Hunger and Thirst (32 page)

“Good night, baby,” she said.

He thought of it as he sat there in the bar, staring down into the untouched sidecars, the delicate frothy surface breaking down. He felt a severe need to have her alone somewhere, to try and seduce her. It was a compulsion, he knew, almost a sense of duty. The duty of a full-blooded American male. But the way she kissed him, the way she spoke glibly and freely of sex, her shadowy past at school; all seemed to indicate that the idea was more than feasible.

After a while she came down. She had on a tweed skirt and a light brown blouse. She was carrying a waist-length tan jacket in her arms. She came up and slid in beside him with a smile. She pressed his hand as she kissed him.

“Hi baby,” she said. Then she picked up the drink and took a sip.

“Mmmm, that’s good,” she said, “I go for sidecars.”

* * * *

Lynn let them in.

“Hi!” Leo said to him.

“Hello,” Lynn answered. They all went into the living room.

“Where’s Marie?” Erick asked, glancing around.

“She’s ill,” Lynn said casually.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Leo said. Lynn looked stage sad.

“What’s wrong with her?” Erick asked suspiciously.

Lynn sort of half shrugged. Then he moved into the kitchen. Leo looked at Erick.

“That spoils it for him,” she said.

“I wonder,” Erick said, “Give me your jacket.” They went into the bedroom and she looked around.

“Oh, I
like
this,” she said, “I wish I had an apartment like this.”

“Do you?” he asked.

“What’s the matter, baby?” she asked.

“Don’t …,” he started, then said, “Nothing.”

Dinner was a somber affair.

Erick sat morosely while Lynn acted out the role of perfect host bringing in the well done roast lamb and potatoes, lighting candles, moving from kitchen to dining room with his quick sure motions, a smile always half written on his face.

“More lamb?” he would ask, “Potatoes? Broccoli?” Sitting and eating only a little himself, his gaze on Leo always that of scientist on microscope, Erick saw. Or procurer on client. He wondered how Lynn had managed to keep away Marie.

“Thumb me a woman, Mr. Linstrom,” Lynn said once, so irritatingly that Erick wanted to heave his plate at him.

“She was a man,” he said nastily, glaring at Lynn. Lynn pursed his lips. “What do you think?” he asked Leo. Leo was mystified. Lynn moved back into the kitchen, looking interested and pleased.

There was a bottle of wine, two glasses on the shiny topped coffee table before the couch. The bottle rested in a bowl of cracked ice.

Erick twitched uncomfortably when he saw the bowl. It reminded him of something. He almost expected Lynn to start lecturing him casually on the need of concentrating on black whales floating by icebergs.

One thing was certain. He’d made up his mind not to touch Leo. It was too obvious that Lynn was just hovering, waiting like a blood-faced pimp for the commencement of activities.

He sat beside Leo on the couch, sipping red wine. Lynn sat in an armchair, chatting politely. From Magnavox steamed Wagner’s
Love Death Music
. Lynn let his words stop and watched Leo as she lay her head back and listened. She moved against Erick and Lynn’s face registered slightly.

Erick glanced at him. Lynn’s features committed nothing to sight. Erick waited. But couldn’t catch Lynn’s eye. He turned back with a heavy breath and felt his arm tighten as Leo touched it idly with her white fingers.

His mind spoke to her.

Blind fool, it said.

* * * *

Promptly at ten, Lynn got up and said, “I believe I’ll do some reading.” He grabbed a book, got another bottle of wine and went into the bedroom with an, “If you’ll excuse me.” The door shut behind him. Erick wondered what sort of expression was on Lynn’s face now that he was hidden away. Elation? Or shaking rage?

“He feels bad,” Leo said.

“God only knows what Lynn feels,” he answered, “If anything.”

“Are you angry with him?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

They were silent a moment.

“What does he do?” she asked.

“He needles,” Erick said.

“No, I mean his job.”

“He’s a public relations man.”

“He does all right for himself,” she said, unable to keep the sound of envy from her voice. Erick was silent. Then he said suddenly,

“Would you like to go out with him,” at once disgusted with her and amused by the idea of Lynn dating her.

She turned quickly and looked at him. “Baby, don’t look like that,” she said. She leaned over and kissed him.

“Would you?”

