The hitting slowed and stopped; her teeth parted, let go.
She lay panting, watching him. “Garce!” he said. She tried to move the leg under his foot, but he bore down harder against it. He kept holding her wrist and covering her mouth. His palm felt as if she had bitten flesh out of it.
Having her under him, having her subdued, with her legs held apart, suddenly excited him. He thought of tearing off her coveralls and “raping” her. Hadn’t she said they should wait till Saturday night? And maybe it would stop all the cloth about King, and her hating him; stop the fighting—that was what they had been doing, fighting—and the Français hate-names.
She looked at him.
He let go of her wrist and took her coveralls where they were split at the shoulder. He tore them down across her chest and she began hitting him again and straining her legs and biting his palm.
He tore the coveralls away in stretching splitting pieces until her whole front was open, and then he felt her; felt her soft fluid breasts and her stomach’s smoothness, her mound with a few close-lying hairs on it, the moist lips below. Her hands hit his head and clutched at his hair; her teeth bit his palm. He kept feeling her with his other hand—breasts, stomach, mound, lips; stroking, rubbing, fingering, growing more excited—and then he opened his coveralls. Her leg wrenched out from under his foot and kicked. She rolled, trying to throw him off her, but he pressed her back down, held her thigh, and threw his leg over hers. He mounted squarely atop her, his feet on her ankles locking her legs bent outward around his knees. He ducked his loins and thrust himself at her; caught one of her hands and fingers of the other. “Stop,” he said, “stop,” and kept thrusting. She bucked and squirmed, bit deeper into his palm. He found himself partway inside her; pushed, and was all the way in. “Stop,” he said, “stop.” He moved his length slowly; let go of her hands and found her breasts beneath him. He caressed their softness, the stiffening nipples. She bit his hand and squirmed. “Stop,” he said, “stop it, Lilac.” He moved himself slowly in her, then faster and harder.
He got up onto his knees and looked at her. She lay with one arm over her eyes and the other thrown back, her breasts rising and falling.
He stood up and found one of his blankets, shook it out and spread it over her up to her arms. “Are you all right?” he asked, crouching beside her.
She didn’t say anything.
He found his flashlight and looked at his palm. Blood was running from an oval of bright wounds. “Christ and Wei,” he said. He poured water over it, washed it with soap, and dried it. He looked for the first-aid kit and couldn’t find it. “Did you take the first-aid kit?” he asked.
She didn’t say anything.
Holding his hand up, he found her kit on the ground and opened it and got out the first-aid kit. He sat on a stone and put the kit in his lap and the flashlight on another stone alongside.
“Animal,” she said.
“I don’t bite,” he said. “And I also don’t try to kill. Christ and Wei, you thought the gun was working.” He sprayed healer on his palm; a thin coat and then a thicker one.
“Cochon,” she said.
“Oh come on,” he said, “don’t start that again.”
He unwrapped a bandage and heard her getting up, heard her coveralls rustling as she took them off. She came over nude and took the flashlight and went to her kit; took out soap, a towel, and coveralls, and went to the back of the place, where he had piled stones between the spurs, making steps leading out toward the stream.
He put the bandage on in the dark and then found her flashlight on the ground near her bike. He put the bike with his, gathered blankets and made the two usual sleeping places, put her kit by hers, and picked up the gun and the pieces of her coveralls. He put the gun in his kit.
The moon slid over one of the spurs behind leaves that were black and motionless.
She didn’t come back and he began to worry that she had gone away on foot.
Finally, though, she came. She put the soap and towel into her kit and switched off the flashlight and got between her blankets.
“I got excited having you under me that way,” he said. “I’ve always wanted you, and these last few weeks have been just about unbearable. You know I love you, don’t you?”
“I’m going alone,” she said.
“When we get to Majorca,” he said, “if we get there, you can do what you want; but until we get there we’re staying together. That’s it, Lilac.”
She didn’t say anything.
He woke hearing strange sounds, squeals and pained whimpers. He sat up and shone the light on her; her hand was over her mouth, and tears were running down her temple from her closed eyes.
He hurried to her and crouched beside her, touching her head. “Oh Lilac, don’t,” he said. “Don’t cry, Lilac, please don’t.” She was doing it, he thought, because he had hurt her, maybe internally.
She kept crying.
“Oh Lilac, I’m sorry!” he said. “I’m sorry, love! Oh Christ and Wei, I wish the gun had been working!”
She shook her head, holding her mouth.
“Isn’t that why you’re crying?” he said. “Because I hurt you? Then why? If you don’t want to go with me, you don’t really have to.”
She shook her head again and kept crying.
He didn’t know what to do. He stayed beside her, caressing her head and asking her why she was crying and telling her not to, and then he got his blankets, spread them alongside her, and lay down and turned her to him and held her. She kept crying, and he woke up and she was looking at him, lying on her side with her head propped on her hand. “It doesn’t make sense for us to go separately,” she said, “so we’ll stay together.”
He tried to recall what they had said before sleeping. As far as he could remember, nothing; she had been crying. “All right,” he said, confused.
“I feel awful about the gun,” she said. “How could I have done that? I was sure you had lied to King.”
“I feel awful about what I did,” he said.
“Don’t,” she said. “I don’t blame you. It was perfectly natural. How’s your hand?”
He took it out from under the blanket and flexed it; it hurt badly. “Not bad,” he said.
She took it in her hand and looked at the bandage. “Did you spray it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
She looked at him, still holding his hand. Her eyes were large and brown and morning-bright. “Did you really start for one of the islands and turn back?” she asked.
He nodded.
She smiled. “You’re tres fou,” she said.
“No I’m not,” he said.
“You are,” she said, and looked at his hand again. She took it to her lips and kissed his fingertips one by one.
4
THEY DIDN’T GET STARTED until mid-morning, and then they rode quickly for a long while to make up for their laxness. It was an odd day, hazy and heavy-aired, the sky greenish gray and the sun a white disc that could be looked at with fully opened eyes. It was a freak of climate control; Lilac remembered a similar day in Chi when she was twelve or thirteen. (“Is that where you were born?” “No, I was born in Mex.” “You were? I was too!”) There were no shadows, and bikes coming toward them seemed to ride above the ground like cars. Members glanced at the sky apprehensively, and coming nearer, nodded without smiling.
When they were sitting on grass, sharing a container of coke, Chip said, “We’d better go slowly from now on. There are liable to be scanners in the path and we want to be able to pick the right moment for passing them.”