Chapter 2
The place was packed. Lou fought his way to the bar and stood wedged among the crowd as he called for an Old Forester and water. He drank rapidly and soon had consumed three shots when he saw her reflected in the mirror. Cold black eyes were fixed on him hard. He bit his lips. He felt the blood begin to pound in his pulses. He turned around.
"Hello."
"You said that last night. Can't you say anything else?"
He blushed. "My name is Lou."
She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I know. Now try saying something new."
"How about a drink?"
She moved to the bar. "That's better," she said acidly. "I thought you didn't get a good enough look at me last night," she said. There was something greedy in the way she feasted her eyes on him.
Lou ordered her drink. He took a slow sip of his bourbon. He looked her up and down. "Maybe I saw all there is to see," he said slowly. He liked the faint grin beginning to spread around her mouth, revealing strong white teeth.
She fondled her drink and stared up at him. "I doubt that very much, Lou," she said. He watched her make a production of sipping her drink.
She hadn't changed much since the night before. Her clothes were still the same and he wondered if that was all she owned. When he finished his drink he leaned forward to call the bartender. He felt her pressure on his arm and he turned toward her.
"Do you like wine, Lou?" she asked with a little inflection of excitement.
"At the right occasions I do."
"Look-I live upstairs," she said quietly. "Let me buy you a glass of wine up there. At least we'll have a place to sit down."
He nodded. "Agreeable. Lead the way," he [text missing in original pocketbook]
In a quick movement she slipped her arm through his and led him through the crowd and smoke to the street. She pointed up-four stories above the noisy restaurant. She mounted the stairs before him and he watched her buttocks wriggle in staccato impertinence as he followed behind. She opened an unlocked, undistinguished door. For some strange reason she did not put on the lights. Instead he suddenly saw a lit match applied to a candle. In the shadows he could perceive a cluttered but somewhat pleasant one-room apartment. Green plants stood on a window sill and it matched the delicate greenery prints on the wallpaper. Then his eyes became accustomed to the light and he was suddenly appalled. Clothes were strewn everywhere-the furniture was battered and cigarette butts littered the floor. A couple of paper bags of garbage overflowed sloppily beneath the sink and dishes were piled high in the sink. His knees unbuckled for a moment at the horrible filth of the place and he stood unpoised like a deer shaken by lightning.
The girl motioned to a chair. "Sit down," she said, moving so he could have the chair.
There was an overstuffed chair in the center of the room and as he walked toward it he could see the stuffing beneath hanging limp. He sat down and heard a squal emanating from the old springs. He watched her remove a bottle of dark wine from a small cabinet and pour a full glass for him. "Take it," she said. "I'll drink from the bottle."
She came toward him and sat on the arm of the chair. Her breast brushed his ear. He knew his heart was pounding. He looked up at her thrusting, firm breasts. She stared down at him with an acid smile.
"What are you looking at?" she asked. "Never seen a woman's uppers before?"
He grinned and squeezed her knee. "Was it that obvious?"
She was drinking from the bottle-her eyes closed. He felt her arm beginning to coil around his neck. He began to sip the wine. Then he nearly gagged. Bums strained shoe polish through bread and got better stuff, he thought to himself. He set the glass on the floor. She stopped drinking and put the bottle on the floor beside his glass.
"Bet you work uptown?" he heard her say, as she ran her fingers through his hair.
"Yes, I work for a newspaper," he said.
"I'm a painter," she said proudly. "At least I used to be one. Now I'm nothing."
She moved closer and her breasts touched his face. He wet his lips. Then, like a sudden shaft of lightning, he pulled her head down and kissed her. She tugged hard and pulled away. He felt shivers curve down his spine.
He was aware of her incredibly small and slim body except for her jutting breasts. And he remembered the touch of her wet lips.
"Relax Mister Uptown," she said. "Don't be afraid. What's a heaven for?"
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down. When he kissed her he tasted the Claret on her lips. At first she failed to respond-then he could feel her tongue snaking through his lips and she seemed keenly aware of the most sensitive spots to lather. He was feeling a strange new thrill as she wrapped a leg around him. He remembered the guy with the scraggly beard the night before and was sure she had done this with him many times. She was probably a one-way girl ... all sex moving with any tide.
On the bed he strained at her clothes-fumbling behind her back to unsnap her bra. When her breasts surged forward he buried his head in the warm softness and he could feel her nipples harden as he kissed them fervently. She was breathing deeply but remained a little passive-but that didn't matter. He stopped for a second-doubtful. Beneath her jeans she was nude and mysteriously inviting. It was all a dream and he belonged to the dreamers.
She didn't respond and his orgy was small. The only part that seemed alive and real were the deep, black eyes which observed him like a bird of prey. But his brutality was gone-suddenly drained, and he felt awkward. What sort of girl was she, he wondered? He wanted to leave then when he suddenly felt her arms coiled behind his neck and she dug fiercely into his flesh. The only sound in the room was her breathing-a sort of mumbled animal sound, either terribly hurt or whimpering for love. She pulled him with a passion as desperate as wild sex can be and he felt like a dry log on fire being consumed.
Later they lay still for some time. He tried to reconstitute everything in his mind. But it was like trying to smash a hurricane into jig-saw pieces. Only the tumult of her flesh was real. The fuzz was clearing from his mind when she pushed at him. Then she scrambled from the bed. Sweat stood out on her lithe body. She got the bottle from the floor and sat on the chair staring fixedly at him. He saw a cockroach crawl down the arm of the chair and he almost puked. He stood up and started dressing. He was in the midst of a filthy suffocation and the aftermath was ugly.
"You might at least have asked my name," she said softly. Then she smiled with an edge of spite. "If you care-my name is Tina. Tina Williams."
"I'm sorry, Tina, truly sorry," he said. "I'm Lou Conner." He felt like a bastard. After all, she was only a girl and she had asked him to her apartment.
He walked over and put his hands on her shoulders.
She looked up at him. "And you could have said thank you," she remarked sharply.
He lit a cigarette and stared at her. "You're so right. I should have. I do thank you, Tina."
Then she looked angrily at him. "The next time you're going to say please."
Dirty little bitch-he remarked to himself. He turned from the door. "There won't be a next time, Tina," he said. He felt spent and foolish, like a stretched rubber band.
As he left he heard her laugh and call out: "Want to bet?"