Chapter 8
When the cricket sounds grew intense, Roger awakened to find that his head was in Mona's lap. He looked up at her. She returned the look and her expression was softer than he had ever seen it. It seemed that he was still involved in a dream. But, he didn't want to awaken from it for a feeling of peace and comfort and, strangely, love, coursed through all his being. And, even more strangely, he knew that Mona had caused the feeling, had made love pass from him to her.
Her eyes told him that she felt the same thing. They told him, too, that she was as bewildered as he was. But then they came closer and blurred as they descended upon him. And then it didn't matter.
Their kiss was very soft, very tentative and experimental at first, but then it changed and grew desperate in their desire for each other. Roger raised upward, being careful not to cause any motion that might frighten Mona's lips from their tight clamp upon his. Then he took her in his arms and he realized the thrill of her breasts pushing solidly against his chest, driving, burrowing, loving, rubbing against him as they heated and pulsated and as the nipples grew large and bloating. And then he had to know more of them-the bareness of them.
Rog broke their kiss. He pushed back a bit, then, very expertly, he undid the front of her dress and slid it off her shoulders. He had expected resistance. There was none. Only Mona's eyes looking at him, smiling a bit even before her mouth lifted in a smile. And then she was on her back and he was over her, kneading her breasts with his hands, at first, then bending and kissing her there, lolling his tongue over all her flesh, tongue-nipping at the nipples, kissing them, taking them in his lips and rolling them endlessly while Mona whimpered sounds of her delight.
After a long time-a time that found Roger's chest bared, too, and made the subject of Mona's kisses-they were finally lying together to the side of the walk, shielded by bushes and with the damp grass beneath the mattress they had made of their clothes. They were on their sides, their bodies pressed together. Their lips were resting from their raging kisses. It was then that Mona started to sob.
She cried for a very long time. Roger merely held her. He did not pry, he did not question, he did nothing but offer the comfort of his arms around her naked body.
But finally the crying subsided. Mona's chest ceased its heavy panting, allowing the words to come. And they came in a torrent of emotion, in a stream of truth that could not shock Roger because of their sincerity, their realness, and the plea that they held that she wished things were different. She told him of her relationship with her uncle; of their conspiracy against the hospital, against their fear of him, Roger Harper, a dedicated intern. And she told him of the plot to involve him with Patty Pen-the plot that had not worked because of his rejection of the fifteen year old girl. Then Mona confessed that she was glad about that;-that she was even amused that Roger, despite his drunkeness, had rejected the sensual child.
Mona was silent for a moment. Then she started to speak again but Roger silenced her with a new kiss, one that was stronger and more driving and more conveying of his feelings, his forgiveness and his love.
He rolled her to her back. He crowded atop her. They kissed again and their tongues were fierce fighters as each tried to subdue the other, as each tried to prove that their love was surer and stronger and more everlasting.
"It's crazy, crazy, crazy," Roger said, drawing his lips away from hers. "It's crazy but I'm in love with you."
"I know," she said.
"That it's crazy?" he asked.
"Yes," she laughed. "That it's crazy and just as crazy for me because I love you, too. Perhaps I've always loved you. Maybe everything else had just been a bad dream-a terrible one-everything-Amos and me, and the way I've hated you, the way I've been a shrew with you-with everyone."
"Stop talking about it," he said.
"I'm glad I talked about it." She paused, then looked very seriously at him and said, "But what are we going to do, Roger? What am I going to do?"
"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "We'll have to figure it out as we go along."
"I'm frightened."
"Don't be."
"But I can't help it."
"I can help it," he said, smiling.
She smiled back but did not speak. Then it was not necessary for their bodies were close again and Roger had bowed his mouth to her body. He kissed her neck and shoulders and lingered at her breasts again. Then he kissed below them, running his tongue over her rib cage until he moved lower and kissed at her navel.
Mona's body began to stammer and arch. Her thighs quivered and it seemed that they were beckoning, calling to Roger for attention, the great attention that only he could now give to bring them quietness. He kissed lower. The thighs locked tightly to him and Mona whimpered softly, so soft that her sound seemed made of the night and the crickets and of everything of the out-of-doors and not at all from herself. And then her thighs began a slight motion, a tiny arching that crushed him tighter to her as his kisses took on new imagination, greater depth, more intense heat. Then, suddenly, she was shifting her position, scampering to descend upon him in a similar, loving fashion. And then she was at his feet, raising, looking at his spear of Apollo that she lowered to meet. She met it-brilliantly, with love of such intensity that Roger was sure he could not long stand it. Nor did it seem possible that Mona could stand the love that he gave for her hips lurched madly now, even as her thighs held him hard to the prize, stern in their determination that she should know all that he had to give at the same time that she was giving all that she knew how to convey in the way of love. Each to the other, they conveyed it.
