“Danny,” she said, “be gentle with me. Don’t hurt me.
He unzipped her skirt and took it off, and she helped him slip her panties down over her hips to her knees. His hand moved from her waist to her knee and back again, and he pressed his lips to her breast and kissed her.
“Danny—”
“Sshhh,” he whispered. He removed his clothes and she saw that his body was hard and brown from the sun.
He took her, and it was brand-new and perfect and wonderful. They soared higher and higher on the crest of a magical wave, higher and higher until they reached the top and it was finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and entering Heaven and everything she had ever imagined and things she had never dared to even dream.
They reached the top of the wave together and they fell away from it together, tumbling together into an all-covering blanket of wooly blackness.
For a moment they were two people.
Then they were one, and nothing else in the whole world mattered.
Chapter Fourteen
The next two days were almost perfect. They would have been perfect if she could have spent every single moment with Danny, but they were practically perfect even though the two had only their afternoons together. Carla found an incredible plateau of peace and contentment. She was a whole woman now, and she knew the joy that comes of giving one’s self completely and withholding nothing. It was a supreme joy, an unparalleled joy. Danny was everything to her and she loved him with a fervor that never failed to surprise her.
At the same time, she realized that their arrangement could easily become difficult — if only because it forced Danny to close the station for a few hours every afternoon. If they continued that way, it would only be a matter of time before the company checked on him and found out that he was taking time off, time that belonged to the company. He was supposed to keep the station open from seven in the morning to seven at night, and he generally stayed open until ten or eleven. But now he closed up at two and sometimes failed to reopen until six or later.
She was at home now, waiting for Ronald to come home for dinner. She had a book in her lap but the print swam before her eyes and she had to read paragraphs over and over before she understood them, Her mind was on Danny, not on the book.
Danny wanted her to marry him. Marriage to Danny would be a wonderful thing, she knew, because the type of love they had between them was the type which grew and grew through exposure and development. While the novelty would wear off a little at a time, the pleasure of getting more and more attuned to a loved one would replace the loss of novelty many times over. She could tell this already, and it made the prospect of becoming Danny’s wife a very attractive one.
But when she closed her eyes and remembered the relative squalor of the little room on Sagerties Avenue, some of the splendor of the picture vanished. Of course they would not live in a place like that. Danny lived there only because he was trying to save as much of his salary as possible. But they would live in a place almost as bad, and she would not have a car to drive or a closet full of clothes to wear. She could see herself getting old while still young from sweating over a hot stove and scrubbing floors and bearing children.
If she had never been poor these things might not have mattered. But Carla had been poor, and she knew how miserable she could be under those circumstances. And for this reason she wasn’t too anxious to divorce Ronald and plunge headlong into marriage to Danny — a marriage that would constitute the end of luxury.
She hadn’t made a decision. She explained in detail about Ronald’s case — which was going before the jury the following day — and Danny understood that any divorce plans and proceedings would have to wait until the case was won or lost. He assumed that she would marry him then, of course, but she had been cautious not to say so in so many words.
When Ronald came home that evening there was a strained look about him. The rigours of the case were telling on him, and for the first time he looked acutely old to her, old and tired and worn out. He was almost silent throughout dinner, answering her tentative questions with nods or shakes of his head and an occasional grunt.
When dinner was over they remained at the table for coffee and a cigarette. For several minutes each smoked in silence and sipped at the coffee; then Ronald looked up suddenly and cleared his throat.
“Carla,” he began, “there’s something I want to discuss with you.”
She panicked momentarily: had he found her out? But then she saw from the expression on his face that it was something else that was bothering him.
He drew on his cigarette and closed his eyes for a moment. When he began talking he spaced his words carefully and spoke softly, almost in a monotone.
“I’ve been unfair to you,” he said. “I’ve expected an impossible course of behaviour from you, and just recently I’ve come too see how grossly unjust these expectations have been.
“I’m an old man, Carla. I always considered myself young and vigorous, but this damned case is telling on me. It’s gilding the lily to say that I’m not as young as I used to be; however, that’s the plain truth of the matter. I’m not.”
“I don’t see—”
“Let me finish. I like to think of myself as the successful lawyer with the lovely young wife. I am that, in a way — but there’s another side to the picture. I’m also an impotent old man, and my lovely young wife is party to a pretty damned unnatural bargain. And when I see that side of the picture — well, I can’t say I think very much of myself.”
He stopped for a moment but she didn’t interrupt. She could see how it was hurting him to say these words, how hard it was for him to talk about his age and impotence. She put out her cigarette and waited for him to continue.
“You’re a young woman, Carla. I’ve been unfair, as I’ve said. But I don’t mean to be unfair any longer. Money and clothing aren’t enough; I don’t want my wife to be kept in a damned cage all her life like some animal in a private zoo. You deserve a good deal more than that.”
“I... I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? Let me explain. I don’t want you to cut yourself off from... from sex, Carla. I want you to feel free to take a lover if you wish — in fact, I’d prefer it if you did. Perhaps you already have; if so, that’s your business. You have a right to a full life and an impotent man has no right in the world to feel cheated upon if he’s made a cuckold.
“I’m serious about this, Carla. I wouldn’t feel cuckolded, because I wouldn’t feel that you were being unfaithful to me. And I’d rather have you sleep with another man than lose you entirely, or have you grow to hate me.”
“I could never hate you.”
He smiled. “Don’t be too sure about that. But at any rate I want you to know how I feel about the situation. I have just two requests to make. First of all, I want you to be as discreet as possible about any affairs you have. I don’t suppose I have to tell you this, but it’s especially important now with the case practically on the fire. You know how quickly the case would go to hell if anything were made public.
“Secondly, I don’t want you to tell me about... whatever you do. Although I can accept and even approve of it, I’m as human as anyone else. So... don’t tell me about it.”
He broke off abruptly and looked down at the tablecloth. Carla felt the tears coming to her eyes. He was such a good man, so sincerely good. She had never fully appreciated him before, not as she appreciated him now after what he had said. She wanted to say something but she couldn’t find the right words.