“I did so want to do it in a bed,” she sighed. “But it’s all right this way. It’s all right anyway, just so we do it.”
“I think I’ve got a blanket in the trunk,” he said, surprised to find himself out of breath, as though he’d been running. “That’ll be better than the backseat, anyway.”
“Hurry,” she whispered again.
He hurried. He clambered out of the car, opened the trunk and found the blanket. It was pretty dirty, but one side of it was clean. He spread it out on the ground beside the car, turned around, and she was naked again.
“Slowpoke,” she said, grinning, and wriggled.
“You spend half your life without any clothes on,” he said.
Vince, too, had dressed in too much of a hurry to be wearing much. So there wasn’t much to take off. And then he was lying on the blanket beside her, and all at once he wasn’t worried about anything any more. He was enjoying the sight of this woman, enjoying in advance what they were going to be doing together. “Now, let’s see,” he said, grinning at her. “Where were we?”
“You know damn well where we were,” she said. “Come on.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I was warming you up.”
“I was all warmed,” she said quickly. “I’m all warm now. Come on!”
“No, no,” he said, and his hand stroked her breasts. “Gotta be warmer.”
“Oh, don’t go through all that again, Vince. Come on!”
“In a minute.”
He forced himself to wait. While he stroked her and kissed her and squeezed her and fondled her, while she clawed at him and shrieked at him and pulsated for him, he forced himself to wait just as long as he could. He wanted her, he wanted her so bad that if Bradley Jenkins had shown up again, this time he would have kept right on going.
He stopped waiting. Vince thought this was surely it, they were going to kill themselves this way, the human body wasn’t meant for this sort of punishment.
And then they were punching each other, screaming and snarling, kicking and biting, hurting one another and loving to hurt, loving to be hurt, and there they were, doing it again.
When it was over for the second time, Vince was exhausted. He just lay pillowed on her flat stomach and her lush breasts, with her warm breath in his ear and her hands, gentle now, caressing his back.
He dozed for a while, and woke up to hear her whispering, “You’re getting heavy, Vince.” Then he rolled off her, and they lay quietly side by side for a while. He fumbled for his clothes, found his cigarettes, lit one for her and one for himself, and they smoked quietly, resting, nude on the blanket among the trees.
“I’m glad you came along, Vince,” she said finally. “I’ve wanted to get away from that stupid town for I don’t know how long. But I never had the guts to do it before.”
Vince didn’t answer her. He was thinking about the fact that he had to bring the car back to the lake in only four more days. He wondered if he should tell Saralee about that, or if he should just go along with the gag, and quietly disappear four days from now.
It wasn’t that he was worried about how she’d make out in New York after he left. A girl like Saralee, he knew there wasn’t a thing to worry about. She’d make out fine in New York.
So, there really wasn’t any need to tell her about anything. If he told her he was going to be leaving in four days, she would either try to talk him into staying, or she’d start looking early for somebody else to pal around with. If she tried to talk him into staying, using that body of hers as the main argument, she just might succeed, and then Vince would be in dutch with his old man. And if she started looking for somebody else the minute she got to New York, she’d find somebody else right away, and Vince would be out in the cold.
So he didn’t tell her anything. Instead, he sat up and said, “I suppose we ought to get going.”
“I suppose so,” she said. She sat up and looked at him. “I don’t suppose you could do it again,” she said.
“Not without eight hours sleep, three pounds of steak, five raw eggs and a quart of milk,” he told her. “And even then, I might not be in top form. You’re an awful lot of woman, Saralee.”
She smiled, murmuring, “Aren’t I, though?” She threw her arms around him and kissed him. “There,” she said. “To remember me by until you’ve got that sleep and steak and everything.”
“Yeah,” he said. He had the feeling it was going to be a hectic four days in New York.
This time they put on all their clothes. Then they climbed into the car, Vince backed it to the highway, and they set off again for New York.
She slept most of the trip, and Vince was just as pleased. He’d heard before of people with one-track minds, but this girl had a one-track body as well. When she was awake, there was only one thing she seemed to think of. She didn’t need a man, she needed a platoon. She’d do fine in New York, Saralee would. She’d do great.
New York City at six in the morning of an already hot summer day doesn’t look very much like Paradise. It looks and feels more like the other place. The streets are cluttered with papers and taxicabs and sweating human beings. The buildings are soot-darkened, the sky is a glaring white, the air is heavy with fumes and soot and humidity and the smell of eight million people.
Nevertheless, Vince was glad to see the George Washington bridge recede behind him. He’d been driving all night, after some pretty exhausting calisthenics, and he was ready for those eight hours sleep he’d been talking about. He prodded Saralee awake and said, “We’re here. Now what?”
“Now,” she said, “you park the car somewhere and we go find a hotel room.”
Easier said than done, Vince thought. There was no place in New York to park a car, except the parking garages, where you had to pay. He told her so, and she said, “That’s okay. I’ve got the money, remember?”
So they parked the car. Saralee did all the talking to the attendant at the garage, paying for a week’s parking. “We won’t need a car in New York,” she explained to Vince, and he nodded, beginning to feel a little dirty for keeping silent about having to leave in four days.
Then they went to find a hotel. There was a convention in town, Vince learned at the first place they went to, and all the midtown hotels were full. The desk clerk suggested he try some of the hotels up around Broadway in the West Seventies. Vince thanked him, and they grabbed a cab, which Saralee paid for.
They found a hotel, finally, at Broadway and 72nd. Saralee had her wedding ring on, and they both had suitcases, and they were signing in for a week, so there was no trouble. Vince hesitated over the register, not knowing what name to put down, and then remembered a cat his Aunt Edith had once owned. So he put the cat’s name down. “Mr. and Mrs. James Blue.” James Blue was a pretty phony-sounding name, but the hell with it. The desk clerk didn’t say anything, and the bellhop took their bags just as though they really were Mister and Mrs. James Blue from Philadelphia.
Up in the room, Vince dragged out a quarter for the bellhop. As soon as the door closed behind the bellhop, Saralee cried, “A bed!”
Eight hours sleep,” Vince reminded her. “I’ve been driving all night.”
“Oh, don’t say things like that,” she squealed. “It gives me goose flesh.”
Vince blinked. “Say things like what?”
“That you’ve been driving all night. Wouldn’t that be great?”
“Great,” said Vince. He was beginning to suspect that Saralee Jenkins was nuts.
He managed to get undressed and crawl into the clean-sheeted double bed without anything worse from Saralee than dangerous looks. Then he said, “Wake me when I wake up,” and closed his eyes.