She tries. “It hurts,” she says.
“Bullshit.”
“But there’s pain,” she says. I turn around.
“Don’t you go anywhere,” he says. I go into the next room. “Tony,” she says. “Come back or he’ll kill me.” I go back. I watch.
They make love. He says “Bounce.” She bounces. “Go slower,” he says. She does. I put my hands over my eyes. I hear noise from both of them. Panting. Then him screaming. She screams too. I think she’s hurt. I look. He’s clutching her hard to his chest, squeezing all the air out of her. She’s still on top of him. He holds the knife to the back of her neck. His eyes are almost closed, but he’s looking at me. “Over for now,” he says. He falls out. She says “Can I get up now?”
“Get up and clean yourself and then we come back,” he says. “And you just stay there,” he says to me, “or Della gets killed.” They go into the bathroom. “Let’s take a shower,” he says to her. “I like them with girls. Turn on the water.” She turns the water on. “Make it lukewarm.” She turns the spigot and says “It’s lukewarm.” He sticks his hand under the water. “A little warmer.” “That’s lukewarm,” she says. “Warmer!” She turns the hot spigot. “It’s warmer now,” she says. He feels the water. “Good. Now let’s get in.” They get in under the shower head. “Wash me,” he says. “And you stand by the door,” he says to me. I stand by the door. She washes him. “Now get behind me and scrub that back.” She scrubs his back. “No washrag?” he says. “Do we have one, Tony?” she says. “No clean ones,” I say. “Your hands will do then,” he says to her. “Now wash my hair but no soap in the eyes.” She washes his hair. “You got shampoo?” “Yes,” she says. “Not in the eyes, though.” She suds his hair with shampoo. He rinses himself off. “Wash my thing.” She does. “Now yours.” She washes herself down there. He gets out. “Now turn the cold water on all the way and the hot all the way off.” “I don’t like it cold,” she says. “All the way.” She turns the hot water off and the cold water on. She’s shivering. He’s loving it. She says “It’s too cold. I can’t take anymore.”
“Jump out of the shower,” I say.
“Does and she’s dead. Now turn it all the way hot after you turn all the cold off.”
“I can’t.” She turns the cold water off “I’ll scald myself.”
“I said hot.”
“No. Cold’s enough.” She’s still shivering.
“If you make her turn it on hot I’ll jump and kill you,” I say. “Remember, I still have a knife.”
“And I got a table leg,” and I knock the lamp off the end table next to me, take the table in the air and smash it against the wall. It breaks. A support piece is still attached to one of the legs. The other three legs are still attached to the table top. I snap off the support piece and now have my table leg. “I can split your head in very nicely with this, very nice.”
“Don’t, Tony,” she says.
“Only if he forces you to stand under the hot in there.”
“I won’t mind. I mean, I’ll mind but I’ll at least be alive.”
“You don’t know if he’ll let you live after that.”
“I’ll take my chances with him. Don’t do anything. Let him do what he wants.”
“No,” he says. “No hot water. I was only kidding. She’ll be of no use to me later on with burns. Get out of there.” She steps out of the shower. “Dry me.” She does. “Especially my thing.” She does. “Dry yourself” She does.” Now back in the bed. And you step a few steps aside,” he tells me. I do. They go back to bed.
“You,” he says to me. “Get on the floor and lie on your stomach right at the side of the bed. I want to make sure I see you when I get on top of her.”
I stand where I am.
“Do it, Tony,” she says. I lie down parallel to the right side of the bed.
“You get on your back this time,” he says to her. She does. He gets on top of her. “And you keep your arms under your head and your eyes on the floor and don’t move from there,” he says to me. I look at the floor.” Now make me big again,” he says. I don’t see anything. I hear him getting excited. “That’s nice. You really do a job,” he says. I hear the bedsprings. I hear them both making noises. Pants and groans. He screams. She doesn’t “Move it some more,” he yells. I hear the bedsprings rattling louder. Then they stop. He says “That was good. First class. You’re really good. You’re really a piece I wish I had always. I wish you was my girl for a long time. I’d do it to you all the time, baby, I mean all. You’d never have complaints.”
