A Strange Kind of Love

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 one because 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 tramp twisted 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. I couldn’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 is why 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 her with 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 bed sheet. 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’t made 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.

Her breasts were warm under my touch, warm and firm. Her whole little body was warm and eager and excited. I could still feel the blood pounding in my temples as the wave of passion caught up with the two of us.

Faster.

Faster... and more intense.

Then peace.

And then she cried. Everything came out in a rush, all the things she had been bottling up inside her for so long, and her tears soaked into the pillow.

I let her cry, and finally she was through.

“Dan,” she said, looking up at me. “Dan, I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” I said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I don’t know what got into me.”

“I’m glad you did. Dan, I’ve been terrible.”

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

At that point she didn’t have to do anything so far as I was concerned. Just looking at her with her body so beautiful and her face streaked with tears was enough. Just the memory of the way her body had moved beneath mine, just the taste of her mouth on my mouth — that was more than enough. And I knew then that no matter what she did, no matter what she ever did from there on in, I would never be able to stop loving her. It was something that would go on forever.

“I want to talk about it. It’s something I have to talk about. And it’s something you have to hear. You’ll listen to me, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I... I’m not really a tramp, Dan. I never did anything like I did with Carol before, not until I met you. I’ve already told you how I had to prove I was independent, but I never forced myself to prove it to myself before I met you.

“You see, I fell in love with you that first time. It was something I couldn’t for the life of me help, and it was something that terrified me. I didn’t want to love you. I knew that if I let myself care about you, someday you would leave me and I’d be all alone and it would hurt. I hate being hurt, Dan. I was afraid to let you hurt me.”

“You don’t have to be afraid of that. I could never leave you, baby.”

“Maybe not — but I couldn’t be sure of that. And I was so afraid, Dan. So terribly afraid.”

She closed her eyes and I waited for her to go on.

“Dan,” she said, “I was afraid to love you. I wouldn’t let you make love to me because of that. Because it was so perfect with us. Each time it was perfect, and I knew that if I went on like that and let it happen every day I wouldn’t be able to give you up.”

“You wouldn’t even talk to me.”

“It was the same thing, Dan. Talking or making love or just seeing each other. Either way I was so happy with you — sitting here in this room and reading your novel and making love with you and everything.

“It had me scared. God, you don’t know what I used to go through when you would pound on my door and argue with me to let you in! I was going crazy, Dan. Half of me wanted you so much it was killing me, and the other half kept saying be careful, be careful. It was impossible.”

“I was in love with you from the beginning. I couldn’t help it and I didn’t try to.”

She nodded. “I tried,” she said. “God, how I tried! And when I let Carol... let her do what she did, it was a way of trying. I didn’t want it but I had to convince myself that I did. I had to prove that I didn’t need you or any other man. I had to, Dan.”

“How was it?”

She took a deep breath. “It was nice... nice, in a way. But when it was over there was nothing. Nothing at all, Dan. And when it’s over with you and me it’s different. It’s beautiful with us.”

“I know.”

“Really beautiful,” she said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced. There was nothing resembling that with Carol and there never could be. There never could be with anybody else, not for me. I guess I’m in love with you, Dan. There doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.”

I thought about the time I had slept with Carol; in a way, it was the same thing for me that it had been for Marcia. It was a sexual release, pleasing in that Carol herself was a proficient performer. But there was nothing afterward, nothing at all.

“I’m glad you’re in love with me,” I said. “I guess I’m in love with you myself.”

“Good.”

“I am,” I went on. “Do you know what I did after I saw you in bed with Carol?”

“What, Dan?”

I told her. I told her the whole thing from the subway ride to waking up in the alley. I left out the gorier details, but outside of that I gave her the whole bit.

“That’s terrible,” she said when I was finished. “Dan, I’m so sorry!”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it was. Are you sure you’re in good physical condition now? Dan, you have to start taking care of yourself. All that drinking isn’t good for you.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I am.” Her eyes were very serious. “Dan, will you stop drinking? Not entirely, but no more drinking just to get drunk?”

“Why?”

“Because I love you,” she said. “Because I don’t want you to do anything that’s bad for you.”

“Honestly?” I grinned at her.

“Honestly, you big dope.”

I reached out and took her chin in my hand and blew a kiss at her. “I’ll stop then,” I said. “It’s just a question of substituting one habit for another. And I have an idea you’ll make a better habit than whiskey.”

Her eyes shined when I told her about the book — how the thing had sold to Lincoln House and how I only had a chapter to go with it. And, telling her, I was really beginning to get a kick out of the whole thing. I thought of the book getting advertised all over the place, selling a bushel full of copies, selling to Hollywood—

It was beginning to look pretty good.

And for the first time it all mattered.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “Dan, I’m so happy for you.”

I kissed her.

“I mean it,” she said fiercely. “I believe in you. When something good happens for you, it makes me happy.”

I kissed her again. “You’re something good. I’m glad you happened to me.”

She smiled, her teeth flashing. I knew that I could never let her go. She wasn’t going to get away from me any more, not ever. I needed her, and with her at my side it was going to be easy.

Because I was beginning to make it. It was a long road and an uphill road from the gutter to the top, but it was no longer an impossible road. I could do it. I knew I could, and it was almost finished.

There had been some backsliding. There had been the drunkenness and the times that I almost gave up and threw in the towel.

But those times were over.

“Look,” I said to her, “no more of this independence nonsense. Understand?”

She nodded solemnly.

“You’re a big girl now,” I went on. “You don’t have to play games like a teen-ager. Okay?”

She stuck out her tongue at me.

“I mean it,” I said. “No more games. No more independence. You belong to me from now on and I’m not going to let go of you. I like what I’ve got. I’m holding on to it. And any time you start fooling around I’ll club you over the head and drag you back into the cave.”

“Pooh,” she said.

“No pooh about it. I mean it.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“We’re getting married,” I said. “Whether you like it or not.”

“I like it,” she said. “I like it a good deal.”

“You better.”

She moved her lips close to mine. “Dan,” she said, “what’ll we do when we’re married?”

“Huh?”

“I said what’ll we do when we’re married?”

“Why... I guess we’ll get a house and have some kids and—”

“Will we do what we just got finished doing?”

“Oh,” I said. “Of course we will.”

“Maybe we should practise now. Just so we’ll be in good shape for it.”

We did.