Island, p.18
Island, page 18
That way, by inserting the offer of the drink, it was possible to pay the bill and leave for his office without her actually having faced up to a decision whether to go or not. It had been sort of agreed without being agreed. She just took his arm and went along. The night elevator man rode them up. Lights were still on in the hall, because the cleaning women were there.
Fran stepped out rather uncertainly. “Is this …?”
“This is the executive floor. Reception is a floor below.”
“Oh.”
He steered her down the hall to his office, noting that Miss Gorce’s wastebasket, in the little cubicle that Miss Gorce occupied, was empty. He switched on the light in Miss Gorce’s office and then went on into his own. His wastebasket was empty too, which meant that the cleaning women were already through there. He led Fran to the window to look out of the dark room at the city stretching to the south. It was spectacular. The Chrysler Building was off to the left, the Empire State Building straight ahead—they and a hundred others, all lit from within like glowing boxes. Only at night do the solid piled-up skyscrapers reveal themselves as shells.
“That’s the Chrysler Building there.”
“It’s so beautiful.”
“That’s Wall Street way down there.” Its lights winked and flickered in the distance.
“It’s so beautiful. And the river.”
“The Hudson.”
“How do you work up here? I would be lookingg out of the window all day.”
“I sit with my back to the window. Over here.”
She turned. She was facing him. It was now or never. He reached for her and kissed her. She kissed him back. He cautiously moved his body against hers, with none of the drunken assurance of the previous time. She responded to that too. Soon they were standing pressed together, her arms around his neck, exchanging longer and bolder kisses. He moved his hands on her back and up into her hair. She liked being kissed. She kissed back of her own accord and held him closer. He got the feeling that she wanted to press herself hard against him. She had strong feelings. She was expressing them. She had a terrific body. It was expressive. He ran his hand down her buttock. She pressed closer. My God. Faster than he had hoped. So much so that he dared risk:
“Shouldn’t we take our coats off?”
“Shouldn’t we eat? Those jrinks.”
“Okay, but let’s have a last look at the view.”
He took his coat off and helped her out of hers, resisting an impulse to grab at her as he did so. He led her back to the window. They stood there for a moment, looking out, but inexorably they turned to each other, and the kissing began again. Desire vaulted up in him. How he wanted her. She seemed to want him just as much. They clung and kissed, stopped from moment to moment to hold hands and stare at each other. In the dim light she was indescribably beautiful, flushed with amorousness. By degrees he maneuvered her, with his own improvised infinitesimal dance steps, to his sofa (all the offices on the executive floor had sofas) and tried to nudge her down into it.
“No.”
“Just for a minute.”
“We should keep standing up.”
He sat on the edge of the sofa, perched so that he could hold her around the knees. He had an overwhelming desire to run his hands up the backs of her legs. It was as if they might go of their own accord, up the silk stockings, up between, to part them, to expose and find. Careful, careful; he didn’t really know yet. So he held her, her knees against his knees, his nose aimed in the general direction of her navel. He tried again to gently pull her into the sofa. She dealt with that by putting her hands on the back of his head and drawing it against herself. Just below her breasts; he was aware of their separate bulges against the top of his forehead.
“Just for a minute,” he whispered into her stomach.
“No. We ought to eat.” She tried to pull away. “I’m dizzy.”
“From two daiquiris?”
“From two daiquiris and two hundred kisses. You make me dizzy with kisses.”
“You make me dizzy too. That’s why I sat down.”
“We should go. Please let me go.”
“Just a minute more.”
“Please let go. Please, Fred. Do you mind if I call you Fred?”
They ate.
In her vestibule, another long session of kissing and pressing. The mail slots got a good polishing.
“Please, I should go up.”
He continued to hold her.
“My father.”
“He’s probably asleep now.”
“He will wait up. He will worry about me.”
He hung on.
“Will we see each other again?” she asked.
“Yes.” He had crossed that line.
“When?”
“As soon as I can. Next week maybe.”
“Will you call me?”
“What’s your number?”
“I mean at the office. It would be better to call at the Advertising Council. Please. I should go up.” But even as she was saying it she was clinging to him. He decided to risk a hand inside her coat. That brought her to her senses. She got out her key and left him. When he got back to Sutton Place, Julia’s door was shut. But this time he had phoned. It would be okay at breakfast.
He looked her up in the phone book anyway. That involved a tussle with Miss Gorce.
“If you’ll give me the name I’ll gladly look it up for you.”
“No. I just want the book. I’m checking some old numbers.”
She brought the book. He laid aside the Wall Street Journal and looked under Collins. No Carl. No Karl, either. In fact, no Collins of any kind on West Ninety-eighth Street. Maybe she had no father. Maybe he was a useful fiction for a working girl living alone. Maybe she had no phone.
But she had phoned somebody that night. Maybe a roommate. Maybe the time would come when the roommate could be persuaded to spend an evening somewhere else.
He decided to try her at her office.