She doesn’t answer. “You all right, Della?” I say.
“I’m okay. I’m getting sick of this though.”
“You want me to jump him?”
“Hey, where’d you put that club?” he says. “Look up.” I look up. “I’m so stupid. I forgot about your club. Where is it?”
“I left it in the bathroom.”
“Tell him the truth,” she says.
“Under me.”
“Throw it out,” he says. He has the knife on her throat.
“I can also use a lamp. One of the other table legs. My hands.”
“Throw it out.”
I throw it under the bed.
“Now you get up and come here and make me big and strong again,” he says.
“No thanks,” I say.
“I was kidding again. You think I’d want a man touching me there? You’re crazy. But if I said your girlfriend dies if you don’t, you’d do it.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Your girlfriend dies if you don’t.”
“Do it, Tony,” she says.
“You see, she wants you to.” I stand up. I grab him. It’s like my own. I know what to do. He stays soft.
“Put it in your mouth,” he says.
“Nothing doing.”
He puts the point of the knife to her Adam’s apple. “Do it,” she says to me. “Soon it’ll be over.”
I do it. I close my eyes. He gets hard. “This isn’t bad,” he says. “Never did it before with a guy, but not bad. Now you run it up and down with your hand while he’s doing it to me.” She does that. I feel her hand brush against my lips every now and then. As if she’s trying to comfort me with her touch. Brushing up against my lips and under my nose and against my nose. I know her touch. I concentrate on that. “Hey, this is even great.” he says. “What kings had I bet. What every man should have at least once in his life. You should have it too. Except I’d never do it to any man. Except if my girl was being threatened with a knife. My girl or baby. Only then.” He comes. “Oh crap. I meant it for her. You did it too well. Both of you. My congratulations, but that’s it.” Her hand stops. I spit on the floor several times. “Can I go in the bathroom?” I say.
“No, just stand there.”
“Let him go,” she says.
“All right. Go because your girl asks for you to go. But I’m watching, so no tricky stuff in there or she gets killed.”
“I know.” I wash myself in the bathroom.
“Take off all your clothes and come on out now,” he says. I take off all my clothes. I come out of the bathroom and he motions me to stand by the bathroom door. They’re still in bed. Knife against her throat. “I suppose I should go now,” he says. We say nothing. “You’d like for me to go of course.” Nothing. “Well say it, goddamnit”
“Yes,” she says. “We’d like you to go.”
“No reason to stay here anymore,” he says. “Three times. In how many minutes do you think? Not that anyone’s counting. But it’s enough anyway. But maybe I can get hot once more if you two do it. I’d like four times. I’d like five but I got to be realistic. But with four I can say it’s really been worth it. Go on. You two do it.” He gets off the bed, stands by the bed with the knife at the side of her neck. I get on the bed. “Do it with you on your back,” he says to me. “That way I’ll have the advantage.”
“I don’t feel like doing it,” I say.
&n
bsp; “Neither do I,” she says.
“I said do it.”
“I can’t just do it like that,” I say. “I’m not like you. I have to want to and I don’t feel like it.”
“Neither do I. Just go,” she says to him. “Please?”
“I said to do it,” he yells at me. “Now do it. Try. Get big. Do it to her. Then if I’m big I’ll take over for you.”
“But I don’t feel like it.”
“Rub him,” he tells her.
She rubs me. Nothing happens.
“When he doesn’t want to he can’t,” she says. “I know him.”
He grabs me. Rubs me. Nothing happens. He puts it in his mouth, the knife against my penis. Nothing happens. “What do you expect?” I say. “It’s impossible. Nothing, you see?”
“If I didn’t have the knife it wouldn’t be nothing,” he says.
“Then put away the knife,” I say.
“You do what I did,” he tells her. He gets up, holds the knife to her neck. She does it. Nothing happens. He rubs me while she’s doing it. Nothing.
“Say nice things to him,” he says.
