Chapter 12
Chester stood in the middle of the room, staring at the closed door. There was a numb lump stuck in the passage leading to his mind; he could barely think around it.
He glanced at the bureau and noticed the wrapped shape of the bottle lying there. He went over to it and stripped off the paper He slit the seal with his thumb-nail and twisted out the cork. He looked for a glass, then remembered that there were none. He shrugged and tilted the bottle to his lips.
The liquor burned past his tongue into his throat He coughed and lowered the bottle quickly, wiping a smear of liquid away from his mouth with the back of his hand. After a moment, he lifted the bottle and took another swig.
The liquor began to have the desired effect after a minute or so; the wheels of his mind were turning again. He took the bottle over to the bed and sat down on the edge.
It must be me, he thought. I guess I'm responsible. She's a grown woman, probably with a lot of experience, and I'm just a young kid. She'd like to get rid of me, now that she knows what I am.
He sighed, and took another belt.
It was stupid of me to try it in the first place, he thought. I should have known better. I'm no kind of man for a woman like that.
He thought back to the interlude in the car, and winced. The image of that event was branded painfully into his mind; he doubted if he would ever succeed in forgetting it. Just thinking about it was embarrassing.
There he had been, in the car with the lady of his dreams, making out like a musketeer, the advantage seized, the prize in his hands. And he had let it slip.
Sure, she had been on top; but that was the result of the situation. He couldn't have pushed her down on her side because the steering wheel was in the way. And transferring to the back seat would have been awkward, to say the least. He remembered thinking that any attempt to scramble into the back would have killed the whole thing. And getting out of the car was impossible, considering the condition of their clothing.
So he had just lay back and let it happen. He had let her start it, and the greatness of it had made him forget his responsibilities. He knew enough about love to know that it was the man's job to do most of the work. And despite their position, he could have done what was expected of him.
But he had forgotten. The moment was so fine, and the realization that his virginity was dying was so overpowering, that he had just subsided like a lump and let her do it.
So she had stopped.
Another mouthful of liquor gurgled into his throat. It didn't burn this time; the sensation had dwindled to a mellow warmth.
She had stopped. She said something then, he remembered; something about not wanting to do it in a car. Chester wasn't fooled by that. He knew almost immediately that he had failed her, that her talk about motels and beds was just a blind to cover up her disappointment in him.
At that moment there had been nothing in the world he had wanted so much as to leave the car and the lady and go hide somewhere. He was ashamed and appalled at his failure.
But she had insisted that he coma along to the motel. So he did.
Then, there had been the long hours in the bar, and the uncomfortable silence, and the strain of trying to appear unconcerned at what he knew was a disaster. And somewhere in that time, a horrible thought had occurred to him.
In a bed, there would be room enough for them to come to each other in the proper way. In a bed, there would be no excuse for half-measures and graceless positions. She still wanted him, despite what had happened in the car, and she expected him to do right by her when the time arrived.
Chester had realized with a chill that he didn't really know how to go about it. The experience in the car had taught him nothing, beyond the fact that he tended to turn into a lump at the worst possible moment. And his past had been limited to petting and fooling around. Thinking back, he realized that he had always thought instinct took over when a man finally got a woman. This, obviously, was not so. Instinct, if there was such a thing, had certainly failed him in the car. The only instinct he had was to he back and enjoy it.
So there he was drinking and stalling with the lady as the darkness fell outside, and nursing a chill deep in his stomach at the thought of the moment that was approaching.
I'm going to disappoint her, he thought. She expects me to make love to her, and I don't even know how it's done.
He had wanted to run. He had wanted to run so badly he could taste it. The idea of freedom, the thought of being relieved of this burden, was almost more than he could take.
But it was impossible. He had several chances-when she went to the ladies' room, for instance, or the time she left him outside and went back to order a bottle. He could have made his break with ease.
But something was commanding him to go through with it, and it could not be denied. So, he had waited for her, and as they walked across the crunching gravel of the court toward unit number 13, he had felt the same sensation of impending doom that must come to men walking the last mile.
The warmth of the liquor in his stomach was gradually reaching up into his head. He took another long swallow.
Well, she was gone now. He wondered if she was coming back. Maybe she had gotten the message at last, and had realized that Chester was nothing but a fumbling kid. Perhaps she had finally seen him as he really was and had taken off in disgust. Could be. He had stood waiting for her to make the first move long enough to tell her that something was wrong.
