been here for almost three hours. What took you so long?”
“I didn’t want to look impatient.”
“You are an exception. Usually men want to have sex right away if not sooner. Anyway, your patience has paid off well. You were great, Mark! You’re very good at it!”
Mark blushed, his male ego flattered. “Do you really think so? It’s probably due to my long practice as a teenager. My folks were poor and I never had enough pocket money so the only entertainment I could afford was sex.”
She kissed him on the cheek and went to the bathroom. Mark heard the shower for some time then saw her crossing the room to the kitchen dressed in a bathrobe. He stayed in bed, musing. He felt like Adam after eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge: half guilty, half enraptured by the flavor. He knew enough of religion to realize he had just broken the seventh commandment. And like Adam, he was afraid of being driven out of Paradise. But his fears vanished when Dorothy returned carrying a tray with two steaming cups.
“Fresh coffee,” she announced putting the tray on the bed.
While he was enjoying it, the woman started rubbing his shoulders skillfully. “Have you ever cheated on your wife before?” she asked him.
“Just once. While she was checking her makeup in the mirror I ate some of her ice cream.”
“No, really, Mark, did you have many love affairs?”
“I wasn’t exactly a saint, if that’s what you mean. I have extenuating circumstances for the time when I was drinking. They didn’t last too much, anyway.”
“Were there many of them?” Dorothy insisted.
He enjoyed neither the subject nor her insistence. “Do you want to know about those I can still remember or do I have to show you the DVDs I put them on?” he asked after a while.
The woman realized her mistake and kept massaging him silently. Mark was amazed to notice that her hands were so skillful and the effect so invigorating. “Hey, you’re really good at this!”
“Of course, massaging’s one of my hobbies. Listen, Mark, I can’t stand knowing you live in a hotel room. How about moving in with me? There’s plenty of space here for the both of us.”
“You seem to forget I haven’t solved my family problems yet.”
“My lawyer can help you with that. He’s got a lot of influence and can speed things up.”
Mark gave her an affectionate look. “Suppose I moved in. How could that change things for us?”
“We’d get used to each other. We’d get to know each other better and, why not, when the time is right, we could even make it official.”
All of a sudden his eyes grew sad. “You’re planning ahead, Dorrie. I wish that were possible. But there’re so many obstacles between us.... The Whellers came to America on the Mayflower. They’re politicians, actors, and bankers. They drive around in Rolls Royces. My family only came here a hundred years ago, fighting rats for air in the ship’s hold. Its members are farmers and salesmen and they drive twenty-year-old Fords. More than that, they still speak with that special Garrone r.”
“Bullshit, Mark, you’re suffering from the little-girl-with-the-matches syndrome,” she replied to something he had upset her with when they first met. “Let me tell you something: in love it’s the soul that matters and not the money or the social status. Do you really think money is everything?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had enough to know. Anyway, about my moving in, the answer is no. At least for now.”
The woman had scanned him with her eyes and was sure of what she had seen in him. This man, whom she could now call “her man,” was a kind-hearted giant with the innocence of someone who always stood up for the children, the lame and the old. The kind of man you’d like for a neighbor. Only his French ancestors had equally mixed in his genes honesty and stubbornness.
She didn’t press him any more but took his head in her hands and caressed his face, his hair. He abandoned himself to her. Unwillingly his mind compared his lashing Cathy to this warm, sensitive being. In his turn he ran his fingers through her beautiful hair. “Thank you, Dorrie, you made me feel wanted again.”
“I could make you feel a lot more,” she said with a promising smile, uncovering him.
“Jesus,” he shivered, “there should be laws against you!”
Then their bodies merged again and in his brain there was no more room for anything else.
A little later, while they were lying side by side, Dorothy lit herself a cigarette. “Tuesday and Wednesday are free for me,” she said. “Wouldn’t you like to get away from this asphalt jungle and go some place in the mountains?”
“Sure. I even know a cabin on Mount Mitchell, near Knoxville. I’m sure you’d like it there.”
“It’s all set then! On Tuesday we’re leaving for Knoxville!” She tried to fix his ruffled hair and discovered a scar. “What’s this: a token for good behavior?”
“More like a warning. I got this when I was eight. I was in the roller coaster with Grace, a little girl from the neighborhood. She got scared and hit me with a juice bottle. That was when I first learned women can be dangerous.”
They got up and Dorothy tried to make the sheets look a little bit as before. While putting the pillows away she asked him one more question. “And when did you last learn it?”
“I’ll probably last learn it...at dawn. I’m going to use some of that hot water now,” Mark decided, heading for the bathroom.
When he got out of the shower fifteen minutes later, with her bathrobe around his shoulders, he saw her lying in bed. The actress whistled admiringly. “I know this might come as a shock to you but I must tell you you’ve got a great butt there.”
“Does that mean your bathrobe looks good on me?”
“It looks good on me. On you it looks altogether sexy. Here’s what: I’ll give it to you if you move in with me.”
He took the cup of coffee from the night table and sat down next to her. “Thank you, but I’m not going to trade my latest freedom for a bathrobe: the freedom of getting out of bed on either side in the morning.”
The woman didn’t say anything. The man finished his coffee quietly. He looked at the actress. She was leaning against her pillow, thinking. Mark thought she looked sad. Had she resented his second refusal for that evening?
“Dorrie, did I upset you?” he asked.
“So much that I don’t want to see you any more,” she answered smiling languidly and turned off the light.
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