“Hungry?” he asked her. “Just a little,” she said.
They went downtown to a cafe.
A waitress handed them two menus.
“What will you have Sally?”
“Oh, just a sandwich and a cup of coffee.”
“Oh, have more than that.”
“I never eat much on Sunday night,” she said.
“But I’m going to have dinner.”
“Well, of course, if you didn’t have it yet. Really, Erick, all I want is a sandwich.”
They ordered.
While they were waiting, he asked, “How old are you Sally?”
“Twenty-three.”
“That old? I feel like a child,” he said.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen next month.”
“Oh! What day?”
“The twenty-second.”
She seemed to concentrate a moment. “The twenty-second,” she repeated and he knew suddenly that he would receive a card from her on that day. It would be just like Sally.
“You’re four years older than I am,” Erick said.
“That’s nothing,” she said, “My mother is fifteen years older than my father.”
He felt himself start. She didn’t seem to notice. He wondered if her remark meant anything. It couldn’t, so soon, he thought.
The food was brought and they started to eat.
“What do you want out of life?” he asked her after some idle conversation about food and music.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “I’d like children.”
“I trust you’re planning on marriage first,” he kidded.
She looked serious. “I’m glad you said that,” she said, “Most of the fellows I know don’t seem to think marriage is necessary.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And it gets upsetting. Just last week a boy casually asked me to sleep with him.”
He knew he winced. He didn’t want to but he couldn’t help it. It was as if suddenly it were revealed to him that she was a woman with a woman’s body and desires and that he was not quite prepared to admit it to himself, thinking, perhaps unconsciously, that it would mar attraction if he thought she could lust like anyone else.
“I h-hope you spat in his eye,” he said, wanting to strike himself in the mouth for stuttering.
“I let him know how far off base he was,” she said, seeming not to notice his falter.
“I guess that happens pretty often to you,” he said, without thinking.
“Why me?” She looked concerned.
“Well, I mean … you have such a … a stunning figure,” he flustered, “And … well, you’re so warm and friendly. It gives a fellow ideas.”
“You?”
“Here’s dessert,” he said. But he knew he couldn’t get out of it that way. In a moment he said, “You can trust me Sally. Does th …”
“Thank you,” she broke in, “Oh, I’m sorry, what were you going to say?”
“Nothing. I was just about to say—Does that sound corny?”
She reached out her hand and closed it over his, tenderly.
“Oh no, Erick,” she said.
They walked up the block to the theatre.
“Popcorn?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” she said. He got himself a box.
They slid in past a few people and sat down. A newsreel was on. “Good,” she said quietly, leaning over, “We’ll see the picture from the start.” He smiled. Little thing, he thought. But he always hated coming in a picture too.
Her hand took his again. It was a habit now. It would have seemed unnatural for her not to do it. He felt as though they belonged together.
A cartoon came on. A series of incredible sadisms in technicolor, he recalled Lynn having called them.
Sally leaned over. “May I have some of your popcorn?”
“Sure,” he said, “Don’t you want me to get you a box?”
“No, no. I just want a little.”
“Okay.”
He took out his glasses. He reached for his handkerchief but she took the glasses. “I’ll clean them,” she said. She took a tissue from her handbag and breathed on the lens and polished them clean. Then she handed them back.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Popcorn?”
“Mmm! Thank you.”
They sat munching while a savage mouse degraded and tortured a cat. Every once in a while, she reached over and took some popcorn.
“Just a little, huh?” Erick asked, kidding.
“Isn’t it all right?” she said, almost wistfully.
He smiled. “Of course it is.”
“I don’t like to eat from a separate box.”
He didn’t know what it was. The words weren’t romantic. It was what they seemed to say. They acted like a drug on him, filling him, choking off his breath. He turned to her and looked. But the glare from the screen blurred his glasses and he couldn’t see. But he felt her fingers tightening in his. And she spoke his name. Very softly.
* * * *
“Did you like that?” he asked as they came out.
“I like the way Vera-Ellen dances,” she said.
“She is good. Do you dance like that?”
“Not in a million years,” she said, determinedly, “Oh, hi!” she said to a young man who walked past.
“Gad, but you have acquaintances,” Erick said, trying to keep his voice neutral.
“I dated him once,” she said matter of factly. Then she looked at her watch. “The bus doesn’t come for fifteen minutes. We have time for a cup of coffee if you’ll buy me one,” she said.
“Delighted, ma’am.”
“Gee, I had a nice time today,” she said as they sat waiting for the coffee at the drugstore counter.
“Good,” he said, “So did I.”
She smiled. “Did you? I’m so glad. We’ll have to do it again.”
“We will.”
They had to run for the bus. They sat in the back puffing and his hand took hers for a change. It seemed natural. He knew he couldn’t have done it with anyone but her though.
“My coffee is gurgling,” he said.
