"Couple of minutes," I said. "I want to read over what I've written.
Don't wait for me."
"I'll save you a place," he said.
He ambled off. I smiled at Bonnie and, picking up the typewriter and
the package of typewriter paper, went into the cabin. I was standing by
my bed, reading the first couple of paragraphs of the outline, when I
heard the cabin door open and close again.
"I told you not to wait for me, Jack!" I called without looking up.
"My name isn't Jack," Bonnie said softly.
She came into the bedroom, naked, and closed the door. She slipped the
door-hook through the eye. She looked flushed and more youthful than
ever.
I was surprised and almost a little annoyed. There were supposed to be
rules about knocking before you went into someone else's cabin. And you
weren't supposed to set up situations like this, either.
I don't know what I would have said--something impolite, maybe--but
suddenly my body took a hand in the situation without consulting me.
Up till now, there had always been a group of at least three, and the
social frame had acted as an inhibitor. But now here I was locked into
a bedroom with a strange and rather good-looking woman, and both of
us were naked. My natural masculine reaction occurred. Bonnie saw me
getting excited, and she moved toward me, and suddenly I wasn't annoyed
any more.
"It's going to be a marvelous novel, Al," she breathed huskily. "I
can tell. I watched how hard you were working. I'd like to read your
manuscript, if you wouldn't mind."
"It isn't really a manuscript yet," I said awkwardly. "I was just
working on the outline--"
And then she came another step closer to me, and all discussion of
manuscript-reading came to an end. She pressed herself up against me,
and I gasped with pleasure--it had been a respectably long time since
I last had had a woman--and my arms went around her, sliding down her
back to the full, quivering flesh of her buttocks, and then I brought
my hands up to cup the heaviness of her breasts. Her nipples rose
stiffly into my palms like two live things moving of their own free
will. Her mouth approached mine; for a moment I stared deep into her
hyperthyroid eyes, reading the hunger for a man, _any_ man, and then my
lips were against hers and my eyes were shut tight and my tongue was
exploring the inside of her mouth.
Still clasped in a tight embrace, we tumbled down onto my narrow bed.
She was panting and gasping now, and she had a wild look about her. Her
breasts leaped and jiggled with each motion she made. I wanted to slow
things up a little, to bring them along a little more subtly. But she
wasn't in the mood for subtlety. She pulled at me and cried out, "Take
me, Al, take me!" and I did.
She gave a convulsive quiver all over her body, while I gritted my
teeth and tried to stay cool, and the tips of her fingers dug painfully
into the knotted muscles of my back. And she quivered again and again
and again, every quiver a tremor of pure delight for her, and then
finally I couldn't hold out any longer.
My heart was thundering. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked
down at her. Her eyes were open, and they still had the hyperthyroid
look. But the irises had changed color, it seemed--from blue to a
smoky green--and she had lost the tense, neurotic look she had worn at
breakfast time.
She smiled at me. "What time is it?" she asked coolly.
I've been asked many things after a bout of _amour_, but never in such
a matter-of-fact tone of voice. I looked at my watch. "Five after
twelve," I said. The whole thing had taken no more than ten or fifteen
minutes. It had seemed endless, but you never can be very sure of
time-perception at times like that.