Then I spoiled it.
We were lying utterly becalmed in an inlet where no one could see us
from the dock. I felt myself growing taut with desire for her. As she
lay there, eyes closed, I crept forward in the boat toward her. My
motions caused her to open her eyes.
She looked up at me, and one glance at my body and at my face must
have told her what I had on my mind. I felt about three inches high.
There was a mournful look in her eyes, as though my foolish moment of
randiness had smashed something terribly fragile, terribly lovely. She
sat up abruptly, closing her legs and drawing them up underneath her
in what would have been a gesture of modesty in a girl who was wearing
anything.
I made my way back to my seat, face burning. I wished I could undo that
moment. But you can't turn time back by wishing.
There was coldness in her voice, the coldness of steel, when she spoke.
The words were like whiplashes. "We'd better head back to the dock, Al.
There's a lot of work I have to get done yet this morning."
_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_
I didn't have anything to say. Apologies would have been foolish,
excuses even worse. I had stepped out of line, that was all. I had
taken advantage of our privacy in the boat to assume that because she
was naked and I was naked and we were alone and were conversing on
reasonably intimate terms, I could then automatically go on to other
intimacies. That was my mistake.
Joanie turned and looked away from me. I sat up straight in the stern
and concentrated on bringing the boat back to the dock. During the ten
or fifteen minutes it took to sail back across he lake, neither of us
said a word. I felt like a man who had killed the golden goose, or
something. I had grabbed too soon, and probably fouled up my chances
forever.
The boat glided shoreward. When we were in knee-deep water Joanie
hopped out and tethered the boat to the dock while I lowered the sail.
We left the dock in silence. Just as we passed the oar shack, Joanie
turned to me and said, "I'm sorry, Al."
That was all. Just _I'm sorry, Al_, in a small, choked-sounding voice.
Then she was gone.
I stood with my hands on my hips watching her disappearing. Then I
walked over to the nearby basketball court. I picked up the ball that
was still lying where I had left it and fired it with all my might
against the farther backboard. It rebounded high in the air and went
rolling away toward the tennis court.
I wished I had pockets to put my hands in. I was in the sort of
mood where you want to slip your hands in your pockets and let your
shoulders sag and your arms go limp. I didn't feel like walking
straight and proud now, even though that was the posture nudism almost
automatically enforced on you. I didn't feel proud of anything right
now.
I went over to the baseball diamond and took a seat on one of the
wooden benches along the first-base line, resting my head dejectedly
on my fists. It was about eleven o'clock. The sun was high and hot,
and the ground was rapidly drying out. Perhaps by the afternoon the
baseball field and volleyball court and all would be in playable shape.
After a while I slouched up the hill to the cabin area. A few games of
catch were under way, and a few people were just lolling in the sun.
The rest were down at the waterfront. I went into my cabin. Meehan
wasn't there. I sat down on the edge of my bed, feeling as dismal and
as desolate as I had felt since the days when my marriage was breaking
up minute by crumbling minute. If I had never gone out in the boat with
Joanie at all, it wouldn't have been so bad. But to go out--and then to
make a crude and clumsy pass and ruin everything when all was going so
well--that was what I couldn't forgive myself for.
There was nearly an hour to kill before lunchtime. In my present mood I
didn't feel like going out and socializing with the carefree nudists.
And naturally working on my book was impossible just now. So I pulled
my legs up and stretched out on the bed to stare at the ceiling of the
cabin until the gong rang.
I wasn't very hungry or very talkative at lunchtime. The people I was
sitting with realized at once that I was down in the dumps, and in a
tactful way they drew a little cloak of privacy around me. In a nudist
camp, where your body can never be hidden, they give you an exaggerated
degree of privacy in other ways. Nobody was going to bother me if I
felt like sulking. Nobody would make phony gestures of cheering me up.
Leaving the mess hall early, I wandered around the front end of the
colony for a while, going finally into the music room. On a sunny day
like this, I could be guaranteed a couple of hours of solitude here.
I switched on the phonograph and dug through the stack of long-plays
until I found something that fitted my present mood--a disk of
some Chopin played by Rubinstein. I was in a mood for cornball
sentimentality, and Chopin is the best cornball stuff there is. So
I sat there listening to cagy old Rubinstein spinning out all that
self-pitying piano music in his masterful way, and after a while I
stopped feeling quite so sorry for myself.
I told myself that things would _never_ have worked out with Joanie,
that we were too far apart on too many of the really important things.
So maybe it was lucky that I had turned grabby at that inopportune
moment. My real error was in thinking that Joanie's personal maturity
was on the same level as her physical development. It wasn't. Her
unhappy experience of three years back had obviously turned her into a
badly neurotic woman.
That was just what I needed: a neurotic woman. Like a hole in the head.
After a little while longer I was almost convinced that Joanie was not
what I really wanted. _Almost_ convinced. The experience in the boat
had left me with a powerful sexual longing. Unfulfilled desire sent
painful throbs through my loins. After the almost feverish pace of my
first couple of days in the Sunland Health Colony, my sex life had
dwindled to absolutely nothing at all, while I went around chasing my
golden-haired will-o'-the-wisp, Joanie. And now I was in dire need.
I clenched my fists tensely. Every nerve seemed to be twinging
individually inside me. All of a sudden I was colossally horny. Joanie
had left me frustrated, and I had to turn elsewhere for relief.
Where?
Bonnie was gone. Sandra was underage, though no doubt willing.
That left Harriet.
I was a bit queasy about going through another session with the
trimly built little redhead masochist. I didn't even know if she'd be
interested in me. For all I knew, she was getting the hell slapped out
of her by Riccio's friend and was gloriously enamored of him.
But it was worth a try.
I had done her a favor when _she_ was keyed up and needed relief. Maybe
now she would do the same for me, I thought.
I shut off the hi-fi in the middle of a waltz and put the record away.
Quickly, I left the music room, going out the back way, crossing around
the mess hall and heading up the dirt road toward the staff quarters.
Everything looked quiet up there. Doubtless the cooks and waitresses
and all were down at the lake with everyone else, having a good time on
this sunny day.
The cabin that Lorraine and Harriet shared was at my left. I walked up
onto the porch and knocked at the outside door.
No answer.