She pushed in the dashboard lighter, then rummaged in her purse for a cigarette.
“Do you think she’s pretty?”
“Who?”
“Who,” she said, waiting.
“I think she looks like you.”
She stopped the lighter in midair, then put the red coiled tip to the cigarette.
“You do?”
“Maybe they were all you.”
She went quiet again, smoking. “That’s nice,” she said softly. “To say that.” She turned from the window. “Then why have them.”
“I don’t know,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “Did you?”
“What, have others?” She turned up her lips slightly. “You mean since he did?” She shook her head. “Only before. You want to know how many?”
“I didn’t mean-”
“I don’t even remember. That life, it made you that way. You never knew when you’d have to leave. Go somewhere else. So you took what you could. I was no different. But not after.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t brought up that way. When you’re married- You know I can cook? Sew. All those things. A good wife, for somebody. But not him.”
They entered the house through the garage, turning off the driveway lights behind them.
“Do you want a swim?” she said, unclasping her pearls as they walked. “It’s good after a party-for hangovers.”
“You go ahead.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t watch.”
“Well, then good night. Thank you for the party. My evening with the stars.”
She reached up and kissed his cheek, then stopped, her face as close as it had been in the theater, but this time looking at him, her eyes moving, as if she were reading him, deciphering. He stood still, feeling her breath again, then the graze of her hand behind his neck drawing him closer to kiss him on the mouth. He opened his, almost dizzy with surprise and the taste of her. They broke, a gasp for air, then kissed again, her mouth open to his, both of them eager.
“What are you doing?” he said, moving down to her neck, smelling perfume and warm skin.
She pulled back. “I wanted to know what it would be like.”
He looked at her, their faces still close. “I’m not him.”
She smiled, moving her hand to his forehead, gently brushing the hair away.
“No. Someone else.”
He felt her hand, fingertips barely touching his skin but drawing him back, a kind of permission, then lowered his head to hers again, no longer thinking, all instinct. Her mouth was moist, all of her warm, rubbing against him so that his blood rushed, excited. She started unbuttoning his shirt, her mouth still on his, then pulled away, both of them panting, holding each other. Are we going to do this, a look, not words, and she answered by taking his hand, leading him into the bedroom, the furniture just shadows outlined by the pool lights outside. She turned her back to him so he could undo her zipper, move the dress off her shoulders, letting it slide down, then hold her there, kissing the back of her neck, no longer groping, smooth, wanting to kiss every part of her, this shoulder, that one.
She arched her back, an involuntary intake of breath, then a small sound, dropping her head so that he could kiss more of her neck, giving it to him. When he reached around to her breasts, holding them underneath, moving his thumbs against her nipples, her body came up again, pushing back against him, and he felt her bare behind, the soft round cheeks, press against the erection in his pants. They stood that way for a minute, her nipples growing hard, his groin tight against her, until he thought he would burst from it and he turned her around, kissing her mouth, then her breasts, faster, tearing off his clothes, then laying her on the bed and falling over her, his mouth covering hers, his hand moving down between her legs, feeling her wet, beginning to move against his hand.
There was no waiting, no drawn-out stroking, everything that might come later. Only an urgency, mindless. She pulled him into her, one thrust, a second to feel her wrapped around him, the wonderful fullness, and then they were moving again, not a steady rhythm, but a heedless plunging, impossible to wait, both of them grunting. He saw her in the pool, opening her legs to the patch of hair, where he was now, then he didn’t see anything, could only hear her, next to his ear, breathing, then noises, little cries, as exciting as the slick feel of her pushing against him. When she came, a louder cry, broken, like a shuddering, he could feel her grip him inside and he wanted to shout, let something out before he exploded, and then the come shot out of him and he stopped, feeling the last jerks, his whole body emptying, then flooded with relief, inexplicable pleasure. He moved his elbow, falling on her, and it was only then that he felt the sweat, both of them shiny with it.
When he rolled away, she turned with him and they lay on their sides, heads touching, not saying anything, drained, then her body began to shake, not crying, a trembling.
“What?” he said quietly, touching her.
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just-to feel something again.” She put her hand on him.
He took her shoulder, drawing her closer and kissing her. “I’m sorry it was so fast.”
“No, don’t be sorry.”
“Next time we won’t have to hurry.”
She propped herself up, looking down at him.
“Already a next time. You’re so sure,” she said lazily.
“Now I know you.”
“You think that’s true? You sleep with someone and you know her? All those girls before-you knew them? Every one?”
“I didn’t want to know them.”
“Just go to bed. Very nice. And now that you’ve seduced me-”
“Me?”
She smiled, moving her hand down his chest. “You’re sweaty.”
He moved his hand up to her breast, running the back along it.
“Come on,” she said, getting off the bed.
“How can you move? Where?”
“Just come.”
She pulled his hand and he followed, his eyes trailing her white skin, feeling illicit walking naked through the dark house. He put his hand on the smooth flesh of her behind, cupping it, and she laughed, then sprang away, opening the patio door and running across the tiles to the pool, looking over her shoulder once at him before she plunged in. He ran after her, the front of him flapping in the warm night air, then jumped in, too, and swam after her underwater, his testicles floating beneath him, everything free. When he caught up to her, they both rose to the surface.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she said, shaking her hair. “I never want to wear clothes again.”
“All right,” he said, kissing her.
She laughed. “And you’d like that?”
She swam a little toward the shallow end so they could hold each other without having to keep afloat in deep water.
“You know, my father says you can only seduce someone who wants to be seduced. Otherwise it can’t work.”
“When did he say that?” Ben said, kissing her again.
“In a story. Die Verfuhrung.”
“ The Seduction. He wrote a love story?”
She giggled. “Well, it was about Germany. How the country wanted to be seduced by Hitler. But I think it’s the same with people. Like you,” she said, touching his face.
“What about you?”
He drew her against him as they kissed, not playing anymore, aroused again, drawing one leg up around her.
“Everyone thinks it should be easy in the water,” she said, “but it’s hard. Maybe Esther Williams can.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know her? Bathing Beauty? With Cugat? Daniel did some Second Unit work on it.” She stopped, looking away.
“We didn’t get everything overseas,” he said, trying to glide over it.
“Maybe it was like this for him,” she said, distracted. “With the others. All like me. So now I’m one of them.”
He let his leg drop, freeing her below, then turned her head with his fingers. “I’m not him.”
She glanced up and moved her shoulder. “And you don’t love me, either. So that’s the same anyway. But I know it. So nobody gets hurt.”