What a stupid thing for a man to do, he thought. Go into a motel room with a nice, big, soft bed and a nice, big, soft lady, and just stand there waiting for something to happen. It would serve him right if she had pulled out on him.
Gurgle-gurgle, said the bottle. Gurgle-gurgle, replied his stomach.
Well, to hell with her, then. If she expected more than he could give, whose fault was that? Hers, of course. After all, he hadn't misrepresented himself, had he? If she was so experienced, how come she couldn't tell that he was only a kid? A woman who wanted something fancier than him should be able to spot it. Right? If she was so damned experienced, she should be able to judge these things.
It was her fault. Chester drank to that.
Now that we've settled that, he thought, what now? It was a good question. She might not come back, and that would solve one of his problems. He didn't relish the idea of paying the bill for this room in the morning, since he would never have taken a double if he had been alone. But, so what? He had to sleep somewhere, and he could afford it.
That part was simple enough. But the major problem had yet to be solved. Now that he thought about it, the major problem was not only unsolved, but had become even more of a problem than ever.
How the hell was he going to lose his virginity if he didn't know the way the act was managed? He could travel a thousand miles, and meet a thousand willing women, and never get any further than he had gotten tonight.
He lifted the bottle to the light, and noticed that it was almost half empty. That meant he had consumed almost a pint. He smiled. That was more than he was used to. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he was drunker than he supposed. Booze tends to creep up on a sitting man.
He set the bottle on the floor and stood up. There followed a crazy moment when the room tipped at a forty-five degree angle.
Then he was on the bed again.
He picked up the bottle and let a little trickle into his mouth.
One of his teachers had once explained the medical technique of the counterirritant and the memory of it came back to him. Muscle soreness, for instance; when a muscle was cramped, the application of heat to the general area drew blood away from the afflicted tissue and made the sufferer forget about his pain. Very simple, really.
He had never thought that the same technique might be applied to the mind. But here it was. He had been puzzling over a variety of knotty problems for the past few hours until his brain was sore with the effort. And without even realizing it, he had been steadily applying the counter-irritant that would turn the trick.
Now, the idea of his failure with the lady, or his failure with the ladies in general, didn't seem quite so important. Neither did the question of whether or not this particular lady would return to him. Nor the money he would have to pay for the extra bed.
All these problems had been counter-irritated out of existance by something new. Chester was drunk.
Fine, he thought. What could be better? I didn't want to think about those other things anyway.
He couldn't recall ever having been quite this drunk before. But, of course, he had never consumed such a quantity of booze in such a short time before. That was the answer. In fact, he soon realized that this particular drunk was only just getting rolling. A good deal of the alcohol he had taken aboard was still in his stomach. Little by little, it was trickling into his blood-stream. He could feel this simple, natural process slowly pickling him from head to toe.
He wondered what the lady would do if she came back to the room and found him passed out. The picture this made struck him very funny, and he began to laugh. He stopped long enough to take another inch or so out of the bottle, then he laughed some more.
Ha, ha, he thought, what a burner on her. The big man she picked up on the road is no good for anything any more. He drank up all her booze. She paid for it and he drank it, and she's up the creek.
Maybe she would wait around until the morning, and try to get what she wanted from him by the dawn's early light. That would be a lost cause. Chester knew what mornings were like after a very simple drunk, and nothing was further from his mind in that state than mind. The morning that would follow this particular bat would, he was sure, put all the others in the shade. The nice lady would be lucky to get a groan out of him, much less....
He laughed again. The bottle slipped from his fingers and went thump on the floor. He heard the remaining liquid burbling out of it. Oh well, he thought. I've had enough jor all practical purposes. Good-bye, old bottle. You've been a sport.
Chester relaxed and closed his eyes. The gentle rocking and spinning that had been growing in him took over completely when his vision was cut off. He felt himself being lulled to sleep.
There was something wrong. He was halfway into sleep, and comfortable on a soft bed, and warm and happy, but there was something wrong somewhere. It took him quite a while to identify it.
Oh, he thought, opening his eyes.
He struggled upright on the bed and looked blearily around the room. There-was that it? He got up and went over to a door in the wall. He pulled it open.
It was a closet.
Well, that surely wasn't what he wanted.
He looked around the room again, but there were no more doors to chose from. Except the front door.
Well, it must be outside, then. He walked unsteadily to the door and stuck his head outside He looked up and down the length of the row of cabins, trying to spy a sign indicating the presence of a toilet.
There were none.
All right, then, he thought. To hell with it. If there aren't any facilities provided for a man in need, I'll just go off the end of the steps.
