Too Easy (18 page)

Kathy starts north and Robie falls in behind her. The big stone rampart of the Brooklyn Bridge is ahead. Robie stares at it, wondering what she's got in mind. “A surprise,” she said. An excitement in her voice he hasn't heard the last few weeks.

The air is cool for late April, but the sky over the rampart is a bright, cloudless blue. It looks like a summer day.

Kathy walks to the steps leading up to the bridge. She glances back a few times to smile at Robie. When they're on the walkway, she slows down, lets him overtake her.

“Well, lover—what's the good word?” She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him. Their sunglasses click together.

He wants to ask what's going on, what they're doing down here. Instead he gives in to her mood, her exuberant physical presence. She doesn't just kiss him. She has this way of flattening her belly against him, and sliding her breasts subtly side to side over his chest. Here, she seems to say, feel those nipples, they're hard because I'm glad to see you. . . . Now, where's that hard dick, aren't you glad to see me?

Truth is, he thinks, I always am, desperately, sadly, wildly happy to see her, to feel her against me. That's just the problem. . . .

They pull back and stare at each other, trying to see through the dark glass into each other's eyes. She's grinning, making little kisses with her lips. “What a beautiful day, huh? It's a great day, I can feel it. A lucky day. Come on.”

“You're in a good mood,” he says.

She doesn't let him ask any questions. She seizes his arm and they start walking toward the center of the huge bridge. Cars going by on a somewhat lower level, with a continuous roar. Far below them and off to the right is New York Harbor, a shining expanse of hard blue-green. Here and there white ships slide through the dark water. The sun still well up in the western sky above the gray smear of New Jersey. When they look in that direction, the sky seems bright and gauzy. It's hard to find the small spire that is the Statue of Liberty. The farther out they go, the more they feel the breeze slap their faces. In the center, they seem to be a hundred yards up from the water. Surrounded by a complexity of steel and speeding traffic, and beyond all that the stillness of the surrounding blue sky.

“It's wonderful, isn't it?” Kathy says, hugging his arm with both her arms. “The whole world around us but all alone.” She nods at the few other pedestrians. “Well, almost. I
thought about wearing this blond wig I got. Then I thought, Who do you know that actually walks across this thing?”

“It's funny . . . I never did. I was on the Circle Line a couple times. Parties and such. And you go under this bridge and you think, I've got to get up there.”

“And you never do?”

“You never do. It's a long walk, for one thing—”

“Great! It's a first. I was hoping it was.”

Kathy wondering what would be more spectacular than the top of a water tower, and she thought of the Brooklyn Bridge. And she thought, Yes, that's it. We'll do it in the center of the damned Brooklyn Bridge and I'll tell Robie I've got it all figured out.

“You're in a good mood,” he says again. “What's going on?”

“I'm just so glad to see you.” She stands in front of him and unbuttons her coat. Watching his face. She takes his hand and places it over a breast. “You know what we're going to do?”

His head recoils an inch. “I'm almost afraid to ask.”

“Don't be afraid. Be happy. I've got it, Robie. I
know
what to do now.”

What a radiant smile, he thinks. Where's she get the confidence? He feels her fingers on his fly. He glances to the side, find out if anyone is walking by. Two men coming but still a long way off. He stands even closer to her. Yeah, what difference does it make? With their coats open, who can see what's going on between them?

“Oh, you do?” he says, kissing her nose. Both hands now covering her breasts, massaging them slowly. Now and then spinning the heels of his palms over the hard nipples.

“I
do,
sweetheart.” She reaches in his pants. Almost laughing, she goes on, “I've got the whole world in my hands.”

“And what,” he asks, trying to match her playfulness, “are you going to do with it?”

“No,” she insists. “What are you going to do with it?”

He's not sure how to respond. His face turns questioning. A look she doesn't like to see.

She slides her hand under his hands, unbuttons her blouse. “It's one of those hook-in-front jobs.” With one hand she unhooks it, pushes the bra aside so he can see her breasts. Down between them he can see her other hand sliding on his prick. “I'll tell you, Robie. . . .”

