“Sex, I mean.”
“Annie enjoyed it.”
“Sure. We had a fine marriage. But she didn’t enjoy it quite like you do. You put everything you’ve got into it. You’re not aware of anything but your body and mine when we make love. You’re consumed by it.”
“I can’t help it if I’m horny.”
“You’re more than horny.”
“Oversexed, then.”
“It’s not just sex,” he said.
“You’re not going to tell me that you like my mind too.”
“That’s precisely what I’m going to tell you. You enjoy everything. I’ve seen you savor a glass of water like some people do good wine.” He drew a finger down the line between her breasts. “You’ve got a lust for life.”
“Me and Van Gogh.”
“I’m serious.”
She thought about it. “A friend at college used to say the same thing.”
“You see?”
“If it’s true,” she said, “the credit belongs to my father.”
“Oh?”
“He gave me such a happy childhood.”
“Your mother died when you were a child.”
She nodded. “But she went in her sleep. A cerebral hemorrhage. One day she was there — gone the next. I never saw her in pain, and that makes a difference to a child.”
“You grieved. I’m sure you did.”
“For a while. But my father worked hard to bring me out of it. He was full of jokes and games and stories and presents, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He worked just like you did to make your kids forget Annie’s death.”
“If I could have been as successful at that as Sam evidently was with you—”
“Maybe he was too successful,” she said.
“How could that be?”
Sighing, she said, “Sometimes I think he should have spent less time making my childhood happy and more time preparing me for the real world.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Happiness is a rare commodity in this life. Don’t knock it. Grab every minute of it that’s offered to you, and don’t look back.”
She shook her head, unconvinced. “I was too naive. A regular Pollyanna. Right up through my wedding day.”
“A bad marriage can happen to anybody, wise or innocent.”
“Certainly. But the wise aren’t shattered by it.”
His hand moved in lazy circles on her belly.
She liked the way he touched her. Already, she wanted him again.
He said, “If you can analyze yourself this way, you can overcome your hangups. You can forget the past.”
“Oh, I can forget him all right. My husband. No trouble, given time. And not much time at that.”
“Well then?”
“I’m not innocent anymore. God knows, I’m not. But naive? I’m not sure a person can become a cynic overnight. Or even a realist.”
“We’d be perfect together,” he said, touching her breasts. “I’m certain of it.”
“At times I’m certain of it too. And that’s what I distrust about it — the certainty.”
“Marry me,” he said.
“How did we get around to this again?”
“I asked you to marry me.”
“I don’t want to be set up for another fall.”
“I’m not setting you up.”
“Not intentionally.”
“You can’t live without taking risks.”
“I can try.”
“It’ll be a lonely life.”
She made a face at him. “Let’s not spoil the day.”
“It’s not spoiled for me.”
“Well, it will be for me soon, if we don’t change the subject. ”
“What could we talk about that’s more important than this?”
She grinned. “You seem fascinated with my tits. Want to talk about those?”
“Jenny, be serious.”
“I am being serious. I think my tits are fascinating. I could spend hours talking about them.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Okay, okay. If you don’t want to talk about my tits, we won’t talk about them, lovely as they are. Instead — we’ll talk about your prick. ”
“Jenny—”
“I’d like to taste it.”
As she spoke the soft center of him swelled and grew hard.
“Defeated by biology,” she said.
“You’re a minx.”
She laughed and started to sit up.
He pushed her back.
“I want to taste it,” she said.
“Later. ”
“Now.”
“I want to get you off first.”
“And do you always get your way?”
“I will this time. I’m bigger than you.”
“Male chauvinist.”
“If you say so.” He kissed her nipples, shoulders, hands, her navel and thighs. He rubbed his nose gently back and forth in the crinkled hair at the base of her belly.
A shiver passed through her. She said, “You’re right. A woman should have her pleasure first.”
He lifted his head and smiled at her. He had a charming, almost boyish smile. His eyes were so clear, so blue, and so warm that she felt as if she were being absorbed by them.
What a delightful man you are, she thought as the voices of the mountain faded away and her heartbeat replaced them. So beautiful, so desirable, so tender for a man. So very tender.
The house was on Union Road, one block from the town square. A white frame bungalow. Nicely kept. Windows trimmed in green with matching shutters. Railed front porch with bench swing and glider and bright green floor. Latticework festooned with ivy at one end of the porch, a wall of lilac bushes at the other end. Brick walkway with borders of marigolds on each side. A white ceramic birdbath ringed with petunias. According to the sign that hung on a decorative lamppost at the end of the walk, the house belonged to “The Macklins.”
At one o’clock that afternoon, Salsbury climbed the three steps to the porch. He was carrying a clipboard with a dozen sheets of paper fixed to it. He rang the bell.
Bees hummed in the lilac leaves.
The woman who opened the door surprised him. Perhaps because of the flowers that had been planted everywhere and because of the pristine condition of the property that seemed the work of a singularly fussy person, he had expected the Macklins to be an elderly couple. A skinny pair who liked to putter in their gardens, who had no grandchildren to spend their time with, who would stare suspiciously at him over the rims of their bifocals. However, the woman who answered the bell was in her middle twenties, a slender blonde with the kind of face that looked good in magazine advertisements for cosmetics. She was tall, five eight or nine, not delicate but feminine, as leggy as a chorus girl. She was wearing dark blue shorts and a blue-and-white polka-dot halter top. Even through the screen door, he could see that her body was well proportioned, firm, resilient, better than any he had ever touched.
As usual, confronted with a woman like one of those who had peopled his fantasies all of his adult life, he was unsettled. He stared at her and licked his lips and couldn’t think of a damned thing to say.
“Can I help you?”
He cleared his throat. “My name’s — Albert Deighton. I’ve been in town since last Friday. I don’t know if you heard… I’m doing some research. Sociological research. I’ve been talking to people—”
“I know,” she said. “You were next door at the Solo-man’s yesterday afternoon.”
“That’s right.” Although the sun was hot and the air heavy, he hadn’t perspired during any of the first three interviews of the day; but now he felt beads of sweat spring up on his forehead. “I’d like to talk with you and Mr. Macklin, if you can spare me the time. Half an hour ought to be enough. There are about a hundred questions—”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My husband isn’t home. He works up at the mill on the day shift. He won’t be home till five thirty.”