Джон Макдональд - A Key to the Suite

You would feel this way, he thought, if you killed some kind of innocent thing with your hands. If you conspired to kill it. If the two of you pursued it in its terror for a long way over rough country, enduring your own exhaustion in the dark joy of the chase, and then caught it at last, tortured it for a long time, then bled it and gutted it and buried it and stomped the ground flat. It would be like this. You would not want to look directly at each other. You would be filled with a listless shame, but in some curious way you would be joined in a conspiracy of guilt. The worst of it, perhaps, is the knowledge that you will want to run the wild chase again.

Or, he thought, is it my own innocence I mourn? How could I have not known of this dimension in the world I’m in, where everything can be erased, leaving only the animal agony, the animal greed?

He turned his head to look at her again, and as he did so she opened her eyes. The light glinted on the tiny gold buttons in the small gentle ear lobes. Her eyes were an unfocused blue, and he saw them change as they saw him, saw them close and open again.

She pushed herself up, swung her legs off the bed to sit facing him. She gave an aching yawn, shuddered, scratched her head. “W’time is it?”

“Nearly nine,” he said. “When did we go to sleep?”

“Donno, dear. It was dark.” She stood up and swayed, then padded off into the bathroom. In a little while he heard the sound of the shower. He drowsed off and awakened when she touched his foot. She was sitting on the foot of his bed, looking at him. She looked at him with a mild, skeptical interest, the way a woman looks at something she might buy, if she can think of a use for it.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” she said.

“Let’s just say I’m not delighted with myself, either.”

She pulled her legs up, hugged them, her chin on her knees, looking at him with mockery. “Oh, you’ll be delighted with yourself soon enough, Hubbard. You’ll remember. You’ll strut. You’ll love telling your friends about it. You’re a strong man, you know.”

“What are you trying to prove, Cory?”

She tilted her head, and her eyes changed. For the first time he had the odd feeling that she was not entirely sane. “I’ve proved it, haven’t I? I’m the best you ever had. I’m the best you’ll ever have. I made you holler, and that was a brand new thing for you, wasn’t it? Not like the other times you’ve done a little cheating, was it? Tell me I’m the best!”

“It’s the first time I’ve cheated.”

Her laugh was derisive. “Oh, come now!”

“It’s the truth, Cory. Why would I lie to you?”

She looked uncertain, slightly troubled. “You’re unusual, then. Why not?”

“Let’s put it this way. I haven’t really felt any need for anything I couldn’t get with Jan. I’ve been curious about a few other women, but not enough to make it worth while loading myself with a lot of middle-class guilt.”

“Now you’ve got something to feel guilty about, lover.”

“It’s going to take a while to sort out just how I’m going to feel about it.”

Her smile was like a sneer. “I’ll tell you one way you’ll feel, darling. From now on, your darling, adorable, innocent Jan is going to be like so much oatmeal. Every time you have oatmeal, you’ll remember steak.”

“I don’t think it will be that way, Cory. And I don’t know why you should want it to be that way. You act right now as if you hate me. I think it’s going to be fine with Jan and me, as it always has been.”

“You’ll find out.”

“I’m not going to be comparing. This was something else.”

“It was just exactly the same thing, dear, but better, because I’m better.”

“I’ll say you’re not the way I thought you’d be.”

“All girly-girl?” she said contemptuously. “Shy and blushing and sighing?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“The film I was using. It says not to change film in bright sunlight, Floyd. That’s all.”

“And there was no time out for tears?”

“Of course not.”

“Why the production, then?”

“I wanted you, and I didn’t want to take the chance of scaring you off, darling. You like to pretend you’re a decent man. I think that’s very quaint and nice, really. And in the beginning, you were so cute and boyish, trying to be so manly, dear.”

“I sort of lost the initiative pretty early in the game.”

“You wouldn’t have done much with it if I’d let you keep it. I knew you were irritated about that. I could tell. You were resisting me in little ways for quite a long time. And then you got to the point where you could stop thinking and worrying, and then I could give us a lot of hours of it.”

A sudden anger tightened his throat. “I think you’re an evil little bitch, Cory.”

She laughed at him. “I’m a choosy evil bitch and a delicious evil bitch and a very competent evil bitch. And all this competence is all yours, dear, for the whole convention.”

“No thanks.”

She laughed again. “Try to say that tomorrow, when you start wondering if the things you think happened really happened. You’ll want to find out all over again. You’ll have to find out, Floyd. You’re hooked, darling. Don’t fight it. Why spoil the fun? My God, the way you look at me! Your little puritan soul is outraged. You hate me right now because I destroyed all your manly dignity and turned you into a rather untidy animal, and it hurts your pride to think how much there was that I had to teach you. By tomorrow, lover, you’ll realize that I wasn’t using you, and laughing at you. You’ll remember that I was far too busy being my own kind of animal, and you’ll remember how you learned to drive me practically out of my mind, and you’ll feel so terribly masculine and eager, you won’t be able to wait to get us in here with the door locked. Right now, lover, you’re ruined. You’d get as much kick out of looking at a mailbox as you get out of staring at me. If I hugged you, you’d probably gag. It astonishes you that I ever looked good to you. But you just wait, brother. Just wait and see.”

She got off the bed and began to get dressed, humming to herself. He could see movement out of the corner of his eye, but he did not watch her directly.

She came over and stood by the bed and said, “I’m off, darling.”

“Cory?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Why does it have to be so... antagonistic? Okay, you’re not what you seemed to be. And you’re something I never ran into before. And I’ll admit I was overmatched. But why does it have to be like... some kind of revenge? I haven’t tried to hurt you.”

“You’ve hurt Jan, haven’t you?”

“Possibly. What’s that to you?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Who are you getting even with?”

“Who’s asking you to try to understand me, dear? Just enjoy me.”

“You’re uneasy. Why should my asking you that make you uncomfortable?”

“I’m terribly comfortable. I can think of a dozen lovely reasons why I’m at peace with the world, dear.” She bent and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Do get a good sleep. You’ll need it.”

He heard the door open and shut quietly behind her. In a little while he got up and took a long shower, soaping himself many times. After he had dressed, he looked at the convention program to see what he had missed. Though the dinner speakers had not talked about any of his particular areas of interest, he vowed to miss no more of the scheduled events. He had also missed an official cocktail party prior to the banquet.

Hubbard felt curiously furtive as he rode down in the elevator. Noisy delegates got on at nearly every floor. He had the feeling that if anyone stared closely at him they could not fail to see the stains of strenuous debauch.