Evan Hunter - Candyland

"No calls till five-thirty, yes, sir. Goodnight, sir. Sleep well."

He finishes the drink.

Looks at his watch. It is now eleven-thirty. But he can sleep on the plane. He finds Heather's number in his book, dials a 9 to get out of the hotel and then the seven digits and waits while it rings on the other end, twice, three times, four, five, again, again, and is about to hang up when, "Hello?" The girlish voice, always sounding a bit sleepy.

"Heather?"

“Yes?"

He visualizes the long blond hair and blue eyes, the wide hips and long splendid legs. He wonders what she's wearing. "It's me," he says.

"Ben. How was your party?"

"Took you long enough to call again," she says.

"I didn't think you'd be home yet."

"I just got here," she says.

"So how are you?"

"Same as I was before."

"Want to come here?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Cause I've got somebody with me."

"No, you haven't."

"Yes, I have."

"You don't sound as if someone's with you."

"She's right in the other room. We're watching television."

"Oh?" he says.

There is a silence on the line.

"Why don't you bring her with you?" he says.

"What do you mean? There?"

"Sure."

"You've got to be kidding."

"Or I can come there."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"I think I might. How about you?"

"I'm not into that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

"Whatever it is you're thinking."

"What do you think I'm thinking?"

"Whatever. Anyway, it's late."

"Only eleven-thirty."

"Five. And it's raining."

"What sort of thing, Heather?"

"A three-way. Whatever."

"Might be fun."

"For you maybe, sure. Anyway, we're not coming there, so forget it."

"I'll come there then, how's that?"

"I told you no."

"Why not?"

"What is it with you?" she asks.

"I just want to see you."

"You should have called before you got to New York."

"I know I should have. I'm sorry about that, Heather. Really."

"Sure."

Pouting.

"Anyway, I'm here now, and you're home from your party… so why don't you ask your friend if she'd like me to come over?"

"I don't have to ask her. I know what she'll say."

"She might surprise you."

"I don't think so."

"What's her name?"

"Lois."

"Lois what?"

"Ford."

"Like the car?"

"Uh-huh, like the car."

"Ask her, go ahead."

"No. She's watching television."

"What's she watching?"

"Something about Kennedy."

"Go ask her if she'd like to come here."

"No. Anyway, I don't want to come there."

"Then let me come…”

"No."

There is another silence.

"How was the party?" he asks.

"Fine."

"What'd you wear?”

"My green dress. You don't know it."

"Are you still wearing it?"

"Ben," she says, “nothing's going to happen here, okay?"

"I just want to know…"

"Goodnight, Ben," she says, and hangs up.

He feels angry and embarrassed and ashamed. He feels like calling her back and asking her just who the hell she thinks she is, a twenty year-old twerp who was cleaning board erasers when he gave his lecture at Cooper this spring, how does she dare treat him this way? Does she know there's a girl downtown on Greenwich Avenue — a multiple sodomy victim, no less — who practically begged him to come fuck her, does she know that? If he had her number, he would call her right this minute and tell her he was on the way and she'd welcome him with open arms. Does she know there are girls he talks to on the telephone who aren't so goddamn coy about telling him what they're wearing or even not wearing, as the case might be? Does she know, for example, that Karen downtown isn't wearing a goddamn thing right this goddamn minute? Why didn't he get her telephone number? Why'd he hang up on her?

He goes angrily to the television set, snaps it on, clicking the remote past channels busy with news of the burial at sea, witnesses for the hundredth time since the plane went down, the black-and-white image of John John saluting his father's coffin as it rolls by, keeps clicking the remote until he comes to a leased access channel where commercials for escort services provide telephone numbers a person can call if he desires instant company. Beautiful busty white girls look ecstatically orgasmic as they fondle breasts or coddle pussies. Black girls lick their lips and show glistening teeth and pink vulvas. Slitty-eyed Asian girls adjust gartered silk stockings as they step out of limousines. Gay guys stroke cocks the size of telephone poles. There is something here for everyone, a cornucopia of promised pleasure just a phone call away. In fact, if these commercials were a bit longer and a bit more explicit, a man could satisfy himself with no trouble at all. But they are designed to inspire telephone calls, and he's afraid they might send him a dog instead of one of the sleek beauties displaying their wares onscreen. He has never called any of the services advertising on television, but some of the creatures the Yellow Pages loosed on the night were truly horrific to behold.

What do you look like? you asked on the phone, when they called your room some ten minutes after you rang the service. They sometimes phoned from a town half an hour away, who the hell wanted to wait that long to satisfy an urge? Though in all truth, it never was an urge as such. In fact, he thought about sex all the time. Well, most of the time. No, all the time. Well, most men thought about sex, didn't they? Most of the time.

I'm blond, they'd say, or brunette or redheaded or My hair is green, one of them said, which was tempting, but he visualized some sort of junkie who looked like a parrot, and promptly called another service. They'd tell you how tall they were, and how much they weighed, and usually they were telling the truth, because they didn't want to describe themselves as five-nine and weighing a hundred and ten, and then show up in your doorway looking like a fire hydrant. This was one occupation where it was okay to ask a prospective employee if she was black, though you could usually tell by their voices on the phone. Sometimes, you could even tell a Chinese girl by her voice on the phone. Anyway, most of the services asked flat out what kind of girl you preferred White, Black, Latino, Asian, you pays your money and you takes your choice. It always amazes Ben that politicians get all exorcised by dirty movies or television shows, and local watchdog groups take Catcher in the Rye off library shelves when you can go to any city in the United States of America and find hundreds of advertisements for escort services or massage parlors right in the goddamn Yellow Pages.

If the girl sounded okay on the phone, you asked how long it would take to get there because you didn't want to call at say, ten, and have somebody rapping on your door at midnight, which one girl did one night, told him she was right around the corner in a bar, when actually she was coming in all the way from Waukegan. To Chicago, this was, He'd been asleep when she tap-tap-tapped discreetly on the door, only two hours later than when she said she'd be there. A fright. A total horror. Grinning foolishly, badly in need of dental work, apologizing for what she called her "tardiness," a skinny-legged black girl in a sleeveless pink dress, track marks up and down her left arm, a hooker from Central Casting if ever there was one, he hoped she hadn't stopped at the front desk to announce herself. He told her she was too late, told her he was already asleep, told her he had to catch a plane early the next morning, and she said, "I can do deep throat, honey," and he was instantly hard.

He clicks to the music video channel, catches Madonna repeatedly thrusting her crotch into his face. Do any of these rock singers — excuse me, artists. They call themselves performing artists nowadays. Do these performing artists realize that after ten minutes of watching them grinding their hips and fondling their tits and licking their lips and slitting their eyes and otherwise performing on videos that have nothing whatever to do with the songs they're singing, any red-blooded American male out here might easily be persuaded to a performance of his own, in his fist? Does Madonna realize that hundreds of boys and men are out here jerking off to her gyrations right this instant? He supposes she does. Or maybe not. In any case, he doesn't choose to fuck the screen image of Madonna or any of the other dry-humping performing artists, or even any of the soft-focus, soft-porn movie queens in the so-called adult flicks the hotel provides on a pay-per-view basis. He truly wishes he could at least talk to Heather and her girlfriend Lois like the car, doesn't anyone want to talk anymore? He's not even angry at her anymore — what the hell, she's just a kid. Get both of them talking on extensions, have them tell him what they're wearing, lead them through the paces, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards tonight, does it? Well, there's always Penthouse. That's why he bought the magazine in the first place.