A Strange Kind of Love

by Lawrence Block

  Very hard indeed.

  I pulled my chair over to the window and took a few deep breaths of air—good, cold, night air.

  It didn’t work. My lungs felt as though they might collapse any minute like a flat tire.

  Something made me look across the street. 85th Street isn’t wide, and the buildings on both sides are close to the street. I could see perfectly into the windows on the other side of the street.

  There was a girl in the room directly across from mine, and I could see her perfectly.

  That, needless to say, was the time I should have gone into the bathroom, taken a real honey of a steaming bath, and gone back to my typewriter. But I didn’t.

  She was, you see, a very young girl.

  She was probably about seventeen. She was Puertorican, with coppery skin and jet-black hair. Her eyes were very large and I could see them all the way across the street. They were either very dark brown or black, and they looked extremely lovely in her very lovely face.

  She had high cheekbones, a very full and sensual mouth and gleaming white teeth. She wore blue jeans and a simple white blouse, and I could tell that her hips were trim and gently rounded and that her breasts were full and ripe.

  She was good to look at.

  She was standing in front of her mirror, looking at her reflection and smiling at it. Then she picked up a brush and began stroking her long hair, wielding the brush rhythmically and giving her hair a thorough brushing. I took in the remainder of her room out of the corners of my eyes. It was sparsely furnished, with a broken-down bed in the background and a wooden chest of drawers with the paint half peeled off of it on the far side. The mirror she was using seemed to be the one extravagance in the room—perhaps a holdover from the days when the neighborhood had been a better one. It was a full-length mirror on the back of what must have been a closet door.

  This might be a good time to explain that Peeping Tomish is a little out of my line. I don’t even go to burlesque shows—I went twice, two times in the same week, but that was only because I was in the process of writing a yarn about a burlesque dancer who gets murdered by a fan of hers and I wanted to get the background material down pat. I didn’t even get any kind of a kick out of the whole deal either time.

  And there was one time in Mexico when my buddy and I watched a different sort of a show—a backroom affair with no holds barred. That had been interesting, but even that wasn’t my idea of the ideal way to spend an evening. I always like to get my sex first-hand—not with my eyes.

  But this was different, and I couldn’t take my eyes off that little Puertorican gal across the street. Maybe part of the charm was bound up in the fact that she didn’t have the slightest idea that I was watching her. That may have been part of it—that element of secrecy and stealth about the process.

  And I suppose you could chalk part of it up to the Scotch, and another part to how tired I was.

  And a good share to how much I wanted Marcia deep down inside, no matter how much I stifled that desire with Scotch and drowned it with hot baths. I still wanted her, and watching the gal across the street made me want her more and more.

  She finished with the hairbrush and set it on the dresser. Then she stood in front of the full-length mirror again and took a long look at herself.

  And then she began to unbutton the blouse.

  This was the time for me to get the hell away from the window. There’s nothing particularly vile about a guy watching a gal comb her hair, but it’s a different thing when she starts slipping buttons out of buttonholes.

  I went on watching.

  The blouse buttoned down the front; there were just five buttons all in all. She took her time, unbuttoning one button after the other very slowly and lazily, and when she had them all undone she jerked the shirt-tail out of her jeans and slipped the blouse over her shoulders.

  I thought her brassiere would break. It was so obviously inadequate for the task she had given it. Her breasts were large, very large for a girl her size, and the bra was a thin white affair that looked like a cloth spider web. I kept waiting for the bra to break, but it didn’t.

  I looked at her bra and imagined the breasts under the bra. I looked at her flat little stomach and thought that I could probably cover it with one hand. Her waist was very slim—my hands could probably encircle it.

  She looked at herself for several seconds more. Then her hands went behind her back and fumbled with the hook-and-eye arrangement on the bra, and the action made her breasts jut out more than ever. A second later the bra was off and she was naked from the waist up, naked and beautiful with her young breasts standing proud and firm and plump and tawny.

  The feeling that went through me at the sight of her was not wholly one of desire. When a woman is sufficiently beautiful desire is balanced by another feeling, the sort of feeling a person gets when looking at a work of art that is so perfect it prevents him from speaking. I couldn’t have possibly stopped watching her at that point.

  And what made the whole thing even nicer was that she was standing in front of the full-length mirror. I sawher and I saw her reflection simultaneously. It was like a movie in Cinerama.

  One hell of a movie.

  After she had looked at herself long enough to decide that her breasts were in good shape (which is the understatement of the century) she undid her belt and slowly unzipped her blue jeans. The zipper was on the side and she took her time with it, her eyes on the mirror-image all the while. Then she let go of the jeans and let them slip to the floor.

  She didn’t reach down to take them off, but stepped out of them and kicked them out of the way absently. She used the toe of one foot to remove one shoe and then reversed the process. She wasn’t wearing socks.

  Her legs were beautiful. Girls that age rarely have good legs—their breasts may be well-formed at a young age, but it takes a long time for legs to either slim down or round out.

