Contrary Pleasure (10 page)

“It’s a good color for you, Bonny.”

One lamp was on in the room. It had a black metal shade. They sat on the
day bed and he held her hand, content to be there with her, feeling safe and
warmed in this place, as though a door closed gently in his mind, shutting out
everything else. The hooded light slanted across her hand as he held it. He
turned her hand over, examining it carefully. Though when her hands were in
motion, they gave an impression of grace and fragility, at rest they had a
thickness about them, a short-fingered thickness. Those hands were as
surprising to him as her feet. Her feet were short and broad, a bit puffy
across the instep. The rest of her had a patrician elegance that contradicted
the peasant cast of hands and feet. The skin of her body was so fine-grained as
to be almost
textureless
. Her bones were small and
straight. With his fingertip he traced the faint blue lines of the vulnerable
side of her wrist, then kissed the palm of her hand.

This was overture, and they made love together with all the symbols and
rituals that had become dear and necessary and familiar to them. Afterward,
there on the studio couch he lay on his back and she was beside him, propped up
on one elbow, talking down at him, and he saw how the lamplight made good
shadows and highlights on the long elegance of her body, on the princess
figure, that figure that was as controlled as a line drawing. He ceased to hear
what she was saying and, reaching out a hand, he touched the highlighted line
that swept from her armpit to the slender waist, creased by her position, then
up and over the ivory hip and down to the warm socket of the back of her knee.

She moved back a bit from him and stopped talking and he knew it was
because he was looking at her. She did not enjoy his look. She suffered it
because she knew he liked to look at her. It had taken a long time to overcome
her modesty to this extent. He knew it made her uncomfortable. And the fact of
her discomfort increased his pleasure in looking at her merely because it was
such a strange contrast with Bess who, from the very first, had padded about
with all the naked and sexless poise of a men’s shower room.

Moreover this girl could sense his mood and adjust quickly to it. Bess
crashed blindly through his moods like a movie he had once seen of an elephant
eating its way through a cane field, munching in heavy pleasure as the feet
came down on the green shoots.

Behind Bess were the schools and the money, the cotillions, the student
cruises, the country clubs. Theoretically she had been groomed carefully and
expensively for life and marriage. But it seemed that somewhere the pattern had
become so complicated that a certain primary function had been lost—the
function of pleasing a man. Somehow men, to Bess and her set, had become
Dagwoods
, the Boys, poor dear helpless creatures to be
harassed and chivvied into a weak form of conformity with what they—the
Wives—considered the proper pattern for living. Bonny however seemed to have an
instinctive awareness of her function. It gave her a timelessness denied the legions
of women named Bess. She could have functioned in this special and dear way in
any era, never patronizing or condescending.

“What are you thinking about, Quinn?” she asked.

“Us. As usual.”

“Is it good? As usual?”

He pulled her hard against him and said, against her hair, “What are you
getting out of this, Bonny?”

“Everything, probably.”

“Why don’t you quit the job?”

“And do what? Just hang around here all day. Gee, I’d go crazy.”

“But what do you want of me?”

She pulled her head away and gave him a surprised look. “Just for you to
come here. Isn’t that all right?”

“And when I can’t come?”

She snuggled close again, sighed. “Well, then I just wait until you can.
That’s all.”

He felt a stubbornness that was like anger. He knew he should let it
alone. Leave it at that. Be grateful it was like that and relax and be warmed
by her. But he was being driven along by a stubborn search for complications, a
need to make things difficult.

“It doesn’t make sense. God knows it doesn’t. I’m thirty-six. You’re
twenty. You’re only a little older than David. There’s not a damn thing in this
for you.”

“Let me decide that. Right now is enough.”

“Is it? Is it, Bonny? Maybe
I
want to think ahead. Maybe this
isn’t enough for me.”

Her fingertips found his lips. Her head was buried against his shoulder
again. “Hush, Quinn. Hush.”

“I was never alive before. I was frozen—sterile. Now I feel alive. It’s
in the way I look at everything. Everything has more form and color. The people
and the streets and the places. I never looked at them before. And I keep
asking, what the hell does she see in me?”