They're silent while the two men walk on by.

“Robie, we are here on this solemn occasion, before God and man, to fuck. And to celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives.”

He recoils minutely. “What?” Fumbling with her breasts, trying to watch everything, feeling the pressure of her fingers, feeling breathless, not in his body exactly, in his head, he thinks, sensory overload. What's she mean she's got it all figured out, she
knows
what to do now? Trying to keep up with her is hard work, Jesus, look at this woman, such beautiful red nipples. . . .

She nods at the lamppost they've stopped by, at the base of it. “Move me over there. . . . It's a bridge, Robie. It goes from one place to another. That's—what do you say?—poetic or something, isn't it?”

She steps up on the base. Now they're eye to eye. But he's not staring at her eyes, but down between them. At how she's stroking his prick with one hand, easing her skirt up with the other, tucking the hem in her belt, tugging the panties aside, steering his prick up inside her. “There,” she says, with a sigh and a smile of triumph. “Fucking on the Brooklyn Bridge. Hey, Mom, look at me now. Do it, lover. . . . Don't
worry,
Robie. People'll think we're just grinding. Who thinks anybody's fucking in the middle of this old bridge? . . . Bet it's happened a
million million
times before!” She's laughing now, leaning so close their glasses are an inch apart, saying, “Fuck me, my good man. Now and forever. Everything is A-O-K.”

Robie tries not to glance at people that might be coming,
tries not to think of what's they're doing—
We're on the Brooklyn Bridge, for God's sake
—but to focus, concentrate on Kathy's body, all the wonderful parts of it, his body in hers, that almost animal smile on her lips, the little dirty things she says suddenly and randomly, her ass in his hand, her breasts he's tossing around just below his chin. Go with her, Robert. Fuck with everything you've got. Not big strokes, just little strokes. Who can tell anything? . . . Damn, man, just see if you can keep up, in any sense. . . .

“Grab me harder,” she hisses at him, “hurt my ass. Oh, yes, yes. Get in there. . . . Now if I could just figure a way . . . to suck you at the same time, we'd have it then, wouldn't we? . . . Nice, baby, nice. . . . I'm dripping all over the fucking bridge.” She laughs maniacally.

•  •  •

“Oh, shit,” she mutters. “Oh, wow. . . . Great. . . . You think anybody saw us?”

“Didn't you look?”

She smiles. “I was quite busy. . . . Let's just stand perfectly still for a few minutes.” She hugs him tightly. “Don't ever leave me,” she sighs. “Whoops, it just left me. Actually, I was watching your face. When you came. It's a kick. It gets all scrunched up, like this.” She imitates him, which is funny and vaguely unsettling. “I'm just gasping like a horse, right? Somebody drowning?” She laughs softly, not waiting for an answer. “Hell, I was.
Drowning
on the Brooklyn Bridge.” She screams: “Hey, people, figure it out! . . . Hey, is that my spit on your lapel? Sorry. Robie, having a good time? There”—she zips up his pants—“all proper.” She glances down. “Wish I could say the same for me. Jesus, mister, WHAT have you done to my tits?”

She fixes her clothes, says, “Come on. We're walking to the other side. Get a drink at that bar there.” When Robie glances back toward the skyscrapers of Manhattan, she says: “No, no. We have to go all the way across. It's part of the
ceremony. Fuck in the
middle.
Go
all the way
across. Got it?” She grins at him. “Besides, there's thousands of people back there watching with binoculars. Probably better if we don't let them see who we really are.”

“Damn.” Robie shrugs uneasily. “You are so up. . . . Alright, we go across. You going to tell me what's . . . going on?”

“I told you. I got it all figured out.” They're walking now.

“Go on.”

“You love me, Robie? You want to marry me?”

“I do. You know I do.”

“So tell your wife what's happening. Or if you want to go the other route, I can handle it myself. You have to do something, you know, a token. I have to have that. But the fact is, I could do the whole thing without you. I know that now.”

Robie looks at her with a startled, almost frightened expression. “Kathy, how do you know that?”