“Tony, I love you. Tony, I love it. This. What we’re doing. What I’m doing. Do it. Get big. I want you to make love to me. I’m going to do it again now, so get big.”
She does it. Nothing happens. “It’s impossible,” I say.
“It’s impossible,” she says. “Believe him.”
“If you don’t get that thing going I’m going to cut it off,” he says to me.
“I’ll try.” I concentrate. Nothing. “Maybe it will. Wait.”
“Get hard,” she says. “He’ll kill you if you don’t. Then he’ll kill me. Put your mind to it.”
I concentrate. I shut my eyes. Nothing. “I’m sorry,” I say to him. “I can’t. But don’t do anything rough. Maybe I can. Just wait.”
“Don’t do anything to Tony,” she says. “We were nice. We did what you asked. We won’t make any charges against you to the police. We won’t even call them.”
“Bull,” he says.
“You’re right,” she says. “Of course we’ll call them. But don’t do anything now. Tie us up. Then leave.”
“I want to do it once more,” he says. “Four’s my lucky number. Not my lucky, just a good number. And I’ve never done it four times in a row in so short a time. And I feel cheated. That one with him doesn’t count. So I haven’t even got my three yet. And three’s my minimum. The absolute must. And I can’t get big either. Make me big,” he says to her. “Do what you can.” She tries. “Everything.” She tries everything she used to do to me. Nothing happens. “Both of you try on me.” We both try. Things I’ve never done before. Knife at her neck. Nothing happens though. He stays the same way. “You’re both screw-ups,” he says. He stands up. “You come with me.” She stands up. “You stay there,” he tells me. I stand up. “I said stay.”
I walk towards him. He has the knife at her back. I bend down and stretch under the bed and get the table leg. “I don’t care about her life anymore,” I say. “I just want to beat your brains in.”
“Bull,” he says.
“Tony, drop the club.”
I drop it.
“You didn’t mean what you said,” he says. “Too bad. It would have been nice sticking it in her and then pulling it out quick and fighting you off with a couple of feints and slices or two and then sticking it in you. Maybe not nice. But different. And I could do that. I’m ready. I hope you believe that. Sure you do. And I’m very very good with this knife. So maybe you should try,” he says to me. “Come on. Pick up your club and try and get me.”
“Don’t, Tony.”
I don’t. “I wasn’t going to hit you with it anyway,” I say to him. “Just go. Leave us alone.”
“No, come on,” he says. “If you don’t come at me with the club I’m going to stick the knife in Della’s neck.”
“No.” I sit on the bed.
“You want me to stick it in her neck?”
“No.”
“Where then?”
“No place. All I want is for you to go.”
“Just stay there like that, Tony,” she says. “This will be over soon. Or in an hour. Or a day. Then it’ll be over. But you’re being smart. Even if he knifes me don’t attack him and risk your life. Only attack him if he comes after you. But now just leave him alone. He’ll eventually go.”
“Don’t be too sure,” he says. “Come on, big boy, come try to get me with the club.”
I lie on the bed, head on the pillow, arms over my chest.
“Then I’m going to put it in her back or neck.”
“Please don’t,” she says.
“Even if you do, it’ll be her neck and she’ll be dead. So what’s the sense of risking my life for her as she said?”
“Because you’ll have a better chance to come get me and beat me over the head in the time I stick it in her neck and try and pull it out to get you. You have to think like that.”
“That makes sense,” I say. I stand up.
“Sit down,” she says. “Lie down, Tony.”
I lie down.
“You two are just no fun,” he says. He gets dressed. “Don’t move,” he tells her. “Just stand by my side.” He sits down. “Put my socks and shoes on and tie them tight” She does that. “All your money now,” he says, “and his.” She collects it with him following her right behind. “Now walk me to the door. And you stay in bed or try and come after me with or without the club,” he yells at me.
“Stay in bed, Tony,” she says.
They go to the door. I can’t see them. “Now kiss me goodbye,” he says.
“Oh stop the crap already and go,” she says.
“You’re right. You’re much smarter than him. Who needs a kiss? Kiss him. He needs it.” He opens the door and goes.
