He got up and put the flat of his hands cupping her shoulder blades. Her
eyes stared wildly, and her lips were wet and she was breathing heavily.
He could see the vein pulsing faster in her slim throat. She had an
exciting body.
He saw it then, the new slow smile that crept across her face. His left
hand squirmed at the thick piled hair on her shoulders and he tugged and
her face tilted further and he looked at the parted pouting lips. The
palm of his right hand brushed her jaw and his fingers took her cheeks
and brought her face over and he spread his mouth hard over her mouth.
Her lips begged. Hammers started banging away in his stomach.
Music from the screen was playing a crescendo into his pulse. They
swayed together to the music, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. She
stepped back, dropped her arms limply at her sides. There was the clean
sweet odor of her hair.
"I'd better go now," she whispered. "Before I do something that would
result in my not being President anymore."
* * * * *
He wiped his face. Don't beg, he thought. The devil with her and the
rest. A man could lose everything, all the women, not one, but all of
them. He could live alone, a thousand miles from nowhere, at the North
Pole like Amundsen, and it didn't matter. He could be killed pleasantly
or unpleasantly, that didn't matter either. All that mattered was that
he maintain some dignity, as a man.
He stood there, not saying anything. He managed to grin. Finally he
said, "Goodbye, and may your husband never say a harsh word to you or do
anything objectionable as long as you both shall live, and may he love
you every hour of every day, and may he drop dead."
She moved in again, put her arms around him. There were tears in her
eyes. She placed her cheek on his shoulder. "I love you," she whispered.
"I know that now."
He felt a little helpless. Tears, what could you do with a woman's
tears?
She sobbed softly, talking brokenly. Maybe not to him, but to someone,
somewhere. A memory, a shadow out of a long time back....
"Maybe it's ... it's all a mistake after all ... maybe it is. I've never
been too sure, not for a while now. And then you--the way you talked and
looked--the excitement. I don't know why. But the touch of your
beard--your voice. I don't know what happened. We've carried it to
extremes, extremes, Eddie. It was always this way with us--once we were
sure of our man, and even before, when he was blinded by new love, we
tried to make him over, closer to _our_ idea of what was right. But now
I know something ... those faults and imperfections, most of them were
men's, the real men's chief attractions. Individuality, that's the
thing, Eddie, that's it after all. And it's imperfections too, maybe
more than anything else. Imperfections.... Oh, Eddie, you're close, much
closer to human nature, to real vitality, through _your_ imperfections.
Not imperfections. Eddie--your beard is beautiful, your dirt is lovely,
your yelling insults are wonderful--and...."
She stopped a minute. Her hands ran through his hair. "When you get a
man made over, he's never very nice after that, Eddie. Never--"