When she saw him he was walking alone on the way back to his dormitory. He had a few books under one arm and there was a pipe in his mouth. He didn’t see her at first, and she had to run up to him before he noticed her.
“Jim!”
He turned and looked at her, his face blank. “Hi,” he said. “Where are you headed?”
“Nowhere special.”
She looked at him — a bold, purposeful look. He wasn’t a moron; he knew what had happened between her and Don, knew what she wanted when she looked at him like that.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I want to get rid of these books. I’ll be down in a second.”
She waited at the side of the dormitory while he walked up the fire escape. While she waited she wondered what would happen, whether he already knew what she was after or whether she would have to be more obvious about it.
When he came down the fire escape with a blanket under his arm she knew she didn’t have to worry about it any more.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said. She nodded and let him take her arm. They walked along silently across the campus toward the golf course.
Clifton’s excuse for a golf course had greens that looked like fairways and fairways that looked like rough. This, of course, was perfectly all right, since no one had attempted to play golf on the six-hole weed patch since Grant had been elected president of the United States. The physical education golf classes played on the course at Xenia Country Club. The golf course at Clifton had one use and one use only, but that use was enough.
It was a golf course with hazards, of course. The hazards consisted of the pairs of bodies that blanketed it from tee to green on warm nights. There was a legend that the president of Clifton had once walked the length of the golf course on a pitch-dark spring evening. At one point he stepped on someone. The boy who had been stepped on thanked him profusely and went back to what he had been doing.
There were those who swore the legend had a firm basis in fact.
The course was relatively empty that night, however. It was late and it was cold and the two of them had as much space as they could possibly have wanted. Without saying a word Jim spread the blanket out on the ground and the two of them sank to the ground and sat on the blanket side by side. For several seconds, neither of them made a move or said a word. Then, as if by some prearranged signal, they turned to look at each other. It was very dark — Linda could barely make out the boy’s features.
But it didn’t matter what he looked like.
“You’re very pretty,” he told her. The words were automatic — mere formality to go before the more serious business of the day. Gratefully she snuggled closer to him and his arms went around her.
They kissed. It was a passionate kiss right from the start, with both of their mouths open and both of their tongues urgent and demanding. She pressed close to him so that he could feel her breasts through the sweater, rubbing herself against him while she touched his tongue with her own.
When the kiss ended she stretched out on the blanket and he lay down beside her. She lay on her back so that he could touch her breasts, and with her eyes wide open she watched the few stars that were out that night. His hands, through the thin sweater, were warm and insistent as he manipulated her breasts expertly and she felt her nipples hardening into firm little rubies.
She lifted herself up on her elbows and helped him take off her sweater. His gasp of pleasure at the sight of her two perfect breasts made her feel warm inside, warm and wanted and desirable. The ache that had been present within her since Don had refused to sleep with her now seemed to evaporate as his hands stroked her breasts and excited her as Don’s hands had excited her not so long ago.
Then he removed her skirt, folding it neatly and placing it on the blanket beside them. His hands touched her where no hands had touched her in too many days and she writhed under his hands, wanting him, ready for him.
She unbuttoned his flannel shirt and he took it off. She touched him and held him and his breathing was becoming faster and harsher now and she knew how much he wanted her, how much he had to have her, and her heart swelled with the pleasure she derived from his need just as it pounded with her own physical need.
Then he was naked, ready for her as she was ready for him. She felt ridiculous with her tennis shoes still on her feet and kicked them off impatiently, then drawing her feet up and making herself ready for him. There was no time to waste on loveplay, no time to waste on kisses and caresses, no time for anything but pure sexual pleasure.
“Hurry!” she begged him.
He took her and her body slipped at once into the now-familiar rhythm. Her hips churned as her arms locked around him and pressed him against her. She felt almost alive again, alive for the first time in weeks, and she wanted to make the moment last forever, to make him stay there until the end of the world, loving her savagely and passionately forever.
He reached his climax before she did and she feared for a moment that he would leave her before bringing her the release she craved so desperately. But her fears vanished the next second as he stayed with her, moving with her, straining with her, until she floated higher to the top and finally received the gift of peace that was so essential to her.
Then they lay together very still. It was over now — they had made love and now they could part like the proverbial two ships that pass in the night. Now she had had her pleasure; she wanted only to be alone.
He seemed to understand.
Awkwardly they separated and began dressing. She put on her sweater and skirt, then her tennis shoes, wondering as she did so why she felt absolutely no emotion toward Jim Patterson. She felt that she ought to love him or hate him or something, but instead there was no emotion at all, nothing that lingered after the so necessary orgasm had come and gone.
They stood up and he folded the blanket and put it over his arm, letting her take his other arm as they walked back to the campus. They parted at the edge of the golf course — their dorms were in different directions and there seemed to be no need for them to walk together any further. She went straight to her room without a backward glance at him.
It wasn’t the same as it had been with Don. It was sex, nothing but sex, and it wasn’t the same as what she had enjoyed in the past. It was the quiet and random breeding of animals in the privacy of a barnyard. The only purpose was physical satisfaction, the only emotion was an indefinable feeling of cameraderie.
But, she thought as she undressed for bed, able to sleep at last, it was surely better than nothing.
Chapter Eight
Nothing spreads like good news.
This is a well-known fact. The best news gets around the quickest, and on a campus the size of Clifton’s news of almost any sort travels at the speed of light. There is a saying that, if you have an abortion in Schwerner Hall, the news will reach Buchanan Hall on the extreme side of the campus before you can flush the fetus down the toilet.
This is very probably true.
The news that a pretty freshman by the name of Linda Shepard was currently available for fun and games was an item which belonged in the category of special priority good news. It wasn’t exactly as though Jim Patterson was one of those boys who boff and tell. He didn’t run out and scream the happy news to the rooftops. Neither did he tell everybody he met. He simply revealed the fact to a few select friends.
Who in turn revealed it to their friends.
Who in turn relayed the message to their own friends.
And, before too long, Linda Shepard was one of the most popular girls in the freshman class.
Linda’s first knowledge of her new-found popularity came with a phone call the following afternoon. There was a boy on the other end of the line, a boy named Leon Camelot.