Pulling A Train

by Harlan Ellison

  One morning he had come in early, and had passed by the models’ dressing booths. He passed the dressing room where Jeanie changed into her nightgown and bathrobe. The curtain had not slipped completely across on its hooks, and the brief space through which he had been able to see held a fascinating tableau.

  He had stopped stock still, the boutonniere on its way to his button hole frozen in mid-motion.

  Jeanie had been admiring herself in the full-length mirror. She had been sliding her skirt up her body slowly, letting the full, curving taper of leg and thigh come into sight cautiously. Don had watched as she drew the clinging fabric up, up, till the top of her hose had been exposed, the garter leading to soft, dark blue panties revealed, the V where her torso met her legs uncovered. He hadn’t realized his breath was caught in his throat till he had turned red and began coughing.

  She had heard him then, and only gotten a fleeting glimpse of his back as he had run like the wind down the back stairs to the bargain basement.

  Since that day, Don Kingery had had but one problem:

  How to get Jeanie Belamonte out of the bed in the window—and into his own!

  It took him three more weeks to get up the nerve. During that time he had escorted to his bachelor bed (a) a redheaded school teacher who had dropped into Pomeroy’s to complain about a defective orange squeezer she had purchased, (b) a hot-blooded sweater model from Teen Toggery who had a penchant for exercising her muscles in strange ways and (c) a petulant but bed-frenzied saleswoman of novelty marshmellow products, from Wichita, Kansas.

  They had all been vital—yet tasteless. Not one of them was anything more than a dim shadow the morning after. All Don Kingery—he of the broad shoulders, dark wavy hair and dark wavy eyes—could see was the face and form of Jeanie Belamonte. He always thought of the name with an ahhhhh! and a licking of the lips.

  He finally asked her.

  He opened the door to the window, and before the amazed eyes of the crowd, he entered the fully-fitted bedroom. He was oblivious of the gawping pedestrians.

  Jeanie was stretched out full-length under the covers, as usual. He could see the sharp outlines of her beautiful legs, even through the blanket bulk. The heat of the DayLights was almost oppressive, but a fan hidden under the bed kept the window cool and refreshing.

  He paused for a second and imagined the nakedness that lay under the covers, under the sheets, under the nightie.

  It was too much for him. He cleared his throat.

  Jeanie Belamonte sat bolt upright. The sheet fell away from her and Don Kingery drew in a deep, sharp breath at the exposed beauty of her breasts. High, finely-molded half-globes, they strained impatiently at the thin, nearly-transparent fabric of the nightgown.

  Wildly, the thought ran through his head: That can’t be the nightie she wore when the cops okayed this display! It can’t be—or we would’ve been banned cold!

  Her deep turquoise eyes snapped open in fear. But he didn’t see them. He was too busy looking at the rest of her. She had actually been asleep—asleep before a milling crowd—and this invasion of her privacy (privacy? Good Lord! he thought) had frightened her.

  He was about to tell her not to worry, when he saw her eyes.

  They were fantastic! They were unbelievable! He couldn’t control himself. He felt not only the heat of his body rising, not only the color of his body rising, but his body…

  He didn’t ask her just then.

  He turned quickly and rushed out of the window, slamming the door behind himself. He strode quickly to his office and slammed the door. Two slams, no fouls. He told his secretary—over the intercom—not to disturb him for an hour.

  They had been the most limpid, most appealing, most hungry and lascivious eyes he had ever seen. Kingery had been in the Marines; had been in Casablanca and Tokyo, been in Nevada and Hollywood. Yet he had never—absolutely never—seen anything like them. He had romanced visiting movie stars—in the book department autographing ghost-written biographies. He had slept with man-starved saleswomen on the road for weeks and frenetic teenaged salesgirls anxious for promotion. He had wined, dined, and danced (in all positions) with women of all types and all conditions.

  But the eyes of Jean Belamonte, these unbelievably demanding turquoise eyes with the messages of fire that leaped and sparkled, sent all other memories to the lowest level of remembrance. They were—and there were no other words possible—unquestionably the ultimate in that fabled type:

  BEDROOM EYES!

