badly underestimated his opposition. Bruce went down to 2, where he could watch the dial. For a while it sat dead on 3, then it started down. He leaped back up to 3 and watched the dial there.
The operator was a most suspicious snoop. The needle stopped at 2, but instead of going on down to the lobby, it started up again. Ready to explode with excitement and triumph, willing to play hide-and-seek all night if the fathead wanted, Bruce slipped halfway down and around the corner. Again the sound of doors, again a wait. Finally the sighing of the cable within the walls. Bruce went up to 3 and watched the needle descend clear to L and stay there. All right, then. He must have satisfied himself that the rule-breaker was not in the building.
But he was, he was there like the Thief of Baghdad in the harem. The numbered doors flowed past him till he came to the right one. There he laid his cheek against the wood and scratched softly with his nails.
She opened, pulled him in, closed and locked again. She had let her hair down, and she was laughing without noise, whispering, “How did you duck him? He was sure you’d come up. When I passed you, he was right on my heels almost.”
“He’s got to be better than he is if he’s going to catch me.”
He was breathless, boastful, aggrandized. The chase had worked on him; the whispering secrecy of her room, made illicit by the elevator man’s suspicions, worked on him more. His hands were full of her clean, thick, slippery hair, their bodies were locked together, there were long close kisses in the close hallway. They made a stumbling sideward progress, without unlocking lips or arms, until they reached the sofa and fell into it. There, temporarily jarred loose, they looked into each other’s eyes with their noses two inches apart.
“Ah!” she said, and with her eyes wide open brought her lips close and put them with deliberate fierceness against his. “Ah, you!”
Bruce said nothing, burrowing into her throat to kiss a knob of collarbone. She had a sweet warm odor. Her hair smelled of pine soap, a simple village folk smell that somehow defined her.
“Sometime, sure,” he had told Holly on the porch of the tower house two months before. “Not right this week.” But here they were locked together, hungry, devouring one another. The escapade with the elevator man had quickened her as well as him. She was not phlegmatic, remote, or amused. She was aroused, and so was he.
But he had not yet naturalized the idea that a girl he was in love with, a nice girl, might be so emotionally excited that she would go, as the phrase went, “all the way.” They necked passionately for a while, and then after an unmeasured time—half hour, hour—she pushed him away and sat up and stretched. Her eyes looked unfocused, the pupils enlarged to fill the whole iris. “Well,” she said, and laughed softly, and at once grew serious again and said, “How are you going to get out of here? You’ll have to walk right past the elevator.”
“I’ll have to stay here all night and go out with the crowd in the morning.”
He said it jokingly, programmed as he was for the game of assault and resistance, siege and defense, scaling ladders and boiling oil, that was their accepted pattern. He said it hoping that against all precedent she might agree, and half terrified that she would, and sure all the time that she would not.
Erect on the sofa, her hair a tangled dark mass over her shoulders, she looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. He couldsee the glint of white eyeballs, and in the dark pupils a dot of red reflected from the down-on-the-floor lamp. They stared at each other, precarious between opportunity and inhibition.
Then he saw that she was not going to give in. “No,” she said. “No. Not now.”
“When, then?” Safe, he could be importunate.
Her eyes moved on his face, memorizing him. She leaned and kissed him slowly. He took a handful of her hair and pulled it across
The operator was a most suspicious snoop. The needle stopped at 2, but instead of going on down to the lobby, it started up again. Ready to explode with excitement and triumph, willing to play hide-and-seek all night if the fathead wanted, Bruce slipped halfway down and around the corner. Again the sound of doors, again a wait. Finally the sighing of the cable within the walls. Bruce went up to 3 and watched the needle descend clear to L and stay there. All right, then. He must have satisfied himself that the rule-breaker was not in the building.
But he was, he was there like the Thief of Baghdad in the harem. The numbered doors flowed past him till he came to the right one. There he laid his cheek against the wood and scratched softly with his nails.
She opened, pulled him in, closed and locked again. She had let her hair down, and she was laughing without noise, whispering, “How did you duck him? He was sure you’d come up. When I passed you, he was right on my heels almost.”
“He’s got to be better than he is if he’s going to catch me.”
He was breathless, boastful, aggrandized. The chase had worked on him; the whispering secrecy of her room, made illicit by the elevator man’s suspicions, worked on him more. His hands were full of her clean, thick, slippery hair, their bodies were locked together, there were long close kisses in the close hallway. They made a stumbling sideward progress, without unlocking lips or arms, until they reached the sofa and fell into it. There, temporarily jarred loose, they looked into each other’s eyes with their noses two inches apart.
“Ah!” she said, and with her eyes wide open brought her lips close and put them with deliberate fierceness against his. “Ah, you!”
Bruce said nothing, burrowing into her throat to kiss a knob of collarbone. She had a sweet warm odor. Her hair smelled of pine soap, a simple village folk smell that somehow defined her.
“Sometime, sure,” he had told Holly on the porch of the tower house two months before. “Not right this week.” But here they were locked together, hungry, devouring one another. The escapade with the elevator man had quickened her as well as him. She was not phlegmatic, remote, or amused. She was aroused, and so was he.
But he had not yet naturalized the idea that a girl he was in love with, a nice girl, might be so emotionally excited that she would go, as the phrase went, “all the way.” They necked passionately for a while, and then after an unmeasured time—half hour, hour—she pushed him away and sat up and stretched. Her eyes looked unfocused, the pupils enlarged to fill the whole iris. “Well,” she said, and laughed softly, and at once grew serious again and said, “How are you going to get out of here? You’ll have to walk right past the elevator.”
“I’ll have to stay here all night and go out with the crowd in the morning.”
He said it jokingly, programmed as he was for the game of assault and resistance, siege and defense, scaling ladders and boiling oil, that was their accepted pattern. He said it hoping that against all precedent she might agree, and half terrified that she would, and sure all the time that she would not.
Erect on the sofa, her hair a tangled dark mass over her shoulders, she looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. He couldsee the glint of white eyeballs, and in the dark pupils a dot of red reflected from the down-on-the-floor lamp. They stared at each other, precarious between opportunity and inhibition.
Then he saw that she was not going to give in. “No,” she said. “No. Not now.”
“When, then?” Safe, he could be importunate.
Her eyes moved on his face, memorizing him. She leaned and kissed him slowly. He took a handful of her hair and pulled it across
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