She lifted herself up again, a small frown appearing, self-consciousness
forgotten. “Well, you know I’ve thought about that, sort of. At first I just
liked the way you look. Sort of tired and confident, like in the ads. Then you
talked that night and I found out you were sick inside. And needed warming.
Needed me. Like I could be a stove where you could get warm. I wanted to help.
Like when I was a kid. Forever finding sick birds and things and putting them
in boxes with cotton and on the back of the stove to be warm. I guess I just
wanted to give. And that is what I like. To give to you so that you’re well
now, on the inside. And you see I love you now, too. So that’s what I see in
you. And don’t start asking and asking about why I love you, because there
aren’t any whys for that. You just do.”

“And you actually, honestly don’t want any more than… just what we have.”

“Oh, more would be nice, I suppose. It would be nice to be together all
the time. But we can’t, so we can be happy with what we
can
have.”

“I could divorce her.”

“No!”

“Why such a violent reaction? Why not?”

“I just don’t want to talk about it. Just no.” And she got up quickly and
walked away from him, out of the cone of light, the long legs, the milky flex
of hips, carrying herself in a constrained way because she walked naked in
front of him. Then she was in the far shadows, a long, pale blur in the
darkness of the room.

He said, carefully, wishing he could stop his own mouth, “Maybe you get
so violent about it because
you
don’t want to be tied down that
definitely with a man nearly twice your age.”

And she used a voice she had not used before. A voice with toughness in
it. “Why don’t you leave it alone? You’re getting what you want, aren’t you? It
isn’t costing you anything. Just leave it alone.”

“Don’t talk like that, Bonny. I don’t like the way it sounds, you talking
that way.”

And her voice was tired. “It’s late. I think you better go.”

As he dressed he thought of what she had said and how she had said it.
And he could not deny the little surge of relief within him when she had so
flatly discarded any idea of divorce and remarriage. This life was now very
comfortably arranged. With her each day had a new and special flavor. If she
loved him and if she was satisfied with the relationship, then no one was hurt.
He told himself that it was a decent impulse that made him bring it up.
Fairness to her. Yet he knew that he had brought it up only because he had
known her response beforehand, and tonight had felt a nagging need to hurt
her—just a little. Had she accepted the idea, he knew there was no need for
panic. He could keep inventing delays indefinitely. Sometimes he felt a little sick
when he thought of what she could have been. There had been no way of knowing.
And he might have placed himself in the hands of a greedy little tramp. So it
was luck.

As he laced his shoes he had a sudden odd feeling of loss. He had hurt
her tonight. And would hurt her again. Each time it would be a bit easier. And
each time would rub off some of the magic. He wondered why he had this
compulsive desire to create tension between them. It seemed, in one sense, to
be a stepchild of the exaggerations of bathos he had employed on that first
night, on that first blind drive. Perhaps it was only because she was something
he could use and, in using her, avoid the usual consequences of such use, and
so wished to relegate her to the single function of the body, destroying all
emotional overtones. The taker and the giver. A relationship with its
inevitable shadings of cruelty, born of contempt, of domination.

He was dressed and she turned more lights on. She wore a dark blue
flannel robe with a full skirt effect under the wide white belt. Her eyes
looked tired.

“I’m sorry, Quinn. But we’ll keep on having trouble like this if we try
to plan anything.”

“But you see, darling, it makes me feel guilty. That’s why I strike out
at you. You’re getting so little. You’re so right for a kind of life where
you’d have a home, kids, security.”

“I’ll worry about what I ought to have. I don’t want you to think about
that.”

He put his hand on her slim shoulders. In her slippers without heels she
seemed very tiny, looking gravely up at him. He kissed her. “Okay, Bonny.”

She smiled. “When will I see you again?”

“It isn’t good. My kid brother is coming this weekend with his bride. As
far as I can tell, it might not be until next Wednesday. But if there’s a
chance to make it sooner, I’ll walk by you and give you the sign.”

“I’ll be here, darling,” she said, close to him, her face against his
chest, the top of her head under his chin. He stroked her straight back,
wanting her again, enjoying the strong feeling of wanting her again.

“I hate to leave,” he whispered.

She pushed at him. “Go home now, Quinn. Go on. It’s late.”