He pulled at his clothes. This simple act only served to point up just how desperate he was. The sound of the zipper was a thing closely associated with running water, and the familiarity of it made the need doubly urgent.
Before he could, however, a distorted rectangle of light spilled out of one side of the central building. A door had opened. Two figures came through it and started across the court.
Chester swore under his breath and trotted down the length of the cabins. He darted around the end of the last unit and found a clump of bushes.
Ahhh, he said to himself.
When he had finished, he adjusted his clothing with inept fingers. He managed to catch a fold of his underwear in the zipper track. It took several minutes for him to get the whole thing completed properly.
When everything was finally ship-shape he walked carefully to the end of the cabin and peered down the line. The two people, whoever they had been, were gone.
The booze was gaining ground. The art of standing up began to elude him. He weaved gently, and put a hand on the cabin wall to steady himself. The urge to laugh was strong, but he fought it down.
Let's see now, he thought fuzzily, as he staggered down the line of cabins, which one do I want? He couldn't remember the number of his cabin, and they all looked distressingly alike. He walked the entire length of the row without seeing anything familiar.
As he came to the end, he heard voices from behind the last door in the line. There was a sign over the door that said: Ladies.
He cocked his head and listened for a moment. Funny-it sounded as if there were men talking in there. He chuckled. Whatever was going on, he hoped they were having fun.
He stepped away from the door and considered the row of motel units before him. It had to be one of them; that much was certain. But which one?
Logic, he thought. Logical analysis. It couldn't be any of the cabins nearest him because he hadn't run that far to get to that last cabin. So it had to be one well past the middle. It had to be fairly near the other end of the line.
He walked slowly down the row, looking at the numbers on the doors. Number 20, Number 19, Number 18-no, it couldn't be Number 18. That was a magic number for him, and he would have surely remembered it.
He wondered suddenly what time it was. If it was after midnight, then he was eighteen years old. Happy Birthday, Chester. Happy Birthday, Virgin.
The cabin he wanted was in the teens somewhere; he was sure of that. The early teens. He walked until he was abreast of Number 10. He could hear a radio playing behind the door, and the sound of a woman's laughter. Well, that couldn't be it. Nobody would he laughing behind his door.
He back tracked, watching the numbers. Number 11, Number 12, Number 13-he stopped. Was it Number 13? That had a familiar ring to it. But how could he have forgotten such an unlucky number?
Sure, he had been distracted when he entered the unit, but it seemed logical that he would have remembered that number regardless of his state of mind.
He didn't like the sound of Number 13 anyway. He had enough bad luck for one night. Number 14, Number IS, Number 16-he stopped again. Was it Number IS? He backed up and looked at the door. Once again, he wasn't sure, but a small voice in his head told him to try it. He weaved across the gravel and attempted the steps. He had a bit of trouble at first, but finally he managed to scale the stoop and arrive at the door.
For a moment, he considered what would happen if he walked into the wrong room and into something that was none of his business. I might get punched in the nose, he thought. This prospect did not disturb him. In fact, it sounded like fun.
He turned the knob and let the door swing open.
The room was in darkness. Was that right? He seemed to remember leaving the lights on when he left to answer the call of the wild.
He could see the bed dimly in the faint light from the rear window. He moved toward it, then stopped.
There was a figure on the bed.
As he came closer, he saw that it was a woman.
Well, he thought, she came back after all. She came back and got undressed and into bed and here she is waiting for me.
He stood beside the bed and stared at the woman's body. Gradually, he felt the warmth penetrating the haze of alcohol inside him and begin warming him.
The figure on the bed was lovely. The face was in shadow, but the rest of the body was clearly outlined in the window's faint glow. Her breasts were smaller than he remembered, and this puzzled him for a moment. He decided that his first impression was unreliable. The interlude in the car was muddled in some respects, and perhaps his estimate of her was incorrect.
They were small, but they were perfect. He noticed that they were standing quite well without any outside assistance. The nipple aimed almost straight upward, with very little sag to either side.
The legs were long and shapely, curving upward from delicate ankles.
Her body was more beautiful than he remembered. Looking at her, lying there on the bed, the idea of making love to her no longer seemed so impossible.
Maybe it's bottle-courage, he thought. But what difference did that make? The opportunity had presented itself once again, and this time Chester felt obliged to take it.
He felt the old familiar twinge contracting the muscles of his stomach, and knew he was ready.
All right, he thought. Let's try it and see what happens.
He lowered himself onto the bed and reached out his arms for her.