Chapter 5
"This is the way you asked for it, lover," she said. She lifted her arms. He bent to pick her up, but when he put his hands under her shoulders, she tripped him, and he had to catch himself to keep from falling on her. She pulled and he came down atop her. She could feel his touch.
He had landed just right. She reached for him, found him, pulled on his body until, with strength born of her wild desires, she had him centered.
"Hey, let's do away with the clothes," he said, still touching her, wanting nothing but one slight thrust to unite them.
"No!" she gasped. "I want it now!" She pushed upward, impaled herself on him, as the first throbs of ecstasy possessed her. She felt joy as he matched her movements, welding their bodies together. She felt wanton, let pure sensualism take her, felt him possess her completely, thought, oh God! how wonderful to be a woman!
Small, spasmodic muscles clutched at the beloved alien within her. Her breath grew fast and hard. She began the climb to heaven, regretting only for a moment that his bulky clothing prevented the ultimate in closeness. He moved to kiss her open mouth, giving her his tongue to tease. He was delighted with her all-out response.
She cried out once, twice. Then she was slowly tensing, lifting her entire body to press hard against him, holding him tight to check his motions.
"Ah, God!" she gasped. "Ah, Gil!" She made swift little movements to savor the delightful after-effects, and then she relaxed against the hard floor.
"Hot-pants Suzie," Gil said, smiling down at her.
"You know it, buddy," she said proudly. She felt proud and satisfied. Within her, she was carrying his seed. She was so glutted with feeling that she didn't consider the fact that his seed would be planted in sterilized ground. She felt too good to think about it.
"You do it to me," she said. "You make me have hot pants."
"I'd better not catch anyone else doing it," he said.
"No danger."
The floor was hard but not uncomfortable. She lay underneath him and felt him ebb away from her.
"You know, darling," she said, her voice soft and languorous, "that you've hopelessly wrinkled a twenty dollar dress."
"I have?" he asked. "Who the hell was it who fell down on the floor and started this."
"I'll have to keep it," she said.
"Wasn't that what you wanted?"
She kissed him quickly. "I really wanted to enjoy my husband, that's all I wanted."
"Really?"
"For real and true." She snuggled her face against his shoulder. "Are you glad you have a hot wife?"
"You know it!"
"Are you going to take me to bed and do it up right for me?"
"You know that, too." He eased his weight off her. "But only because it's Friday night and you look so sexy in that damned twenty-dollar dress."
He rolled off her and helped her to her feet. She held the dress away from her, not wanting to mess it up.
"This time I'll take it off," she said.
"I'll vote for that."
"Come along," she said. "Follow me, sexman."
In the bedroom, she pulled the dress off over her head and shook out her hair. While Gil undressed, she made quick repairs in the bathroom. When she came out, he was lying atop the spread on his back. She liked him nude. He had such a good, strong body.
She threw herself down on him, making him grunt with her weight. She pushed herself up quickly, avoiding his arms, straddling him.
This one was going to be long, loving and slow. She was going to take her time, savor every small movement. Afterwards, she'd he under him until sleep came, feeling him still within her as the world went away, leaving only love and sensuous awareness of Gil.
It was lovely. So utterly lovely! Nothing could be as good.
Nothing? Oh, God, how could she be dissatisfied?
But the truth was that one thing could improve it.
"Darling," she whispered, not stopping her sinuous, slow gyrations. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could start a baby?"
He paused. "You didn't forget the pill?"
"No," she said, "but I'd like to. I want a baby, Gil. I want your baby in my womb. I want to feel it growing. I want to know you put it there, darling. I want your baby. I want that more than I want anything else in this world."
"I know," he said, taking up the rhythm slowly.
"Let's do it," she begged. "Can't we, please?" Her words gushed out in tempo with her increased movement, as she was excited by the thought. "I can skip the pills and then in a couple of days ... It would be about the right time of the month, I think. Oh, wouldn't it be nice to know we were making something when we do this? To know that we're being as close as two people can ever be?"
"Gil?" she asked, when he didn't answer.
"Don't, Suze. Please don't."
"I would like a child. Maybe we could name it after you, if it were a boy, and he'd look like you, and when he was big enough you could buy him baseballs and things and-"
"You know how I feel," he said. "You know I want kids. But-"
"But there's the insurance on your mother's house," she said bitterly.
"Susan!"
"All right," she said, squeezing him, "I'm sorry. We won't talk about it."
But something had gone out of it.
She let him roll away from her and watched his back disappear into the bathroom. She heard water running as he showered. She closed her eyes to try to dispell the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Something had gone out of her.
It seemed so ugly, so sterile. It seemed useless, all the motion and the wildness and the moistness. It was sinful, almost, to make love just for the sake of the transient sensations it produced in her. Her body was incomplete again, crying out for the little, impregnating seed which could become, in nine months, a tangible proof that love was clean and good.
When Gil came back to bed, she told herself that she had to get up and go clean up. But she didn't really care. Something was gone. She felt used and tired. She closed her eyes and turned away from Gil. When he put his arm over her, she moved. Her body was sticky with sweat. "Don't, Gil! It's so hot."
He moved his arm and turned onto his side, his back to her. It was not even 10 o'clock. " 'Night, sweetie," he said. "Goodnight."
After he began breathing evenly, she was still awake. She lay on her back, messy, sticky. Such a waste! It wasn't right. All the loveliness had gone out of the night and what had seemed to be beautiful love was represented by a sticky, dead, useless residue. They were two animals giving pleasure without purpose past mere sentience.
Was that love? No, that was mere sex, a far cry from what she wanted, what she needed.
She felt very sad. Before she finally dropped off to sleep, her cheeks were wet with silent tears. She cried because she was in bed with a stranger. The man sleeping at her side, purring softly through his nose, was not her Gil, not the vital, young lover she had known. He was a tired man, a distant man, interested only in money and in keeping his mother's house from falling down from disrepair and old age.