A coldness passed into him. "You're not Melissa Williams, are you?" he said.
She opened her eyes. "What?"
"You're not Melissa Williams."
She blinked rapidly and laughed. Nervously, he thought. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you are not Melissa Williams. You're someone else."
She waited while she considered her answer, and while she waited she made sure that he kept moving in and out. So wet, so good. Best in years, best ever, maybe.
"Who do you want me to be?" she finally whispered.
He stared into her face-darkness in the darkness. He was jammed up inside some unknown, strangely orgasmic woman in her late twenties, some woman tough-minded enough that she could pretend to be someone else, pretend to fuck as someone else. She was not Melissa Williams, she was anybody but Melissa Williams. Not a good girl from Seattle but some kind of clever hustler who talked a fast game, sounded educated, and had found her way into the bar of the Pierre Hotel looking for a soft touch, a lonely, self-important jerk-weed like Charlie. This thought made him mad and it made him keep moving. He knew he should stop and pull out and probably stick his dick into a jar of rubbing alcohol or insecticide or something and ask her what the hell was going on, but he was not going to. No. Just the opposite. If he pulled out now, then she'd stolen something from him, and his anger would not allow that. He pushed harder and realized that she liked this, liked him pushing, struggling with him a little violently now; she liked the fact that he did not know who she was, found power in his powerlessness. Something had equalized suddenly, her mystery and youth reversing against his status and age. But if you fuck with me, then I will fuck with you, he told himself, and he pressed down on her, damn the back, damn Ellie, damn Teknetrix, damn Mr. Lo and Vista del Muerte and all of it, and stroked through her with a vicious, teeth-clenched effortlessness he'd not known for almost thirty years, his cock swollen into stone, the Chinese medicine releasing him to press the question over and over, Who are you who are you, mouthing it even, feeling her rise and shake again and again, her orgasms clustering one against another in a kind of angry hallucinatory chaos as she shook her fists in the air and growled almost bitterly, seeming to birth something awful, tearing time out of herself, curled and shaking, and when the moment came he pressed his hot forehead heavily down upon hers, and delivered himself fully into her-the bomb, the hatred, the roar; the joy, the sadness, the dream.
After the bathroom she sat in the window well, naked in the shadows. "Are you mad?" came her voice.
"Yes."
"How did you know?"
"I had someone check a few things about Melissa Williams. Her father is a prominent, busy lawyer in Seattle. She wears glasses or contact lenses."
She shifted to the other side of the window. "Why did you bother?"
"Because I wanted to find out who the hell you were. Or were not, as the case may be."
"Why?" she asked coyly. "I'm probably just some girl who liked your tie."
She's scared, he thought. "How do you know Melissa Williams?"
She shook her head. "Oh, she's just a box of papers that I found in my closet when I moved into my room. Never met the girl."
She slid off the window well toward him. Something about the way she walked, slowly and naked and I know you're looking at me, reminded him of Ellie a generation ago-before Teknetrix, before his father's death, before Ben, before Vietnam. Ellie was no longer confident of her nakedness, kept it to herself now, and it was just as well, in fact. He didn't want to see her anymore.
"Just tell me, please." He watched her parade before him. Don't fall into this, he warned himself, you're not sentimental, you don't believe that this is anything other than a strange little episode. Time is not being cheated here.
She came to the bed and lay next to him. "You really want the truth?" she said softly. "It's not pretty, as they say."
"Tell me the truth or I'll just walk out, you know?"
"Oh, don't." She took his hand and pressed it close to her.
"Give me a reason."
"Well, I like you a lot."
"How about a better reason than that."
She said nothing. He waited a minute, sat up, and swung his feet to the floor. I can still go home and take a bath, he thought, catch the news.
"Wait," she said.
"I am."
She sighed. "I hate telling the truth. It never sets you free, it just makes everything harder."
"That's great," Charlie said coldly. "Now we're getting somewhere." He stood up. "I'm leaving. I've been an idiot and you've been a liar." He found his clothes. "Thank you for the sex, however, miss. That was probably the last best sex of my life, and I am in fact grateful, even under the circumstances. You're full of energy and intelligence, and I don't know why the hell you're doing what you're doing, not just to me but to yourself. I actually believe that you're better than this somehow, if only you can get yourself there. That's my cheap psychologizing for the night, lady. I wish you well."
She dropped her head into her hands, pulling her fingers through her hair. "My name is Christina, okay? Christina Welles. I grew up outside of Philadelphia, not Seattle."
"Your parents there?" he asked more gently.
"My father's dead," she told him.
"What'd he do?" asked Charlie.
"He repaired subway cars for SEPTA. Southeastern Pennyslvania Transit Authority. He was a kind man who wore a cheap watch. My mother lives in Sarasota, Florida, now. Her name is Anita Welles. Once upon a time I was a nice little girl who got straight A's and practiced the piano every afternoon…" She stared at him with bitter amusement. "Then things happened. Some usual things and some not-so-usual things. Most pertinently, in respect to your anxiety and self-identity and imagination, I, Christina Welles, the girl you just popped with such mutual gratification, was released from Bedford Hills maximum-security women's prison three weeks ago."
"Oh, Jesus," Charlie said, sitting down.
"My boyfriend ran a ring of truck hijackers and smugglers. I helped him. We got busted bringing a load into New York and I went to prison." She stood and found her bag on the dresser. "It's more complicated than that, but that's the basic explanation. I'm out now, I got released, and I'm trying to make a living, working as a waitress downtown-they think I'm Melissa, too. I'm not really a bad person, Charlie. A little lost, yes. But I'm not some cheap floozy or anything."
"Hot, but not cheap."
She opened a new pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. "Yes. Sure. I'll take that."
"Did you go to college?"
She stuck the cigarette in her mouth and tilted her head to one side as she lit it. "Columbia. I dropped out because I was having some problems. I felt nervous a lot of the time, not safe, sort of. I didn't really like the dorms, the other kids. I was a good student for a couple of years." She lay back in the bed, pulled the covers over herself. "I sort of fell for this guy Rick and just wanted to be with him. He was a bodybuilder. He was beautiful and sad and full of self-important shit like the rest of you guys, and I was pretty crazy about him. For a while, I mean." She blew smoke into the darkness. "I'm fickle," she said, almost to herself, and with no gladness. "I've always been, always will be. You get hurt too much, you get that way. Sorry, but it's true. All my problems started then. I've fucked up a lot of my life so far. But I'm here now, with you, because I like you, Charlie. That's all. Believe me, since I've come back to the city, there've been plenty of offers."
He was getting the full throttle of her personality now, all its edginess and irritation and passion. "There's no trick?"