“Miss Gorce, would you please call the Advertising Council, Miss Collins.”
Miss Gorce swung into action. “Miss Collins, please. Miss Collins? One moment, please. Mr. Fay calling.” She buzzed him. He picked up.
“Miss Collins?”
“Hello?”
“Miss Collins, about the Shelton Hotel matter we were discussing the other afternoon. I wonder if we—” Miss Gorce had hung up; he heard the click. But his office door was open; she could still hear him talking. “That is, Miss Collins, I’ll be passing by the Advertising Council later today, and I wondered if—”
“Hello?”
“Miss Collins?”
“Is that you, Fred?”
“Yes.”
“Hello, Fred.”
“Yes. As I was saying, perhaps we could meet. I’ll be in the neighborhood of—uh—”
“Meet?”
“I was hoping we could continue our discussion.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Where as before.”
“You mean the lobby?”
“Yes.”
There had to be a better way. The next time he would use a pay phone downstairs. But suppose somebody saw him doing that, looked right through the glass and saw him sitting in there when he should be using his own phone and his own secretary upstairs. He went to the men’s room and took a quick look at Miss Gorce as he went. She was sitting straight and neat as usual, tapping away at some of the stuff Corky kept shoving at her. He got the side of her face, impervious, neutral.
Fran showed up promptly. He was able to put away his prop paper. Again he took her to the Shelton Hotel and got two daiquiris into her. He was churning with desire but could not tell if she was. She seemed very demure. She looked at the tablecloth a good deal and played with her drinks, but she finally downed them.
“Another?”
“Oh, no. Two of these on top of an empty stomach is enough to make me feel drunk.”
“Then maybe we should walk them off.”
An unfathomable look. But she took his arm again, and they walked to his office. He tried to go slowly despite an almost ungovernable impatience. Also with a sinking fear that made him want to trot faster, get in out of sight where they would be alone and safe. The combination of fear and desire made him breathless. He recognized the fear. He was walking in; his eyes were open; he shouldn’t; he was anyway. He did his best to appear aimless and casual as he tacked toward his building.
Once inside, in the semidarkness with the door safely shut, all pretense vanished. They clutched each other. She was all he wanted, ever, anywhere. Her body. Her mouth. Her response to him.
“Oh, Fred, you make me dizzy.”
“Let’s sit down.”
“No.”
“Right here.”
“We should keep standing up.”
She had her back to the sofa. With a slight nudge from him, she plopped into it.
“A married man. I shouldn’t.”
He kissed her again. And with kisses urged her along the cushions until they were lying side by side.
“There. This is comfy.”
“I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.” But she clung close.
A huge longing filled him, full of sweetness and desperation, fed by increasingly reckless kissing, reckless enough, he hoped, to prevent her from noticing that he had unzipped the back of her dress and had his hand in against the narrow rear band of her bra. Above and below the bra was bare skin. There was a fastener of some sort. He fumbled and fumbled and fumbled at it. He couldn’t get it undone. He ran his hand up and down her back. The feel of her skin electrified. The bra got in the way of his radiant swooping hand. He tried the fasteners again, and with his thumb and forefinger he got one open.
“Don’t.”
He unhooked another.
“No. Stop.”
The third. Oh, Jesus. All the way up and down her back with his hand.
“No.” She struggled out of the sofa. She stood with one hand splayed across her breasts as if they needed protection now that they were sprung loose inside her dress. With the other hand she tried to hoist her dress back up over her bare shoulder. She was badly disheveled, so unbearably disheveled and desirable that he pulled her down on top of him.
“Stop. Stop.”
But he couldn’t stop until he had to. Then he tried to roll her away, but she clung to him. Now, now, she wanted to keep kissing. He pushed her away and sat up.
“What’s the matter?”
“Your dress. I don’t want to—”
“You almost tore it.”
“I mean, I don’t want it to—” He got up.
“Where are you going?”
“Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” In the lavatory he did the best he could do with himself. When he returned, his office light was on and Fran, her dress zipped up and her hair combed, was sitting primly in a chair. Prim but observant; she immediately noticed the dark stain on his trousers.
“What happened?”
“I—uh—you know.” He turned his back to her and put on his topcoat.
“You mean you had an orgasm?”
He nodded, ducking that test-tube word. The light was far too bright. He snapped it off. He held her coat for her.
“I thought that people only had orgasms when they were makingg love.”
“We were making love.”
“No. We were just huggingg and kissingg. Makingg love is a sin.”
“Well, if you’re going to be technical. But the way you kiss—”
“I mean, don’t you have to be makingg love to have an orgasm?”
“You excited me. You’re very exciting. It’s the same. I mean, it’s not the same, but the result is the same.”
“Makingg love with a married man is a sin.”
“We weren’t making love. We were just hugging and kissing.”
“I shouldn’t be huggingg and kissingg a married man like this.”
“If you don’t want to—”
“I do want to.” She held tight to his arm. “That’s the chrouble. I want to kiss you. And when I kiss you I want to kiss you more.”
