Lawrence Block - Candy

The fire escape posed a minor problem. The last section of it didn’t reach to the ground. The notion behind it evidently was that the last section was lowered from above in the event of fire, but remained up in the air otherwise to discourage clods like me from using it as a stepladder to success. This does make a certain amount of sense—it’s a good deal better than the jackass of a fire escape on the hotel I lived in, the cockeyed Kismet, where the fire escape drops you off in a blank alley. You can spend the rest of your life trapped between four dull buildings if there’s ever a fire in the Kismet.

As I observed, the fire escape posed a minor problem. It might have been enough to deter an ordinary mortal, but not a rare bird like Jeff Flanders. Hell, no. I backed up a few paces, took a running start and leaped high into the air. I missed the first time and fell on my face, sort of. The second time I did better and caught the bottom rungs of the fire escape with both hands.

There was a hellish instant or two while I dangled in the middle of the air. Then I managed to haul myself up and I was perched on the fire escape like a poached egg on a slab of burnt toast.

There was no place to go but up.

So up I went.

I’m not a natural-born Peeping Tom, so I passed up any view I might have had of happenings in apartments 2-B and 3-B. I didn’t know, or care, what has been happening in those two apartments. For all I know there could have been an old Roman orgy in progress, or a marijuana party, or an auction of rare coins, or a singing of twelfth-century hymns, or any one of a number of events pleasant to contemplate and fascinating to consider.

But on I climbed until I was at the window of apartment 4-B. Candace Cain’s apartment.

I do not know what I expected to see any more than I know what prompted me to look. Perhaps I expected to observe Candy herself. Maybe all I wanted was a good look at that stupid mutt of hers. Then again I might have expected a squint at a bald and paunchy gentleman to whom the fine body of Miss Candace Cain now belonged.

Whatever my sick brain expected, it was definitely not what I saw.

I kneeled by the side of the window, which, as chance would have it, was the window of the bedroom. The lights were on but the room was empty. My nose was at sill level so that I could watch while keeping as little of myself visible as possible. I waited patiently for somebody to appear.

Somebody appeared.

It was Candy and she was naked and at once my body responded with tangible evidence of my interest in the girl. She was even more lovely than I remembered her. Her golden hair trailed down over those perfect shoulders. Her breasts were big and high and proud and beautiful, and I wanted to reach a hand through the window to touch them. Her whole body was exercised in feminine pulchritude. She was a vision.

She walked to the bed, threw the covers back and stretched out on a pale green sheet. The color of the sheet served as a fitting background to that body of hers. The light was a glareless bowl set in the ceiling and it suffused the room with a soft gentle glow that made the magnificent body on the pale green sheet just that much more lovely.

She sprawled on the bed, her head on a pillow, her eyes looking up at the ceiling, her hands at her sides and her legs parted slightly. There was a vaguely expectant half-smile on her face.

She looked as though she was waiting for someone.

Which made a certain amount of sense, because, logically enough, she was waiting for someone.

Someone entered.

That someone was shorter than Candy, which was as I had more or less expected. I figured on a short fat guy with a bald spot, but in this figuring I was wrong. The short part jibed but the rest didn’t.

The person who entered was not fat. The person who entered was slender and almost boyish in build.

The person who entered was not bald. The person who entered had jet black hair combed in what dissident youth calls a duck’s ass haircut.

And, most important of all, the person who entered was not a guy.

I almost fell off the fire escape. This would have meant a plunge of thirty feet or so onto hard pavement and might well have killed me.

Damn it, I should have fallen.

But I didn’t.

I watched.

The woman with Candy was, I guessed, around my own age. She was a rotten lesbian and she was with my girl and I hated her on sight, but I still had to admit that she was damned attractive. It was a good thing she was never going to have a baby because any child she might have had would have starved if it depended upon her breasts for nourishment. They were so small they almost weren’t there.

But the rest of her was nice. Her face was just a trifle hard, a trifle mannish, but if you met her on the street you wouldn’t peg her as a man or as a lesbian and you might well want to take her to bed. Her waist was narrow and her hips were nicely rounded and she had a nice tight little behind, neat and trim. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the woman.

I should have left. Whether I fell off that fire escape or whether I got up nonchalantly and clambered on down, I should have left. But I didn’t—I stayed, and I watched, and I could not have left just then if my life depended upon it. Not then.

The woman walked to the bed. She was naked as a jaybird and so was Candy and it was easy to see they were not there to play tiddly-winks. She lay down on the bed next to Candy and their bodies touched, and the woman said something which I couldn’t hear and Candy answered something that I couldn’t hear either and they both smiled—that same sick Mona Lisa smile Candy had handed me on 54th Street.

I got slightly sick.

The woman took Candy in her arms. She ran her hands through that gorgeous blonde hair and pressed her lips to that gorgeous red mouth. A sisterly kiss it wasn’t. Her tongue went between Candy’s lips and Candy’s arms went around her body, holding her close.

They went on like that, which was horrible, and I went on watching.

Which was also horrible.

For this I hadn’t had a drink since lunch. For this I walked past every bar on Sixth Avenue. For this I played detective, climbed fire escapes, peeked through windows. For this nausea.

The nameless dyke finally gave up the breast-kissing routine and got down to brass tacks.

Etc.

One hell of an etc., believe me.

The girl obviously loved the whole thing. Girl? She wasn’t a girl and she wasn’t a man. She was a wretched middle-of-the-roader and I hated her like poison.

Candy was also obviously enjoying herself. I couldn’t hear the noises she was making but I could imagine them. I remembered the noises she used to make with me.

Yeah, everybody was enjoying the bit.

Everyone but me.

I watched it until it was over, watched in stricken fascination, and when they had finished and lay there holding each other and cooing like doves, I stood up and gripped onto the railing of the fire escape and let go. My stomach turned itself inside out and the vomit sailed through the air.

The sight of it made me nauseous and I puked again. It was a great night for puking.

Somehow I got down from the fire escape. I passed apartments 3-B and 2-B, again without a glance, and dropped down to the pavement. I headed west, headed for Sixth Avenue with my eyes half-shut and my stomach still feeling as though someone had stepped on it, someone who weighed five hundred pounds and wore lead underwear.

I crossed Madison.

I crossed Fifth.

I reached Sixth.

Remember Sixth? That’s the street I strolled down in the beginning, the street with all the bars, all the temptation that I so bravely resisted the first time around. Resisted—and for what? For a disgusting view of the most desirable woman in the world doing the most nauseating act in the world and loving every minute of it.