“Oh.” Tony thought about this. “Well, I guess I’m too snobbish to ever admire somebody ’cause of TV writing. I mean, if theater didn’t have the compensation of making me feel superior, how could I stand the obscurity and poverty?”
Lois smiled. “Look, obviously I don’t know you very well, but I have gotten one thing straight about you. You think playwrighting is a calling, a religion. You’re not a snob. You believe in it.” She said this with frank admiration. Tony was pleased: he believed the compliment. “Anyway, tell me about the meeting.”
“Well, I’m supposed to have breakfast tomorrow morning at the Polo Lounge—”
She smiled. “Very good so far. Polo Lounge is good.”
“Is that more important than who’s at the meeting?”
“Probably.”
“I see. Well, it’s supposed to be with Bill Garth—”
“He’s actually going to be there?”
Tony hesitated. “What do you mean? Doesn’t he usually show up for meetings?”
Lois leaned back and stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “He has a reputation for committing to projects, then firing lots of writers, I don’t know for sure — my friend at International hated him. Claimed that Garth screwed up project after project by never being satisfied with the script.”
“But Garth makes movies — so obviously he’s eventually satisfied,” Tony reasoned.
“Yeah, but usually they’re not scripts Garth himself has developed. I asked if he would be there because I was hoping this was a project International was developing for him, rather than he developing it for them.”
Tony shook his head as if he were trying to clear it of confusion. “Jesus, I’d better get on the next plane home.”
“No, no. Don’t let me frighten—”
“I’m not frightened. I don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Whoever heard of an actor not wanting to get something on? It makes no sense! It’s the opposite of everything I understand.”
“It’s ’cause Garth’s on top. He’s won an Academy Award. He’s had hits. Every script in town is offered to him. If he decides he wants to work, he’ll work. If he doesn’t like the script, they’ll change it. He doesn’t like the director, they’ll fire him. It’s a position most actors never get to — so his psychology is turned upside down. Instead of the studio vacillating, he vacillates. His power, all of it, resides in making a decision to do a movie. Once he commits himself, he loses his power. The film editor and the director can cut his scenes—”
“What? He doesn’t get final cut?”
Lois hesitated. “You know, you got me. I don’t know. If he demanded it, especially of a studio that needed a hit, he’d probably get it. See that?” she said with a smile, turning to him and putting her hand on his arm. “You stumped the expert.”
He smiled at her. Her hand felt warm and friendly. They looked into each other’s eyes. Tony’s contempt and distrust of her was gone. She seemed human now: the hard-angled leanness of a Hollywood bitch had softened in the dim light of her Spanish fantasy. His suspicion that she was a dull, opportunistic, and selfish woman had evaporated in the dawning of her kind interest in his worry and her desire to advise him well. There was nothing of the one-upmanship toward Billy, nothing of the cynical pose at dinner of someone who believes that Copernicus was wrong: that the earth actually revolves around money. Once he had made it clear he didn’t want sex from her, she had relaxed and become ordinary. And, of course, now he had to admit it to himself: now. as their eyes searched each other’s, he did want to make love.
David moved carefully, lifting Patty’s arm off his waist. She had gone to sleep with his wet penis in her hand, her body pressed against him, their legs entwined, and her head resting in the crook of his arm. It was as if she wanted to merge with his body, melt into him; there was something forlorn about her clinging to him. She had serviced him, her mouth loving his prick until he climaxed. There had been no complaint that he brought her to orgasm lackadaisically with his hand. She had acted grateful for his presence, as if she felt lucky even to have him there.
David got her arm off him and then slowly disengaged his leg. She stirred at that and turned around, her slim silky buttocks angled into him. She has a beautiful body, he told himself wonderingly. Wonderingly, because it was the kind of body that he had lusted for in high school and college and had never succeeded in getting. Now he had it and there was no sense of triumph or delight. The fantasy was no better than the reality — Patty was fabulous in bed. Her golden-haired vagina was moist and pink, her breasts firm, her stomach fiat and yet soft, her hips smooth but flowingly curved.
And she was so yielding! Her mouth was a willing slave, opening abjectly for his tongue, his penis, swallowing whatever he chose to inject. Why didn’t this thrill him? Wasn’t it his dream?
He couldn’t claim, as he tried to convince himself after their first and second dates, that she was merely a dumb blond, a mind and soul too numb to feel deeply or understand his life. Patty was bright, maybe not intellectual, but he had never liked that in women or men. She exuded cheerfulness and wit, qualities he not only enjoyed but also considered rare. Why weren’t these additions to her delicious body a cause for celebration? He ought to be madly in love, he told himself. To have this beautiful and charming woman cling to him was a great piece of good fortune. But he felt lonely in her presence. Lonely and false, as if he weren’t really experiencing the sex and the conversation, as if he were in disguise, reaping rewards that justly belonged to someone else.
This thought frightened him. He felt a chill of horror, as if his soul was about to break out and spin into the black universe, divorced from human life.
David moved and hugged Patty’s back, putting his arms around her waist. She moved and hugged his arms to her, saying, out of a half-sleep, “Mmmm.”
He put his cheek against her smooth back and pushed out any thought, absorbing her warmth. His fingers stroked her soft belly. He brushed her pubic hair and she arched up, catching his hand in her pelvis.
He moved quickly, in the dark, down, pushing his face in her buttocks. She opened her legs and rolled on her back, moaning in a sleepy voice as he put his mouth to her vagina.
He knelt on the bed and quickly, in desperate and frightened movements, licked her. Almost immediately she was wet, with that ferocious moisture her body could summon instantly. He pushed his mouth and nose and chin up and down, from side to side, obliterating the terrible memory of that vision of spiritual death.
He had no idea how long it took. It seemed only moments before her body kicked and heaved, her mouth making sounds of release. He felt intense pleasure at her pleasure, at letting her squeeze his head between her thighs.
After her climax, she pulled him up and kissed his mouth, wet from her sex. He looked into her eyes and said with great feeling:
“I love you.”
He was astonished that her reaction was to hold him close, hugging him as if he were a long-lost savior. He glanced at her face and saw there was the beginning of tears in her eyes.
Seeing her happiness, he felt the dreaded emptiness return, and regretted that he had spoken.
CHAPTER 6
Fred looked at his checkbook. In the dim fluorescent light of Karl’s bathroom he saw that the balance was one hundred and twenty-four dollars and sixty-seven cents. It was eleven-thirty, a half-hour before people would be permitted to quit, and he was down, by his rough calculation, close to two hundred dollars. He had the money. Marion and he had a ten-thousand-dollar certificate of deposit, and he had eight thousand in stocks with his broker. But when he had told Marion he was going to forgo magazine assignments for a year, they had done a strict budget so that they could live on her salary with only occasional intrusions into the eighteen thousand they had in the bank. Fred had repeatedly gone over the set limits, using up four thousand in three months. This two hundred would be seen by Marion as an idiotic extravagance, if for no other reason than that he would have to break the ten-thousand-dollar CD.