  Don Kingery’s mind used the capitals automatically. For two weeks he saw those eyes swimming in his dreams. Unquiet and unrewarding dreams that left him sweating and snarled in his bedclothes. The other women he had coveted, faded to nothingness in his interest.

  He had to have Jeanie Belamonte!

  Finally, after the sweating and the dry mouth and the everlastingly damned hunger in his loins could contain him no longer, it became an obsession. He would have her!

  He was afraid to try approaching her for a date while she was in the window. Aside from the fact that he had been warned by his superior about going in there when Jeanie was pounding her ear on the ComfeeSnooze, he was afraid of himself. He wasn’t quite sure he might not leap on her, actually frothing!

  He waited till she left the window at 5:30 in the evening. Three nights in a row he watched her enter the dressing room, swathed in her bathrobe, the terrycloth clinging and partially revealing the alabaster rise of her breast mounds. Three nights in a row he watched her emerge in figure-hugging sweater and skirt. Once she even paused to straighten her seams. With caressing motions she ran her hands up her fine legs, the nylon whispering beneath her fingers.

  Her long legs were all the more appealing encased in sheer nylon, blanketed from sight by the tight skirt.

  Her almost-blond hair drawn back into a long ponytail, the tilt of her small nose, the high rise of her cheekbones, the full spaciousness of her pointed breasts, all these made him go margarine-melty.

  Jeanie Belamonte had been made for love.

  But most of all—those eyes. Everyone else seemed to have developed empty sockets in their heads when he thought about the bedroom eyes of Jeanie Belamonte.

  On the fourth evening, he approached her.

  “Miss Belamonte?” he inquired. His voice was calm. He had practiced for weeks in front of his apartment mirror. But his guts were winding and unwinding within him. He suspected if she answered, his legs would rubberize and zing out from under him.

  “Yes?” her tones, her stretched syllables, and the arch of her eyebrows were quizzical.

  “I’m Don Kingery. You must remember me, I’m the fellow who—”

  “—the fellow who came into my bedroom two weeks ago,” she finished for him, her head coming up, her full mouth smiling, and a twinkle in her grrrr! eyes.

  She was only a head shorter than he, and she stood just a fraction too close for it to be called neighborly.

  He was semi-speechless. He stumbled over a word for a few seconds, realized what it was, and used it to start a sentence. “That’s right. I—I was wondering if we might not go out for something to eat, and a show perhaps…”

  He left it hanging on a questioning note. He knew he was good-looking and had personality. He also knew that for the first time in his life he couldn’t use either of them. He had lost all charm of power of savoir faire. He was a bumpkin.

  Kingery stared at her dumbly.

  “Why, that sounds lovely,” she said brightly, taking his arm.

  He moved arm in arm with her toward the front door of Pomeroy’s. He didn’t hear one of the twenty-nine “Good night, Mr. Kingery!”s thrown his way by sharp-eyed salesgirls.

  He didn’t know when he hit the street.

  And he certainly didn’t know he was getting into a cab with Jeanie Belamonte!

  The evening had been heavenly. Literally heavenly. He was certain he was walking on pink and turquoise clouds, with Angel First Class Jeanie Belamonte beside him.

>   The dinner was nectar and ambrosia under glass. The show was Paradise Regained. The night club was thrust up through the night sky, leaving them perched beside a softly-glowing star-cluster that whirled and banked as they danced.

  He vaguely remembered holding Jeanie close to him, the firm, tight points of her breasts pressed against him, his arms about her, his hand in the small of her back. He even recalled vividly the instant they danced out onto the terrace, over the twinkling and vibrating city, and Jeanie murmured something low and throaty, and turned her face up to his. He remembered as though in a blast of lightning-bright memory, the sight of her beautiful face, the cry of her half-closed, hungry bedroom eyes, and the sweet, sweet taste of her lips on his, the searching of her hot tongue-tip, the ecstasy of her body grinding into his own.

  Then it all faded into a kaleidoscopic opium-dream, and he was in the cab, sprinting for his apartment.

