Chapter 15

Lou stared carefully at the black nakedness of the woman beside him. She lay cuddled and dozing and he said to himself that this might be the end of the dream. She was all the small pieces of all his dreams. She was the outer world and he the innner world and the mask had been dethroned. She thinks but don't say-she wants but can't do-only the right for her to dream in a tip-toe dance of futility. She was stirring and he fondled her gently. The pleasures she had absorbed from him had been big and she had rushed along with him in precise direction as he burned and stung her to madness.

He felt very proud of himself. Black or white-women never said no to him. He was a stud for wayside bitches and pretty darlings. He had the knack. He could create a mood in moments. And to resist both the man and the mood was too much to require of most women. He always got his women quickly and with honesty. Because he bulged with the romance of the world and knew the correct way to speak lingeringly of sex. And this, he thought, looking at Lora, was his crowning virtue.

She opened her eyes slowly, then wide and kissed the part of him closest to her. "Oh, Lou-Lou," she said as if it were a melody.

He smiled down on her. "Lora," he said tenderly, "you make a lovely bed warm."

She came to him then with the same excitement as a short time ago and overwhelme him with hugs and caresses.

Now as she lay there beside him, he though how it all almost never happened. He liked bein with her because their love bore little relation t the outside world. He liked when she smiled with sticking pain if he had said the wrong thing. But she always came to him with laughter and a waiting smile. When he walked into her place a queer freedom enveloped him and he felt he was leaving his problems behind. All the big fat mental blocks were gone. He liked oozing into her warm softness.

Later she said, "Lou-am I only a hot bed to you?"

She wanted truth wrapped up in words and lies.

"Don't you like the things we do, Lora?" he asked.

"Yes-yes-I like it very much." Her eyes were wild, her voice silky.

"I have problems, Lora, let's cut this stuff. What are you afraid of-that you won't ever get married?" he asked nervously.

She looked fully at him now, resting on her elbow. "No, Lou, it's not that. I've been married before," she said.

"You're still a kid, Lora."

"Old enough to vote."

" 'And old enough to know better than sticking your head in the lion's den a second time. Don't thin out life, Lora, that's what marriage does."

She smiled pertly and she looked like a funny face painted on a coconut. "If you get the jitters about it, Lou, I promise never to mention it again."

He laughed. "When you're single, Lora, you even sleep better. Provoking hopes merely detracts from the joys of life," he said pleasantly. He forgot where he had read the lines.

He walked to the window and stared through the parted drapes. The moon was a sharply-defined sickle in the blue sky. The air was heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine. He could see the open gas station down the street-lights still on although it was almost dawn. He felt drained but he went to Lora again and she spread herself willingly for him. He didn't want to rush her-everything could be spoiled.

"No man but you can be my king, Lou," she said excitedly, as she kissed his flushed cheeks.

He clutched her tightly, moving her long, lithe legs gracefully apart. Now everything on earth was right. She made it so for him. He gulped the excitement of her body and sought no answers. She was his expedient answer to all his problems. He had loved other women in darkened bedrooms before. This was nothing new for him. She was the private waltz in his life. He wanted the dream to roll on without let-up.

Her mouth yielded and sucked at his-and their tongues twisted, circling each other. When he turned her flat on her back she crouched over looking down and seeing his manliness she closed her eyes quickly, her hot veins humming. She opened slowly to him as he lowered himself trying to fit him as precisely as she had done previously. She shared his sensations until a sudden heat beat fiercely inside her body and roared like a thunderclap-then throbbed slowly like heat lightning to a soft, summer shower.

She was asleep in the dawn when he left her. He didn't know when he would be back. If ever.

In the street as he pulled away from the curb he knew that everything he left behind was a thin, thin layer of a world he could live without. But not without its pleasures.