan and followed her inside. They said goodbye at the staircase and he returned to the door of his apartment, fitting the key in the lock.
He listened to Susan’s footsteps on the staircase for several seconds before turning the key and entering his apartment.
Chapter three
Stella was smiling when he walked into the apartment.
“Well,” she said. “Two-timing me, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just now. With the little brunette.”
“Oh,” he said. “The two of us had breakfast together. She just moved into the building.”
“Sort of a long breakfast, wasn’t it?”
“We were talking for a while,” he said defensively. There was nothing for him to be defensive about, but Stella had the knack of making him feel guilty for no reason whatsoever.
“What’s her name?”
“Susan Rivers.”
“She’s very pretty, Ralph.”