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"I guess it goes with being so tall."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Then I'll shut up and kiss you."
A few minutes later she said: "Handkerchief."
Fortunately he had one.
He opened his eyes, a few moments before the end, and saw her looking at him. In her expression he read desire and excitement and something else that he thought might even be love.
When it was over he felt blissfully calm. I love her, he thought, and I'm happy. How good life is. "That was wonderful," he said. "I'd like to do the same for you."
"Would you?" she said. "Really?"
"You bet."
They were still standing, there in the kitchen, leaning against the door of the refrigerator, but neither of them wanted to move. She took his hand and guided it under her summer dress and inside her cotton underwear. He felt hot skin, crisp hair, and a wet cleft. He tried to push his finger inside, but she said: "No." Grasping his fingertip, she guided it between the soft folds. He felt something small and hard, the size of a pea, just under the skin. She moved his finger in a little circle. "Yes," she said, closing her eyes. "Just like that." He watched her face adoringly as she abandoned herself to the sensation. In a minute or two she gave a little cry, and repeated it two or three times. Then she withdrew his hand and slumped against him.
After a while he said: "Your tea will be cold."
She laughed. "I love you, Woody."
"Do you really?"
"I hope you're not spooked by me saying that."
"No." He smiled. "It makes me very happy."
"I know girls aren't supposed to come right out with it, just like that. But I can't pretend to dither. Once I make up my mind, that's it."
"Yes," said Woody. "I'd noticed that."
v
Greg Peshkov was living in his father's permanent apartment at the Ritz-Carlton. Lev came and went, stopping off for a few days between Buffalo and Los Angeles. At present Greg had the place to himself--except that the congressman's curvy daughter, Rita Lawrence, had stayed overnight, and now looked adorably tousled in a man's red silk dressing gown.
A waiter brought them breakfast, the newspapers, and a message envelope.
The joint statement by Roosevelt and Churchill had caused more of a stir than Greg expected. It was still the main news more than a week later. The press called it the Atlantic Charter. It had seemed, to Greg, to be all cautious phrases and vague commitments, but the world saw it otherwise. It was hailed as a trumpet blast for freedom, democracy, and world trade. Hitler was reported to be furious, saying it amounted to a declaration of war by the United States against Germany.
Countries that had not been at the conference nevertheless wanted to sign the charter, and Bexforth Ross had suggested the signatories should be called the United Nations.
Meanwhile the Germans were overrunning the Soviet Union. In the north they were closing in on Leningrad. In the south the retreating Russians had blown up the Dnieper Dam, the biggest hydroelectric power complex in the world and their pride and joy, in order to deny its power to the conquering Germans--a heartbreaking sacrifice. "The Red Army has slowed the invasion a bit," Greg said to Rita, reading from The Washington Post. "But the Germans are still advancing five miles a day. And they claim to have killed three and a half million Soviet soldiers. Is it possible?"
"Do you have any relatives in Russia?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. My father told me, one time when he was a little drunk, that he left a pregnant girl behind."
Rita made a disapproving face.
"That's him, I'm afraid," Greg said. "He's a great man, and great men don't obey the rules."
She said nothing, but he could read her expression. She disagreed with his view, but was not willing to quarrel with him about it.
"Anyway, I have a Russian half brother, illegitimate like me," Greg went on. "His name is Vladimir, but I don't know anything else about him. He may be dead by now. He's the right age to fight. He's probably one of those three and a half million." He turned the page.
When he had finished the paper, he read the message the waiter had brought.
