Evan Hunter: Candyland

"I'm glad to hear that."

"When you first told me, I thought just my luck, a married man. I don't have much luck with men, you know. Well, my blind date tonight, for example."

"Maybe he was gay."

"Maybe, but I doubt it. I lived with a gay guy for six months. He was a prize, believe me," she says, and rolls her eyes "But back there in the restaurant, I began thinking…"

"I was wondering what you were thinking."

"Yeah, I could sense the panic. I was thinking this might turn out to be a good thing for both of us."

"I think it could."

"I'm sure it could. You only come East every now and then, which means I'd still have my freedom.

"Of course you would."

"And you won't have to worry about me getting all clingy and weepy. I could see you whenever you're in town, or even come to meet you in Boston or Atlanta, Washington, wherever you said. "

“Washington, yes.”

"'Wherever you'll be," she says, and sips at the bourbon again, a lowers her eyes. "If You think you might like that," she says.

"I think I might like that very much," he says.

"'Well, good. I think I might like that very much, too.

"I will have that drink, after all," he says, which line he guesses he has beard in about two hundred movies. Though not as often as the most frequently used five words in the history of film, which, once he knew what they were, ruined one out of every two movies he went to see. He is tempted to reveal the five words to her now, in exchange for what she's promised will be a long and mutually satisfying relationship, but maybe he'll save them till tomorrow morning when they're on the way to the airport together, the sweet redheaded Irish girl accompanying her lover to bid him a fond farewell till next time. Walking toward the bar, he shakes his head in what he hopes will express to her his amazement and delight at having found this cuddly little darling now sitting there curled up with her skirt so high he feels if he drops to his knees before her, he'll know in an instant if she's naked under it. just a single glance will tell him. Grinning like a schoolboy, he finds another little gin bottle, and pours it in a glass over ice. He raises the glass.

"I'm happy you're here," he says.

"I am, too," she says.

What goes around comes around, he thinks. Earlier tonight, he was sitting here thumbing through his little black book and sipping a Beef eater, and here it is almost ten o'clock, and he's still sipping a Beef eater, although no longer searching for a bed partner because it seems he has had the extreme good fortune of finding one who's looking for a good steady fuck, no strings attached.

"The thing is I feel I really know you," she says. "I feel we're so alike in so many respects, don't you? I know that's ridiculous, I mean, what've we spent together, an hour, two hours? But don't you feel this affinity? I know I do. You're a dear sweet gentle person, Michael, and I really do want to make love with you. I visualize something very good or both of us here. In the future, too. For a long time to come. And I won't call your wife, you don't have to worry about that."

"I know you won't," he says, and goes to her where she's sitting, and cans over her, and kisses her gently on the lips. Gently, he takes her hands, lifts her out of the chair, holds her against him, kisses her again, gently. Rigid cock in his pants notwithstanding, he will treat her gently. He will be kind and gentle and tender and loving, and she will nevermore think about the blind date who stood her up tonight. Tonight, he will be her friend and her lover both, and she will leave this room eternally grateful to the masked man from California.

But meanwhile, he has to pee.

"Why don't you make yourself comfortable?" he says, which he is certain is a line from another thousand movies he's seen. "I won't be a minute." He's heard that one before, too. She smiles somewhat wanly, nods, and watches him as he goes toward the bathroom door, and opens it, and walks inside. There is a fierce urgency to his need. If he does not pee within the next ten seconds, he feels he will explode. He loosens his belt and unzips and lets his trousers fall to his ankles. Forcibly angling his stiff cock down toward the bowl, he waits for the stream to start, the flow inhibited by his erection — God, how he wants to fuck this girl. Like a sputtering spigot after the water has been turned off for a while, the urine trickles and spits from his shaft, and then at last gushes forth in a strong steady stream. He closes his eyes and throws his head back. He does not want to lose the hard-on. He knows this is not an early-morning piss hard-on, but he's fearful the reaction may be the same, you pee and it's gone. He wants to come to her stiff and eager and obliging.

He washes his hands, and brushes his teeth, takes off all his clothes and folds them neatly on the hamper top. Removing the white bathrobe from its hook on the bathroom door, he puts it on, and ties the belt at his waist. He looks at himself in the mirror over the sink. Who are you? he wonders again, and opens the door.

"I hope I haven't… " he says, and realizes the room is empty.

But no.

But yes.

His eyes cut around the room fitfully, to the chair she was sitting in, the chair is empty. To the dresser where she'd placed her handbag. The bag is gone. To the door where her open blue umbrella was on the floor drying. The umbrella is gone.

"Karen?" he says.

Is she hiding somewhere? In the closet perhaps? Is she playing game? Find the phlebotomist and she is yours? He goes to the closet door, opens it. Hanging on the rod are the trousers and jacket he will wear on the plane tomorrow morning. There is nothing else in the closet. So where is she? Come on, he thinks. This isn't funny anymore Really.

"Karen?" he says again, and goes immediately to the window, an pats down the drapes hanging on each side. There is no one behind the drapes. Rain slithers down the windows. He stands there looking out blankly at the shimmering lights of New York. Where else can she be? There was a fire escape, she might be outside on that. But there is no fir escape. So where?

"Karen?" he says, but he has already given up hope, the way the searchers for John John and his party gave up all hope long before they found the bodies. Well, wait, she might be under the bed. He know, damn well she won't be under the bed but he gets down on his hand and knees and looks anyway. Of course not. He pushes himself to his feet, goes to the entrance door, opens it, and looks out into the corridor.

"Karen?" he calls, softly.

He can hear the elevator down the hall, humming down the shaft He wonders if he should race down the steps, try to catch her before she leaves the hotel, visualizes himself bursting into the lobby in a bathrobe, and abandons the idea at once. Should he call the front desk ask one of the clerks there to stop her before she hits the revolving doors? For what purpose? She's gone.

He closes the door.

"She's gone," he says aloud, sounding surprised even though he's known it for the past five minutes.

He was in the bathroom too long, that was it. He shouldn't have given her all that time to change her mind. Why had he afforded her an opportunity to panic? To escape? Goddamn it, how could he have been so fucking stupid? He can just imagine her sitting here in the easy chair, sipping at her bourbon, going over her present situation, I don't have much luck with men, you know, wondering if old Michael here who has a wife in Los Angeles and a twenty-one-year old daughter in Princeton, New Jersey, is really the right man to change that situation. What is she getting herself into here? What was she even thinking? And finally — ta-tà! The five most famous words in the history of motion pictures, racing through her mind and propelling her out of that chair and out of the room and down the hallway and into the elevator: Let's get out of here!