Chapter 7
Harry was sobering up rapidly, but it wasn't helping at all. In fact, as the fog of alcohol cleared from his brain, the increasing coherence of his thoughts made the thing even harder to understand.
In the Red Apple Inn, the incident had seemed reasonable enough--here, quite simply and natural-ly was a girl who wanted to go to bed with him. All right that wasn't so hard to imagine. In his life, he had met a lot of women who wanted to go to bed with him. One in particular-but we weren't going to talk about that, were we?
Yes, a lot of women. Harry had never counted, but he knew the total must run well over twenty-five. Perhaps even as many as fifty. It was hard to keep track of all of them, especially since he was almost always drunk when it happened. Like right now. His recollections were pleasant, but confused.
But he could remember the kind of woman each of them had been, even if he had no memory of their names or faces. They all had projected a certain worldliness, an indefinable quality of experience and knowledgeability-they all had, in other words, a past. This was the one thing all of Harry's loves had shared in common.
So there lay the difference between what he knew, and what he was about to know. Because, regardless of how drunk he was at the time it happened, the moment this girl opened her mouth. Harry knew she was a virgin. There was no explaining how this was so; what it was about her that told him. He had no idea himself. But the fact was there, and inescapable. The girl was a virgin. No doubt about it.
She was also a girl, and this was a key word in the puzzle. Not woman. Girl. She was only a young kid, little more than eighteen, if that old. Harry was forty. Forty.
I'm getting old he thought. I'm too old for a kid like this. Doesn't she realize how old I amt Doesn't she know what she's getting into?
He took his eyes from the road for a moment and looked at her. She was seated beside him, one leg drawn up beneath her in a graceless, little girl fashion. Now that the edge of the drink was wearing off, he could examine her in an objective manner.
She was young, yes, but quite lovely. Much of her loveliness was adult in its way, despite the overall impression of youthfulness. In fact, now that he looked closely, he realized that the youth was concentrated in her face. It was a smooth, simple, open face, with large child's eyes, a small tilted nose fair cheeks, and a small, sweet mouth devoid of any trace of make-up. There was nothing sensual in that face, nothing at all. It was a face, that would one day adorn a beautiful and desirable woman, but that day was some years in the future. Now, there simply wasn't enough in it. It was an empty page, waiting for life and experience to fill it in.
Her body belied the face somewhat, but in an unexpected way. Her breasts were not a woman's breasts-they were perfectly formed, but small and delicate. He could see the outline of them through the thin blouse as the lights of the passing cars illuminated her briefly. They looked firm, and sweet, and inviting, but they were the breasts of a young girl.
The rest of her body, however, was a different matter. He had noticed, as he helped her into the car in the parking lot of the Red Apple Inn, that she had superb, remarkable legs; legs any woman would be proud to own. Her calves were smooth and round, tapering to ankles as delicate as a violinist's hands. The flesh of her calves was smooth and flawless-they were the precise size and shape to fit a man's hand.
Now, watching her in the sporadic illumination of the headlights, he could see that her legs and stomach matched the calves perfectly. The legs were full and shapely. Even covered as they were by the dull blue cloth of her waitress's skirt, Harry could see how they swelled up from her knees in one lovely sweep. Her stomach was also fully rounded, which is surprising for a girl so young. It was the stomach of a full-grown woman, with the fullness of flesh that usually comes only with the fullness of time. Looking at the curve of it, Harry could imagine the soft pressure of that stomach against his own.
So there was part of the puzzle. She was a complete woman from the waist down, and a growing girl from the waist up. It was very strange. Harry couldn't recall ever seeing a combination quite like it.
But that was only a part. There was still to be explained the reason she had asked him what she had.
Five words. Five simple words. One simple thought.
Of course, he had been propositioned before, but never with such directness, never with such complete lack of pretense. The girl had wanted one thing, and she had no intention of playing around. She asked for it, directly and simply, in words of one syllable.
And yet, there was nothing brazen in her request.
It seemed perfectly right and natural, and, to Harry, very appealing. She had wanted a man to go to bed with her. She had seen Harry as a likely candidate. She had asked him. That was it.
And Harry had accepted. Without pause, without qualm. Harry had taken one look at the gift the gods bad dropped in his lonely lap, and had grabbed it before it disappeared.
But now, here in his car, as they purred down the night-time road watching for the bright lights of the first motel, Harry was beginning to have second thoughts. Was it right for a man his age to take advantage of a girl so young? Did he have any business going to bed with a female young enough-yes, there was no getting around it-young enough to be his daughter? Wasn't it unnatural? Wasn't it a sign of approaching senility when a man started looking for bedmates twenty years younger than himself?
