“Love is love, and you talk too much.” Studs grabbed her and kissed her again.
“Now stop that,” Penny protested.
“No!” He repeated the kiss.
“It won’t do you a bit of good,” she said, her voice quavering in spite of herself.
“Uh-huh.” This time his hand squeezed her breast to punctuate the kiss.
“I’m not going to marry you.”
“Of course not.” The hand was inside her dress now, fumbling with the strap of her bra.
“Not under any circumstances.”
The breast was free now, and Studs pressed his lips to its rosy tip.
“And that’s final!”
He pushed her back on the couch now, easing her skirt up over her trembling thighs.
“I absolutely will not marry you under any circumstances!”
Studs pulled down her panties, and Penny’s whole body tingled as his fingers dipped into the dew aroused by her passion. Penny’s confused mind managed to remind her that she’d decided not to have sex until after the baby was born. She remembered that she wanted to keep her body pure and unsullied while it was the harbinger of this precious new life. But her resolve was rationalized away with the realization that Studs was after all the father of her unborn child. It had been he who had planted the seed within her. So who had more right than he to make love to her? Certainly there was nothing immoral about that. And besides, it felt so damn good!
“Oh, Studs,” she moaned, giving herself up completely to sensation, shelving all the really valid reasons why she shouldn’t give in to him again.
“Come on in the bedroom,” he panted. “It’s more comfortable in there.”
As if hypnotized, Penny let him lead her to the bed. She writhed impatiently as he finished stripping off her clothes and then took off his own. Then he stretched out beside her and took her in his arms.
Penny’s body arched as she felt the heat of him pressed against her. Breasts rising and falling rapidly, her hands clenched on his back and her nails dug into his flesh. “Now! Hurry!” she moaned. And then Studs was over her, poised on his elbows, about to plunge the iron into the center of the fire consuming her body. But —
“Hoo-hoo!”
The sound came from the other room. Studs froze. Penny’s blue eyes opened wide with the realization that the train had been derailed before chugging into the tunnel of love.
“Hoo-hoo? Irving, you’re home?”
“Who is it?” Penny asked.
“Shh!” Studs hissed. “It’s my mother.”
“Your mother? At this time of night? What does she want?”
“I don’t know. Be quiet, will you? She’ll hear you.”
“So what?”
“So what? She’s a Jewish mother, that’s what.”
“Now you’re being chauvinistic.”
“Look, I haven’t got time to argue. She’ll be in here any minute. You’ve got to hide.”
“Oh, all right,” Penny agreed.
“Well, don’t just lie there. Go ahead, then! What are you waiting for?”
“I’m waiting for you to get off me so I can get up!”
“Oh! Sorry!” Studs eased over so that Penny could free herself.
“Where shall I hide?” she asked.
“Hoo-hoo ?”
“In the bathroom. Quick! She’s coming in here!”
Penny ran into the bathroom as Studs quickly threw her clothing under the bed. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, listening.
“Hoo-H— Oh, here you are, Irving. What are you doing here?”
“I’m trapping elephants. What else would I be doing in my own bed in my own bedroom at three o’clock in the morning?”
“You got heart burn?”
“No. Why?”
“Whenever you’re irritable, since you’re a little boy, it’s from the heartburn. So if you haven’t got heartburn, why should you be so irritable?”
“I’m not irritable!” Studs snapped.
“No? So then you could be a little glad to see me. I’m your mother, the only mother you got. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“You do? Then it must be that the Telephone Company isn’t working any more. More than a week now you haven’t called me. Or is it that maybe you broke your finger and you can’t dial?”
“My finger’s fine. I’ve been busy, Ma. I meant to call you, honest.”
“Meaning and doing is two different things. I could be lying there dead with my heart, all alone in my apartment, and you’d never know it. All right, so I gotta face the fact. You don’t care. But even if you don’t care, I’m a mother. I can’t help caring. Why doesn’t he call? I ask myself. Because he don’t care? Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe something terrible happened to him. Maybe he’s lying there all alone in his apartment, dead, and nobody knows. So I’m a mother. The least I could do is come down and bury my only son when he needs me.”
“Ma, I’m not dead. You could have waited until morning. You didn’t have to come down here in the middle of the night.”
“So when should I come? When are you home? All day and all night you’re running around killing yourself, doing God knows what with God knows who. I figure this is the only time I’m gonna catch you in, so I get up in the middle of the night and well I’m not, you know, and younger I’m not getting either—but I make the trip and I consider myself lucky you’re even here, and what kind of reception do I get? You’re glad to see me? Like the rabbi was glad to see the cossacks back in Pinsk-—-that’s how you’re glad!”
“Mama! Please don’t start crying now.”
“I should cry? For what? For a son who don’t know I’m alive? I wouldn’t shed a tear for you!” She began sobbing loudly.
“Please, Mama!”
“So all right. I’ll stop. But not for you. For me. My heart can’t take it. And I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of dropping dead here in this den where God knows what goes on, this place you took because Pelharn Parkway and your mother ain’t good enough for you any more. No, here I wouldn’t have a heart attack and drop dead if it kills me! So I’ll stop crying.”
“Good, Mama. There. That’s better.”
“So I’ll wash away the tears I shed for such a thankless son. That’s your bathroom in there?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what? Now your own mother isn’t good enough to use your bathroom?”
“No. Of course not. Only—”
“Then I’ll be right back.”
As the door to the bathroom opened Penny darted quickly into the stall shower and closed the frosted glass door behind her. There was the sound of water running in the sink. It stopped after a moment.
“Irving, where do you keep your towels?”
“On top of the hamper there, Ma.”
“Sloppy and all crumpled up like this you keep towels? That’s no way. Irving, you need somebody to look after you. Maybe you should get married.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been thinking along those lines, Ma.”
“Oh? You got a girl in mind?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a nice girl? A Jewish girl? A clean girl?”
“She’s so clean,” Studs answered, “that you can’t get her out of the shower.”
Penny had to throw her hand up to her mouth quickly to suppress a giggle at Studs’ remark. The gesture proved unfortunate. Her elbow tripped the hot water faucet and a stream of scalding water descended on her naked body. With a loud scream, she shot out of the shower stall and straight into Mrs. Levine’s mammoth bosom.
Mrs. Levine took one horrified look and did what any good Jewish mother would do under the circumstances. She fainted!
CHAPTER FIVE
“MA!” Studs shot into the bathroom. “What did you do to my mother?” he asked Penny accusingly.
“What did I do to your mother? You mean what did I do to myself! I’m scalded! Just look at my skin! I’ll never order live lobster again!”