“Ahhh!” he said, almost too tired to care. Almost.
They were lying back to back, crowded together on the small cot, their asses touching, desire like a warm breath denying him rest.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind my saying this — but I misjudged you.”
“Yeah?”
“My first idea of you was that you were out only for yourself, but now I feel — it’s taken me a while to understand you — that you’re someone one can trust.” She waited, glowing with self-approval, for some response.
“Cut the shit,” he said.
“I mean it,” she said tremulously. “You’re …”
He turned her over onto her back, held her down. “What do you want from me?” he said.
She stuck out her tongue in ironic defiance.
There was something in him, a sudden flood of rage, some memory of desire, of need, of something, that was unappeasable. Holding her down, he climbed on top of her.
“You’re beautiful,” he warned her.
“Do you love me?” she said.
“Who else?” he said, staring at her mouth.
“How do I know who else?”
“Only you,” he said savagely, rage burning him. “You.” He struggled, with more force than skill, to open the belt of her jeans; Helena helping him, their fingers getting in each other’s way.
“Let me,” she said.
Even in the dark, the grace of her movement was evident. She kicked off her jeans, wriggling out of them, and lifted her sweater over her head in one amazing acrobatic gesture. He watched with sullen admiration, a man with a diners’ card in a strange country, hungry, trusting no one. He thought to applaud, but didn’t.
“I love you,” he assured himself, lying in his throat.
She didn’t care, or if she did, kept it a secret from herself. “That’s nice,” she said wistfully. “Why don’t you take your clothes off?”
He got undressed — Helena helping, the buttons on his shirt offering minor resistance.
Still, he was distrustful; he had no right to expect anything but grief, which was the price (his own) of living in this world. It worried him that someone — who knows who? — might walk in on them without warning. He listened for footsteps.
“Is sweetie tired?” she said, stroking him. “Is he?”
So, without pleasure, he submitted to love — without pleasure, not without need — and made the best of his pains, a conservationist with nothing to conserve.
Exhaustion drove him. Witch, witch, witch, witch, witch, witch. He worked like ten (dying) men, expecting in his madness to get somewhere he had never been before.
She dug her nails in his back, directed traffic. “Not so fast,” she crooned. “Slowly. A little slowly.”
Too tired to slow down, Peter increased his pace — the energy of violence keeping him alive.
Helena rocked back and forth, dreaming of a surprise birthday party given her when she was eight or nine.
Peter kissed her face, fell in love with her briefly. Stalled.
“Keep going,” she advised.
In the middle of things — Peter, an alchemist, transforming base metal into dreams of gold, Helena also dreaming — there was a banging on the door, two heavy knocks, followed by two more, urgent and assertive.
Helena cursed Harry, scoring Peter’s back with her nails.
Peter froze — a secret penitent — awaited discovery.
Strangers hating each other, they separated.
The knocks continued.
Helena shook her head at him to make it clear that he was not, under any circumstance, to answer the door — and he was not to make a sound. She blew in his ear the breath of love, held his hand.
Nervous, impatient, sweating his guilt, Peter would have liked to answer the door, just to get it over with — the knocks like blows inside his head. He resisted — for Helena’s sake — he would have had to fight her to get to the door.
There was nothing for them to do but wait silently for whoever it was at the door (they assumed they knew) to make his move, tensed on the narrow bed in guilty postures of innocence as if posing before some easily gulled metaphysical camera.
The interval between knocks (usually three or four seconds) was harder to bear than the knocking itself. Peter felt the need to cough, also to urinate — the body’s vengeance on the soul’s deceit.
Their visitor persisted — who but a madman would go on so long? Helena stuck her tongue out at the door. Peter cleared his throat. The bed creaked. Every noise a wound.
Finally it stopped. The silence hung in the air, drew itself out indelibly, like the final note of a song. Listening, they could hear footsteps move away reluctantly, down the hall, recede indistinguishably into the sounds of the night.
Peter breathed again, a long time between breaths.
“God,” Helena said, “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“Why did we do this to him?” he said.
“Please don’t make it worse than it is.”
“Worse? How could it be worse?”
As if in answer to his question, the door clamored open. “I know you’re in here. Why don’t you answer your door,” a woman’s voice said, Gloria emerging from behind the voice. “Do you think I care if I ever see you again? You left your wallet I wanted to return.” Her eyes, not good in the best of circumstances, gradually adjusted to the dark. “I’m sorry if I woke you.” Then she noticed that there was someone in bed with him, a dark-haired girl — his wife she guessed — a ragged sheet covering them both. “Well,” she sputtered, overrun with confusion. She stood over them, bravely embarrassed, a huge disapproving aunt, whipping her head from side to side, her fierceness a malediction. “So that’s it.” Her contempt beyond expression, she forced herself to the door, then whirled about for a final look, a final word — something. ‘You …” Then, to herself — the others, eavesdroppers: “I shouldn’t have come here. I have my pride.” She threw the wallet at the bed and made her escape; a whiff of her perfume and the comic shreds of her dignity lingered.
Helena glanced cannily at Peter, tittered nervously. Peter looked away, choked shamefacedly on a laugh. Helena nudged him, then shook her head imperiously in imitation of Gloria. “So,” she mimicked. “Well.”
The door opened again, Gloria peering in as though she had lost something. Peter, unamused, began to laugh. Gloria excommunicated them with a stare. “The hell with you both,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said, getting out of bed, surprised to find himself unclothed. The door slammed shut.
“Who’s she?”
“My brother’s girl,” he explained, putting on his shorts, wondering how it was that he managed, almost without exception, to screw everything up.
Helena dressed quickly in a fury of purpose. “Thanks a lot,” she said, feeling around on the floor for her shoes.
The obligation of desire revived him. “You can stay,” he said.
“Sure I can, Peter. Thanks. The thing is, I have more than enough with my own problems. I wouldn’t know what to do, like if your father’s girl friend walked in on us next.” She looked back over her shoulder, allowed herself a moment’s nostalgia. “It wasn’t in the stars for us. Take it slow. I’ll show myself out.” And she was gone.
“I’m sorry,” he called after her.
Afterward, alone, he danced on the fires of hell and, burning, died awake — “Stardust” playing over and over in his imagination — unable to rest, the night a terror of dreams. Hell, out of season, was unoccupied. There was only Peter, and thousands of Coney Island mirrors distorting his image. And as eternity wore on — even the crippled images of himself deserted — the mirrors blank and, for all he could see, bottomless. He was alone. That was the hell of it.