This was gunpowder talk. He grabbed her and kissed her again. She responded avidly.
“That’s what excites me,” he whispered.
“That’s what makes you have an orgasm?” She was positively chewing on the word.
“That and—you know—hugging.”
“It makes me feel excited to think of you having an orgasm.”
Reckless talk. The reckless kissing and the reckless pressing and moving had begun again. “Where?” he said recklessly.
“Where what?”
“Excited where.” He tried to show her with his hand.
She snatched it away.
“Anyway, there,” he said. “You could have one too.”
“No.”
“We both could have one.”
“No. I never. I never did that. I never would do that.”
“Never?”
“With a married man never.”
“How about an unmarried man?”
“Not with anybody. Never. I never discussed orgasms before. I never talked like this before. I never went out with anybody who had an orgasm before.”
“Never?”
“I mean before with me.”
“How do you know about orgasms, then. How come you talk about them?”
“I don’t know about them except from my sister. Because you just said you had one. Otherwise I would never … And from Ideal Marriage, those diagrams. But mostly from my sister. She told me you have orgasms when you make love.”
“You don’t always have to be making love. With a sexy girl like you—”
“Don’t keep saying that.”
“You’re sexy. How come the other men you go out with …?”
“I never kissed and hugged other men this way.”
“Come on.”
“No, I never. It was those drinks the night of the Annual Awards. You kissed me that way in the taxi, and I gave you those kisses back. Those kisses. And when we happened to meet in the lobby I was thinking if you would want to kiss me again, and I almost didn’t go with you for drinks because I was afraid you might and I would. It was a sin.”
“That’s no sin.”
“It is a sin. I already confessed it. Particularly with a married man it is a sin.”
“You talked about me in confession?”
“I just said a fellow.”
“Not my name?”
“No. Anyway, what difference would it make anyhow? To you? It’s my sin.” She buttoned up her coat to her chin. “Now I have to confess again. It won’t be so easy this time. Father Ramirez will probably tell me to stop seeing you. If I tell him you’re a married man, I think he will.”
“Don’t tell him.”
“That would not be a true confession.”
“What will you do?”
“I will stop seeing you.”
15
SHE STOPPED. HE PHONED AND SHE SAID SHE WAS sorry but she couldn’t. He tried to argue with her. She hung up. He called again. Again she hung up. He couldn’t believe it. Worse, he couldn’t stand it. She had taken root in him, and now, vinelike, she spread. She invaded his fingertips. He could taste her when he ran his tongue over his lower lip. He began doing that, moistening it, feeling his tongue (her tongue) there. She spurted through him continually and uncontrollably. Other women reminded him of her. Their sexuality became more explicit. Some days he was angry. Others, he felt crushed and listless. He drank more. He began to be restless and disagreeable at home, which was bad because, until Fran, life at home hadn’t been all that bad. When he was prompt or hadn’t had too much to drink, Julia was amiable and dutifully affectionate, giving him a nice little kiss and nice little pats.
“Did you have a nice day? Let me tell you what I did today.”
She did a lot. She had the Colony Club. She had bridge. She was rising up in the bridge world and was now on one of the committees of the Contract Bridge Association. She was interested in politics, in birth control, in abandoned children, and, of course, overpoweringly interested in stray dogs and cats. She was interested in Adlai Stevenson. The apartment was full of the latest magazines and books, and she couldn’t understand why, when he read at all, he didn’t read one of those instead of burying himself in one of those interminable Victorian novels.
“Why don’t you want to be a little more up on things?”
“I’m up enough.”
“I mean, we should discuss politics more, or the ballet, or Dwight Macdonald.”
“Who’s he?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
If he was sober, those conversations would ramble on amiably enough and usually trickle away to nothing. If he wasn’t, she would pick at him like a dentist working on a root canal. Despite the liquor, his nerves would begin to jump, and he would decide to pour himself another.
“Do you really need that?”
“I don’t need it. I want it.”
“You’re not very alert, you know, when you … You don’t follow arguments all that closely. When you interrupted me to go and get that drink, I was talking about Stevenson’s domestic policies and the need for a national medical and health program, and you jumped to the Korean War.”
“Stevenson’s too soft on the Korean War.”
“He is not. What do you know about his position on Korea?”
“Eisenhower’s better.”
“In what way?”
“He’s the one who said: ‘I’m going to Korea and fix all that,’ or whatever he said.”
“Exactly. Eisenhower wanted to end the war in Korea, so how can you blame Stevenson for being soft on Korea?”
“He’s too soft.”
“Exactly what does that mean?”
“He’ll give the place away. He wants to give everything away. He spends too much money. He’ll run deficits.”
“But he wants to end the war, to cut down on military spending.”
“He wants to run deficits.”
“How can you say that? What do you know about Stevenson’s fiscal policies?”
“He’s a spender.”
“Tell me, please. Please enumerate where in your opinion Stevenson is too extravagant.”
