“What about them?”
“I thought—well—” He broke off helplessly, not knowing how to pursue the subject.
“Are you really upset because I sleep with other men once in a while? Are you really jealous, Angel?”
“Well—no,” he lied, “not really.”
“We never made any promises, did we? Did you think we were ‘going steady’ or something?” The persistent nipple continued its stroking of his shoulder.
“I just didn’t think you were—well—promiscuous is all.”
“Of course I’m promiscuous.” She laughed, kissing him. “I had you in bed within twelve hours of the moment I met you. Is that the sort of thing you’d expect from a nice girl? I’m not exactly a bitch in heat, but a little variety never hurt anyone, did it?”
He couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Don’t sulk, Angel,” she said almost maternally as she pulled
him to her again. “You’ve got my full attention at the moment. That’s about the best I can promise you.”
His flesh responded to her almost against his will. He’d have liked to have been stubborn, but she was too skilled, too expert.
“You should try her, Raphael,” Isabel said almost conversationally a couple of minutes later. “A little variety might be good for you, too. And who knows? Maybe she’s better at it than I am.” She laughed, and then the laugh traded off into a series of little gasps and moans as she began to move feverishly under him.
vi
The idea had not been there before. In Raphael’s rather unsophisticated views on such matters, girls were divided into two distinct categories—those you took to bed and those you took to school dances. It was not that he was actually naive, it was just that such classification made his relations with girls simpler, and Raphael’s views on such things were simplistic. He had been raised in a small, remote city that had a strongly puritanical outlook; his Canadian mother had been quite firm about being “nice,” a firmness in part deriving from her lurking fear that some brainless sixteen-year-old tramp might unexpectedly present her with a squalling grandchild. Raphael’s football coach at high school, moreover, had taught Sunday school at the Congregational church, and his locker-room talks almost as frequently dealt with chastity as they did with the maiming of middle linebackers. Raphael’s entire young life had been filled with one long sermon that concentrated almost exclusively on one of the “thou shalt nots,” the only amendment having been the reluctant addition of”—with nice girls.” Raphael knew, of course, that other young men did not make a distinction between “nice” girls and the other kind, but it seemed somehow unsporting to him to seduce “nice” girls when the other sort was available—something on the order of poaching a protected species—and sportsmanship had been drilled into him for so long that its sanctions had the force of religious dictum. Isabel’s sly insinuations, however, had planted the idea, and in the weeks that followed he found himself frequently looking at Marilyn Hamilton in a way he would not have considered before.
His relationship with the girl passed through all the normal stages—coffee dates in the Student Union, a movie or two, the first kiss, and the first tentative gropings in the front seat of a car parked in a secluded spot. They walked together in the rain; they held hands and they talked together endlessly and very seriously about things that were not particularly significant. They studied together in the dim library, and they touched each other often. They also drove frequently to a special spot they had found outside town where they parked, and in the steamy interior of Raphael’s car with the radio playing softly and the misted windows curtaining them from the outside, they partially undressed each other and clung and groped and moaned in a frenzy of desire and frustration as they approached but never quite consummated the act that was becoming more and more inevitable.
Flood, of course, watched, one eyebrow cocked quizzically, gauging the progress of the affair by Raphael’s increasing irritability and the lateness of his return to their room. “No score yet, I see,” he’d observe dryly upon Raphael’s return on such nights.
“Why don’t you mind your own damned business?” Raphael would snap, and Flood would chuckle, roll over in his bed, and go back to sleep.
In those weeks Isabel became a virtual necessity to Raphael. With her he found a release for the tensions that had built up to an almost unbearable pitch during the course of the week. She gloated over the passion he brought to her, and sent him back to Portland on Sunday nights sufficiently exhausted to keep him short of the point of no return with the girl. The knowledge that Isabel was there served as a kind of safety valve for him, making it possible for him to draw back at that last crucial instant each time.
And so autumn ground drearily on with dripping skies and the
now-bare trees glistening wet and black in the rain. Isabel grew increasingly waspish, and finally announced that she was leaving for a few weeks. “I’ve got to get some sun,” she said. “This rain’s driving me up the wall.”
“Where are you going?” Raphael asked her.
“Phoenix maybe. Vegas—I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. I’ve got to get away from the rain for a while.”
There was nothing he could say. He knew he had no real hold on her, and he even welcomed the idea in a way. His visits had become almost a duty, and he had begun to resent her unspoken demands upon him.
After he had seen her off at the airport outside Portland, he walked back to his car almost with the sense of having been liberated.
On his first weekend date with Marilyn he felt vaguely guilty—almost like an unfaithful husband. The weekends had always belonged to Isabel. He had not been entirely honest with Marilyn about those weekends. It was not that he had lied, exactly; rather, he had let her believe that Isabel was elderly, an old friend of his family, and that his weekly visits were in the nature of an obligation.
After the movie they drove to their special spot in the country and began the customary grappling. Perhaps because the weekends had always been denied to her and this evening was somehow stolen and therefore illicit, Marilyn responded to his caresses with unusual passion, shuddering and writhing under his hands. Finally she pulled free of him for an instant, looked at him, and spoke quite simply. “Let’s,” she said, her voice thick and vibrant.
And so they did.
It was awkward, since they were both quite tall, and the steering wheel was horribly in the way, but they managed.
And afterward she cried. He comforted her as best he could and later drove her home, feeling more than a little ashamed of himself. There had been some fairly convincing evidence that, until that night, Marilyn had been one of the girls one would normally take to a school dance.
The next time they used the backseat. It was more satisfactory, and this time she did not cry. Raphael, however, was still a bit ashamed and wished they had not done it. Something rather special seemed to have been lost, and he regretted it.
After several weeks Isabel returned, her fair skin slightly tanned and her temper improved.
Flood accompanied Raphael to the lake on the first weekend, his eyes bright and a knowing smile on his face.
Raphael was moody and stalked around the house, stopping now and then to stare out at the rain, and drinking more than was usual for him. It was time, he decided, to break off the affair with Isabel. She was too wise for him, too experienced, and in a way he blamed her for having planted that evil seed that had grown to its full flower that night in the front seat of his car. If it had not been for her insinuating suggestions, his relationship with Marilyn might still be relatively innocent. Beyond that, she repelled him now. Her overripe figure seemed to have taken on a faint tinge of rottenness, and the smooth sophistication that had attracted