When they were both near the breaking point of their self-control and containment, they pulled apart. Both of them uttered small cries of unhappiness for their parting. Then they shifted their position again and their bodies smacked hard as Roger fought himself atop her. Then there was the instant cradle of her thighs and him going to it, lowering, moving with love but with a strength from his hips such as he had never known before. And then there was the contact of their bodies: Roger entering her deeply, moving from side to side; Mona arching to receive him, moving with him, pulsating against the throb that was his. They held together for a long time. It made their new parting all the more thrilling. Their speed increased. Their bounce became harder. Their pulsation quicker, their joining more constant, the grip of their bodies to each other tighter and more loving and more irresistible, more enchanting, more binding of their bodies and minds and souls-more reassuring of their future. They pumped and lurched and shouted calls to each other-calls that were made of the obscenity of love.
"Oh, Rog, darling," Mona suddenly wailed.
He charged to her again and again, then paused.
"Oh, yes," she cried. "I like that. Stay close to me, darling, don't let me go, not ever."
"Never, never, never," he mumbled.
But he did leave her. He raised his hips, then charged forward again. Mona met his onslaught. She ground against him until he again departed her body, raised, and plunged forward once again.
Now, there was no stopping them. They came together with the speed of lightening. They ground together as if they were crushing stone. They fought lost and helpless before the giant feeling that invaded their bodies, that carried them, clawing constantly upward toward culmination, high, high, high, so high that they lost their breath, had to slacken their pace for a few seconds before they renewed their climb. But renew it, they did. And then it was unceasing, constantly moving them upward until at last, amid their mixed cries of love and pleasure, they ruptured that highest cloud of feeling, broke through it to orgasm, and quaked as they thumped to earth and to the reality of their wet and spent bodies.
It was a long time before they stirred from each other's arms. When they did it was only to pull back and look into each other's eyes.
"I'm not afraid anymore," Mona said.
"Good," Roger told her.
"I don't think I'll ever be afraid if I'm close to you."
"You'll always be close to me, darling," he told her.
"Roger?" she asked in a small voice. "What, sweet?"
"Why did we hate each other so much? How can it be that we hated each other and now we don't?"
"Maybe because we knew that we'd fall in love if we didn't defend ourselves with hate," he said.
"That's complex," she laughed.
"Very," he agreed, also laughing.
They were quiet then for another long time. The kisses that they traded were soft, not at all violent or passionate, except passionate in the way that kisses can be after other kisses have had their dreams fulfilled.
They dressed clumsily, each of them laughing at the other as they stumbled in the darkness. But they finally managed to dress and were ready to leave the garden, ready to leave it and face the problems of their love that remained. It was only then that they grew somber again.
"Rog-Rog, I think we better get back to the hospital right away."
"All right."
"Hurry, please," she said.
"Why? What's the matter?"
"I don't know," she said. "I've just-just got a terrible feeling, that's all."
He nodded, noting that her words had brought him a feeling of anxiety, too, that now he also felt the desire to hurry, to return to the hospital where their problems were centered.
They did not speak when they left the garden. Not bothering to re-enter the house, indifferent about good-byes or thanks to host and hostess, too, they skirted the house and moved to where Mona's car had been parked in the driveway. It was missing.
"Rog-my car's gone."
"Sure you parked it here, darling?" he asked.
"Positive. When I brought Patty Pen here I--. "
He looked at her curiously. "What's wrong?"
"Patty. Maybe she took my car. I left the keys in the ignition."
"So, if she did, there's no harm done."
"Rog, I don't like it. There's something wrong. The car missing-everything. Something's wrong. I know it!"
"All right," he said. "Come on-we'll take Jack's. From the looks of him when I last saw him, he won't be using it."
They had a little trouble finding Jack Belton's car. They had trouble starting it however, for it was old and unstable. But finally the motor jerked alive, sputtered a bit, blew fumes and coughed and finally achieved an even pace.
Roger jerked the car into gear and moved it away from the house that had been the scene of both his utmost humiliation, his emergence from it, and into love with Mona Fiken.