He looked back at her just before he closed the door. She stood watching
him, almost without expression, her face the ancient face of woman, timeless
and passive. He closed the door quietly. All the stars were high and far away.
The night was cooler. He walked slowly to his car, pausing and searching the
night sky when he heard the distant whispering rip of a night jet. But he could
not find it against the stars. Her satisfaction had been complete and evident
this night. He walked more quickly, squaring his shoulders, taking longer
strides, thumping one fist against his thigh in rhythm with his walk.

There was no reason why it couldn’t go on for years. Not if they were
careful, discreet. She shouldn’t start to fade even a little for at least six
or seven years. Perhaps longer than that, because her bones were so good. A
nice safe arrangement. Sometimes Bess could be talked into taking a trip down
to New York by herself. Shopping. Maybe go with a girl friend. Then he could
move right in with Bonny. Buy some things and keep them there. Liquor, razor,
pajamas. She could take time off from the job. Say she was sick. Like a
honeymoon. Stay right there with her. She could cook.

There certainly was no point in worrying about the rightness or wrongness
of it. She was there, like a dollar bill on the sidewalk. If he hadn’t seen it,
somebody else would have. Some dull clown. This way it was better for her. And
she said it was enough for her. So it was enough for both of them.

He drove home through the night feeling good, tapping on the edge of the
steering wheel in time to the late jazz on the car radio. He felt big and whole
and wonderful.

And the sickening depression came without warning, came climbing up out
of his belly, moving black across his mind. No reason for it. None. He stamped
the gas pedal. The trees began to swing toward the car and then jump past him.
The motor settled into a high note of strain and he leaned forward trying to
see beyond the reach of the headlights.

He did not see the car come up behind him. He heard the siren over his
own motor sound and glanced in the rear-vision mirror and saw the red spot on
top of the car. He slowed down, feeling sweaty and shaky. He pulled over onto
the shoulder still moving fast enough so that his car bounced and swerved
before he halted it. The police sedan pulled diagonally in ahead of him, the
siren dying into a low growling and silence. They both got out quickly and the
nearest one had his revolver drawn and ready.

“Out!” the cop said. “Move!” Quinn got out. “Turn around and put your
hands flat against the car.” He did so, feeling like a fool. Quick hard hands
slapped him, took his wallet. One of them carried the wallet out in front of
his car, looked at it in the headlight brightness.

“You Mr. Delevan?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You can turn around, sir. You got treated this way on account of when we
come up behind you and clocked you at ninety-three, you started to pull away.
That’s a silly thing to do, Mr. Delevan.”

“I didn’t see you at all.”

“That’s a hell of a big red spot we turned on.”

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t see it.”

“I hope you won’t get sore about us handling you this way, Mr. Delevan.
You were in one hell of a hurry. What’s the idea?”

“I was late. The road was empty. I wasn’t thinking.”

The two policemen stood there uncomfortably, facing him. The powerful
motor of their cruiser made a bubbling sound. A truck went by, pulling wind
behind it.

“I’m glad to see you’re so much on the ball,” Quinn said.

“Keep it down below sixty, Mr. Delevan. Good night, sir.” They hurried to
the cruiser, banged the doors shut, and left. Quinn got slowly into the car.
Exhilaration was gone. Depression was gone. He merely felt tired. He put the
car in the garage, pulled the door down. The studio lights were off. Bess had
left a light on for him. He drank a glass of milk, turned out the lights and
went to the bedroom. She was asleep. She made a soft whistling sound with each
inhalation. He undressed without awakening her and got into his bed. Farm dogs
were barking on faraway hills. A diesel hooted in the valley. He turned on his
side. The nervous sweat of his encounter with the police had given his body an
acid smell. Take a shower in the morning. Take the car in and leave it at the
garage. Ask Bess when the brown
dacron
was due back
from the cleaners. Buy blades. And get a dozen Medalists in town. They don’t
carry them at the pro shop. Got to work on that slice. Lucky break hitting that
tree on the eighth and bounding back onto the fairway. That’s a funny sound she
makes when it’s right for her. Sort of a whimper. He rolled onto the other
side. If she’d stop that damn whistling, it would be easier to get to sleep.