Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

“Thank you ,” the fat man answered.

He was silent when he got back to the car. He swung around and headed for the first cabin, a concrete square with a bright red door.

“Any trouble?” Margaret asked.

“No.”

“Who are we?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Calder.”

“How do you do, Mr. Calder?”

“How do you do, Mrs. Calder?” he said, but he was not smiling.

They got out of the car. From the office, the owner yelled, “The door’s open. Key’s inside on the dresser. Leave it open when you go, will you?”

Then he had not fooled the owner at all. The man had only wanted his seven dollars. There had been no need to register falsely, probably no need to register at all. A practiced man would simply have winked, and there would have been immediate understanding. Feeling foolishly naïve, he opened the cabin door, flicked on the light, and allowed Margaret to enter the room.

Then he closed and locked the door.

The room was not at all unpleasant. The walls were a painted concrete. There was a large double bed with a bright yellow cover on it. There was a dresser, and a writing table, and a door that led to a small bathroom. There was a coat closet with wire hangers in it, and three windows with venetian blinds. A gray pay-radio rested on a small table.

Margaret stood just inside the door and looked at the bed.

“I wish...”

“What?” he asked. He took her coat and draped it over one of the chairs, and then threw his own over it unceremoniously.

“I wish it wasn’t the first thing you saw,” she said, staring at the bed.

“We can still leave,” he said. “Or we can stay and just talk.”

“No. It’s all right.” She went to the bed and sat on the edge of it. There was a peculiar resignation in her eyes. She sighed and then reluctantly lay back. Pulling her legs up onto the bed, she closed her eyes and said, “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t what you want count at all?” He sat down beside her. He did not touch her. He sat watching her. She opened her eyes and looked at him with mild surprise, as if first discovering him and the room they were in.

“Take off your lipstick,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Take it off.”

“No, if you want to kiss me, kiss me.”

He brought his face very close to hers. Her eyes remained open, wide and brown, never leaving his face. He could smell the scent of her hair, the faint trace of perfume. He kept watching the cushion of her mouth, but he did not kiss her.

“You’re very lovely,” he said.

“Are you going to kiss me?”

He kissed her, and his lips clung to hers, clung to the adhesive lipstick for just a moment. And then he moved back from her and looked at her mouth, puzzled. “You don’t know how to kiss,” he said.

She shook her head.

“But...”

“Teach me,” she said, and he wondered if this were the same gag she’d pulled with the drink and the holding of the glass. He kissed her again, lightly. She kept her lips firmly together, her mouth unmoving, accepting his kiss the way a mother or a sister would.

“Take off your lipstick” he said again.

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to kiss you hard, and I have to go home tonight.”

She did not move. She stared at him in silent defiance. He reached for her bag, opened it, took out two tissues, and said, “Shall I do it?”

“No.” She pulled the tissues from his hand and wiped her mouth. She rubbed the lipstick off most fiercely, and then she snapped her bag shut and lay back again.

“Now teach me,” she said.

He took her chin in his hand. He leaned over her, his mouth an inch from her lips. “Open your mouth,” he said.

She parted her lips. He kissed her and then said, “Suck in your breath. Give me something to kiss.”

“Like this?” she asked, and pulled his mouth to hers.

“That’s better.”

“Again,” she said. Her voice was very low. He kissed her again, and then drew away.

“You’re doing much—”

“Kiss me,” she said.

He kissed her again.

“Kiss me. Don’t stop kissing me.”

He pulled her to him, his mouth hard, his arms hard, feeling a sudden spasm of desire as her body moved in against his. She was incredibly soft and pliant, and she moved into the closeness of his arms as if she had been there many times before, as if she knew every angle of his body and moved now to adjust her own body so that the bones, the warm flesh, the willing muscles clicked, locked into place with his, fit into place like the last piece of a long, long puzzle.

“Larry,” she said.

“What?”

“You’re getting me hot.”

He had never heard a woman use that expression, and he felt something wildly alien stir within him. He seized her roughly, fiercely catching her mouth with his own. His hands found the zipper at the back of her dress and as the zipper lowered she said, “No,” and then “No” again, and then he slid the dress from her shoulders and she wriggled to help him as he lowered it to her waist saying, “No, no,” all the while. He unclasped her brassiere and the globes of her breasts were free, and she said, “No, please, no,” and he kissed her, and the flow of words stopped until his hands were on her breasts and then she said, “Oh, please, please, no, please, no,” under his fingers, and suddenly her back arched and she pulled his head to her breasts and her hand tightened at the back of his neck, and he kissed her nipples and her throat, his hands covering her body, her body arching to every quivering touch of his hands, and she kept saying, “No, no,” and then they were naked, their bodies still locked as if they had always been together, locked, and he was dizzy with the scent of her and the sight of her and the touch of her, and she said, “Do you have... I don’t want a baby,” and he said, “Yes, Maggie,” and she said, “Yes, yes, yes,” and then she sighed, “Oh, Larry.”

And for him there was nothing in the world but her, nothing but the warmth of her surrounding him, gently cradling him, nothing else but the woman beneath him moaning; he was senseless, bodiless, mindless, soulless, she was all, she was everything, and he took her, took her with both hands, took her with honey overflowing both hands.

And for her there was nothing in the world but him, nothing but the warm thrust of invasion, penetration, deep, deep, nothing else but the man above her moaning; she was senseless, bodiless, mindless, soulless, he was all, he was everything, and she accepted, surrendered, gave, gave, with all, captured at last, held at last, overflowing.

They did not put it into the formal words until they had seen each other for a total of four times. He called her often between meetings, but they did not exchange the formal words until a cold night in December.

And then, spent, lying side by side in the room, watching the coals of their cigarettes in the darkness, listening to the music from the pay-radio and the howl of the wind outside, he said simply, “I love you, Maggie.”

And she said, “I love you.”

And the words had been spoken, and now there was no return.

She wore the topaz earrings for the first time in January.

The earrings had belonged to her grandmother, who’d died long before Margaret was born. Her grandfather had kept the earrings and given them to Margaret several weeks before his own death. She had never worn them before. Up until the time he’d died, she had taken them out of their box almost every day, standing before the mirror and holding them to her ears, a saucy gleam in her brown eyes, just waiting for the day when she’d be old enough to wear them.