Chapter 9

Marilyn was thinking hard as she smoked a cigarette and listened to her record player. She tried to relax but she was far too excited and apprehensive. She exhaled, enjoying the feel of the smoke pouring out of her mouth and she leaned back and curled her legs beneath her. Since her series of newspaper articles on the Garden Street activities she had suddenly become the editor's favorite. She was also the talk of the entire city room. She adored this sudden respect and admiration for her work-it was something she had never experienced before and she found herself revelling in secret pride.

She got to thinking about Lou, and doubts began to assail her. Something was cockeyed between them lately. She could tell by the coolness of his ardor. The magnetism of their past erotic relationship had dimmed like fading embers. It had begun to happen when she returned from her vacation. That was when she felt it first.

She had orginally set out to hook him when she first went to work on the newspaper. He was full of rugged charm and a handsome guy and she wanted to have him. After he made love to her she . began to cook for him and have him over to the apartment more often. She recalled everything with wounded perception. She remembered their last bout in bed and she blushed.

She began to feel as though she were a discarded diary. She got up and stared through the window. It was a breathless pink morning. And suddenly she didn't care. Not about Lou or their affair or whether it would remain and flourish or wither and vanish. All she could think of was a rapidly accelerating career on the paper and a column of her own with her picture decorating the border.

Suddenly wanting Lou became something of the past that no longer mattered. He suddenly seemed to her dull and routine-a habit of having male company and someone to compliment her on her cooking and satisfy her womanly needs. Now everything was turning out so differently.

When she started to dress the doorbell rang. She threw on a silky blue robe and hurried to the door. "Who is it?" she called.

"Lou."

She opened the door and he walked in staring sideways at her through the flimsy robe. She closed the door and stared at him for a long moment. His eyes were glazed and she was sure it was the secret and lively life he was living apart from her. She had a sudden impulse.

"I must say you look somewhat shaken up or drunk or both, Lou," she said slowly, eyeing him compellingly. "Which is it?"

He sat on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. "Neither, Marilyn. Just a bit distraught. But it will wear off," he said opening and closing his fists.

She put her hand on his head. "Well, if you're not drunk I'll mix you a special for acute distraughtness," she said with a smile.

She watched him gulp the drink down while his eyes probed her through the robe. She stared down and noticed the robe had slipped open but she did not close it. This was a man she could now afford to tease, she decided. She was tired of playing his game. Up to now she had always managed and enjoyed him. Although at times she was strong it required more than strength to cope with it now.

"I haven't seen you lately, except in the office," she remarked dryly, seating herself beside him.

"I'm sorry to neglect you but there's been a lot of things I had to clear up," he said in a bold lie.

He stared at her big, full and solid breasts and hungered to enfold them in his arms and squeeze their ripe buds. He felt like grabbing her and loving her so very hard, to hear her familiar animal moanings. He wanted the point of climax with her now-on a hot bed. She was all woman and that was what women were for, he thought.

When he suddenly put his arm around her he felt her stiffen and pull back. He pushed his mouth forward and mashed her lips clumsily. Her mouth was firmly closed. He felt like a fool not knowing what to do now. She might just as well have laughed at him.

"Lou, there's something definitely wrong. I feel it. What is it, dear?" she asked earnestly.

He mumbled incoherently and framed a swift smile.

"There's nothing wrong," he insisted, "it's just that I need you badly. Be a dear to me, Marilyn."

"You stay away for days then you rush in and demand your pleasure like it was a bag full just waiting for you."

"You're wrong, Marilyn. You make it sound even worse," he insisted. "It's a long story and some day I'll tell you. But now I must have you because...."

"You need a fast pick-me-up so you come back and break open the bottle for another swig?" Her eyes danced.

She moved closer to him-her thigh firming into complete contact with his. She had made her remark with studied calmness and casualness. He now measured the degree of her casualness feeling a little futile with her reaction.

"I guess maybe I've been wrong about you."

"I guess you have-very wrong."

"It's over then ... between us?"

She stared at him humbly. "I didn't say that, Lou. But what am I to think when you absent yourself for days and suddenly you're back?" She began to laugh until she saw the tears fill the depth of his eyes. Her resistance thinned with a flowing sadness. She let him take her robe off and snap her bra open. And suddenly her needs were strong as she felt the familiar refrain awakening her to response. She let him push her down and flatten himself atop her and she let him unroll her hosiery and remove it. She felt a small fierce burning fire beginning to rage.

She heard him mumble, "You still got a great heart, Marilyn, I knew you would...."

Remarks from the corridors of other times. Now it was suddenly different. She was far from easy with overhelming points of difference flooding her mind. But she let herself step over them-all of them, as she lay back and waited for the sexual concerto to begin.

As he slaked his lust and spread her curves carefully upon the bed, she suddenly felt monumental-exalted as a summer heat developed her, deepening her impulses. He was a load of benzedrine and she needed it badly. Then she could feel him roar into her like an explosion. The moment was long and loud and carried as much surface as depth. A moment ago she had repulsed him and almost laughed at him. Now the moment had split and shuffled and reformed into another dimension. She could feel him flow toward her and she didn't want to be in a spot when he wasn't around. Not now, anyway. Not this minute.

When it was over she felt like a blown fuse in a dark room waiting for the lights to come back suddenly. She felt a sweat and a shiver and she moaned. Then she could hear Lou groping toward the bathroom and she sat up blinking.

She felt like she had been buffered with a gallon of cognac and was walking on high, thin wire. No matter what else, she thought, with Lou around the nights were never all black. Her feelings were mixed-parts saying go away now, go away. I couldn't care less. But then she closed her eyes to control her dizziness and she knew she didn't want it that way. At least not for the time being. Why shouldn't she go along strictly on the pleasure principle, and come what may? Deep down she felt this was the time for a test of courage. And she ought not to be found lacking.