A Strange Kind of Love

by Lawrence Block

  I wanted to look at Marcia Banks, and I wanted to look at her for a good long time.

  She was in her room with the door closed. I called through the door and the first time she didn’t answer, and I called a second time and she asked me what I wanted.

  “You,” I said. “I want you.”

  “Not today,” she said. “Not today, Dan.”

  “I just want to see you,” I said. “Just to talk to you.” It was a lie, but you have to lie some of the time in this world.

  “Just to talk?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a pause. “Not today,” she said finally. “Tomorrow, maybe. But I don’t want to see you today, Danny—not even just to talk.”

  “Look…”

  “I mean it,” she said, her voice seeming to come from very far away. “I told you how it had to be, Dan.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Sure—you told me.” I turned around and walked back to the room.

  But I didn’t feel like writing. I got as far as the pint bottle in the desk, got the seal off and was ready to twist the cap with my fingers when I realized that I had to write, that I had to get started then and there or chuck the whole thing and head for the Bowery.

  I opened the ream of typewriter paper and set it on one side of the typewriter. I put a stack of copy paper on the other side and I stuck a sheet of paper in the machine. I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was going to write, but I had to get words on paper. Once you get words on paper, once the opening sentence is written youhave a start. You can find a plot and characters from there. If you’re going good, the rest of the book will work itself out.

  I put the paper in the machine and typed at the top:

  Dan Larkin

  Lou Harris Literary Agency

  445Madison Avenue

  New York City

  Then I left space for the title and tried to write the first word. And the damnedest thing happened.

  I couldn’t think of a word.

  That’s how blocked up I was, how knotted up inside. I couldn’t think of a goddamned word!

  So I wrote:

  The

  I sat there looking at it and no word followed it. I ripped the sheet out of the typewriter and put another one in and typed the same fourlined head and solemnly wrote:

  The

  Again I looked at it and again nothing happened. So I pulled the damned sheet out and crumpled it up into a ball and flipped it in the vague direction of the waste-basket and went through the same ridiculous routine with two more sheets of paper.

  On the fifth sheet I typed:

  The…

  And I looked at it.

  And I added:

  …hell with it.

  And then I reached for the rye.

  It was close to midnight when I woke up with my head in a sling again and the familiar purple fuzz between my scalp and my skull. It was almost a welcome sensation—like going home, or having burnt toast and cold coffee or that sort of thing.

  But I felt like hell. Not just the hangover—that was bad enough, but the knowledge that I got drunk without writing the first word of the novel was a bit worse. I wanted Marcia, wanted her near me even if I didn’t get to touch her all night. It was crazy, the way I was wanting her. She was just another little piece, just a girl I didn’t know from a hole in the wall who crawled into my bed one night and made me happy.

  But I wanted her.

  Tomorrow, I thought. Later for you, Marcia. There was still time to start the book, still time to get something written. First of all I had to start feeling human again.

  Fortunately there was enough rye in the bottle to unhang the hangover. Next came a bath—I stripped down and wrapped myself up in my one towel and headed for the john.

  When I opened the door there was a stark naked blonde in the shower singing Roll Me Over at the top of her lungs. And it wasn’t the hangover—so help me.

  Chapter Four

  I HONESTLY DON’T REMEMBER how I got back to my room. I wound up sitting on my bed with the towel modestly covering me and my head in my hands. My fingers were gently massaging my temples and my mind seemed more numb than usual, hangover or no.

  Yes, a stark naked blonde in the bathtub.

  Yes, singing Roll Me Over. Yes, it goes Roll me over, In the clover, Roll me over, lay me down and do it again.

  Yes, I would have loved to.

  But don’t ask me how I got from the bathroom to my own room, because that is something I do not remember and probably never will remember. It happened, thank God. It happened, but I was too deeply immersed in a state of shock to take note of the process.

  At this point I was ready to give up the idea of writing the novel that night, or for that matter of ever writing a novel or a story or anything for the rest of my life. I was wishing for another pint of rye, or even a pint of Sneaky Pete, or even a good slug of wood alcohol.

  Then the door opened and the blonde came in. This time she was wearing a bathrobe, and I grabbed instinctively for the towel and tried to cover myself with it from head to toe.

  “That’s not particularly fair,” she said. “After all, you saw just about all there is to see of me and I didn’t even get a peek of you.”

  “I … I’m sorry,” I started to stammer. “I mean, I … the door wasn’t locked and I just walked in and …”

  “Did you like my singing?” she interrupted.

  “Why…”

  “I sing best in the shower,” she said. “Maybe everybody sings best in the shower. That’s what they say. It’s the resonance or something, with the water pouring down on you and all. Whenever I take a shower with somebody they sound good too, so I guess that must be it. But did you like my singing?”

  “Look,” I said. “I mean …”

  “I’ll admit it’s not an especially good tune,” she went on lazily. “The words are trite and the melody lacks harmonic complexity, but I thought you might like it. It isn’t every day …”

  “I’m sorry,” I broke in. “If I had known you were in there— I mean, how was I to—The door was open and I—”

  “Walked in,” she finished for me. “Of course you did. Did I blame you? Goodness, I didn’t mean to blame you. By the way, don’t you ever finish a sentence?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “I mean— What do you—”

  “I guess you don’t,” she said. “That’s too bad. What on earth do you do for a living?”

