"Oh."
"Would you like some more tea?"
"No. No, thanks.
She took the cup from me and went trailing out, flashing some more white skin.
I glanced around the room. Over the head of the four-poster was a pale electric quarter-moon, with a man-in-the-moon face, turned off.
She came back in the room, sat next to me.
"Do you smoke that stuff?" I said, gesturing to the other room.
"Muggles? No. I don't even drink. I was raised in a proper home; we never had that sort of thing around, and I never acquired an interest in it, let alone a taste."
"But you don't mind him doing it?"
"Alonzo doesn't drink."
"I meant smoke marijuana."
"No, I don't mind. Alonzo's no dopey, no viper, mind you; he just does that once in a while, to relax. When he paints, or before he goes out to… well, to look for a date."
"Does he… bring his dates here?"
"Sometimes. But he tells me first, if he's planning to. And I can stay in my room and study lines, if I'm in a play; or just read or sleep."
"It doesn't bother you, what's going on out there?"
"Why should it?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
"The motto around here," she explained, "is live your own life. Live, don't just exist."
"Most people these days find just existing tough enough."
She didn't have an answer for that.
"I'm glad to be in your bedroom." I said. "You're a lovely girl, and that's a lovely kimono, and you make a swell cup of tea. But I'm still not going to look for your brother anymore."
I thought that would make her mad; it didn't.
She said, "I know," a bit distantly.
"Then why did you bring me up here?"
Now she did get just a little bit mad; just a little. "Not to bribe you, if that's what you think. There's plenty of other detectives in town."
"That's right, and some of the larger agencies could track your brother nationwide, if you got the dough for it."
"I'm psychologically connected to my brother."
"What?"
"My psychiatrist says that most of my problems are connected to my being a twin. I feel incomplete because my brother is missing."
"You have a psychiatrist?"
"Yes."
"And he says you feel incomplete because your brother is missing?"
"No. I say that. He says most of my problems are connected to my being a twin."
"What problems?"
She shrugged. "He didn't say."
"Why do you go to him?"
"Alonzo suggested it."
"Why?"
"He thinks I'll improve as an actress if I get in touch with my primitive unconscious."
"This is Alonzo's theory, not the psychiatrist's?"
"That's right."
"How much does the psychiatrist cost?"
"Quite a bit."
"How much, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Five dollars an hour."
I sat there and burned. Five dollars an hour. I cut my twenty-buck-a-day rate to ten for her. because I feel sorry for the struggling young actress trying to make it in the big city, and end up shlepping around Hoovervilles and fucking North Clark Street flophouses for five days, and she's paying five dollars an hour to some Michigan Avenue witch doctor.
She said. "Why does that make you mad?"
"What?"
"That I go to a psychiatrist. Why does that make you mad?"
"I've just been looking into too many unshaven faces, lately, that's all."
"I don't understand."
"Men are selling apples on street comers and praying to pull in a buck a day. and you're pissing five bucks away for nonsense."
"That's cruel."
"I suppose. And it's your five bucks. You can do what you want with it."
She didn't say anything; she was looking at her hands, which were folded in her lap.
"You must make good money doing radio," I said.
"Not bad," she admitted. "And I can get money from home, if I need to."
We sat in silence for a while.
I said. "It really isn't my business what you do with your money. Guys selling apples on street comers isn't your fault… and your five bucks isn't going to solve the problem, so forget I said anything. Like I said, I seen too many unshaven faces while I was wandering around Hoovervilles, looking for your brother."
"You think my life's a bunch of hooey, don't you."
"I don't know. I don't go for Tower Town, that's all. All this free love you people talk about, it doesn't seem right somehow."
She smiled, teasingly. "You'd rather pay for it. is that it?"
I smiled back, against my will. "That's not what I meant."
She kissed me.
It was kind of a long kiss; and very sweet. Her lips were soft. Warm. Her lipstick was sticky.
"You taste better than a candy apple." I said.
"Have another bite." she said, and I kissed her, and my tongue slid in her mouth and it seemed to surprise her, but she liked it; she must've, because she slid hers in mine.
And that kimono slid off her shoulders and my hands were on her cool, pale flesh. Her body was soft as her lips, but muscular, too; almost a dancer's body. Her breasts weren't large- just nice handfuls; pretty handfuls with small, little-girl nipples, the areola not much bigger 'round than a piece of Lifesaver candy, with a nipple where the hole would be.
She began to undress me, kissing me while she did, and I helped, and soon we were under the covers in the four-poster. We lay kissing, petting, then as I was about to get on her, she said, "Wait."
"Do you want me to use something?" I asked. I had a Sheik in my billfold.
"No," she said, getting out of bed, going to her makeup table and switching off the lamp. She went out of the room and into the bathroom and came back with a towel, which she lay on the bed, positioning herself on it. then with a pixie smile reached a hand up and turned on the electric moon.
I tried to enter her gently, but it was difficult; she was small, tight.
"Am I hurting you?"
"No." she said. Kissing me. Smiling at me like a ghostly angel.
And I was in all the way.
It was only a few minutes, but it was a wonderful few minutes, and when she came, a moan came out of her that had pain and pleasure in it but transcended both; I came a moment later, withdrawing, spilling onto the towel she'd positioned herself on.
"No," she said, sadly, touching my face. "You should've stayed in me."
I eased off, looked at her; I was on my side. "I thought you wanted me to," I said, and motioned toward where the towel was.
She smiled enigmatically and said, "No. That's not what it was for."
She gathered the towel and got up from the bed: she didn't mean for me to see, but I did: the towel was bloodstained.
I leaned back, waiting for her to return. Oh, I thought, she's in her period
Then I realized something.
She came back, got in bed, got into my arms.
I looked at her; she still had that cryptic little smile.
"You were a virgin," I said.
"Who says?"
"I say. You were a virgin!"
"Does that matter?"
I pushed her away, gently; sat up.
"Of course it does," I said.
She sat up, too. "Why are you disturbed?"
"I would never have…"
"That's why I didn't tell you."
"But you can't be a virgin."
"I'm not."
"Don't play games."
"I'm not."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-three."
"And you're an actress living in Tower Town, sharing a studio with some fairy artist and seeing a psychiatrist and talking about free love and living not existing, and you were a virgin?"
"Maybe the right man finally came along."
"If you did this so I'd keep looking for your brother, all I've got to say is, it's maybe the one bribe nobody in Chicago ever thought of before."
"It wasn't a bribe."
"Do you- love me or something. Mary Ann?"
"I think that's maybe a little premature. What do you think?"
"I think I better find your brother."
She snuggled close to me. "Thanks. Nathan."
"I can't look into it again for a few weeks. I've got some other business to do- Retail Credit work and then I'm going to Florida on a matter."