ROBBINS Harold - The Carpetbaggers

"I was worried. Why didn't you call?"

"I’m in the middle of a meeting."

"Oh. Are you alone? Are you in the bedroom?"

"Yes," he answered, in the same low, cautious voice. "I’m in the bedroom."

"Are you sitting on the bed?"

"Yes."

"I'm lying on the bed." She waited for him to ask the usual question. This time he didn't, so she told him, anyway. "I have nothing on," she whispered. A sudden warmth rose up in her. "Oh, David, I miss you so. I wish you were here beside me."

She heard the faint sound of a striking match. "I'll be out there by the end of the week."

"I can't wait, David. Can you?"

"No," he said, still cautiously.

"Stretch out on the bed for a moment, David," she whispered. "I want you to feel me as I feel you."

"Rosa- "

"Oh, David," she whispered, interrupting. "I can see you now. Hard and strong. I can feel you pouring life into me." She closed her eyes against the flush of heat spreading upward from her loins. She could hear his breathing in the telephone. "David," she whispered. "I cannot wait."

"Rosa!" His voice was harsh. "I- "

Her voice was warm and languid. "Freud would have a wonderful time with me," she whispered. "Are you angry with me, David, for being so greedy?"

"No," he said.

She took a deep breath. "I’m glad," she said. "I have wonderful news to tell you, darling."

"Can it wait until tomorrow, Rosa?" he said quickly. "I’m in the middle of an important meeting."

She hesitated in stunned silence.

He took it for acquiescence. "That's a good girl, darling," he said. "Bye now."

There was a click and he was off the line before she could answer. She stared at the telephone in bewilderment for a moment, then put it down slowly.

She reached for the cigarette still smoldering in the ash tray. The acrid smoke burned in her throat. Angrily she ground it out. She turned her face into the pillow and lay there silently.

I shouldn't have called him, she thought. He said he was busy. She got up from the bed and went into the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror.

You ought to be able to understand, she told herself. There have been times you've been too busy to come to the telephone when he called. You, of all people.

Almost surprised, she saw the tears well up into her eyes and begin to run down her cheeks. Then they overwhelmed her and she sank to her knees, her face against the cold porcelain bathtub. She covered her face with her hands.

Was this what it meant to be a woman?

Maurice Bonner sat up in the bed and watched the girl walk over to a chair and sit down. He studied her appreciatively. The girl was naked. And beautiful. The strong, full breasts resting on the finely boned rib cage. The flat, hard stomach swelling abruptly into the surprising rise of her pubis, then tapering gently into the thighs of her long, slim legs.

He watched the muscles of her back suddenly come into play as she turned to pick up a pack of cigarettes from the table. He nodded to himself. She was beautiful, all right. Perhaps not in the ordinary sense of the word but beautiful as a whore had any right to be. And never was.

"Christ, you're ugly," the girl said, looking at him.

He grinned, exposing the crooked, uneven teeth in his long horse face. What she said was nothing new. He was not unaware of it himself; he could see it in his mirror. He threw back the sheet and got out of bed.

"Here, cover yourself," the girl said, flinging a towel at him. "You look like an ape with your cock hanging down like that." He caught the towel deftly and wrapped it around his waist. "Was it any good?" he asked curiously, taking a cigarette from the package.

She didn't answer.

"Was it worth it?"

"I guess it was," she said unemotionally.

He went back to the bed and sat down on the edge. "Is that all it is to you?" he asked. "Just another John?"

She stared at him. "You're supposed to be a pretty hep guy. You want the truth?"

He smiled again. "The truth, of course."

"You're all the same to me," she said, meeting his gaze steadily. "You might as well be goosing me with a Coca-Cola bottle for all the difference it makes."

"Don't you feel anything, ever?"

"Sure," she answered. "I'm human. But not with the customers. I can't afford it. They pay for perfection." She ground out the cigarette in the tray. "When I feel I got to get my kicks, I take a week off and go out to one of those dude ranches that cater to married women on holiday. There's always some cowpoke out there who thinks he's making it big for me. And he is, because I don't have to give him the best. But the Johns pay. You're entitled."

"But aren't you cheating the Johns?"

She smiled at him. "Do you feel cheated?"

"No," he said. Then he added quickly, "I don't know. I didn't know you were acting."

"I wasn't acting," she said, taking another cigarette. "I was working. That's my job."

He didn't speak.

She lit the cigarette and gestured toward him. "Look," she said. "You eat a good dinner. Afterwards, you say to your friends, that was a great steak. The greatest. You don't mind talking about it. You even tell your friends where you had it so they can get themselves one. Right?"

He nodded.

"It's like that with me," she said. "You got a friend. This time it's Irv Schwartz. You're playing gin and he looks at you and says, 'I had a great piece last night. The greatest. Jennie Denton. Give her a blast.' So you come over and put your money on the table. You climb up, you climb down. You get filled with air like a balloon and float around the world. I’ll bet it's a long time since you popped three times in as many hours. Do you still feel cheated?"

He laughed, suddenly feeling young and strong. She was right. He hadn't felt like this in a long time, maybe twenty years. He felt the warmth return to his loins. He got up, letting the towel fall to the floor.

She laughed. "You're younger than I thought. Look, its midnight."

"So?" He stared at her.

"The deal was two bills till midnight," she said. "You're all paid up. It's three bills from here till morning. But that includes breakfast."

He laughed. "You're worse than MCA. O.K., it's a deal."

She smiled and got to her feet. "Come on."

He followed her into a large bathroom with a giant square marble tub sunken into the floor. There was a rubbing table against the wall under the window. She gestured to it. "Get up there.'

He sat on the edge of the table and watched her open the medicine cabinet. She took down a safety razor, a tube of shaving cream and a brush. She filled a tumbler with water and soaked a washcloth under the tap. These she placed on the edge of the sink near the table. "Lie down," she said, dipping the brush into the tumbler and working up a lather with the cream.

"What are you going to do?"

"What does it look like?" she asked. "I’m going to shave you."

"I shaved this evening."

She laughed. "Not your face, stupid." She reached out a hand and pressed him back onto the table. "I want to see what you look like underneath all that fur."

"But- "

"Lie still," she said fiercely, already beginning to brush the lather on his chest. "I won't cut you. I used to do this all the time when I worked in the hospital."

The lather was oddly soothing. "You worked in a hospital?"

She nodded. "I graduated from nursing school when I was twenty," she said. "Cum laude, too."

"Why'd you leave it?"

He scarcely felt the razor moving over his body. She turned to rinse it under the tap. "Sixty-five a month, eighteen hours a day," she said, turning back to him. She began to lather the other side of his chest. "And too many jokers thinking it was free."

He laughed as the razor glided across his stomach. "That tickles."