  “I— Well—”

  “Come on,” she said, shaking her head provocatively. Her hair was long and swung like a pendulum with the motion. “Let me guess—you’re a stuttering comedian?”

  “I— Look—” It was getting silly.

  “A radio announcer?”

  “I’m a writer,” I finally managed to say. It sounded soridiculous that I wasn’t surprised when she started laughing.

  It was a good laugh, a laugh damned few women have. It was a head-back-and-shoulders-shaking kind of laugh, a throaty, hearty laugh that a person can enjoy laughing.

  While she laughed I could see her big breasts moving within her bathrobe. That might have had something to do with my appreciation of the laugh.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay, you’re a writer and I believe you and you don’t have to explain it. If you weren’t a writer you never would have said it, not the way I had you all balled up. You were all balled up, you know. Confused, bewildered, like that. I like to ball men up.”

  I said, “I’ll bet you do.” It wasn’t an especially brilliant remark. But then I wasn’t feeling particularly brilliant at the moment.

  “I do,” she said. “It’s fun. It’s not that I don’t like men. I love them, sometimes. But they’re so funny when they’re confused.”

  “I’ll bet they are,” I said. Honestly, I was actually talking like that. If I wrote dialogue like that in a book I’d throw the typewriter out of the window, but I was honest-to-God saying those stupid words.

  She took a step back and looked at me f
or a long moment without saying anything. “Goodness,” she said at last, “you’re rather good-looking. I noticed that when you walked into the bathroom, sort of. But I wasn’t sure. It’s not easy to be sure under conditions like that. But you are good-looking, don’t you think?”

  I shrugged and struggled to keep the towel in place.

  “Big,” she said positively. “I like big men. Muscles and bones and all that. And I like black hair that goes every whichway, I really do. How did you break your nose?”

  My hand went instinctively to the place where my nose bent a little to the left. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “I—”

  Her eyebrows shot up a notch and I started again. “I really don’t know. It wasn’t very romantic—I woke up one morning in an alley and my nose was broken.”

  “Maybe you were in a fight,” she suggested. “A barroom brawl with chairs flying and things like in the movies.”

  “Probably I just fell into a wall.”

  “Probably,” she agreed. “But you really are good-looking, you know. Do you think I’m pretty?”

  I nodded stupidly. It was precisely what I had been thinking.

  “You have a slight advantage,” she said. “You’ve seen more of me than I have of you, so I guess you’re in a better position to judge. My name’s Carol Harrison. Do you have a name or do you just go around barging in on nude girls anonymously?”

  “Dan,” I said. “Dan Larkin.”

  “That’s a good name,” she agreed. “You’re good-looking and you have a nice name. Would you like to lay me, Dan Larkin?”

  Again the girl had managed to take the thought right out of my mind. I started stammering but I couldn’t even get a coherent word out.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “Most men would like to lay me. I’m supposed to be an excellent lay. Men have told me repeatedly just how good I am in bed and things like that. I’m used to it.”

  “I—”

  “If you don’t want to, just say so.” She wiggled her hips gently. “I won’t get mad. I won’t be angry, just because you burst in on me in the shower and don’t even like my song and then stammer at me and don’t even want to lay me. Do you want to?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Honestly?”

  I nodded.

  “Well,” she said. “Well, that’s good. That’s very good.” And in one motion she pulled off the bathrobe and hurled it across the room.

  Her body was beautiful in the all-American tradition of beauty, the Hollywood style of loveliness, the blonde-bombshell stereotype of what the girl next door ought to look like but never does. Her breasts were high and large and firm and she needed a bra like Adam needed apples. Her stomach was flat and her legs looked like the legs in the subway stocking ads, except that the thighs were meatier and rounder.

  She wasn’t at all tanned. Instead her body was an incredibly perfect shade of pink all over.

  I stared.

  “You like me,” she said happily.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “You like my breasts,” she said. “Almost everyone does. Men say the nicest things about them. Luscious breasts, proud breasts, womanly breasts, soft breasts, firm breasts, smooth breasts—men say the nicest things about them. One man called them thrusting hillocks—would you believe it? But that’s what he said.”

  I believed it.

  She walked over to me like the mountain walking to Mohammed. Every bit of her moved with every step she took, and I followed her every step of the way.

  “You look sort of silly,” she said. “You’re good-looking and all, especially with that busted nose which looks good even if you fell into a wall to get it, but right now you look ridiculous. Did you know that?”

  I didn’t feel ridiculous. I felt quite thoroughly aroused.

  “Ridiculous,” she repeated. “Men are so ridiculouslybashful. Men hate to be looked at naked, for some reason which I am afraid I will never understand. You and that silly towel!”

  For a moment my eyes dropped to the silly towel. Then they returned to her. She was standing close enough to me that I could feel the warmth of her thigh against my knee and could smell the clean fresh after-bath smell of her pink skin.

  “Well,” she said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Well,” she repeated.

  “Well,” I echoed. It seemed to be the only thing to say.

