“No, thanks. No wine.”
“Oh, have a glass. It’s cheap but quite good. It comes from California, I think. It’s port.”
“A small glass, then, just to be congenial.”
He took off his coat and cleared a chair and sat down. After removing her own coat, Maggie disappeared for several seconds into a closet-like kitchen, returning with two glasses which she filled from the bottle on the bedside table. Leaving one glass on the table, she carried the other across to him.
“See if you don’t think that’s quite good to be so cheap,” she said. “It costs less than a dollar a bottle if you buy it by the case. Buddy bought a case and left it. Most of it’s still in the kitchen.”
“That was generous of Buddy, I’m sure. Does he come here often to help you drink it?”
“He would if I’d let him, but I won’t. I’ve given him up. He came last night and wanted in, but I wouldn’t open the door. After making quite a fuss about it, he went away. Go on and try the wine. Don’t you think you’ll like it?”
The wine was bad, but he said that it was good, and she was exorbitantly pleased. Returning to the bed, she sat down and drank a little from her own glass, then began to remove her shoes and stockings.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Getting barefooted,” she said. “Do you mind?”
“Do you always go barefooted in your apartment?”
“I usually go bare entirely, feet and all, but I thought you might object to that on such short acquaintance.”
“I see. You go bare entirely only with friends.”
She looked at him gravely, stretching her legs and flexing her toes. “Are you making fun of me? I think you are.”
“Not at all. I’m only trying to understand you. You must realize that your attitudes are a bit confusing at first.”
“Do you think so? I don’t see why,” she countered.
“Because they are different from those generally encountered in young ladies,” he told her.
“Well, I don’t know much about young ladies, and I don’t particularly pretend to be one. Anyhow, I’m not so young, either, when you come to that. I told you I’m twenty-eight.”
“I’m beginning to suspect that you may be infinitely older than that.”
“Oh?” She cocked her head, peering at him. “That’s supposed to mean something special, I think, but I don’t know what.”
“I mean you have a kind of ageless quality.”
“Is that bad?”
“On the contrary, it’s intriguing.”
“I suspect it’s a result of the way I grew up. Some things I never learned at all. Other things I was forced to learn almost from the beginning.”
“A remarkable combination of ignorance and incredible shrewdness.”
“I don’t think you should criticize me for being ignorant. It isn’t fair.” Her eyes clouded with annoyance.
“Excuse me. I didn’t mean it critically.”
“Oh, well, it’s true. I admit it. I don’t suppose someone like you would particularly care to become the friend of someone like me.”
“It would definitely have some attractive features.”
“What? Oh, yes. What we were just talking about.”
She began to laugh softly, the wicked little sound he remembered from before, her eyes shining at him over the rim of the glass which she had raised to her lips.
“Does it seem so ludicrous?” he asked.
“No, no. I was only thinking about last Saturday morning.”
“What about it? If it’s so amusing, I’d like to know.”
“Well, I was lying on the floor watching you on television, and I had just got out of bed and wasn’t wearing anything, and I suddenly thought how funny it would be if you could see me as clearly as I could see you.”
“It would have been distracting, to say the least.”
“That’s what I thought, and I kept wishing and wishing you could.”
“Next Saturday, I’ll look harder.”
“All right. If you care to wait.”
He finished his cheap, bad wine and set the empty glass on the floor beside his chair, where it looked natural in relation to the general litter.
Getting up, he walked over to the bed and sat down beside her. She immediately twisted around from the hips and put up her mouth to be kissed. After the kiss, which transcended the scent and flavor of the port, she stood up and elevated him quickly and deftly, with the hiss of a zipper and a whisper of cloth, to the status of friend. She was slim and taut and full of tricks, and the most remarkable thing of all was that there was never the slightest sense, before or during or after, of the familiar stale redundancy.
In the abatement of excitement, under his eyes and hands, she seemed to preen and project herself, not so much in brazenness as in childish pleasure in her body and complete assurance of its ability to sustain its charm even in the dulled and difficult aftermath of passion. It was a mute and rather arrogant expression of braggadocio, defying him to deny what was plainly true and inviting him to enjoy what was openly in evidence. With the tips of her fingers, in self-love, she traced the lines of her small alert breasts, her nipped waist, her lean and talented hips and flanks.
“Did I please you?” she said.
“Yes. Very much.”
“Have you ever known anyone half so good?”
“No, no. Not half.”
He kissed her throat, drawing his lips downward across silken skin.
It was surely an illusion induced by the character of subsequent events, and actually applied much later to the present instance, that there was all the while in the room an elusive and caustic scent of sulphur.
11
Buddy walked upstairs to Maggie’s efficiency apartment, so-called, and knocked on the door. He had not seen her now for quite a long time, although he had tried, and he had been feeling, as a consequence, extremely depressed.
As always during such dark episodes, nothing he saw or touched or did was securely related to reality. He moved with a gaseous sensation of lightness, and he had difficulty, at times, in focusing his eyes properly. His humor was ugly. His potential was dangerous.
He was not anticipating a warm welcome. On the contrary, he was expecting curses and threats, and this expectation was based soundly on something that had happened more than a week ago, and what had happened was a fight, a real Donnybrook, between him and old Cannon. The fight had been Buddy’s fault, of course, although he had not actually planned it, and had known immediately after it was over that it was a bad mistake.
Motivated by his hatred for the man who was stealing his girl, he had merely waited for Brad at a place along the route the latter usually took home from the campus, and he had originally intended no more than to stand and hate and wish his adversary the worst of luck, a kind of irrational catharsis, but then at the last moment, in compulsive violence, he had stepped onto the sidewalk and blocked the way with glowering belligerence. Brad had stopped and taken a half-step backward, not in fear, for he was no physical coward, but in surprise. He had never seen Buddy and did not know him, but he had instantly a conviction of his identity.
“I want to talk to you, ” Buddy said.
“Yes?” Brad said.
“You don’t know me, do you?”
“We’ve never met, but I think you may be Buddy Jensen.”
“I suppose Maggie’s told you about me.”
“You mean Miss McCall? She’s mentioned you, I believe, but we really haven’t discussed you at length. Miss McCall and I are only casually acquainted, you know.”
“Like hell you are!”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that you’re a hell of a lot more than casual acquaintances, that’s what I mean, and I’m warning you to let her alone if you don’t want trouble.”