"I don't know," she said truthfully, not understanding.
"Sure you do," he said. "All you old, hungry dames do. And if you don't know how, I'll teach you. But that comes later. Let's get with it. Off with the uniform, doll."
It was more of a cot than a bed, the thin mattress lumpy, sheet torn and blotched. He would not let her turn off the light. So she saw him, saw herself, could only block out what was happening by closing her eyes. But that was not enough.
He smelled of sweat and the awful, musky scent he was wearing. And he was so hairy, so hairy. He wore a singlet of black wire wool that covered chest, shoulders, arms, back, legs. His groin was a tangle. But his buttocks were satiny. "Oh," she had cried out. "Oh, oh, oh."
"Good, huh?" he said, grunting with his effort. "You like this… and this… and this? Oh God!"
Moaning, just as Maddie Kurnitz had advised. And Remedial I Moaning. Zoe Kohler did as she had been told. Going through the motions. Threshing about. Digging nails into his meaty shoulders. Pulling his hair.
"So good!" she kept crying. "So good!" Wondering if she had remembered to turn off the gas range before she left her apartment.
Then, as he kept pumping, and she heaved up to meet him, she recalled her ex-husband Kenneth and his fury at her mechanical response.
"You're just not there!" he had complained.
Finally, finally, the hairy thing lying atop her and punishing her with its weight, finished with a sob, and almost immediately rolled away.
He lighted the toke again, a roach now that he impaled on a thin wire.
"That was something," he said. "Wasn't that something?"
"The best I've ever had," she recited.
"You made it?"
"Of course," she lied. "Twice."
"What else?" he said, smiling complacently. "Haven't had any complaints yet."
"I've got to go," she said, sitting up.
"Oh no," he said, pushing her back down. "Not yet. We've got some unfinished business."
Something in his tone frightened her. Not menace; he was not threatening her. It was the brute confidence.
Kenneth had suggested it once, but she had refused. Now she could not refuse. He clamped her head between his strong hands and guided her mouth.
"Now you're getting it," he instructed her. "Up. Down. That's it. Around. Right there. The tongue. It's all in knowing how, doll. Take it easy with the teeth."
Later, on her way home in a cab, she had realized that she didn't even know his name and he didn't know hers. That was some comfort.
"More wine?" she asked Ernest Mittle. "Your glass is empty."
"Sure," he said, smiling. "Thank you. We might as well finish the bottle. I'm really enjoying this."
She rose, staggered just briefly, giddy from the memory, not the wine. She brought more ice cubes from the kitchen.
They sat at their ease. Remarkably alike. Mirror images. With their watery coloring, pinched frames, their soft, wistful vulnerability, they could have been brother and sister.
"This is better than standing on line to see a movie," he said. "It was probably no good anyway."
"Or going to some crowded party," she said. "Everyone getting drunk as fast as they can-like at Maddie's."
"I suppose you go out a lot?"
"I really do prefer a quiet evening at home," she said. "Like this."
"Oh yes," he agreed eagerly. "One gets tired of running around. I know I do."
They stared at each other, blank-eyed liars. He broke first.
"Actually," he said in a very low voice, "I don't go out all that much. Very rarely, in fact."
"To tell you the truth," she said, not looking at him, "I don't either. I'm alone most of the time."
He looked up, intent. He hunched forward.
"That's why I enjoy seeing you, Zoe," he said. "I can talk to you. When I do go to a party or bar, everyone seems to shout. People don't talk to each other anymore. I mean about important things."
"That's very true," she said. "Everyone seems to shout. And no one has good manners either. No common courtesy."
"Yes!" he said excitedly. "Right! Exactly the way I feel. If you try to be gentle, everyone thinks you're dumb. It's all push, rush, shove, walk over anyone who gets in your way. I, for one, think it's disgusting."
She looked at him with admiration.
"Yes," she said, "I feel the same way. I may be old-fashioned but-"
"No, no!" he protested.
"But I'd rather sit home by myself," she went on, "with a good book or something tasteful on educational TV-I'd rather do that than get caught up in the rat race."
"I couldn't agree more," he said warmly. "Except…"
"Except what?" she asked.
"Well, look, you and I work in the most frantic city in the world. And I wonder-I've been thinking a lot about this lately- that in spite of the way I feel, if it isn't getting to me. I mean, the noise, the anger, the frustration, the dirt, the violence. Zoe, they've got to be having some effect."
"I suppose," she said slowly.
"What I mean," he said desperately, "is that sometimes I feel I can't cope, that I'm a victim of things I can't control. It's all changing so fast. Nothing is the same. But what's the answer? To drop out and go live in the wilderness? Who can afford that? Or to try to change things? I don't believe an individual can do anything. It's just-just forces."
He drew a deep breath, drained off his wine. He laughed shakily.
"I'm probably boring you," he said. "I'm sorry."
"You're not boring me, Ernest."
"Ernie."
"You're not boring me, Ernie. What you said is very interesting. You really think we can be influenced by our environment? Even if we recognize how awful it is and try to-to rebel against it?"
"Oh yes," he said. "Definitely. Did you take any psychology courses?"
"Two years."
"Well, then you know you can put rats in a stress situation- loud noise, overcrowding, bad food, flashing lights, and so forth-and drive them right up the wall. All right, admittedly human beings have more intelligence than rats. We have the ability to know when we are in a stress situation, and can make a conscious effort to endure it, or escape it. But I still say that what is going on about us today, in the modern world, is probably affecting us in ways we're not even aware of."
"Physically, you mean? Affecting us physically?"
"That, of course. Polluted air, radiation, bad water, junk food. But what's worse is what's happening to us, the kind of people we are. We're changing, Zoe. I know we are."
"How are we changing?"
"Getting harder, less gentle. Our attention span is shortening. We can't concentrate. Sex has lost its significance. Love is a joke. Violence is a way of life. No respect for the law. Crime does pay. Religion is just another cult. And so forth and so on. Oh God, I must sound like a prophet of doom!"
She went back to what fascinated her most.
"And feeling this way," she said, "knowing all this, you still feel that you are being changed?"
He nodded miserably.
"The other night," he said, "I was eating my dinner in front of the TV set. Franks and beans. With a can of beer. I was watching the evening news. They had films from the refugee camps in Thailand. The Cambodians.
"I sat there eating and drinking, and saw kids, babies, with pipe-stem arms and legs, and swollen bellies, flies on their eyes. I sat there eating my franks and beans, drinking my beer, and watched people dying. And after a while I discovered I was crying."
"I know," she said sympathetically. "It was terrible."
"No, no," he said in anguish. "That wasn't why I was crying- because it was so terrible. I was crying because I wasn't feeling anything. I was watching those pictures, and I knew they were true, and those people really were dying, and I didn't feel a thing. I just ate my franks and beans, drank my beer, and watched a TV show. But I didn't feel anything, Zoe. I swear, I didn't feel anything. That's what I mean about this world changing us in ways we don't want to be changed."