James Cain - The Institute

“In other words, what am I doing here?”

“Yes.”

“Just... looking you over again. Hoping against hope that I didn’t like you so much any more. And now that that hope is dashed, how I’m getting the same old buzz, to catch up on you just a little, you and your girl friend — that I don’t like even a little bit. Where is she, by the way?”

This caught me off balance, and I sat there not making any answer. Suddenly she jumped up, came partway around the table, and peered down at me. “She hasn’t been home for two weeks, that much I already know,” she snapped, biting off her words short. “And I know where she is — or was. Do you?”

“Go back where you were.”

“I asked you—”

“And I told you.”

She went back to the sofa, but didn’t lie down. She just sat on it, staring at me.

“O.K., then,” I said. “I’ll answer you. I don’t know where she is. She blew one night. Just disappeared like that. When I went to sleep she was there, and when I woke up, she wasn’t. I’d see her in hell before I would lift a finger, before I would pick up that phone to try and find out where she is. So if you know, don’t feel you have to tell me. Don’t think you’ll be doing me a favor. You won’t be.”

“Where do you think she is?”

“Europe.”

I didn’t know I was going to say it, but when things reach a certain point, you mean to clam up and don’t.

“Europe? What makes you think that, Dr. Palmer?”

I snapped: “If she had bought a ticket, that would be a reason. What’s it to you why I think it?”

“One of her reasons could be to have her child over there.”

“And another might be to find a place to mind her own business in.”

“Okay, touché. It’s what you said to me one time, when I hadn’t even been touched. Remember? Just patted a bit on the patches I had. She is knocked up, isn’t she?”

“If she were, would I tell you?”

“If she weren’t, you would but quick.”

I let that one ride and she began again. “Now that I’m caught up on her, at least a little bit, why not catch up on me? Ask me about me. Show some interest, like, where did I get this coat?”

“You might say how you got it.”

“And you wouldn’t like that?”

“Well? Would anyone?”

“But you wouldn’t like me to say?”

“Put an ad in the paper, why don’t you?”

But I sounded the least bit wild, and she got up and came over and looked down at me again. Then in a low, slow whisper: “You care how I got it, don’t you? Dr. Palmer, that makes me happier than anything I can imagine! And all the more because I can say it wasn’t the way you think it was. Not that it mightn’t have been. Not that I’m morally pure. I wasn’t trying to be, but I am.”

“That’s about as clear as mud in a wine glass.”

“I was willing, but he was unable.”

“What’s with that guy in bed?”

“Something — he doesn’t know what himself. And I sure don’t. Except with one woman, he just can’t do it. Dr. Palmer—”

“Get back where you were.”

She went back to the sofa and went on without any break: “So let’s get back to that day when I carried the suitcases for you and he drove me to College Park. We sat in his car for a long time and he got to the point right away — how well he liked me, how pretty he thought I was, how he liked to hold my hand. And so he asked how’s about it. And I asked him back — did he mean what he seemed to mean, recreation done in bed in a horizontal position? He said, yes, that was it. At first I held back because of a yen I had for a certain Ph.D. in English poetry, perhaps by the name of Palmer. But then when he said I wouldn’t regret it and seemed to mean worldly goods, I screwed up my nerve and asked him if he meant something like a mink coat. And he said yes, he did mean that. I said, O.K., I asked nothing better. In my own mind I was faithless to poetry, English or otherwise, and particularly to a guy named Palmer. Well, I said I was morally pure. Didn’t I, Dr. Palmer?”

“Get on with it. What then?”

“At least you’re interested.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? Get on with it.”

“So he called me, maybe a week after that, sent his driver for me and brought me to his hotel, one of the big ones downtown where he’d taken a suite. Did you know, Dr. Palmer, that once you take a suite, you can bring up a girl if you want to, with no questions asked? I thought it was him who was so big they didn’t dare squawk, but it turned out that it was the suite. So, anyway, there I was in his arms, holding close, and then he was peeling me off. He peeled me down to the skin, until I had nothing on. I expected results, of course. I mean, like with you that day, Dr. Palmer, there was physiological proof that you weren’t indifferent to me—”

“You don’t have to go into the details.”

“Except maybe I want to.”

“Get on with what you were saying.”

“There weren’t any results — physiological, I mean.”

“Hey, hey?”

“No, don’t say ‘hey,’ Dr. Palmer. He’s not gay, I promise you he’s not. It’s not like that at all. Just the same, he has some mental block about sex — that he halfway admitted to me. I mean, he had me do things like walking in front of him, on my hands yet, doing the upside-down split. You know what that does to a girl”

“I can guess, I suppose. And?”

“Even that didn’t help.”

“What then?”

“At the end of a week, no soap. At last we called it off. That part, I mean. But we had become good friends, and he leveled with me, what it was all about: on account of liking me, he’d hoped I could break him clear of the thrall he was under, he called it. What’s a thrall?”

“Like handcuffs or—”

“Yeah, I betcha, I betcha!”

She was all excited and went on: “The way he told it, I knew that’s what it was like. Dr. Palmer, I think he’s banging the Swede!”

“Banging the—”

“Swede woman keeps house for him. I think he’s doing it to her morning, noon, and night. I think it’s what ails him — that she’s got the hex on him so he can’t do it with anyone else — even me, willing as I was. Because, don’t make any mistake, Dr. Palmer, as little interest as you take in me, I meant business with him. But I didn’t, you might as well know, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t!”

“You said it once — you didn’t.”

“So all God’s chillen got thralls. She’s his, you’re mine, and this Hortense character is yours. If she is. Well, is she?”

“You think I would admit it to you?”

“Look, if she’s got your child in her belly—”

“Who says she’s got my child?”

“You do, by the way you act.”

“So... all God’s chillen got thralls.”

I guess there was more, but not much that day, because I was jangled, and she was, and I didn’t encourage her. Pretty soon she left, but next day she was back and we resumed where we had left off. This day, however, she had on a cloth coat, not the mink one.

“I only wore it yesterday so you could see it just once,” she said. “Except when I’m going somewhere, like dress-up at night, I leave it home where I’m living now. I drive to school every day, to the university here, I mean, in the car he gave me. Did I mention that he pays all my college expenses? And set up a trust fund for me? It’s just like I made it with sin, except I didn’t. I’m pure and undefiled — at least since I met this guy, the one I showed my legs to and would take off my clothes for now if he just said he wanted me to.”

“He does, and if you do, he’ll kick you out.”