  She had turned to him, her thigh pressing against his own in fierce demand, her hand guiding his over the thin fabric of her skirt, over her fiery flesh.

  He had leaned closer and smelled the sweetness, the sweet incense of her breath, the sweet winds rising from her body, and his kisses had merged, melting, interflowing: one long, sighing promise.

  Her back had arched and she had strained against him. He hadn’t even known when his hand left the furry feel of her sweater and invaded the domain of her breasts.

  They were firm yet yielding, and he touched them, feeling the electricity of her flowing through his own body, urging him on.

  This was a night even the Gods would have envied.

  Then they were out of the cab and in the elevator and at his apartment door and in the room, and he held her even tighter, feeling her trying to get closer, closer.

  He lifted her—she was light as a pillow—and carried her through the living room, into the darkness of the bedroom.

  Gently he laid her down on the bed. The moonlight streamed through onto the floor in broken banners, casting a pale light on the soft flesh of her revealed legs and knees. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was ragged. Her tongue moved over her lips in crying abandon.

  He slid his cupped hands out from under her, prepared to lie down beside her…

  She sat up abruptly, terror on her face, and clouted him squarely across the jaw. She followed it by a slashing right under the eye, and he went over a chair, landing in a disorderly heap on the floor.

  By the time he had regained his feet, feeling the burning across his face, she was out of the room.

  Distantly, he heard the front door slam.

  He sat back down. It wasn’t worth getting off the floor.

  All night.

  Don was late getting to work at the store the next morning. His head ached with a dull throbbing, and he was so confused, he had taken an hour off to see an old friend—a psychiatrist. He had also applied a beefsteak to the eye.

  None of it had done any good. Not the psychiatrist, not the aspirins, not the walking in the cold morning air, and the painful blue cheeks to prove it, not even the ridiculous beefsteak for the swelling. None of it. He still didn’t know what the green hell had happened.

  One moment she had been a clawing wildcat of a woman, anxious for love—the next she had treated him as though he had propositioned her mother, while he had been undergoing emolument TLC for bubonic plague. It didn’t figure.

  He hurried to the store, and as he passed before the ComfeeSnooze window he saw Jeanie leap from the bed, legs flashing, and begin gesturing wildly at him. She wanted to talk to him. She had obviously been waiting some time for him to show up.

  “Uh-uh, lady,” he said, making the words big enough so that she could read his lips through the store window. He didn’t want any more of that. He fingered his battered eye and glared at her.

  Don continued into the store, the problem getting deeper and deeper, his head throbbing harder and harder, his libido screaming louder and louder. What was with this kid?

  It wasn’t till lunch time, as he was leaving Pomeroy’s, that Jeanie came running from the dressing rooms, and took his hand. “Don! I’ve got to talk to you! I’ve got to explain.”

  He looked at her strangely, afraid at any moment that vicious fist would arc up and flatten him again.

  Warily, “Okay, Jeanie. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”

  Over a martini, steaks working on the charcoal grill, he looked at the troubled face, the worried—yet still appetizing—turquoise eyes of Jeanie Belamonte.

  “What was that all about?” he asked without preamble.

  She seemed hesitant to speak. It took a visible effort to get the words out. A deep breath preceded each sentence, and he had a hard time keeping his eyes off her sweater’s rounding-out, and eyes fastened with P.C. stickum to her lips.

  “It’s because of my job,” she answered, miserably.

  “What? What’s that got to do with it?” he asked.

  “I’ve been ‘bedwarming’ as you’d call it, for almost six years now. It’s all I do now. They book me steady into these kind of things at the model agency. They say I’m the best for this kind of work.”

  Don could readily agree with her, but kept silent. They had sold four times as many ComfeeSnooze mattresses since Jeanie had been in the window.

  But this was getting confusing—embarrassingly confusing—more damned confusing than before—hideously more confusing every second—and he was afraid if he spoke, the whole logic that seemed to be building would evaporate. He wanted an explanation: it was now apparent to him he had to have Jeanie Belamonte at any cost. Even broken noses, blackened eyes, crushed jawbones and concussions.

