Seducer by Fletcher Flora Page A

waiting. He knew very well what he should do — the only sane and sensible thing — and he knew also that he wouldn’t do it.
    He knew that he should drive away quickly, while there was still time, and the knowledge was an uneasiness in his brain all the while he was getting out of the car and crossing the sidewalk and climbing beside her up the stairs.
    “The place is a mess,” she said, opening her door. “I’m not very neat.”
    He followed her inside. The bed was still down from the wall, unmade. Glasses, ash trays and magazines and items of clothing and incidental junk made a vast litter on the floor, the bed and the table, wherever she had left whatever she had used and might or might not use again.
    Her portable television set was at the foot of her bed on its wheeled stand. On a table beside the bed, within easy reach of an incumbent, was a pack of cigarettes, a dirty glass, and a quart bottle half full of dark port wine.
    Ordinarily a fastidious man, he was not offended by all the clutter. He accepted it as a diametrical expression of herself. If the room was dirty, she was not. If it was littered, her mind wasn’t. Indifference to incidentals and tedious distractions made it possible for her to remain consistently what she was. Not that he knew what she was exactly.
    It may have been, if he had, that he would still have gone away, as he should have gone before and hadn’t. But perhaps he wouldn’t have gone in any event, in spite of all knowledge. For the first time in his life, although he wasn’t fully aware of this yet either, he had met someone he would never want to leave or lose or live without.
    “For God’s sake,” he said, “don’t you ever pick anything up?”
    “Sometimes I do if it seems necessary. It seldom does, however. I rather like things left around. Does it disturb you?”
    “Strangely enough, it doesn’t.”
    “If it does, I’ll pick up immediately,” she offered.
    “Thank you. I have an idea that’s quite a concession. Never mind, though. I’m afraid it would take far too long.”
    “Won’t you take off your coat and sit down? You’ll have to clear a chair, I guess. There doesn’t appear to be one without something on it. Will you have a glass of wine? It’s all I have.”
    “No, thanks. No wine.”
    “Oh, have a glass. It’s cheap but quite good. It comes from California, I think. It’s port.”
    “A small glass, then, just to be congenial.”
    He took off his coat and cleared a chair and sat down. After removing her own coat, Maggie disappeared for several seconds into a closet-like kitchen, returning with two glasses which she filled from the bottle on the bedside table. Leaving one glass on the table, she carried the other across to him.
    “See if you don’t think that’s quite good to be so cheap,” she said. “It costs less than a dollar a bottle if you buy it by the case. Buddy bought a case and left it. Most of it’s still in the kitchen.”
    “That was generous of Buddy, I’m sure. Does he come here often to help you drink it?”
    “He would if I’d let him, but I won’t. I’ve given him up. He came last night and wanted in, but I wouldn’t open the door. After making quite a fuss about it, he went away. Go on and try the wine. Don’t you think you’ll like it?”
    The wine was bad, but he said that it was good, and she was exorbitantly pleased. Returning to the bed, she sat down and drank a little from her own glass, then began to remove her shoes and stockings.
    “What are you doing?” he said.
    “Getting barefooted,” she said. “Do you mind?”
    “Do you always go barefooted in your apartment?”
    “I usually go bare entirely, feet and all, but I thought you might object to that on such short acquaintance.”
    “I see. You go bare entirely only with friends.”
    She looked at him gravely, stretching her legs and flexing her toes. “Are you making fun of me? I think you are.”
    “Not at all. I’m only trying to understand