“So is mine,” she said and they laughed.
Then, when the bus started, he suddenly realized he couldn’t say anything to her. A cloud of muteness seemed to fall over him. He felt tight and restless. They were almost to the end of the date and he knew how much he wanted to kiss her. But he didn’t know how he could go about it and it made him ill at ease. Every word seemed futile now. He heard himself saying various things but he couldn’t remember from instant to instant what he’d said and he couldn’t follow the thread of the conversation very well. She must have been equally upset he thought because she didn’t seem to notice his confusion.
After a few minutes she just smiled at him and tightened her fingers and leaned against him a little as if she understood everything and were consoling him. His stomach felt tight with unrealized desire.
When they got off the bus, his heart began to beat rapidly. He felt almost a desperate urge to put his arms around her and hold her tightly.
“Don’t forget this corner,” she said.
“I will,” he said, “I mean I won’t.”
The words were spoken by someone else. He wondered why she was walking so slowly, as if she wanted to stop. And finally, they did and he knew why. She took a deep breath and looked up at him.
“Leo is having some friends in,” she said quietly.
It was everything; a statement, a sigh, an invitation.
It happened so quickly and so easily. That’s what he remembered the most. How fast and how easy it was.
How his arms slid around her and she moved in close. How there was nothing awkward about the way he kissed her warm cheeks, her ear lobes, her neck, and how he buried his face in her warm silky hair and breathed in deeply of its richly perfumed fragrance.
“Erick,” she whispered
, her breathing faster. They rubbed their cheeks together. A sharp breeze flowed over them. And she made a soft noise as he lifted her chin with a shaking hand.
Their eyes met. Hers were glistening as though the moment were too much and she had to cry. Her lips trembled. He moved his face closer and closer and their eyes were always on each other.
Then he felt her warm breath on him and his lips touched hers. They pressed closer, she molded her mouth on his. He felt her convulsive shudder and the sudden sliding and tightening of her arms around his neck.
It was a long passionate kiss. Her lips were full and soft, parted slightly. She moved her head gently as their mouths clung together.
Finally, their lips separated and she pressed her cheek against his.
“Oh, Erick,” she murmured, shaking.
“Sally.”
“Why were you so angry with me that night?” she asked, almost unhappily.
“Angry? When?”
“When I met you. You didn’t even look up at me when I said goodnight.”
“I was … angry at myself.”
“Why?”
“Because you were with Felix instead of me.”
She drew back a little and looked into his eyes as if for vindication of his words.
Then she said, “Oh!” and pressed her mouth passionately on his. She kept drawing her lips away a fraction of an inch and kissing his mouth again and again.
“Erick, Erick” she whispered, almost frantically and clung to him with all her strength.
For a long moment they were silent, holding onto each other.
Then she said, “I guess … I’d better go in.”
“All right.”
They walked slowly toward the house, arms around each other.
“Say goodbye to me here,” she said at the porch steps.
Her arms slid around his neck and her mouth pressed softly against his. She kissed his cheek.
“Goodnight, darling,” she said.
“Goodnight.”
They moved apart and he went down the steps slowly, their hands being the last to separate, as if reluctantly.
He turned to go. Then, impelled, he turned back.
She was standing motionless on the porch, watching him.
Everything seemed to vibrate beneath him. And she came down the steps, rushing, and threw herself into his arms. She kissed him almost violently, her chest heaving, her mouth open. And he felt as if he were lost in her, absorbed by her lips and clinging body.
“Oh darling, darling!” she whispered breathlessly when their lips had parted.
“This is incredible,” he murmured, feeling dizzy.
“It is, it is,” she said.
She held onto him a long moment. Then she looked up with a smile of resignation.
“I have to go in,” she said.
“All right,” he said again. He kissed her. “Good night Sally.”
“Good night, darling,” she said, and kissed him back, gently.
Then he turned away and walked dizzily down the path, the blood rushing through his body, the heat still clinging to him. He turned once and saw her blow him a kiss from the door. He raised his arm. Then, impulsively, he broke into a run up the street and stood panting under the lamppost, waiting for the bus.
“Oh my god,” he said, “Oh my God.”
Then, a callous despoiler of all dreams, his stomach contracted, making him shiver. He gritted his teeth. But he had to laugh out loud at the utter incongruity of trembling romance and throbbing kidneys.
“Hell of a note,” he informed the stars, “Do I have to go!”
* * * *
She was always primping him, adjusting his tie with an adoring smile, brushing his blonde hair back with a gentle hand. Doing all things for him with much loving care.
Her general effect was one of all-pervading warmth. It shone out from her and touched him through her every word and glance. It seemed as if she could give her entire self with a touch of her fingers. As if she were transferring herself wholly in an instant, filling him with herself.
They went out a lot together.