“Stop it,” she said and her voice was angry. He looked at her coldly. She smiled a little. “Stop it,” she said again, quietly.

He pulled her against his body and kissed her. She pressed tightly on him and moved her hips a little to rub her stomach against his. Her breath came quickly again. He reached up almost intuitively and closed one hand over her left breast. She shuddered and her breath caught. Excitement began fluttering through him and, suddenly, he realized that the idea of Lynn being in the next room excited him even more. Brief rage at knowing that Lynn had planned it all, had gotten Marie not to come somehow. Then a feeling of—who the hell cares? And amusement at the idea that Lynn’s plan would backfire slightly since he was going to enjoy it.

She pulled her lips away suddenly.

“Oh, no,” she muttered.

He almost laughed in her face. He got a vision of the great game it was. Replete with
ohs
and
ahs
and refusals and eventual grants. Strange how obvious and blatant and unromantic it seemed then. All that remained was the vicious demanding lust in him.

To him there seemed no question about it. And he was sure she felt the same way. They were going to have each other. They might talk of something else. They might laugh and joke and pretend it was something else. She might look desperate and say, “Oh, no.” But every path of activity led to the same highway. And that highway led straight and true to the bedroom. To flesh. To love? That was doubtful. Lynn didn’t have to tell him that.

They lay there a long time making love. Every once in a while she’d get too excited and pull away and turn a little away, breathing torturously and staring at the ceiling with a bleak expression of self-disgust on her face. Then she’d come back, she kept coming back. Like a machine he pulled her on, all elements in his fingers, pulled and woven together.

Then Lynn staggered out. He can’t stand it, Erick thought as soon as he heard the door open.

“By God, I’m drunk,” Lynn said.

He blinked at them.

“I sat in there reading,” he said, “I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes. I kept reading and drinking and reading. The book started to fade. I couldn’t see what I was reading anymore. I thought the lamp was burning down. I thought my eyes were going bad. Then I knew—I was drunk and it was too late for reading.”

Leo was laughing quietly as Lynn stood there wavering, then leaned against the far wall. Erick looked at him coldly.

Suddenly Lynn slipped down slowly and sat on the rug.

“My good God,” he muttered in a hollow voice.

“Good book, Lynn?” Erick asked in deceptive tones.

“I don’t remember,” Lynn said as if he didn’t notice, “All I remember is the room getting darker and darker. And I thought that maybe my eyes …”

“Were going bad,” Erick finished.

“Were going bad,” echoed Lynn. He stared dizzily at the rug. Then he said abruptly, seeming to gather intent.

“It’s a secret. Marie isn’t ill. That was just a deception. She’s really out with another man. Probably in the reclining position with him by now.”

“Who broke the date Lynn?” Erick asked, “Marie? Or you?”

That brought Lynn around a little. He snapped up his head and looked at Erick, then at Leo.

“Don’t you listen to me and don’t you believe anything I say,” he said, “I’m drunk. I’m a monkey. Where is my cap and my cup? Here is my simian appurtenance thereunto.”

“Unquote,” said Erick, “By Erick Linstrom.”

Lynn’s mouth twitched.

Then he looked around brightly. “Well, here we are,” he said, “Why don’t you spend the night here?” he said to Leo. Erick’s teeth clenched together.

“Why,
Lynn,”
Leo said.

Oh, you can do better than that
, Erick’s mind teed off viciously.

“I mean with the big Swede there,” Lynn amended. He threw out his arms in a gesture of artificial gratuitousness. “As my guest,” he said.

“Couch isn’t big enough,” Leo joked, cutely, and Erick found his mind racing ahead through all impending conversation. His heart started to beat violently at the thought of how close he was to going to bed with her. He didn’t know whether to sit there quietly or join the ruse or get up and kick in Lynn’s face.

“I mean in the bedroom,” Lynn said, “I’ll sleep on the couch.” He was getting a little obvious now, Erick thought.

“I don’t think so, Lynn,” she said.

Lynn lurched to his feet and started for the bathroom. “Think I’ll bladder out,” he said with calculated coarseness. The door slammed behind him.

“Why don’t you stay?” Erick asked, feeling the words come out by themselves, beginning to feel a sense of being trapped without a struggle.

She looked at him with an expression he took for pain. She ran a rubbing hand over his chest.