We don’t have a phone. I go next door to call the police. Della says “I’m going to take a shower for an hour and don’t want to be bothered by anyone,” and goes into the bathroom. The police come. “Come out when you can,” I yell into the bathroom. She comes out. Lots of questions from the police. We tell them everything. One policeman says to Della “You should go straight to a doctor.” She says “No, I’m okay. I can take care of myself.” We go to the police station and answer more questions and look at photos. None are of him. I say to the police we’re exhausted. They say sure. We go home. That evening a circular from our police precinct is pasted on the mailbox in the vestibule and slipped under every tenant’s door. It’s a warning about that man today who’s been raping and robbing women in their apartments in the neighborhood lately. It has a good description of him, ours along with others. Several different outfits and hats. The outfit and hat he wore today are there. The circular says he gets into the apartments mostly by telling the woman over the downstairs intercom that he’s a delivery boy from a local florist with a box of flowers for her.
“Did he tell you on the intercom he was a florist delivery boy with a box of flowers for you?” I ask her.
“No, at the door.”
ANN FROM THE STREET
I meet Ann on the street. At first I don’t recognize her. Woman yelling “Dave?” I look. Car’s coming too. We’re both in the crossing and car’s not going to stop. I immediately see she’s pregnant and not going to move except maybe at the last moment and I pull her by the elbow closer to the sidewalk and then on it and let her go and she says “You remember me.”
“You almost got yourself killed just now.”
“I know, that was stupid and thanks, but you remember me. Ann from the street.”
Now I know. She’s much darker, has pink-tinted prescriptions on, hair cut shorter but covering most of her forehead when before it was brushed straight back, face thinner, pregnant, looks much different. “Sure. How are you?”
“Fine, and you?” Puts out her hand and we shake.
“Okay. And Ryan?”
“Couldn’t be better. He’s writing movies no
w, very big-time stuff in Hollywood. Everything seems to have worked out. But what about you, beyond being okay?”
“Things seem to have worked out there too. Three books in two years have been published and a fourth’s due in June.”
“Fabulous. We did get a postcard from you about something about it.”
“That was about my first and second. I just finished my fifth and also a play the other day. That’s why I didn’t recognize you, and am surprised you did me. My eyes are a little tired. Celebrated the end of the play last night and had too much to drink.”
“You just had plenty, not too much. You deserved it I guess if you finished a play. It’s a long one?”
“Over full-length. That your second?” pointing to her stomach.
“First.”
“Perry from the street told me so long ago that you were pregnant that it almost seems as if it could be your second.”
“Perry was the first to hear, that’s why.”
“When—” I start to say and she says “End of November.”
She looks so great, thin, belly barely a bulge though end of November’s only a couple of months away, less—but she goes on. “How’s your sister?”
“Great. Moved to L.A. California’s changed her life she says.”
“And her son?”
“Doing great too.”
“How old is he now?”
“Almost thirteen.”
“Thirteen?” She can’t believe it. “I remember when—”
“On his scooter.”
“Up and down the block. Once under someone’s legs. He was always so frisky. Thirteen. Must be pretty big.”
“He’s getting there.” I’m starting to feel depressed. Maybe from last night’s drinking, which made my body today a little upset. But Ryan and Ann have been married for about ten years and have a child coming, which could make me depressed. She’s so happy. And more beautiful than ever, maybe from the baby, and kind, warm, intelligent, the rest. Instead I’m by myself, no woman, no child, no past marriage, nothing like that, and no prospects, in two small rooms, and where all my relationships with women over the past fifteen years have been failures after the first few months or a year, while theirs has obviously flourished, not just stayed intact. I’ve seen them during the last few years eating behind restaurant patio windows in the neighborhood, laughing and gabbing and holding hands. Seen them once or twice kiss each other affectionately on the street and one time a year ago or so passionately goodbye as he was getting in a cab with hand baggage and a typewriter, though at the time I was involved with a woman and doing the same things on the street and behind patio windows but not to someone I’ve been with for years. But she goes on.
14 Stories Page 13
