That night they had made love by candle-light.
No, she wouldn’t start that again. The bottles would go and the beer cans would go, but the stains would remain in the rug forever. He closed his eyes for a second and pictured her kneeling on the floor and methodically rubbing dirt into the rug for atmosphere.
“It’s about time.”
Then he saw her. She was lying on the bed as usual but in a slightly different pose this time. Her shoes and socks were off, tossed somewhere among the debris of the party. She was still wearing her sloppy paint-spattered dungarees that would rot before they wore out, but her sweater and bra were off.
Her breasts were bare. She was lying flat on her back, not even using a pillow, and her breasts jutted upward proudly. Her skin was milky white and the contrast with the dungarees and with the dark wine-colored blanket was striking. Her breasts would have been magnificent except that they were hers and that most things that were hers seemed phony and empty.
It was funny. When those breasts were encased in a sweater, a person would guess that they were the most necessarily phony thing about her. They looked too good to be quite true. But they were all real, all hers, all firm and solid flesh. They were the only real thing about her.
“Where did you go?”
“Out for a walk. I couldn’t take the party any more.”
“Oh? I thought it was a good party. Everyone else seemed to like it.”
He didn’t answer.
“Everybody said you were good tonight, too.” She remained motionless on the bed, only her lips moving and her breasts rising and falling as she breathed.
“I got kind of stoned.”
“You didn’t go out alone, did you?”
“No.”
“Who were you with? That little square from the coffee house?”
“She’s not a square, if you mean Jan.”
“So she’s not a square. That who it was?”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
He felt himself getting angry, irritated at the way she talked and the way she was completely oblivious to the disorder of the room.
“Did you go to bed with her?”
He hadn’t expected that. But he should have known that she would ask, known it despite the fact that he had never made a half-serious pass at another girl since they’d started living together.
“No,” he said, finally.
“Too bad.”
She sat up on the bed and stared at him, opening her eyes very wide. Her eyes were large to begin with and larger with the eye-shadow, and now with her eyes wide open and her eyebrows raised she looked almost like a caricature of herself.
“But you wanted to, didn’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Of course you did. I knew that much from the bit you pulled at the Renascence. You’re not too subtle, Mike.”
“I’m not?”
“No. No, subtlety isn’t one of your strong points, Michael Hawkins. Come over here, will you?”
He was sitting in a chair across from her and he didn’t want to move at all, and he especially didn’t want to go to her.
“What for?”
She shook her head in exasperation. “God, you know what for. What’s the matter with me, Mike? Aren’t I any good? I try to be, you know. Aren’t I good in bed any more?”
“Yes,” he said, thinking. You’re good, all right. Like an actress, with every movement and every moan polished and rehearsed and absolutely meaningless. You’re marvelous. You’d make one hell of a whore.
“I know I am. Half the guys here tonight wanted to make me, you know. So why do I have to beg you?”
He stood up, forcing a smile. “Let’s fix up the pad a little,” he suggested. “It’s pretty messy.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“It’s terrible, Sandy. Let’s at least get rid of the beer cans.” He stooped over and started to pick up cans from the floor.
“That can wait. There’s something else I’d rather do just now.”
Her voice was husky, and he wondered whether she actually wanted him or whether the huskiness was just another part of the act, another gesture.
“Let’s clean up first.”
“To hell with it.”
“Come on.”
“Not now,” she said. “That can wait.”
“Dammit, it can’t wait! I’m sick of it, Sandy. I’m sick of the sloppiness all the time and I’m sick of the damned parties and the goddamned beer cans all over the floor!”
She jumped to her feet and grabbed him by the shoulder, knocking the beer cans from his hands. “Damn you,” she shouted, “I like it this way! And it’s my apartment and I pay the rent and you can just leave the goddamned cans on the floor and—”
She broke off suddenly. He wasn’t angry because for once the mask had slipped and she had said what she meant without stopping to think how it would sound. He turned from her and kicked a can, watching it skitter across the floor, bouncing off a wine bottle and rolling along the rug.
His eyes followed the can until it stopped rolling. Then he turned to her, seeing how ridiculous she looked in her dirty dungarees with her breasts and feet bare. He looked at her breasts without feeling anything, seeing her body only as a body to be serviced.
“All right,” he said levelly. “What do you want? What are you paying for?”
“Damn you. Oh, God damn you!”
“Tell me.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to because he didn’t feel anything, not even anger.
“You son-of-a-bitch.”
“It’s your money. What do you want?”
“What do you want?”
Silence.
“What do you want, Laura? Tell me.”
It was coming. They were naked together on the bed and the room was in darkness except for a single dim lamp that cast their shadows against the wall. Their bodies were almost touching, but she knew that the inch or so that separated them was an illusion. They were actually much farther apart.
And the break-up was coming. It would be more upsetting than usual because Peggy was small and weak and strangely vulnerable, and while she no longer loved her she did not want to hurt her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what I want.”
“But you don’t want me.”
Silence.
“You don’t, do you? You don’t have to say it. I know you don’t and it’s a hell of a thing to know. I still want you, Laura. I want you and you don’t want me and I know you don’t. And it’s a hell of a thing.”
“I—”
“Don’t. I saw it coming, Laura. From the minute she walked into that goddamned bar. And when you shouted at me for swearing.”
“I didn’t mean to shout.”
“You didn’t exactly shout. But it doesn’t matter a hell of a lot. It’s over now, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She was both glad and sorry when the word left her lips. There was a necessary finality about it, but that finality was so harsh, so cruel.
Peggy’s eyes closed. She was tense and knotted inside but her facial muscles were relaxed and she looked childlike in her nakedness.
“It’s funny,” she said. “She wants you, you know, and she’ll be here tomorrow. She’ll be here on this bed right where I am, and you’ll be with her, holding her and touching her. And I’ll be somewhere else.”
She opened her eyes suddenly and for a moment Laura thought she was going to cry. But she swallowed and went on talking.
“I’ll leave in the morning. That’s what you want, isn’t it? No, don’t answer. I know it is but I don’t want to hear you say it. She’s lovely, you know. I don’t think she’s been with a girl yet, do you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Probably not. How long do you think you’ll last?”
“God. I don’t know.”