They walked down Mott Street with her hand very much
aware of the warmth of his body, even through the overcoat.
"There is a legend that young white women should not
come here alone," Sage said. "That they will be snatched by
white slavers."
He did not sense that she was teasing him. "You'll be all right," he said. When she looked into his face, he averted his eyes. "They say the best food is in little places in the alleys," Sage said. "That the places on Mott Street are for tourists. The trouble is that they speak only Chinese in the little places."
"I speak Chinese," he said, and while she was still wondering whether or not he was trying to pull her leg, he led her into one of the alleys. Fifty feet down it, he stopped in front of a glass-covered sign and started to read it.
He's really very clever. If I didn't know better I'd almost believe he knew what he was looking at.
"See anything you think I'd like?" she asked, innocently.
"No," he said. "This is a Szechuan restaurant. Most Szechuan food is hotter than hell."
An old Chinese woman scampered toward them.
McCoy spoke to her. In Chinese. Sage looked at him in astonishment. But there was no question he was really speaking Chinese, because, chattering back at McCoy, the old woman reversed direction and led them farther down the street.
"Her nephew," McCoy explained, "runs a Cantonese restaurant. You'll like that better, I think."
The restaurant was on the fourth floor of an old building. There were no other white people inside, and the initial response to the two of them, Sage thought, was resentment, even hostility.
But then McCoy spoke to the man who walked up to them, and smiles appeared. They were bowed to a table, tea was produced, and a moment later an egg roll rich with shrimp.
"This is to give us an appetite," McCoy said. "Hell, I can make a meal of egg rolls." Then he heard what he had said. "Sorry," he said. "You have to remember, I'm a Marine. We get in the habit, without being around women, of talking a little rough."
"Hell," Sage said. "I don't give a damn. If it makes you feel any better, cuss as much as you goddamn well please."
He looked at her without comprehension, then he smiled. When he smiled like that, he looked like a little boy.
Their knees touched under the table. He withdrew his as if the contact had burned. With a mind of its own, seemingly, Sage's foot searched for his. When they touched, he withdrew again. She finally managed to pin his ankle against the table leg.
Now they didn't seem to be able to look at each other.
There was a steady stream of food. Very small portions.
"I told him to bring us one of everything," he said. "If you don't like something, give it to me." "What does that OC mean on your collar?" "They call it the oxes," he said. "I suppose it stands for officer candidate."
"You're going to be an officer?"
He nodded, wondering if that would surprise her, and then hoping it might impress her a little. "When?"
"End of the month," he said. "Then what?"
"What do you mean, 'then what'?" "Where will you be stationed?" "I don't know," he said.
"I remember. It's all the Corps, and therefore it doesn't make any difference, right?" "Something like that."
We are both pretending, Sage thought. He is pretending that I am not playing anklesy with him, and I am pretending that I am not doing it.
"I can't eat another bite," she said, after a while. "I don't even know what I've eaten," McCoy said. "To hell with turkey anyway," Sage said. "This is what I'm going to do from now on on Thanksgiving."
For some reason, when they got to the street, Sage felt a little dizzy.
"This time a cab," she said.
"Where are we going?"
"West Third Street," she said.
"What's there?"
"Another Chinese restaurant I heard about, what else?"
She motioned him into her apartment and then closed the door and locked it.
He roamed the apartment, and when he came back, she was still leaning on the door.
"I like your apartment," he said.
"I'm glad," she said. "My father calls it my hovel."
"I was afraid you were going to turn out rich, like Pick."
"Would that have bothered you?"
"Yes," he said, simply.
They looked at each other, their eyes locking for a long moment.
"I don't know what the hell I'm doing," McCoy said. "All I know is that I don't want to fuck this up."
He's so upset that he didn't hear himself. Otherwise I'd have got an apology for the "fuck," and he would have blushed like a tomato.
"Neither do I," Sage said. "I don't expect you to believe this under the circumstances, but neither do I."
"I think maybe I had better go."
She pushed herself off the door and walked so close to him that she could smell the wet wool odor of his overcoat.
"There's a time and a place for everything," she said. "And this is the time and place where I think you should kiss me. If that goes the way I think it will, then I think you should pick me up and carry me into the bedroom."
"Pick you up?" he asked, incredulously.
"I could crawl, I suppose," she said.
He laughed, and scooped her up, and carried her into the bedroom. He lowered her onto the bed and then stood up.
He still hasn't kissed me. All we've done is play anklesy. And the way he's standing there with that dumb look on his face, nothing is going to happen.
Very deliberately, she reached for the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head. He stared at her in marvel. She reached behind her back and unhooked her brassiere, so that he could look at her, naked to the waist.
"Now you," she said, very softly.
She looked at him then as he ripped the uniform off.
He's good at that. Very fast. He's probably had a lot of experience taking his clothes off in a hurry in situations like this.
And then he was naked.
"You're the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," he said.
"So are you," Sage said.
As McCoy came to the bed and put his arms around her and with a great deal more tenderness than she expected held her tight against him, Sage thought, I wonder if it's going to hurt as much as they say it hurts, and if there will be a lot of blood, and if that will embarrass him.
(Four)
Pick was sitting in his underwear having breakfast in the sitting room of Penthouse C when McCoy returned. "Been out spreading pollen, have you?" Pick said. McCoy didn't reply.
"I wondered what the hell had happened to you," Pickering said. "I took a chance and ordered breakfast for both of us."
"I'm not hungry," McCoy said.
But he sat down for a cup of coffee and wound up eating a breakfast steak and a couple of eggs and the half dozen remaining rolls.
"I thought you might take just a little bite," Pickering said, "for restorative purposes." "Fuck you," McCoy said.
"Then you didn't get any," Pickering said. "With your well-known incredible good luck, you fell into the clutches of one of our famous cockteasers."
"I got a goddamned cherry," McCoy said. "I didn't know there were any left," Pickering said without thinking, before realizing that McCoy wasn't boasting; that quite to the contrary, he was ashamed. "Who was she?" he asked.
"There were two poor people in here yesterday," McCoy said. "I found the other one."
"What has being poor got to do with getting laid?" Pickering asked. "Just looking around, I get the idea that poor people spend a lot of time screwing."
"She's a nice girl, Pick," McCoy said. "And I copped her cherry."
"Death," Pickering said, mocking the sonorous tones of the announcer in the March of Time newsreels, "and losing cherries comes inexorably in due time to all men. And virgins." "Screw you," McCoy said, but he was smiling. "Which one was it?" Pickering asked. McCoy didn't want to tell Pickering her name. "We're going to have lunch," he said. "I will, of course, vacate the premises," Pickering said. "Nothing like that, goddamn it," McCoy said. "She has to work this morning. She said she would meet me for a sandwich. Someplace called the Grand Central Oyster Bar. You know where it is?"