To movies, to concerts and plays, dancing. And, although the evenings always ended with her in his arms, they never mentioned love. Once she wrote him a poem entitled, Don’t Speak of Love. It entreated him not to speak of it until he was certain.
He was never certain.
Because there were things he didn’t like. Little things admittedly but magnified by his never resting mind.
Like the way she had of speaking so loudly in public. The way she spoke to everyone regardless of whether she knew them or not; either to speak a cheery “Hello!” to them in the street or to speak to them in the street or to speak to them at length when she and Erick were waiting on movie lines or dancing in crowded places.
It displeased him. His mother had taught him that it was not right to speak to strangers.
It appeared sometimes, however, that none of the men in town were strangers to Sally. It was incredible to Erick yet it seemed she knew every man in the college. No matter where they went together it was almost a sure thing that they’d pass a fellow she knew. Then it was Hello Joe or Mike or Bill or Tom or Felix. It got to Erick. He was never the sort to take kindly to opposition. Competition made him shrivel. If he didn’t win immediately, he gave up. And that feeling in regard to Sally produced many sullen moments in him.
Which she noticed. And when she did notice she would take his hand and look deeply into his eyes and smile, moving her lips just a trifle as if kissing him. And the complete tenderness of the action would, almost always, melt him.
She could smile at him too with the healthy wickedness of a happy young child. They talked about sex, kidded about it. She was frank and openly interested in the subject. After a while he began to caress her body and she didn’t stop him. She seemed to enjoy it. And that made him draw back for a while. Because he decided that she did it with all the men she dated. And for a while he created in himself the belief that he was slumming.
She was too open with her affections. He was used to guarded smiles, chaste, unrevealing caresses.
When they danced, Sally held on close, pressing her swelling stomach against his, rubbing her cheek over his. And singing to him. Softly. But everyone could hear it. Like in the movies, he thought the first time, a little disconcerted but still pleased. Then it began to annoy him. He never liked being conspicuous. So, during those times, he would stamp a look of parental resignation on his face and pretend to the other people that he was treating her like an exuberant child.
She called him more than he called her. Once he tried to remember the last time he’d called her and asked if she was free on a certain night. But he couldn’t remember. Somehow their dates were never single, detached affairs. They blended one into the other; the end of one included the plans for the beginning of another.
And, if there were no definite plans, any number of times she would call and he would hear her cheery voice saying, “Hi! Whatcha doing?”
* * * *
He hadn’t seen her for a week and a half. He was reworking the script and didn’t get to rehearsals.
Then one night he dropped over to the auditorium and sat through rehearsal. After it was over he went down to get Sally. Her face grew bright in an happy smile when she saw him.
“Erick!” she said excitedly and clutched at his hand.
They walked along the dark, silent campus, arms around each other.
“I missed you,” she said.
“Did you?”
“Yes. Were you angry with me?”
“No. I had to revise the script.”
“Is it all right?”
“It’s okay.”
“You didn’t call me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I was so busy.”
“You didn’t feel like it.”
He looked at her, then smiled a little sheepishly. “What can I say?” he asked her.
She rubbed her cheek
on his shoulder.
“Don’t say anything,” she said, “You’re back. That’s all that matters.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. She turned and pushed against him, her arms sliding around him. “I want to get inside of you,” she murmured suddenly, almost desperately. “Go ahead, get inside of me.” “Let’s stop walking.”
They stopped and faced each other in the dark. They held each other close and she breathed on his neck.
“Didn’t you miss me at all?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“Sally.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you did,” she said.
They stood in the doorway of a store waiting for the bus to come. “Taking me home?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said.
He had his arms around her. She sighed and held on tight, locking her hands behind Erick’s back.
“Oh Erick,” she said. She looked up. “Please kiss me.”
She raised her face. It shone in the dull green neon light from the store window. He bent over and brushed his lips over hers. She kissed him back, her warm lips softening under his.
“Oh, I love you,” she said simply.
His breath caught.
“You never s-said that before,” he said.
“I can’t help it,” she said quietly, “You know it. I know it. Why should I pretend?”
“I’m … glad,” he decided uncertainly.
“I hope you are.”
On the bus she rested her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and breathed in the perfume of her hair. He looked down at her breasts moving gently as she breathed.
When they got off the bus, she said, “Are you sorry I told you?”
“No. Why should I be?”
“I’ve spoiled the mystery,” she said.
They sat on the porch steps. “You haven’t spoiled anything,” he said, “I don’t like mysteries.”
She leaned against him. “Well, my mystery didn’t last very long.”
She pressed tightly against him.
“Your face is hot,” he said.
“I’m feverish,” she answered, suddenly breathless. Her lips moved across his cheek and she pressed her parted mouth convulsively on his. She squirmed in his arms, a tiny groan started in her throat. He felt himself grow restive.
“Take it easy,” he said when their lips parted. He felt himself shaking. At the way she clung to him, breathing in his ear.