  “Well,” she said again. She picked up the towel and tossed it across the room after the bathrobe. She leaped onto the bed and put her lips as close to mine as they could get without touching.

  “I don’t think you’ll need that towel any longer,” she murmured.

  She was absolutely right.

  When it was over all I could think of was that it had been quite perfect. Everything, from the first kiss to the final beautiful moan was far better than I could have written, far better than I could even have imagined it. The lips pressing gently and then more insistently, the tongue between the lips and the gentle motion of her body so that the nipples of the “thrusting hillocks” played games with the hair on my chest.

  Carol Harrison knew more tricks than Houdini and she had an imagination that was remarkable. There had been days when I wrote pornography for the boys on 42nd Street, but she had ideas that never occurred to me.

  Like I said, it was perfect. All the way it was perfect,from the kiss to the moan, from Alpha to Omega, from the beginning to the end.

  But there was something missing.

  It bothered me. It bothered me because there shouldn’t have been something missing, because a girl like Carol had never seemed to be missing anything before. It bothered me that suddenly a good performance wasn’t enough, that feeling was necessary.

  It bothered me that when I closed my eyes I kept seeing Marcia’s face. That bothered the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth.

  “Well?” she demanded when it was over and when I was breathing normally again. It seemed to be her favorite word.

  “Well what?”

  “Well, was I a good lay?”

  I let my arm drape around her and cup one of her breasts. My fingers found the nipple and stroked it tenderly and it hardened beneath my touch like a little rosebud.

  “You were one hell of a lay.”

  “That’s what everyone says,” she bubbled. “Everybody likes me in bed. I’m glad you liked me, Dan Larkin.”

  “You were perfect.” I felt nothing for her right then, nothing more than the empathy and closeness that almost any healthy man inevitably feels for a woman he has made love to. But telling her that she was perfect was hardly a lie; it wasn’t even a compliment. It was the simple truth.

  “Perfect,” she repeated. She rolled the word around on her tongue as though she were saying it for the first time. “I’m glad. You really ought to like me, Dan Larkin. You really ought to, you know. You just got a hundred-dollar lay, believe it or not.”

  For a minute I didn’t understand what the hell she was talking about.

  “A hundred-dollar lay,” she repeated. “That’s what I am, Dan Larkin. I’m as high-class a whore as you can hope to find. A call-girl, like.

  “It’s really more than a hundred dollars,” she went on pleasantly. “I mean, a man pays a hundred dollars but he winds up spending more than that. First he usually takes me out to dinner and drops at least twenty-five dollars for the two of us, and then sometimes he takes me to a plush sort of a nightclub, and then he takes me home to bed. And if he’s a spending type he slips me an extra twenty on the way out, or if he thinks you get just what you pay for and no more he slips me the extra twenty before. And sometimes he sends a present or something—sometimes flowers, or candy which I don’t eat anyway because it would make me fat.

  “But it’s nice. I mean, a girl appreciates it when she’s a good lay and a man thinks so. And the kids on the street go wild over a big box of candy, especially when it comes al
l wrapped up with that funny brown paper on each piece of the candy.”

  She was miles ahead of me. Her breast was warm and soft in my hand but my mind wasn’t even on the warm soft breast—it was way out in left field.

  “Figure two hundred dollars then,” she said. “You got a lot for nothing, didn’t you?”

  “Mmmmm,” I said. “You’re worth more than that.”

  “Ooooooh!” she gasped. “Ooooh, you’re nice, Dan Larkin. I think I like you, I really do. Now you have to ask me how in the world I got into such a bizarre business.”

  It was my turn to raise eyebrows.

  “You can ask,” she said. “It’s a corny question and I’ve heard it so many times I don’t even mind it any more,and besides you’re a writer so it would be different telling you. I’d even tell you the truth, even though it’s so much more fun to lie about it.”

  “Okay—I’ll bite.”

  “You’ve got to ask me,” she said. “The whole corny phrase. I want to hear you say it.”

  I said, “How did you get into this business?”

  She put her hand on mine and pressed it against her breast. Her other hand settled on my thigh and moved up and down slowly, gingerly. She smiled.

  “Simple,” she said. “Most whores, the high-class type, come to New York to be models or showgirls or actresses or something. They don’t make it so they wind up on their backs. They’re unhappy, and it’s a sin to be unhappy. It’s the only sin there is, you know.

  “But with me it was different. I came to New York to be a whore, and that made it much simpler and much happier. It was the only thing I enjoyed doing and the only thing I ever did well in my life, so it seemed the sensible business.”

  It was a brand-new twist and I wondered whether she was feeding me a line a mile long. The disbelief must have showed on my face.

  “Honest,” she said. “I always liked it, you see. It didn’t even hurt the first time the way it’s supposed to in books and things. And when I heard you could get lots of money for doing it—why, it was the only thing I wanted to do!”

  In her own cockeyed way Carol made sense. I tried to imagine her as a girl, probably having more character and sense in her head than the rest of the girls in her school but with a completely different way of looking at things. I could picture her telling the truth most of the time, telling the boys that she liked it so why shouldn’t she do it and having the boys pretend to understand.