Pete Hamill - Loving Women

“You can’t go walkin on no roads alone no more,” he said. “Not while you down here. No more than I can. You do, you go talking shit about this being a free country an all that shit, they gonna grab you some night and drop you in a fuckin swamp.” A pause. “Max and Sal too.” He wrapped the gun carefully in the oilcloth. “These cracker mothafuckas ain’t dumb. Now they know you still around Pensacola, prob’ly right there in Ellyson Field, and so they gonna watch for you. Watch the roads. The bars. The base. So if you don’t have no car to carry you where you going, then don’t go …”

I pictured myself sneaking through the woods for the rest of my time in Pensacola. And then I got angry. Three of us had fought Buster and four of his friends and kicked the shit out of them. That should’ve been the end of it. I was so young that I still thought the world had rules, that men fought and someone won and someone lost and then it was over. And Bobby Bolden was saying it wasn’t the end of it. That some things in this world didn’t end until someone was dead. That down here, anyway, they’d come to you in the night, memory as fresh as morning, and take back the blood they shed. That year, Bobby Bolden knew this better than I did. He knew where we were.

In the South.

The goddamned South.

“They try that, we can do the same,” I said, almost bitterly. “We can go chasing after them too, man.”

He looked at me in a sad way. “Wise up, kid. This is their country. Not yours. Definitely not mine.”

“Well, we’ll see what happens,” I said.

He shoved the gun in his belt. “You better hope nothin happens at all.”

The light was on behind the blinds when I finally reached the trailer. I knocked and heard Eden’s muffled voice telling me to come in. She hadn’t given me a key and never would. I pushed the door open and she was facing me, a faint smile on her face, her back to the sink. She had never looked so beautiful. Her hair was pulled straight back and her face was scrubbed clean of makeup. She was wearing a black turtleneck and a short white apron. Her legs were bare and she was wearing the red shoes. I locked the door behind me.

You’re late, she said in a husky voice.

She was smoking and flicked ashes behind her into the sink without taking her eyes off me.

Had a little trouble, I told her, but I’ll tell you about it later. You look good, child.

So do you, I said.

This too was part of the dance: the soft words and compliments, all part of saying hello. Tonight was different. Her eyes were unfocused as if she were thinking four moves ahead of me. I started to get hard, and reached for her and pulled her to me, kissing her. I ran my unscraped hand down her body and discovered that, except for the turtleneck, all she was wearing was the apron.

Gotta surprise for you, she whispered hoarsely.

Yeah?

Hope you like it.

She dropped the cigarette in the sink, and then she pressed both hands on my shoulders, pushing me down. I kissed her breasts, taking each in my mouth with the cloth of the sweater between me and her nipples and breathed hotly on her. Her voice sounded choked and she pressed again more firmly and then I was on my knees in front of her and she lifted her apron delicately and there in front of me was the surprise.

She had shaved.

Every last hair was gone and I was facing her beautifully formed cunt, which was very pale, looking like those perfect pubic mounds I’d seen on the classical statues in the art books. Except that this wasn’t art made by hand from marble, bronze or polished wood. This was packed with muscle and blood, and it was in front of me now as I kneeled before her, and I thought the word cunt , and saw the crevice clearly defined and tightly shut, thought cunt again, saw no evidence of clitoris or entry to the dark channel within and whispered loudly, like a prayer for mercy from the position of worship: Cunt .

Eden took a small step to the right, braced against the sink, gripped my head with both hands and pulled me to her.

It was as if I’d never been there before, the hairless lips suddenly parting, slippery under my tongue, the opening at once tighter and wetter. I put my brow against her pelvic bone and pushed hard, pressing her now against the cold metal sink, while playing delicately with my tongue in this new bald place. Almost from the start she was trembling and moving, her legs straight out, drawing up on the heels of those red shoes, the legs hardening and locking, then loosening, then hard again. She eased away, then squatted hard against my tongue, pulling fiercely on my hair, as if trying to suck me up into her, the nude wet cunt demanding more and more tongue, her voice rising and shuddering, until she was suddenly completely crazily coming: tearing away the apron with both hands, then yanking again at my hair, pumping forward, then slamming her hard hot bottom against the sink, standing on the heels of her shoes, until she seemed to rise over me, twisting straight up and screaming. And then flopped forward.

Exhausted.

Panting.

Limp. With her belly pressing against my head, her hands holding the back of my belt, her cheeks spread loosely against the sink. I blew gently against her hairless curves and clefts. And then she shuddered again and slid away and rolled onto her back on the polished floor. She lay there with her eyes closed. I entered her without undressing.

I never want this to end, she said, bathing my raw left hand in Epsom salts, as I lay on the bed where she had placed me, drained and empty. Never. Never, never.

Neither do I, I whispered.

And I know, she said, I shouldn’t oughtta be saying that. We’re here. We could be here lots of nights. I want it never to end. Even though, well, you know …

Don’t say even though, I said.

She said nothing.

I want us to last forever, I said.

She rubbed my hand in the warm water, but she was looking at the wall.

We won’t last forever, you know, she said gently. One fine day, you gonna meet a girl your own age. Probly younger. And she’ll want to go to Paris with you and help make you a painter, and all that stuff, like you say you want. And she’ll want to have kids and so will you. And she’ll want to meet your friends and read the books you’re reading and see you at breakfast every day of her life. You’ll see her like she just came into this world, all beautiful and sweet and fresh and new. And you’ll fall in love with her. And then you’ll feel bad because you won’t know how to tell me . You’ll walk around in a fog, you’ll pick fights with me, you’ll see the lines in my face for the very first time and the way my titties are droppin and you’ll see my kids go off and have kids of their own and you’ll think that it’s very strange, you being with a damn grand mother, and so you’ll screw up your courage and come to me and tell me you love another woman. And maybe you will love her and maybe you won’t , but in the end, you’ll go away.

I won’t, I said (the words still clear and fresh in my ears now). I swear it, Eden. I won’t ever go away. I won’t ever leave you.

Please don’t say those words, she said. I hear them words in every rotten movie.

I said, my voice rising with the panic, I don’t know any other words. But I gotta say them. Especially to you. I mean them.

You mean it now, she said calmly, but you won’t even remember what you just said to me … When it’s time to move on.

Then the words came pouring out of me, she lying beside me now, her head on my chest, my hand playing with her hair, the smell of soap and cunt in the air, mixed with the thick scent of magnolias from the lake. I wanted her beside me for the rest of my life, I said, the two of us, Eden and Michael Devlin, and her kids too, and so what if she became a grandmother, what the hell difference would that make? I knew I couldn’t be a father to her kids, they had a father, a real father, but I could be good to them, and maybe teach them a few things, and show them good books and take them to museums and if we all went to Paris, they could learn French while we were learning French and we’d all be happy. If I couldn’t make money as a painter, and couldn’t live on the GI Bill, I’d get a job , any kind of work to bring in the bucks, lots of them, and feed the kids and Eden and clothe them too and raise them up right and save what was left and … I could paint at night and on the week ends. And then, hey, sooner or later I’d have a breakthrough and I could give up the job and paint all the time. I knew I could do it, with Eden beside me, helping me make my way in the world while I was learning my craft. I needed her (I told her). I wanted her. Now. And later. When we both were old.