“Oh God, I
want to, Erick,”
she said heavily.

“Then do,” he said casually, suddenly imagining that Lynn was on his knees at the bathroom door listening. He almost wanted to get up and check.

“I can’t,” he heard her say, “I can’t get involved again.”

“Involved?”

“It’s a long sad story,” she said, “You wouldn’t be interested.”

“Maybe I would.” He didn’t care about anything. He wanted to go back to his room and go to sleep.

“No,” she said.

Lynn came back and fell down into the armchair. “Why don’t you stay over tonight?” he said to Leo as if were the first time he’d suggested it.

She shook her head.

“I’m a discreet madame,” Lynn said.

“Shut up Lynn,” Erick said, “You’re drunk.”

“I’m drunk, I’m engaged, I’m …”

Lynn flung out a melodramatic arm.

“God!” he cried suddenly, “Stop the world, I’m getting off!”

Leo laughed. “Oh, God, where am I?” she asked Lynn.

“Not I,” he said, then turned to Erick. “Give us your lecture on Man as Animal,” he said.

“I don’t remember it,” Erick said.

“Sure. Come on. Man as Animal.”

“What’s that?” Leo asked.

“Work of art,” Lynn slurred, “If our boy would write stuff like that he’d sell and not live in a hovel all his life.”

“Why don’t you go blow your brains out?” Erick asked.

“Man as Animal,” Lynn persisted. He applauded and grinned. I’d like to squash you, Erick thought. Like a bug, a big fat bug.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. And saw himself the first time he’d read it to Lynn and a few other fellows at the Golden Campus at college while, out on the floor, Sally danced with another man.

“The title of my speech is Man as Animal,” he had said, “This is not so incredible as I will, at minor length, prove to your skeptical minds. So list.”

He was back there. He didn’t care about the present. The only thing he knew about the present was that he was talking again, repeating his paper.

“He remembers every word,” he heard Lynn say, “I shudder before such memory. I shudder anyway.”

Erick closed his eyes tightly. He went on talking, almost hoping that he would open his eyes soon and find himself back at school.

“Man,” he said, “The animal who hides like a thief behind the whitish veil of human flesh.

“Man’s actions are his basic qualification for the animal world.”

He felt Leo snuggle against him, suddenly realized that she was part of his college life too. It drove him back with more strength.

“Yet, notwithstanding this, there are notable physical aspects which also may give him ready admittance into the world of the jungle. So list.

“Now.

“Scornful of the decent fashion, this animal Man no longer stands on all fours. Instead he has strained all muscular function so that he now stands in a painfully unnatural erect position. Somewhat like the anthropoid, you might say, but hardly as attractive.”

Lynn snickered. “Oh, yes,” she said.

“His skull is tightly covered with a loathsome whited skin which peels off when sunlight makes it red. The skull and this skin are in turn covered with a vulgar growth that the beast has clipped at intermittent periods so that the two bulbous growths through which sound permeates its dull mind may not be covered.

“The features of this animal …”

“Man as Animal,” mused Lynn. “How true. Stop the world I’m getting off.” He looked up. “I apologize,” he said, “I wish for you to continue this masterful delectation.”

“No,” said Erick.

“Go on baby,” Leo said.

He did in a little while.

“The features of this animal,” he said, “Are ugly in the extreme. Sticking out horribly from the absorbant flesh is a structure that looks like a bastardized snout.”

“Uh,” said Leo, “Maybe I made a mistake in telling you to go on.” Erick knew he’d go on then.

“A proper comment,” Lynn said, “Common man arouses disgust.”

Leo looked at Lynn, newly curious. Erick pretended not to notice. He closed his eyes again.

“This structure mingles with the face in that same loathsome skin covering. Underneath are two nostrils through which air is taken and through which …”

He hesitated. He wasn’t at college, he knew that. It was all rather poor. He wondered why he had been so impressed with his cleverness once. He guessed that at college, in a campus beer cellar, many things sounded good which were only juvenile and stupid. Because it was another world, with its own conditions, its own standards.

“Through which,” Lynn prompted.

“Through which the disgusting phlegm is blown when this animal falls prey to the north wind,” he said.

“Oh, Erick,” Leo said, “That’s not nice.”

“Man is not nice,” Lynn said, “Man is a motley growth.”