We lay there on the couch breathing at each other for a while and then she said, “I sometimes think I’m a little weird, don’t you?”
“No.”
“I mean all that talking stuff. That’s weird.”
“Does it help?”
“It turns me on. God, how I hate that phrase.”
“Then don’t use it.”
“It excites me, the talking I mean. It’s sort of s-m, isn’t it?”
“Sort of, but it’s harmless.”
“Do you like it?”
“What?”
“Hurting me like that?”
“I like pleasing you and if that’s what you like, then I’m all for it.”
“And you don’t think I’m too kinky?”
“Not enough to count.”
She sat up and handed me a cigarette, taking one for herself. “When this is all over, what will you do, go back to New York?”
“Yes.”
“Are you married? Or did I ask that?”
“You didn’t ask, but I’m not.”
“But you were, weren’t you? I can tell.”
“How?”
“Guys that haven’t been married don’t fuck as well as you do.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Really. There’re little things that they just don’t know about.”
I sat up. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s true. How often do you do this?”
“I suppose as often as I can.”
“I don’t mean screwing. I mean this go-between thing.”
“Oh. That. Several times a year. Two or three. Maybe four sometimes. That’s several.”
“What do you do in between the go-between stuff?”
“Not much. I sort of mess around. I read a lot. It’s one of the few things that I do really well so I do a lot of it. I’m a very good page turner.”
“You could do that almost anywhere, couldn’t you?”
“I suppose.”
“Why don’t you do it here?”
“You mean in L.A.?”
“You know what I mean. I mean here — on the beach. With me.”
“You’re not talking about marriage, are you?”
“You know I’m not talking about that. I like you. I think I’d like living with you for a while. You seem to like the beach and the ocean. You even seem to like me. So why don’t we like each other together for a while? It’ll probably be six months before I have to give up this place. After that, if it’s working, maybe we can find another place down the road. Or maybe we’ll just move on — separately. What do you think?”
I smiled. “I think it’s an interesting idea.”
“That’s not a yes or a no. It’s not even a maybe.”
“What it is,” I said, “is a ‘this is so sudden.’ ”
“You mean you’d like to think about it?”
“Uh-huh, I’d like to think about it.”
“You’re not hung up on this male aggressiveness thing, are you?” she said. “I mean, it doesn’t bother you that I did the asking?”
“Not in the least,” I said. “It happens all the time.”
Later, after the lamb chops, and the wine, and more lovemaking, which turned out to be far more gentle and less frantic than the first time, I got quietly up from the large bed, picked up my clothes, and moved into the living room. I had left Maude Goodwater asleep, her mouth slightly open, her breathing deep and regular.
I put on my clothes, found the Scotch, poured myself a drink, and stood by the big glass windows looking out at the dark ocean. The tide seemed to be coming in and the big waves rolled over and slapped themselves down on the sand and then hissed as they slid back into the sea. I liked the sound that the sea made and I wondered why I had never lived beside it in the past. I considered the invitation that I had to live beside it. It was really more of a proposition than an invitation and it was the second one that I had received within a week. I looked at my watch and saw that it was one-fifteen. That meant it was four-fifteen in New York and I wondered if Mary Frances Ogletree, the gambler-doctor, was sleeping as deeply as Maude Goodwater was.
I thought about my two invitations to share bed and board and decided that it was the times and not my winning ways that had prompted them. The times were indeed changing and I suppose I was changing along with them, but not quite quickly enough. The problem was that although I would indeed like to move in with Maude Goodwater and share her Malibu beach, I would also like to move in with Dr. Mary Frances Ogletree and let her teach me how to play no-lose five-card stud.
Both invitations had been, as far as I could tell, sincere and well-meaning and prompted by good intentions, which, as everyone knows, pave the way to hell. And no doubt each woman thought that I would be nice to have around the house, probably not much more bother than a well-mannered cat. My back would be nice and warm against their feet at night and during the day I could provide a giggle or two and once or twice or perhaps three times a year I could go out and do something clever to get back something that had been stolen and thus earn a whole bunch of money that would enable me to come up with my half of the rent and the grocery bill.
It would be a very adult arrangement, but spiced with a bit of wickedness because of my occasional consorting with thieves, and there would probably be nothing but jolly times until the day came, as I know it must come, when my nerve went.
It may not be this year, or next year, or even the year after that, but one of these nights when I’m all dressed up in my Southwick suit, my pebble-grained loafers, my regimental striped tie, and my airline flight bag stuffed with a couple of hundred thousand dollars or so, I’ll be walking down a black alley toward its center where the dark danger lies and I’ll stop, and stare, and turn around, and go back toward where the lights are. After that I will no longer be what I am now, which is a go-between. I will not be less than I am now, I will simply be something else. I’m not sure what. Older, I suspect.
And so because of this and, although I protested it, a certain amount of pride, I knew that I would not move in and play house with either woman. I was flattered, but not flattered so much that I could pretend that it wouldn’t end badly. I didn’t even want to think about how it might end because I had gone through all that once before and once should be enough for any sensible man.
So I stopped thinking about that and started thinking about what I would have to do at three o’clock that morning, which is when I would start earning my money. I was thinking very hard about it and I didn’t hear her until she said, “What time is it?”
I looked at my watch. “Two o’clock.”
“Have you been up long?”
“No. Not long.”
“What’re you thinking about?”
“About what I’m going to do.”
“You mean about us?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too, but right now I’m thinking about what I’m going to have to do at three o’clock.”
“Are you scared?”
“A little.”
“Are you always scared?”
“Yes.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“No.”
“I’d be scared,” she said, “having to go out and do what you do without even knowing who’s going to be out there waiting for you.”