He looked at her youthful profile again.
I don't even know her name, he thought. She doesn't even know mine.
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get the sentence started the girl turned to him, her large eyes fixed on his own. The words died in his throat as he looked into her calm face.
"I bet you think I'm a tramp," she said, in a flat, even tone.
"Why-" Harry faltered. He could think of no answer to this.
"I bet you think I'm a tramp, or something. I guess you have reason enough for thinking that."
Harry kept his eyes on the road. He said nothing. "Well, I'm not," she said. "I'm really not a tramp."
He could feel her watching Aim intently. He kept his face expressionless.
"Do you believe that?" she asked. "Yes," he said.
"I'm not. I'm really not. You hare to believe that. I'm-I'm just a girl, that's all. I want-I want to go to bed with you. But I'm no tramp. Believe me. Please."
"All right," Harry said.
The girl suddenly burst into tears. The sound of her sobbing filled the car. Harry looked at her, amazed. She was turned away from him, her face hidden in the space where the seat met the door frame. Her shoulders shook with her sobbing.
He looked up the road and spied a large red neon sign. It was a motel. He eased up on the accelerator and pulled the car off the road just a few hundred feet short of the motel sign.
The car bumped to halt and stopped. Harry let the engine idle as he shifted around in the seat to face the crying girl.
Her sobbing diminished somewhat, but she kept herself turned away from him.
All right, Harry told himself, this is the moment of decision. Now is the time to make your choice. You are parked just a few minutes from a motel, and you have a young crying virgin sitting here beside you. You are a man of the world, a mature human being who knows precisely what he is getting into and what the results of your decision might be.
There are those who would look upon this as the chance of a lifetime. A young willing virgin, a girl who asked you to, is sitting right here, waiting for you to make your move. And every man, especially a man your age, knows the premium placed on pretty young virgins. For a divorced, forty-year-old has been like yourself to even get a chance at such an innocent girl is pretty far-fetched. It would make quite a story in years to come.
Sure, she's crying. But so what? They all cry for a while when it's the first time. That's to be expected. Sally cried when you took her virginity on your wedding night. Remember? Before, during, and after. But she wasn't crying because she was in pain, or because she didn't enjoy what was happening, or because it was not done with her consent and desire.
She was crying over what she had lost.
Youth. Innocence. Virginity.
Men try to lose these at as early an age as possible. Women try to cling to them all their lives.
But there is another school of thought to be considered here. Some men maintain that young virgins are not to be disturbed. Young virgins are out of bounds. Virgins should be reserved for some man's wedding night. You should not, you must not, take a girl's innocence just for the pleasure of the moment. It is more important thing than that.
No, a man with a conscience should limit himself to women who have already lost their innocence.
Let the blood of that be on another man. Take only those women who know exactly where you are taking them and who stand to lose nothing that their bodies cannot replace.
Those are the schools.
Those are the rules.
And what is your decision going to be?
Harry put out a hand and placed it gently on the girl's shoulder. She stiffened slightly, but did not turn.
He could feel the warmth of her flesh through the material of her blouse. It seemed ages since he bad felt a woman's warmth against his palm.
She had stopped crying when he touched her. Her body slowly relaxed. He could feel the tension drain out of her.
He put his hand around her shoulders and turned her to face him.
Her eyes were bright. Her face was streaked with tears.
No, a man with a conscience leaves young virgins alone. A man with principles doesn't allow his glands to lead into the destruction of innocence. A man with any kind of moral strength avoids such things.
God help me, he thought. He leaned forward and kissed the girl softly on the lips.
She did not respond at first, and Harry felt a wave of remorse building inside him. Then, slowly, she began to return his kiss.
The beginning was awkward. Her kiss was closemouthed and childish. He forced her lips apart with his tongue and plunged it into her soft mouth.
It had been a long time. Too long. Harry had almost forgotten what it was like to kiss a woman's lips, to taste a woman's sweet mouth with your tongue, to feel her tongue warm and frantic against your own.
The girl was responding to him. Her kiss became quickly passionate, and Harry felt the tide of desire building inside him.
His hand found her soft, small breast. He could feel the shape and size of it through the rough cloth of her bra. It was yielding in his palm, but with that wonderful inner core of firmness that marks a true woman.
Some day, he thought, she will be a beautiful woman. How much of what she becomes will I be responsible for?
Her breathing became more rapid. Her breast rose and fell in his palm.