  Hers were excellent—full and slightly muscular thighs, knees that weren’t knocked or knobby, good calves and ankles and feet.

  Then, all in one motion, she tore off her white panties and threw them out of the way. She was naked, totally naked, beautifully naked, and to be perfectly trite about the whole thing, a team of horses couldn’t have dragged me away from the window just then.

  I didn’t even worry about her seeing me. I didn’t worry about anything, couldn’t worry, couldn’t think about anything but the girl across the street. My eyes were like hands touching her all over her body all at once, like a million mouths kissing every square inch of her.

  And then she began to dance.

  It wasn’t exactly a dance. It was a writhing, twisting sort of a motion. She was making love to the reflection in the mirror and the mirror-image was returning her love, and I was lucky enough to watch both halves of the performance.

  She moved her hips to and fro in a circular motion—not the cheap, tawdry grind of the burlesque dancer but something that was pure and primitive, the apex of sensuality. She raised her arms languorously above her head and moved the upper half of her body so that her breasts did things, magical things.

  She stretched and she twisted. Her hair tossed with the motions in an orgy of black beauty. She flashed a smile at the mirror and her white teeth gleamed. She danced … and I watched her.

  The tempo increased. She was no longer a girl; she was a girl in continuous motion and continuous rhythm, gyrating and writhing, twisting and turning and moving her magnificent body closer to the mirror and faster and faster every minute. She started panting, and it seemed to me as if I could hear her breathing clear across the street.

  Then, at the peak of the dance, she seemed unable to contain herself any longer. She hurled her body against the mirror and rubbed herself against it like a kitten in heat, pressing herself against the glass, pressing herself against her reflection, making love to herself wildly and furiously and torridly.

  She trembled violently. Then she threw herself away from the mirror, worn ou
t and physically exhausted. Then, in an instant, the lights were out, the room was in darkness, and the show was over.

  I was depleted. Physically and emotionally depleted, empty and exhausted. I could no more write that last chapter than I could climb Mount Everest in a bathing suit.

  I was almost dead.

  I emptied the current bottle into a glass and drained it. My brain went dumb and I tore off my clothes and fell on the bed in a tired heap.

  A second later I was unconscious.

  Chapter Twelve

  I WAS IN THE jungle and the drums were beating. I was tied to a stake and the drums were going full blast while the natives danced furiously around me. They piled wood around the stake and a hideous native was reaching out to light the fire with a flaming bamboo rod.

  At that point I woke up.

  But the drums went on beating.

  I closed my eyes again, deciding that the drums were not drums at all, but hangover demons playing games with my skull. Sometimes there is an overwhelming sensation in the notion of only being hungover.

  But I didn’t seem to be hungover. My mouth wasn’t dry, I wasn’t thirsty, and my scalp fitted snugly over my skull. I felt good—miraculously good for all the drinking I had done.

  So what the hell was all the banging about?

  When my eyes opened a second time I realized it was somebody knocking at the door. I wanted very much to ignore whoever it was entirely and go on sleeping, but the idea came to me that it might be Lou calling about the book, in which case I really ought to talk to him.

  Still, I did want very much to go on sleeping.

  I fought a losing fight with my conscience—a losing onebecause I couldn’t quite manage to drift back to sleep with the damned pounding on the door never letting up. I fought my way out of bed and into a bathrobe and hobbled barefoot to the door.

  It was Marcia. And strangely enough the sight of that sweet little body in my doorway put me right back where I had been, wanting her and loving her and hating her for that night she spent with Carol.

  “What do you want?” I meant it to sound like a snap, sharp and nasty, but it didn’t come out that way.

  She smiled. “You sleep like a log.”

  “Yeah. And I smell like a distillery—right?”

  “Right. Like six distilleries.”

  I nodded painfully and she looked slightly hurt, which was precisely the way I wanted her to look. “What is it? Telephone?”

  “No.”

  “Telegram or something?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then what the hell did you wake me up for?”

  This time she looked very hurt and almost ready to start whimpering. “I’m sorry,” I said in spite of myself. “I’m always grumpy when I wake up.”

  “I just wanted to see you.”

  My stomach quietly turned over. “What for?”

  “Guess.”

  “It’s too damned early to play guessing games.”

  She pursed her lips. “Can’t you guess?”

  “No.”

  “All right,” she said softly. “I want to go to bed with you.”

  And as soon as she said that, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, I wanted to crawl in the sack with her about as much as I would have if she were seven weeks dead. All I could think of was the way the little tramptwisted around under Carol’s caresses, and I couldn’t stomach the idea of another round with her.

  I just wanted her to go away. I just wanted her to get the hell out of my room and leave me alone and let me go back to bed all alone, all alone by myself in my nice warm bed.

  “Dan?”

  “No,” I said.

  Her eyes went as wide as the screen for a 3-D movie.

  “I don’t want to now,” I explained. “I don’t feel like it, and I’m tired and groggy and …”

  “I bet I could wake you up a little.”

  “I just don’t—”

  Her little hand reached out and slipped inside my bathrobe and her fingers toyed with the hairs on my chest. I wanted to spank her.

