ardour involved, merely clinical expertise. Only once had there been a woman who aroused in him the tenderness and cruelty of passion; but she had derided the inhibitions which she had released, and now she had left him.
The woman in his arms said: ‘Let me do that.’ She unhooked her brassière, paused for a moment and then removed all her clothes except her pants.
‘Why leave those?’ he asked.
‘Because when you take them off I shall be able to tell myself that you seduced me.’
Fifteen minutes earlier, he reflected, she had been asserting her independence from men. She was smart, about thirty-five, and ran her own employment bureau.
After the cocktail party he brought her back to his flat for coffee and she said: ‘I hope you don’t think this means I’m going to go to bed with you.’
Randall closed the door and said: ‘As a matter of fact I do.’ She was too old for flirting: so was he.
He kissed her nipples into life. She sighed and called him by his first name as if they had been lovers for years. He examined the nipples in his detached way and decided that at some time in her life there had been a baby. He moved to her belly, not as firm as it had seemed, to the point where you sometimes forgot to whom you were making love.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No you mustn’t.’ But he did and the sighs became moans. ‘Oh Christ,’ she said. ‘Oh Christ.’ She cried out in victory because he was there, cried out in defeat because she had let him. And he wondered as he had wondered before at the debasement of lovemaking.
He climbed past her breasts again and looked into her eyes. She turned her face into the pillow. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Now.’
‘In a minute.’
‘No now. Please now. —— me now.’
And he smiled because she would never admit—might not even believe—that she had used such a word.
He entered her and almost immediately she cried out in her climax. And later cried out again so loud that he kissed her mouth to keep her quiet. Then kept on until he had finished.
‘God,’ she said, ‘that was wonderful.’
‘It was great,’ he said.
‘It was disgraceful, really,’ she said. ‘I’d only just met you.’
‘Don’t fret,’ he said. ‘You wanted to and I wanted to. We were attracted.’
‘It was beautiful.’
‘It was enjoyable.’
‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘you’re a cold fish. Now I come to think of it you were pretty cool just now. Cool and competent.’
‘I enjoyed making love to you,’ he said. Couldn’t they ever leave it at that? There had been no beauty, just the contortions of sex.
‘Did you? Did you really, Luke?’
‘Of course I did. Wasn’t it obvious?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I was too bound up with my enjoyment. Selfish, I suppose. Was I good, Luke?’
Jesus, he thought; but he didn’t want to hurt her. ‘You were great,’ he said. ‘Just great.’
‘I’ll never forget it. Making love with a man called Luke in the shadow of the Kremlin. I suppose you’ve made love to lots of women here.’
‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked.
‘I don’t mind. A beer perhaps. Don’t be too long.’
He took as long as he could and returned with a beer and a Scotch. She had put on her pants and brassière and repaired her face. ‘When will you be in the States again?’ she asked.
‘God knows. Next year maybe.’
‘You’ll look me up, won’t you?’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be the same. You know that, don’t you?’
She sipped at her beer. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it never is. You must know that.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’
‘How much longer are you here for?’
‘Intourist are taking us to Leningrad tomorrow. But I don’t have to go.’
‘You go,’ he said. ‘It’s a beautiful city.’
‘I wanted to go—until tonight.’
‘You go just the same.’
‘So it meant nothing to you?’
You could hardly tell a woman that at the critical moment you had been trying to pretend that she was your wife. Truthfully he said: ‘Of course it meant something.’
‘It did to me, too. It was beautiful.’
He felt tired and a little sick. He yawned. ‘I have to be up early in the morning,’ he said.
‘Can I stay the night?’ Pride and composure had evaporated: she was a successful middle-ageing woman frightened of loneliness.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I wish you could. But you have to watch your step here. We’re not in Miami. I’ll drive you back to the National.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll get a cab.’
‘You might try and get a cab but I doubt whether you’ll succeed. Get dressed and I’ll take you back.’
‘So that’s all it was.’
‘All what was?’
‘A one-night stand. An easy lay.’
‘You know it was more than that.’
‘Balls,’ she said.
‘I hope you don’t talk like that to your staff.’
‘I talk to them how I please.’
She took her clothes into the bathroom and emerged the efficient businesswoman, independent of men.
Outside the thin snow fell calmly and steadily. He dusted it from the windscreen and rear windows of the car and opened the door for her with determined good manners.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’re a perfect gentleman.’
The wheels spun and then gripped. The militiaman who had booked them in booked them out. A few hundred yards down the road Randall stopped the car.
‘You’re not going to do the whole thing in reverse, are you?’ she said. ‘The sex first
