As if trying to deflect her perception, he said, “You have some sort of an accent.”
“Italian.”
“Italian Italian?”
“Right.”
“What are you doing here, in this country, I mean?”
“Going to school. UCLA.”
“And you moonlight this kind of — work?”
“Right.” She smiled. “Well, it’s not my major, if that’s what you mean.”
He thought this over. “What is your major?”
“American lit.”
“Guess it pays a lot of bills. Your work, I mean.”
She removed the beer can from his hand, took a few sips, handed it back. Then she unconsciously nodded toward the hallway, which she imagined led to the bedroom. “Think we can get down to it?”
He seemed suddenly apprehensive. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“I have to get paid in advance. That’s the rule.”
“Okay, sure. How much?”
“Didn’t they tell you on the phone? Two hundred.”
He took out a wallet and dug around inside the bill compartment. She decided he wasn’t really a bad-looking guy. A strong, almost Toltec face like the illustrations in the anthropology textbooks, and nice biceps and pecs. Maybe he worked with barbells or bench-pressed. The drums, that was it. She had dated a jazz drummer with wrists like pig iron. All the drummers she had known were working out an extraordinary amount of hostility; most had fuses as short as their stature.
“Here.” He handed her a small sheaf of bills. “Two hundred exactly.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” she said, “how do you get the right amount?”
“I bend the corners. Look—”
She did. The denominations were folded in different corners. “Very clever. Shall we?”
He turned toward the hallway. She looked over at the dog. He had rarely moved since she was there. These seeing-eye dogs were like people, some a little sad-eyed, shy, introverted, children really. The damn creature hadn’t even barked.
The bedroom was a suffocating cell, no air-conditioning, window closed. There was a pine bureau, cheap and unstained, and an enormous brass bed pushed against the wall.
She smacked her hand against the mattress. Not too soft. “This is quite a production.”
“The bed? It was my parents’.”
“Maybe you got conceived on this monstrosity.” She wished she could take that back — too disrespectful.
He was silent. He stood in the doorway, his head tilted down at the worn pile carpet, not even bothering to get undressed. The dog came slowly in, settled itself under the only window.
She tried some humor. “Herman going to watch?”
“Does it matter?”
She kicked off her shoes, unbuttoned her blouse, and slipped it off with her slacks. All dolled up for a blind man. While she folded and placed her garments over her handbag on the floor, she slid the bills inside.
She ran her hands provocatively down her body as if he was a sighted person. “How about you? Your clothes?”
“Lay down on the bed,” he said.
“Like this, in my bra and panties, or—?”
“You can keep your underwear on.” He was leaning back against the bureau, looking in her direction, slightly crouched.
She climbed on top of the sheets. They smelled of dried sweat. “Can’t you get yourself an air-conditioner?”
No reply. She propped herself against the meager pillows and angled her arms behind her head in a parody of sexual abandon. That’s just great, she thought, striking a Penthouse pose for a guy who can’t see. This was getting depressing, more than usual. She began to think about the paper she had to write on Stephen Crane, another depressing thought. What the hell was her approach going to be?
She watched with curiosity as he opened the top bureau drawer and removed a pint of Jim Beam. At least it was action, something positive, instead of just standing there like the recently condemned. He unscrewed the cap and took two long pulls. The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed and he coughed, then cleared his throat.
“Go easy,” she said. “Not good for performance.”
“Probably not.” He took another short swallow.
She tensed, no longer thinking of the Crane paper. His dead eyes seemed brighter, the membrane dissolved.
He came slowly over to the bed and sat down beside her. His hand moved on the sheet, found her, lifted her head, and guided it back almost between two brass rods on the headboard. There was a faint metallic click as he snapped what felt like a bracelet around her left wrist, the steel band cold against her skin. Another click.
She half raised herself on her free elbow. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
His face was close to hers, his breath alive with whiskey. No reply.
She felt along the short length of chain and found that the bracelet was linked around a rod on the headboard. Maybe — maybe he was into some kinky but harmless S&M thing. “I hope you’ve got a key.”
“What good’s a key?” he said, each word spaced as if the liquor was stoking him down. He rose unsteadily from the bed and went back to the bureau. More bourbon.
“I can yell,” she threatened. She strained her ears. Was that the distant whirr of a power lawn mower? “Somebody’ll hear and come.”
He listened too, cocking his head, suddenly looking directly at her. Maybe his eyesight was as good as hers.
She said, “You can really see, can’t you? You’ve been lying to me.”
He shook his head no and wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand.
“Why the hell are you doing this? We were going to make love, we were going to have fun. You even paid me.”
“I want you to stay.”
Oh God, he’s a real headcase, she thought. If L.A. didn’t grow them, they imported them. “I can’t stay, Corey. I’ve got another call tonight, and I have to start a paper for my lit course.”
Still carrying the bottle, he sat down again on the edge of the bed. Except for handcuffing her to the headboard, she couldn’t remember if he had touched her.
“Come on, Corey,” she said gently. “Let me loose and I promise you we’ll have a good time.”
Herman yawned, stretched. He came over and sat down next to the young man, lowered his handsome head onto the sheet.
“Corey, I’ll scream. I can really scream.”
“There’s just an alley outside the window. Nobody’ll hear.”
She scrunched up against the headboard and leaned back, twisting, to examine the pair of handcuffs. Oxidized steel, blue-black, like maybe the kind cops used. Where in God’s name had he got the damn things? Maybe his father was a cop.
“Is your father a cop?”
“My father’s dead.” He was petting the dog’s head.
“Don’t you have any friends?”
“Just Herman.” He was still working on the bourbon.
Shoring up his courage, she thought. For what? Poor bastard, blind, living alone with his seeing-eye dog, no friends, especially no girlfriends.
“Come on, honey,” she said, afraid to touch his face. “Unlock this thing, I’ll give you a nice massage. Then we’ll make love. I’ll show you a real good time. You’ll like it. I promise.”
She prayed that after enough of the courage-strengthening alcohol he would spread-eagle her on the bed and get to work. But he looked totally anesthetized by either the liquor or his fear or both. His strangely placid eyes were dazed, increasingly unfocused, and he stretched out an arm to steady himself on the mattress.
Maybe she should cool the sex talk, try another tack. She said, “You look tired, honey. Why don’t you settle down here beside me?”
He looked in her direction for a long moment. No, she thought, he’s blind as a bat, I was wrong. The eyes seemed opaque now, smooth and veined like marble.