  “I started sleeping all day,” she explained carefully, “and after a few months I found I had to stay awake all night. Now I can’t sleep nights.

  “I walk in the park, I iron clothes, I read, I do everything but sleep. It’s gotten so that now—I’m—I’m—afraid I—I—” She slurred to a halt, her face screwed up in worry.

  She couldn’t find the proper words.

  “You mean—?” he bumbled, in approved soap opera fashion.

  “Yes,” she answered hopelessly, “I’ve got a phobia against beds. I can’t lie down in them.”

  The rest of his lunch was a thing of stunned silence. The steak grew cold and finally he took her back to her ComfeeSnooze, under the never-faltering glare of the DayLights. A fog had closed down over his mind.

  This was hideous.

  This was frightening.

  This was horrible.

  This was frustrating!

  Jeanie Belamonte had slept so long in store windows, it was the only place she could sleep now. She wanted to make love, but it was totally impossible for her. The moment she touched back to bed, she went pathologically mattress-buggo and came up swinging.

  Don Kingery asked for sick leave that afternoon. He had to have time to think.

  He went home and emptied a bottle of Old Smuggler into himself. Still his thoughts ran in one—and he admitted it!—track.

  How to bed Jeanie Belamonte.

  Standing up in a hammock? Ridiculous! He chided himself. Nailed to the ceiling? Impossible! Empty all the furniture out of the apartment and manage on the floor? Insulting!

  In two hours his head felt like the Graf Zeppelin, and he was no nearer a solution. He paced the floor, kicking viciously at the legs of the sofa, as though that implement had done him wrong.

  “Worthless bastard!” he cursed it.

  How was he ever going to walk up and down in Pomeroy’s, under the glare of the DayLights, between the counters, knowing Jeanie was lying in that window, her heart beating for him, and he…worthlessly helpless to go to her.

  It was a dilemma.

  Three hours later, as he stood before the window of his apartment, watching the daylight fade down behind the jagged outline of the city’s roofs and antennas, the answer came to him.

  He got back to Pomeroy’s just as the 5:30 bells were ringing throughout the sto
re. Salesgirls were tallying their money, cloths were being thrown over the counters. The store was emptying rapidly, guards at the doors checking the packages as straggling customers and hurrying salespeople left. It was Saturday night, and many left as couples.

  Don felt the heat of his search mounting in his cheeks. Now that he had a solution—now that it was clear to him—he couldn’t wait over the weekend. He had to find her, had to see her that night.

  He was sure the vision of those bedroom eyes in his dreams would drive him berserk before Monday morning.

  Then he saw her. She was hurrying past a special sale counter piled high with enema tubes and hot water bottles.

  Her face had changed subtly since he had talked with her at the restaurant. The smooth, unlined beauty of her sensuous face was now wrinkled by lines of worry. Her hands were tightly gripping her handbag, the knuckles strained and white.

  “Jeanie! Jeanie!” he cried out, across the length of the store.

  She turned, saw him, and started walking faster, the slim beauty of her legs flashingly nyloned as she made for the door. Don elbowed aside customers and sales-people, blind to everyone but Jeanie. “Jeanie! Wait for me! I want to talk to you!”

  She was out the door, and he had a momentary tussle with the door guard before he could shoulder past. Then he was on the street, his head swiveling this way and that. Which direction had she gone?

  Then he saw her, a few feet to the right. He ran toward her, and a moment later had her by the elbow. His breath was drawing hoarsely, but he got the words out, “Look, Jeanie, I understand. Don’t feel bad. I don’t mind. Honestly!”

  She stared up at him, her eyes beginning to glaze with forming tears. He watched, his heart sinking in him.

  “Don’t cry, Jeanie. Look—why don’t we go out to dinner. Make a night of it!”

  It took some tall talking, right there on the sidewalk, with the heat of her next to him, and the staring crowds listening to every word as they passed.

  Finally she agreed, and they were off to dinner.

  The evening was as marvelous as their first. Somehow, even with the shadow of Jeanie’s phobia between them, they found enjoyment in each other’s company, and Don sank deeper and deeper into his desire for her.