Флетчер Флора - Take Me Home

Someone kept feeding coins to a jukebox, and it seemed to Ivy that the same music was played over and over again, a full-voiced woman singing “Oh, How I Miss You Tonight,” and it was that song in that voice that became the night’s accompaniment, with power to restore it later, not in the fuzzy details of what happened, which were always vague, but in its emotional quality. After the consumption of a good many manhattans, Ivy felt the need to relieve herself, and she slipped carefully off her stool and said, “Excuse me, please,” and started toward the door of the ladies’ room that was clearly marked by a little electric sign above it. But the door was animated by a capricious spirit and insisted upon playing jokes on her. Although she had located it exactly before starting and had walked directly toward it, it kept shifting a little to the right or to the left, so that she had to stop and start again each time in a new direction. Moreover, it kept withdrawing slowly, so that she gained on it only about half as much distance as she should have, and therefore required twice as long to reach it.

There was a clock in the restroom, which she was able to bring into focus after a few moments of intent concentration, and she was surprised and delighted to see that it was eleven o’clock and that she had managed to pass several hours of the night with practically no trouble. It was evident to her now, however, that she had drunk quite enough manhattans for one night and had better return to the hotel to which she’d gone after leaving Henry’s, and The name of the hotel was, she believed, the Hawkins. Yes, that was it. It was named the Hawkins, and it was just down the street a short way, in the next block or the block after.

Leaving the restroom, she returned to the bar to say good night to Charles Neal. She owed him this courtesy, she thought, for being generous and buying her so many manhattans. She did not attempt to get back onto the stool, a difficult and dangerous exercise, but stood beside him and spoke politely in his ear, forming the shape of each word with care before enunciating it.

“Than you very much for the manhattans,” she said, “but I think I had better leave now.”

“Where are we going?” he said.

“I’m staying at the Hawkins Hotel. It’s only down the street a little way, though, and it isn’t necessary for you to come with me. I can get there easily by myself.”

A comedian , he thought. A lush and a nut and a goddamn comedian .

“I wouldn’t think of letting you go alone,” he said.

“Really it isn’t necessary, and you’ve already been quite considerate and generous enough. I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“You’ve got a real sense of humor,” he said. “You kill me.”

These words surprised her, for she had intended no humor, and they were spoken in a hard, fiat tone of voice that did not suggest that he was in the least amused. But her senses had become unreliable, and it was likely that her impressions were distorted. Anyhow, he was definitely determined to see her to the hotel, having already slipped off the stool as a beginning, and it would be ungracious of her to make an issue of it. And so she permitted him to walk out of the bar and down the street beside her.

The sidewalk was unsteady and kept tilting toward the street. This caused her to keep bumping into Charles Neal, who was between her and the curb, and once, at an intersection, the pavement moved so suddenly as she was stepping down from the sidewalk into the street that she stumbled and would have fallen if he had not held her by the arm. After that he continued holding her by the arm, even when it was no longer necessary, and when she assured him that she was perfectly all right and did not need his help, he only laughed and kept hold of the arm, and the laugh had the same hard, flat, disturbing sound that his voice had had at the last moment at the bar.

The lobby of the hotel was empty, except for the night clerk, another elderly man who was asleep in a chair behind the desk, his head fallen back and his Adam’s apple working convulsively as he sucked air through his nostrils and blew it out noisily through his mouth. Since she had carried her room key with her in the pocket of her coat, Ivy did not find it necessary to waken him. She walked across the lobby to the elevator and stopped, turning to face Charles Neal with what she hoped was an attitude of decisiveness.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Good night, then.”

“Joke again.”

“What?”

“Suppose we have a nightcap in your room.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t have anything there to drink.”

“No? Well, I’ll just see you safely upstairs.”

She understood then, going up in the elevator, that she had made a wanton commitment to a dangerous man, and when she opened the door of her room and entered she was afraid to try to close it against him. Slowly, with despair, she removed her hat and coat and faced him.

She was horrified to see that Neal too had tom off his own coat and tie, tossing them toward a chair, and was now loosening his belt. Her eyes fastened on the stiff brush of hair at the parting in his shirt, and before she began to shiver with revulsion, she was conscious of a sharp spurt of unwanted excitement within her.

Chick’s clothes had been deceptive in the bar. She saw now that he was brutally formed, and that with such a man there would be no mercy. Not knowing what else to do, she backed slowly away, her frantic gaze fixed on his pale eyes, with their shallow glitter of blind lust. Slowly Chick walked after her.

His pointed tongue flicked wetly over his half-smiling lips, and it dawned on her for the first that he thought she was playing his game, teasing him on, building his passion, and a moan of realization formed in her throat.

This whipped him into action, and suddenly he lunged at her, the veins in his neck swollen and pulsating as if ready to burst. One grimy hand darted out and grabbed the collar of her dress, while he shoved her savagely with the other. The dress ripped like paper and Ivy sank helplessly to the floor.

Laughter exploded in his throat, as his hard flanks imprisoned her sides, and he reached down to draw her to him. Slowly, with calculated brutality, he brought her up against his rigidity, the hard length of his male body pressing into hers at every point. Her senses reeled, unable to cope with this strange and terrifying excitement, then took refuge in the paralysis of pure terror.

His searching hands were now taking rough liberties with every part of her, caressing her breasts, massaging her flanks, exploring her thighs, his mouth ravenous on her neck, her ears, and finally sinking between her lips.

It was in her mouth that her paralysis was shattered, and without warning she bit down on his lip, and tasted blood. He cursed and slapped her back-handed across the face. Like a cornered animal, she lunged for his hand with her teeth, and again he cursed and struck her harder, so that she fell to the floor.

There, between sitting and lying, she stared down with mute shame at the exposed pink of her breasts. How much longer would this go on? And did it really matter any more? Was this not, perhaps, the violation she had been unconsciously seeking from the beginning? No, no, she thought, it was the ultimate degradation that she should lose in violence to a stranger what she had hoped to gain in tenderness from a friend.

With a flicker of regained hope, she looked up almost beseechingly into Chick’s bleeding face, as if somehow he ought to understand this. But Neal was beyond the reach of such sanities, and this time he made no effort to bring her to her feet, but flung himself down upon her with such force that it drove the breath from her body.