She smiles, swaggering a little as they walk along toward the lower skyline of Brooklyn. The bridge sloping down now. “I just
know.”

“Damn, Kathy. Tell me. What happened?”

“Details aren't important.” She hesitates, figuring how to play this. “Look, Robie, I don't want to upset you. Don't ask for details. The short version is that this guy bothered me, in the street, you know. Mugger, I guess. And I handled it, Robie. I looked at this guy, and I thought, Fuck you, buddy. And I knew what I had to do. Just saw it in my head. How to talk to him, how to stand, how to act. I was completely cool. And I said I thought I had another ten in my pocket and I put enough Mace in his face so he's rolling on the ground. And I walked away. And I thought, Yeah, I can handle the other thing, too.”

“That's amazing,” Robie says with awe in his face. “I mean, wonderful.”

“If that's what you want to do, you got it. My gift to you, Robie. Let me show you how much I love you.” And, she doesn't mean to think this, let me show you how to be a
man. She quickly hugs his arm, smiles at him. “I've even got a plan.”

Robie watches her as though she's something he hasn't quite seen before. The wind ruffles her hair. She's smiling to herself. The bridge slopes down into Brooklyn. They have to descend some stairs and walk back several blocks to find the River Café. The parking lot is almost empty. They stand a few minutes looking out over the water. Kathy points up to the high arching span of the bridge. “Right up there,” she says, laughing, “they ought to put a plaque.”

He impulsively hugs her, thinking, She's amazing, what an amazing creature. . . .

“You keep on the glasses,” Kathy says. “Nobody knows me. Besides, you look good. . . . I'd think about doing it with you.”

They go inside the restaurant and ask for a table in the corner; it seems the most secluded.

“Two brandies, that RSVP stuff,” Kathy tells the unsmiling waiter.

“Sorry . . . oh, Remy Martin. VSOP,” he corrects her.

Robert reaches across the table and holds her hands in his. Stretching out his arms until he can secretly stroke her breasts. They smile at each other. She pulls his hands more against her. “I can't get enough,” he says, wondering if he's gone over some kind of edge. Technically, clinically? Or maybe his reactions are the most normal thing in his life. If he can have a phenomenal woman like this, maybe the sick thing would be to let it go. “Alright, go ahead”—his voice hesitates—“tell me the plan.”

“Let's get the booze,” she says.

“That was quite a surprise. On the bridge.”

“It was . . . really great. Yeah, it was. Try it again on the way back.”

“I'll have to take a cab up to the train.”

“Robie, lighten up. It was a joke.”

“Sorry.”

“We'll do it here.”

“Another joke?”

“You never know. . . . Do you?”

He shrugs. “Sometimes I don't.”

The brandies come, and Kathy says, “A toast. To us, darling.”

They touch glasses and sip the gently burning liquor.

“Ohhh, that's nice,” Kathy says, “just the way I feel now.”

“Seems more like straight Kentucky bourbon,” Robert says. “You, I mean.”

“Really? No, this is classier. I feel like this.”

“Alright, tell me.”

“We're doing it the hard way?”

“Well . . . you mean . . . Yes, I think it adds up better that way. Go on.”

“Well, like you said, you see a lot of different stories in the papers. And one thing they do is go to somebody's house. At first, this seems crazy. But then you think about the other ways. Following somebody around, trying to catch them by surprise. What you were talking about, basically. Think about the problems. You can't be sure when the person will be somewhere. And you can't be sure who else might show up. So why not go where the person always is? Alone, thinking about the checkbook or something. You knock on the door, and say, Hi, I'm from down the street; can I come in, talk a minute? And that's all you need.”

Robert listens to the tone as much as to the words. The very casual, very comfortable tone. Like she's talking about the weather or going on a trip somewhere. Yeah, she's right, she can handle it. He's impressed. Then relieved. Then apprehensive. The feelings going around in him.

“You can do this?” he says, not sure what to say.

“I told you already. And the thing is, you can always pull back. Abort, they say. You just have to be cool, see if the conditions are right. Otherwise, you don't go through with
it. You quietly retreat and nobody knows anything.”