Chapter 10

The liquor was strong and the water was warm, but she swallowed it hungrily. She didn't like the taste, but the effect was right. It helped her to keep from screaming as she felt his hand move down over her blouse and close over one of her breasts, squeezing it demandingly. In the bright moonlight that sifted through the blinds she saw his eyes sparkle with anticipation as they searched her face, trying to coax the same response from her.

"Wow!" he said, "I think they're real!" He laughed slightly at his joke, born out of nervousness, and then retracted it with a frown as she scowled at him.

Madge finished her drink and handed him the glass. He quickly mixed her another, not bothering with measurements. He finished his own, then stood for a moment, awkwardly, and looked at Madge, who sat rigidly on the edge of the bed.

"Hey, are you sure you've done this before?"

Madge laughed. Little boys and big men, and how do you tell the difference? She grinned at her drink and it was half gone already. How do you tell the difference? she thought. What does it matter?

Like a high school child searching in the dark for something new and different and wonderful, listening and memorizing and later repeating in a similar darkness. And it would be good. It would be wonderful. She knew it would be good-but not quite good enough. Suddenly she wanted to be away, to turn her rage in the right direction, to let it spend itself in motion until it was gone and he was destroyed, completely destroyed-the way she was destroyed.

"Nobody like me before, though," he said finally and he grinned. He started unbuttoning his shirt. "Baby, I'm the most."

She watched him strip, letting him think she was impressed. She stared openly at his chest, caked with muscle, blackened into silhouette by the moonlight behind him. He grinned at her look, reassured by her show of interest. He flexed his breasts.

"You like?"

"Oh, yes," Madge said flatly.

He slid down beside her and kissed her demandingly. Madge forced herself to-respond. She felt the slight stirrings inside her and tried to quicken them. While his arms drew her in, she felt out his body and the muscles that moved with his breathing and it was starting inside her. She was glad it was starting and she was forgetting. Already she was forgetting and she wanted to laugh.

She drew away and laughed while she found her glass. She laughed softly into the glass while his fingers slipped the buttons of her green uniform and pushed away the pink slip, guiding out a breast. She peered at his face through the tumbler. She regarded his grin, distorted by the liquid between them, and tried to copy it.

She tried to empty her mind, to erase everything except the warm moistness of his mouth drawing her nipples out, suckling against her, greedily, desperately trying to communicate. She thought of humming while his lips burned a path up over her breasts and under her throat and she felt his breath splashing on her skin.

"Let's do it," she said finally.

"What's the rush?" he whispered. He guided her down on the bed and eased himself beside her. His lips brushed lightly over hers.

"I think you're beautiful," she heard him whisper. "I almost wish we'd met some other way. I mean-"

"I'll tell you what," Madge said, suddenly cutting into his words. "Let's play drug store. I'll show you my prescription and you see if you can fill it!" She laughed loudly and looked at him. Her face was animated. He drew away.

"Hey!" he said, frowning.

"Hey, what?"

"Well, I mean ... Christ, you're turning me off, Baby."

"Am I?" Madge said. "You're the one who wants to talk. What do you want me to say? I love you?"

No!"

"Well, then, shut up. Just pay me and let's do it."

"Pay?"

Madge raised herself on an elbow. "Honey, you don't think I do this for kicks?"

His face suddenly went hard and he drew farther away. Even in the dark she could see the color gathering and finally his anger materialized.

"Why, you two-bit whore," he said. His voice shook. "I got a good mind to slap the shit outta you!"

"Pay me, honey, and you can do anything you want."

He got up, trembling with anger. He grabbed up his shirt and started pulling it on.

"Seven bucks for this place and three bottles of booze at after-hours prices! You could've let me know."

"It's your party."

"Yeah, it's my party all right!"

"So what's the difference?"

"You figure it out!" He grabbed up the bottles and headed for the door, turning at the doorway. "Believe me, if I had the dough, I'd do you. So help me, I'd do you!" He fumbled through his pocket with his free hand and drew out a coin.

"Here!" He tossed it to her. "That's all I got left. That's your tip!"

Madge picked up the coin that landed on the bed beside her. She looked at it, then closed her hand over it.

"All right," she said, "I'm paid."

"What?"

"I said I'm paid." She held up the coin. "This is my price. You called it yourself." Her voice trembled with anger. "Now, shut up and do it or get the hell outta here." She threw the coin at him and laughed. "Who needs your goddam money?" She got up and when she was naked she ran a hand over her body. "Come on," she said harshly, "Or isn't there anything here you want?"

He winced.

"What's the matter," she said. "Aren't you man enough?"

"You bitch!"

She laughed and dropped down on the bed. Her legs strained apart and her body moved violently. Come on, you son-of-a-bitch, you useless phony son-of-a-bitch. Who needs you? Who the hell ever needed you? Come on and want me, and suddenly she felt his hard body slap against her and it took her breath away. She grabbed at him. Who needs anybody else? Just you!

She heard his curses. She felt his body move in anger, drawing from it desire, mingling the two, and suddenly she cried out. His hand clamped over her mouth while she gasped. My God, what is this, what is this? and her breath stopped. She suddenly opened her eyes and she saw his grin, angry, brutal, and she felt his body moving. She moved too, desperately, reaching out, clawing at his back to hurt him, to return the pain, and, she thought, My God, what is this? and finally, Thank God! and she lay back, trembling, held fast, suspended, while his flesh searched inside her....

She stared out the window at the electric light over the sign and watched the dots of light that were cars creeping by, spaced at even intervals between the buildings. The night air cooled her body and the pain at the bottom of her stomach seemed to subside. The throbbing was steady and dull now, almost as though she could hear it instead of feel it, and she finished the whiskey in her glass.

She moved numbly across the room and picked up the bottle on the nightstand. She held up her glass in a silent toast to the sleeping form on the bed. She looked at his body, inert now, harmless-looking, deflated. She turned away.

In a moment she would come back and put life back into that body. She grinned at the world that waited outside the window. In a moment she would come back and whisper a word that would erase the sight of his face, and make beauty out of ugliness. She closed her eyes and she could see him and the word called back to her, Bernie, Bernie, and she could see him.

She opened her eyes and she could see him and she knew she had waited a moment too long.