He noticed then that there was no one behind the wheel of the other car. He noticed at the same time that the boy on his side was searching the ground for a rock or a stick or anything with which he could shatter the window. “Open up, you bastard!” one of the boys shouted, and Hank realized he had to act now or take what was certainly coming within the next few minutes. He sucked in a deep breath, pushed the gearshift lever into reverse, and then rammed his foot onto the accelerator.
He hit the car behind him with considerable force. He did not take his foot from the accelerator. He felt a surge of delighted relief when the car behind him began to move. He threw his own car into low, moved forward some six feet, almost running over one of the shouting boys, and then went into reverse again, picking up speed as he headed for the other car. He hit it with a solid smash this time, the speed of an extended run behind him. The other car began rolling backward.
A boy leaped onto the running board, shouting and cursing, pounding at the window. Hank’s car was an old one, but it withstood the boy’s fist nonetheless. With elbow room now, he swung around in an arc, backed off, and then faced his car down the hill. He stepped on the gas pedal suddenly so that the car lurched forward, knocking the boy from the running board. The other car had stopped rolling, captured by the bank at the side of the road; but it was out of his way now, and he gunned his old car forward and raced down the hill.
Suzie was petrified beside him. She sat crouched on the seat, looking through the rear window, trembling. He came very close to loving her while she was trembling. She seemed more like a woman in her fear than she did while exchanging passionate kisses. The attacking boys did not give chase. He took Suzie directly home. At the front door, she kissed him with grateful tenderness. He stopped thinking he might love her as soon as she went into the apartment. But the experience that night had taught Hank a lesson. He discussed it with his friends, and they reached the conclusion that they would thereafter search out streets which were dark but lined with houses.
The street on which he parked with Linda Harder that April night was one which had been uncovered in the corporate search.
He wanted to kiss Linda, but she was in an extremely talkative mood that night. She had been rattling on for the past five minutes about a boy who’d given her a Stevenson button, and Hank was beginning to dislike Intellectuals and Democrats everywhere.
“He was just a fat little boy,” Linda said, “but he had these wonderful dimples in his cheeks, and this big toothy smile. I was terribly in love with him, and he never paid me the slightest bit of attention.”
“Until the Democrats nominated Stevenson,” Hank said.
“Yes. And then he just came up to me one day and said, ‘Here, vote for Stevenson.’ And he handed me the campaign button. I’ve still got it. It was the first time he’d singled me out for anything, the first time he showed he knew I was alive. I can’t tell you how important it made me feel.”
“I’ll have to buy you a trunkful of campaign buttons. Willkie, Landon, Roose—”
“I don’t need that with you, Hank,” Linda said. “I feel important all the time with you.”
“Do you love me, Linda?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I wonder why people don’t think we know how to love?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean... when we’re young. Why do they always think it’s puppy love or something? Do you know what I believe? I believe we’re the only ones who do know how to love. I mean it. When you get older, you forget. I see it all the time. My parents and their friends. I think they’ve all forgotten what love is. I’m glad I’m young. You know? I’m glad I can love you.”
“I’m glad, too,” Linda said.
“Are you finished with your fat boy?”
“Yes.”
“Can I kiss you now?”
“Anytime you want to kiss me, even if I’m talking, you just shut me—”
He kissed her.
It was a curious thing to be kissing Linda. Hank was twenty-one years old, but he’d never been in love before. Moreover, he had always considered necking the prelude to whatever fortune might allow to follow. Linda’s lips were very nice lips. She was only seventeen, but she kissed well, and she knew how to use the soft inner cushion of her mouth expertly. Kissing her, even though Hank was a man of the world who knew what this sex bit was all about, he felt sort of dizzy, actually dizzy, just kissing her. He listened to her harsh breathing, and he could feel her face feverishly hot against his and he knew without doubt that this was the girl for him, this wonderfully sweet, gentle girl who kissed like this, this marvelously intelligent, remarkably gorgeous girl who kissed like this, this tender, sensitive, amazingly exotic girl who kissed like this was for him, who kissed like this and made him dizzy.
In ten minutes’ time, they both agreed they had better go for an ice-cream soda or something.
Linda buttoned her blouse and put on fresh lipstick.
On Thursday night Felix Anders saw Larry’s car leave the development and then, not five minutes later, Margaret came down the front steps and drove away in her car.
He was amazed that they could run their affair in such a slipshod manner and still escape detection. It was a wonder everyone in the world, no less the development, did not know exactly what was going on between them. But even while considering them the most careless sort of fools, he managed to find a tender spot in his heart for them. They were, after all, in love. This spoke in their favor. Like a father picking lice from the hair of two idiot children, Felix Anders felt great paternal compassion for these two tormented fools.
At the same time there was something immensely satisfying about their tortured writhings, something quite pleasurable about watching their silly gyrations and knowing they were rank amateurs playing a game invented for experts. Amateurs amused him. This entire Cole-Gault affair was an entertainment being performed solely for Felix Anders.
And then there was Eve.
Eve was something else again.
Felix walked into the kitchen where Betty was washing the dishes. “Leave them,” he said. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Oh, stop it,” Betty said, pleased.
“Come on, come on,” he said impatiently.
“I don’t like to leave dirty dishes,” Betty said.
He put his hands on her buttocks. “Come on.”
“No. Later.”
“Okay,” he said, shrugging, having made his stud-bull impression, having left Betty with the idea that all he desired in this budding world of beautiful women was her enticing little form alone. “I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, having become partially interested by his damned wandering hands and toying with the idea of leaving the dirty dishes in the sink.
“Over to say hello to Larry.”
“I’ll be finished soon” she said.
“Okay,” he answered. He kissed her, and he let his hand drift caressingly over her buttocks again. He enjoyed arousing her. He enjoyed being in complete control of the castle which was his home. “I’ll be back.”
Outside, the stars pecked fiercely at the deep blue-black sky. Felix walked the streets of Pinecrest Manor knowing full well that Betty would be waiting at home in her nightgown whenever he decided to return. He would let her wait a while. A long while. He would let her wait until he was ready. It was better for her that way. It was the only way to treat her.
He had long ago stopped believing it was the male of the species who possessed the deep yearning, the insatiable sex drive. He had come to the conclusion that the reverse was true. There was an empty chasm in a woman, and only a man could fill that chasm. And until the chasm was filled, a woman was essentially incomplete. Women had invented marriage only to insure repeated completion, and then had destroyed their own invention when they’d discovered insurance was not necessary. The chasm could be filled, the completion accomplished, by anyone at all.
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