That Camden Summer (40 page)

"I've never had a bathtub before. Thank you, Gabriel. "

"You're welcome," he said.

She glanced at his bare feet, his unbuttoned shirt: It was obvious he'd been sitting there waiting.

"Did I take too long?" "No! No, not at all. "

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"Do you want to . . . " She motioned behind her, leaving the invitation unfinished.

"Oh - - . sure." He went in and deliberately left the door ajar, brushed his teeth, washed his face and came back out with a towel in his hands and his suspenders hanging.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed facing him. He went around to the other side and, with his back to her, removed all but his short-legged union suit and got in.

When he lay down, she lay down, covered to their waists.

It was still shy of seven o'clock and even on the east side of the house, far from dark.

He crooked his right arm beneath his head and looked over at her. She was looking at him. "Gabriel," she said matter-of-factly, "I was

not a virgin on my first wedding night, so this is very awkward. I feel like I am one tonight." He rolled to face her, keeping plenty of

distance between them, and the elbow still crooked beneath his ear.

"I would've thought you would be," he said. "No, I wasn't. Were you?"

"Yes, I was."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. So you've been through this before."

He cleared his throat, then nodded instead of speaking.

"All of this is unlike me," she said. "I am no cowering wallflower. I never have been."

He took her hand and held it on the clean sheet between them, watching his thumb as it played over hers.

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"Roberta," he said, and lifted his eyes to hers. "Tell me what scares you most."

"The memories come back. I can only go so far and then they all come back and it's as if I'm on my back again on that gravel road, and I know perfectly well it's you I'm with and not him, but it happens - I get scared and I can't help it. It's not like me, Gabe, honest, it's not! But I don't know what to do ... how to get over it. "

He continued rubbing her hand with his thumb, letting her get used to seeing him on the other half of her bed. His eyes kept steady on hers as he wondered how to proceed.

Finally he tugged on her hand and whispered, "Come here . . ' .5 " and rolled to his back, dragging her halfway across his chest, then releasing her hands. "We've both done this before," he said. "Do what you want."

She lay above him looking down while he flung his wrists back and let them lie pulse-up on the pillow. She studied his eyes for a long moment while neither of them moved so much as an eyelash. Her right hand lay on his chest right where he'd released it, over his heart, which she could feel beating as fast as her own.

A tress of her hair fell from behind her ear across his chin. He did not move, only met her gaze with his steady one, waiting.

She threaded the stray hair behind her ear and slowly leaned down to kiss him. What he denied his hands, he allowed his mouth, opening it beneath hers and moving it persuasively as his head angled on the pillow. Her hair fell

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again, and in pushing it back she touched his hot face, then spread her hand on his cheek with her fingertips at the corner of his eye.

She ended the kiss and they opened their eyes, so close they could feel the radiant warmth of each other's skin, and the fanfare of fast breathing that fell from between their parted lips.

She whispered, "Gabriel "and got to her knees beside him, lining his cheeks with both palms.

He whispered, "Your hands are hot."

"So is your face. And your heart is racing. I can feel it beneath my arm.))

"Is yours?"

"Yes," she whispered, kissing him again, tipping forward off her heels until her breasts hung pendulous within her nightgown. Midway through the kiss she found his upturned wrists and circled them with her hands, squeezing as if to pinion him in place and keep him from lunging up when he was only lying as before, posing no threat at all. His pulse beat up against her palms and her freed breasts felt heavy as she knelt over him. Desire came as a gift, an onslaught free of fear or memory.

She slung a leg across his hollow belly and straddled him, watching his eyes darken and his nostrils dilate, still holding his wrists against the pillow. Then she carried them, blue veined and strong, to her breasts, and let her eyes close as his palms filled with her flesh. She sat upon him thus, head tipped back, her hands over his,

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their joined hands flexing together until hers fell and his remained, rocking her backward and forward to some primal rhythm they heard in their heads.

Minutes later she fell forward and stretched her limbs along his, murmuring a behest into his open mouth, carrying his hand once again, expelling her breath at the return of goodness when he complied.

There was bedding between them. They wrestled it down and lay on their sides, legs opening, knees lifting, coming together first in wishes, creating their own welcome torture of waiting. They drew back with luminous gazes and shed their garments - hers first, his second

- and lay in the gloaming that shaded their ' skins with the falling evening, venturing first glimpses of each other.

They spoke the universal language of lovers, with throaty sounds of wordless praise, and touched freely.

Then they were coupled, still on their sides, face-to-face on a single pillow, eyes open ... then closed. Grips loose ... then tense. Breath flowing ... then held.

She opened her eyes at the final moment and saw him with his lips drawn back in the near grimace of ecstasy, and marveled that she could bring him to such straits.

She smiled, and let her eyes close once more, and claimed her victory over Elfred Spear.

She would see Elfred intermittently in the years that followed, crossing a street or passing in his motorcar. But they never spoke, nor did she and her sister, Grace. Once, when Roberta was entering the bank, Grace was coming out and they nearly collided. "Oh! Birdy!" Grace said, without thinking.

Roberta smiled, her heart racing, and said, "Hello, Grace, how are you?"

But Grace gathered her dignity about her like an ermine cape and moved on without further word. Roberta watched her go with a heart full of pity.

"Poor Grace," she whispered, touching her own heart.

The Spear girls, though forbidden, found ways to come to Roberta's house and take part in plays and musicales with their cousins.

Myra came too, when invited, but never stayed long and always left in a huff over some disagreement with her younger daughter, whom she'd never been able to bend to her wishes as she could her older. Roberta would watch her go. And sigh. And whisper to herself an echo of what she'd said the day she ran into Grace. "Poor Mother."

Then her husband would come up quietly behind her, and slip an arm around her waist and kiss her temple. And soon the girls would be there too, watching their grandmother huff away as if the world had done her a grave injustice ... again.

"What makes Grandma so ornery?" they'd ask.

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And Roberta would reply, "Who knows?" And then one day they asked and Gabriel replied, "Jealousy."

Roberta snapped her head around to gape at him. "What?"

"She's jealous of you. Don't you know that? So is Grace. Because you've always been so happy and you've made your happiness yourself."

"Really?" He just put a half-smile on his mouth and left it there.

She considered his opinion for some time, then kissed him on the jaw - they kissed quite regularly in front of the girls now - and said., "Why, thank you, Gabriel. I never would have figured that out for myself."

"That's because you don't have an ounce of jealousy in you so you can't see it in others." "Hm," she said thoughtfully.

He closed the door and walked, with her hard up against his side, to the kitchen where the supper dishes were waiting to be washed. Stopping in the doorway with his arm still around Roberta, he called back over his shoulder, "Whose turn is it tonight?"

Someone called back, "Not ours!" Someone else called back, "Not ours!"

It was nice having teams ... when they did their work. But there were always so many more inventive things to do!

Gabe looked down at Roberta, who made the equivalent of a facial shrug.

"Oh, hell," he said, "should we do 'em?" "Naw, let's leave 'em."

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"They'll be all dried up tomorrow.31

"But tomorrow it'll be somebody else's turn." He laughed, then cocked an eyebrow suggestively, "So what else should we do instead?"

She went up on tiptoe and whispered something in his ear.

He faked a gasp and said, "Mis-sus Farley! At this hour of the day! "

Then they snagged jackets from the hooks by the door and headed toward the front of the house, calling up the stairs as they passed, "Hey, girls! Be right back. Gotta take a run over to the shop real quick!"

And ran out into the twilight, giggling.

THE END

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