  “I bet I could make you feel like it,” she said. “Why not let me try a little?”

  I pushed her hand away and shook my head. “Not today,” I said. “Later, Marcia. But not now.”

  She wrinkled up her forehead and studied me for a moment. I couldn’t take my eyes away from hers and at the same time I couldn’t stand to look at her.

  “I get it,” she said finally. “You’re trying to give me a lesson.”

  “A lesson?”

  She nodded. “You’re mad at me for playing independent and now you’re trying to give me a taste of my own medicine. Isn’t that it, Dan?”

  “No,” I said. “I just don’t want you today.”

  “Come off it,” she snapped impatiently. “I don’t believe you.”

  I was getting mad as hell. “Look,” I said, “I frankly don’t give a damn whether you believe me or not. Icouldn’t care less, if you want to know the truth. I just wish you would get out of here and close the door.”

  She looked as though someone had just told her there was no Santa Claus. “What’s the matter?” she asked very softly. “What did I do?”

  “Forget it.”

  “I don’t want to forget it. What did I do?”

  “Damn you!” I exploded. “You slept with a woman—that’s what you did! You’re a rotten little lesbian, and I don’t want to have anything more to do with you than is absolutely necessary, so will you kindly get the hell out of here and leave me alone?”

  Watching her back up a step, I could feel the blood pounding in my temples and the nails digging into the palms of my clenched fists. It was hard to breathe all of a sudden. My eyes were on hers and I couldn’t begin to think about tearing them away. I was aching for her to get away from me before I went and killed her.

  “Oh,” she said. That was all she said for awhile and we stood there staring at each other.

  Then she said, “Let me explain, Dan.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Please—”

  I closed my eyes.

  “I’m going to explain, Dan. I want you to listen. I want very much for you to listen because it’s important to me. I think you can understand me better than anybody else I know.

  “I have to be independent, Dan. That was the first thing I told you about me, the first thing I said after we made love the very first time. It’s something that’s vital to me, and if I can’t become independent and stay independent I can never be genuinely happy.”

  “So what?”

  “I’m getting to that,” she said. “Being independent iswhy I won’t let you be the only man in my life, why I won’t let myself care too much about you. It’s why I’ll never let myself get serious about any one man. I told you all that.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Dan?”

  “Why with her?” I asked. It came out like a croak. “Why in the name of God did you have to go to bed with her?”

  “How did you find out, Dan?”

  “I saw it,” I said, spacing my words far apart and pronouncing them carefully. “You left the door open and I watched the whole damned thing. Why, Marcia?”

  She breathed deeply several times before answering. “The same reason, Dan. The same reason.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I had to be independent,” she said. “Not just independent of you. Independent of all men.”

  “That’s the reason?” My voice was almost a scream. “That’s the whole damn reason? Just to prove something to yourself?”

  “Dan, sometimes it’s important to prove something to yourself. It’s—”

  I hit her as hard as I possibly could.

  I hit her right in the stomach, bringing my fist forward in a short, swift arc that caught her in the center of her little stomach and doubled her up in pain. The expression in her eyes was a mixture of agony and sheer surprise; she hadn’t been expecting that.

/>   But she didn’t cry. She didn’t let a single tear come from her eyes or make the tiniest noise. And suddenly it became very necessary to me to make the little bitch cry. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to make her give in to me.

  So I hit her again.

  She sagged and almost fell to the floor. I caught herwith one hand and pulled the door shut with the other. Then I dragged her to her feet and hauled her into the center of the room.

  She didn’t say a word.

  I slapped her twice across the face—wide sweeping blows with my open hand across her mouth. Then I hit her in the side of her face with the back of my hand and she fell to the floor.

  I picked her up and stood her against the wall. She sort of hung against the walk limp as a rag doll, while I tore her clothes off her. I ripped her blouse to shreds and I tore the shreds into tinier shreds. I got her bra off, breaking the hook-and-eye attachment in the process. Then I tore the brassiere in half and tossed it into the wastebasket. All the while she stood there looking at me with her eyes glazed and absolutely no expression on her face.

  I made ribbons out of her skirt. I tore it up like an angel of destruction, and then I pulled off her slip and panties and did the same to them. Then she was naked, and I hit her again harder than before.

  She still didn’t cry.

  I began slapping her methodically all over her body, my hand swinging like a machine. Her brown skin was suffused with red where I had struck her.

  Finally she moaned—a tiny little sound of pain.

  It seemed like a signal.

  I picked her up and carried her to the bed, and I placed her very gently on top of the bedsheet. Then I stood back and looked at her, just for a moment.

  I took off my bathrobe. I was very careful to fold it perfectly and place it on the chair. I kicked off my slippers and set them by the foot of the bed.

  Then I lay down next to Marcia.

  She was trembling—not crying, because she hadn’tmade a single sound since that initial moan. She was trembling, and when I took her in my arms she clung to me like a lost little child. I kissed her and she gave me her lips hungrily, her tongue reaching out for mine.