Evan Hunter - Candyland

He would never dream of saying he fucks Grace, oh no. Every other woman in the world he knows or has known says, "Come on, baby, fuck me!" Grace says, "Give it to me!" As if she is actually going to take possession of it, slicing it off and putting it in her box of keepsakes on top of the faded love letters he wrote her while he was at Yale and she was at Radcliffe, and the gold pocket watch her grandmother left he when she died, which had previously belonged to Grace's adore grandfather in Kansas — well, he can't blame Kansas for Grace. Her father moved the family to Massachusetts when Grace was still a child, so he can't blame Kansas for whoever or whatever she is. He can only blame Grace for that.

He never has to fantasize in bed with any woman but Grace. Ever other woman is here and now, to have, to hold, to fuck. With Grace, he fantasizes blondes and brunettes and redheads galore, in various postures and poses, alone or in pairs or in threes. Grace's hair is blondish-brown these days, a cross between what Clairol calls "Twilight Brown" and "Moonlit Brown," lighter than her natural color, which is what people not in the Hair Trade might call "Mousy Brown."

Mousy brown was the color of her hair when he met her at a football game in New Haven, the girls having been trained down from Boston to cheer on the Crimson Tide, Ben not caring who won either way, sports never having been his particular cup of tea.

She was quite the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life.

What happened? he wonders now.

Where did you disappear to, Grace?

He's half-tempted to call her back, ask her why the third degree on a goddamn bottle of red wine when her bill from shopping Rodeo Drive come to thousands of dollars each and every month.

The newsstand.

He throws on a lightweight raincoat, checks the room one last time for what? Does he still think Karen might be hiding in here someplace?

… and closes the door behind him.

The newsstand is festooned with magazines like Oui and Hustler and Juggs and Marquis but he buys only New York and Penthouse. To the reader not looking for whore-house ads, New York appears eminently respectable. Penthouse is more problematic. It does not quite wallow in the gutter the way Hustler does, but neither is it as reputable as the dowager Playboy. Nonetheless, to ensure his veneer of proper gentleman out for a late-night stroll — which he is, after all, isn't he? — he carries the magazines with the cover of New York facing out, hiding Penthouse beneath it. He walks back to the restaurant in a slow drizzle that does nothing to dissipate the oppressive heat.

His MasterCard is waiting at the hostess's console. A pretty blonde tells him she's sorry for the inconvenience, and he assures her it wasn't a problem. He accepts the card, and momentarily places the two magazines on the console, wondering if the blonde can tell Penthouse is hidden beneath New York. But she pays no attention to the magazines. Instead, she watches him as he puts the credit card back into his wallet, as if making certain he won't leave it behind again.

"Well, goodnight," he says, picking up the magazines. "Thank you."

"Come again, sir," she says.

Come again, he thinks.

Does she know to what purpose he'll be putting the magazines?

He smiles at her.

"Sir?" she asks, puzzled.

He is staring at her now.

Still smiling.

"Was there something else, sir?" she asks.

"What did you have in mind?" he says, and is instantly sorry. The puzzled look on her face becomes annoyance and then brief anger and then something like revulsion. She turns away from the podium, recedes into the depths of the restaurant. He feels suddenly embarrassed. He ducks his head, and hurries out into the humid mist.

This is a summer night, and the weather isn't truly rotten enough to keep people indoors. He knows without question that half the women out here on the street tonight are prostitutes. The problem is determining who is and who isn't. It's exactly like the two women sitting at the hotel bar tonight. His chances were fifty-fifty bark then, and he's sure his chances would be fifty-fifty out here on the street as well. Stop me woman, any woman, ask her if she'd like to come back to the hotel with him, he'd either get his face slapped or she'd say, "Sure, honey, it'll cost you a deuce." He has never tested this theory, but he's sure that would be the case. He's similarly convinced that if he approached any shopgirl in any city in America, and asked her if her passport was in order, she would immediately answer, "Where you taking me, honey?" He feels he knows this for a fact.

He has known a great many women in his lifetime, you see. He won't even try counting them all. He started to do that once, and first found himself getting excited by the various memories, and next feeling guilty as hell when he realized the magnitude of his transgressions — well, perhaps that's too harsh a word, he thinks. No one's committing any crimes here. Flirting with women isn't a goddamn crime, is it? Well, it's more than flirting, actually. Even so, using a word like "transgression" for something that's essentially a habit — well, it's more than a habit. Well, a bad habit, all right? Well, more than that, too. What he does is… well… foolish. And reckless. And dangerous, too, he knows that. He knows that if it became known, for example… if a client telephoned California, for example, and said he'd seen Ben with a woman not his wife, a woman who looked like a whore, for example… well, that could lead to trouble. Very serious trouble. Not that Karen looked like a whore. But even someone who looked like a nice girl. Even someone like that. Someone who looked like Karen, in fact. If someone spotted him with someone like Karen, this could become a problem. His behavior, if it became known, could become a problem. Because, let's face it, behavior of that sort was simply foolish and reckless and dangerous. He knows that. He doesn't care what Grace might think, he's long ago stopped caring what Miss Kansas City might think, she already holds him in such low esteem, anyway, so who gives a damn? But he doesn't want his colleagues and peers to learn that when he's out of town on architectural matters, he's also out of town on certain other matters. He does not wish this rumor to gain credibility in the profession — or is a rumor still a rumor when it's true?

It is true that he seeks women.

Constantly. This is an undeniable fact, Grace, step to the head of the fucking class! To Ben, the world is an immense chocolate shop brimming with confectionery delights. The trick is in knowing which delectable sweet to select, which dark candy to sample. In the bar tonight, he made the wrong choice, settling for a goddamn phlebotomist when he could have had the melancholy pro in the pearl gray suit. But, oh, he has been so deliciously on the nose in the past. Oh, he has been so god' damn lucky in the past. He can remember different women in different situations as if he were meeting them for the very first time right this instant — but, look, I don't want to count them, he thinks, I really don't want to start feeling guilty all over again! I feet guilty enough after each time, anyway, I don't have to relive the fucking guilt now, do I? Okay?

There is something enormously romantic about the soft drizzle, the wet pavements and streets, the muted shine of the street lamps glowing through the mist. He suddenly misses Karen with a poignancy he hasn't known since he was a teenager, when girls became suddenly available but oddly unattainable. Along Sixth Avenue, there are lights burning in apartment buildings above the closed and shuttered shops. He visualizes women in those apartments, behind the drawn yellow shades, women disrobing, women in their tubs, women powdering themselves, women touching themselves, their nippled breasts, their crisp pubic hair, their dark hidden