His hands went to her legs; his fingers slipped carefully under the hem of her skirt. She wore no stockings. Her skin was warm and dry against his fingers.
Her body arched against him as his hand moved upward. Her arms went around his neck. She crushed her lips to his.
His hand found her.
She broke off the kiss and threw her head back on the car seat. A shudder passed through her. "Oh...." she said. "Oh...."
He put his lips next to her ear. "I'll be gentle," he said. "I swear to you I'll be gentle. I'll make it good for you. So help me."
Her head came up to his shoulder. He could feel her breath in his ear.
"Yes," she said. "Do that, now."
For one brief moment, Harry felt himself slipping. There was a firm blade of desire probing him and he felt his mind closing down to a single pinpoint of passion.
Then, somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought came to the surface.
This is wrong. The first time should not be in a car. No girl should become a woman in a car. The first time should be in a bed. Don't make her remember the smell of plastic seat covers and gasoline and hot metal all her life-let her memories be of crisp sheets and a soft pillow and a yielding mattress. Think of her. This can only happen once.
"No," he said, drawing away from her slightly. "Not here. Not now."
She raised her face and looked at him.
Her eyes were bright. Her lips were wet. "Please...." she said. "Please do it."
Sally, he thought, She looks like Sally. The eyes The expression. The way she holds her head.
Sally looked like that for me. How many other men saw Sally like that?
He drew away from her embrace and slid back behind the wheel. "No. Not here. We can't do it here."
The girl was watching him, her eyes large. The stiffness left her slowly; the heat left her eyes; the flush in her cheeks died.
"I want to go home," she said.
Harry put the car in gear and rolled it out onto the highway. He did not answer.
"Take me home," she said.
"No. We're going to that motel up ahead." He nodded in the direction of the neon sign. She glanced up the road at it.
"No. I don't want it any more. I don't want you. I want to go home."
"You're a virgin," he said.
There was a moment of silence. Then she said, "How do you know that?"
"You're a virgin. You want to be a woman."
"How do you know all that?" Her voice was bewildered.
"My name is Harry," he said. "I'm divorced. My wife was unfaithful to me. I loved her very much, while it lasted. Now that it's over, I have nothing. Nothing at all." He glanced at her. "What is your name?"
"Judy," she said.
"You want to be a woman, Judy. I made a girl a woman once. I know what can happen to a girl when she crosses that bridge. I also know what drives a girl to want that. If I take you home now, the opportunity will pass. But not the desire. The desire will be the same. And another opportunity will come along in no time at all. The desire and the opportunity will mesh again, the way they did tonight."
The girl was silent. Her hands were folded in her lap.
"I'm not much of a man, Judy. I'm forty years old. I'm divorced. In many ways I'm a failure. There will be a lot of men in your life finer and better than I am. But I am experienced. I am mature."
The motel sign was looming up ahead. Harry slowed the car to give himself time to say what he needed to say.
"I know what makes a woman tick, Judy. I know how you think, and how you feel. It's not all unselfish; I want you for myself. But I also want to give you as much as you give me. That is the difference between me and the other opportunities you may find.
"I know women, but, naturally, I know men better. I know how they feel toward women. When a man is young, he thinks of a woman as a goal, a prize, a symbol of his manhood. A young man rarely wants to give a woman anything. He wants only to take. This is the way young men are. They don't understand, they have no conception of how much a man can hurt a woman.
"Later on, if they are unlucky, they may find themselves hurt. That can sour a man for life. To a man like that, a woman becomes a necessary evil, something to be used and discarded like a cigarette or a paper towel. A man like that could hurt you even more than a stupid boy your own age.
"Love, when it happens, can straighten all this out between a man and woman. Love, real love, can make it all right. A girl like you should wait for love before giving up your innocence. But there isn't time for that. You want to be a woman now. You want to prove yourself. You don't want to wait. You want to know."
He braked the car to a halt in front of the motel. He put his hand on her arm.
"Do you understand? I want you for myself, but I don't want you to pay for my desire. I want it to be good and right for you. I want to give you the best I have. I want you to remember me later on as a friend. I don't want you to hate me, or yourself, after it's over. I know how to make it that way. And I swear to you that is the way it will be."
Harry stopped. He felt drained. I'm getting old, he thought. I'm getting foolish in my old age. She doesn't understand a word of what I've been saying. How could she? I don't really understand it myself.
The girl was looking at him. The expression on her face was one that Harry had never seen before.
"Yes," she said.
Harry put the car in gear and rolled slowly up the gravel driveway toward the motel office.