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Eve felt him swell inside her, start to throb—spasm after spasm. She opened her eyes then, wanting perversely to watch his face. It was funny, with men, how different they all were at this particular moment. Most of them would grunt, or groan out loud, or shout something to her. David was like that; there were always words mixed up with his climax, like "Oh, my God, Eve!" or "Baby, oh you wild bitch you, you're so damned good!" But Brant didn't make a sound—his body tensed and he breathed a little faster and his eyes blinked shut for an instant and that was it. Just as if it had been nothing, as if that whole minor explosion of passion inside her had been nothing but a single hot spurt of semen, expended without emotion or any feeling that could ruffle or contort his guarded, handsome face.
He rolled off her, reaching for a cigarette, and they lay side by side in silence, their thighs touching.
The speakers she couldn't see were playing something by Bach, and without asking her, Brant handed Eve a lighted cigarette, lit one for himself. She saw his profile etched against the lighter's flare for an instant before he clicked it shut, and could not help thinking again how beautiful he was, his features surely too perfect, too handsome to be real. Hadn't she wondered if he was gay the first time she saw him? She was still not quite certain; he could be a closet queen or a bisexual— so many men were these days, and were not afraid to admit it, either. There was a certain purity of line and plane in his features and indeed his whole body that was almost too perfect—he should have been a movie star or a male model, Eve thought almost resentfully. It was like seeing an old Greek statue come to life, and the artists of that period had been kinder and more flattering to their young gods and satyrs than they had been to females, goddesses or otherwise! Why was she engaged in this monstrous, impossible experiment with Brant Newcomb, of all people? For that matter, why was he stepping so far out of character? She had sensed his patience with her earlier, and it amazed her. He had to have a reason for wanting to marry her, for pursuing her, that he hadn't told her about.
"You didn't make it, did you?"
His voice was dry and oddly withdrawn, and Eve wondered with a little shock of surprise if he could actually be human enough to mind. Well, he had asked her for honesty and she could be honest with him—she didn't care if she hurt his ego, it didn't matter—but could anyone actually do that?
"No, I didn't. But why should it matter? I—I suppose it could be a sort of cumulative effect. New York was exhausting, you were surprising, and then—seeing David—you did know about David, didn't you?"
She waited for him to say something cutting and hurtful to her, but instead he only laughed shortly, patting her shoulder.
"Was there anyone in town who knew you that didn't?" His voice was mocking, but gently mocking. "Are you still in love with him, Eve?"
She said too quickly, "No! It's just—something I can't explain, even to myself. It wouldn't have worked with us—I know that now. I let him use me, and I suppose he despised me for that—only I didn't want to see it, I kept hoping desperately that he— Why am I telling you all this?"
She felt the movement of his shoulder against hers as he shrugged.
"Maybe because I asked, and you needed to bring it out into the open. You see how easy it is to be honest when you're not all hung up on a person and can be objective?"
She put the cigarette out, wondering how they could both be lying there naked together after sex, calmly discussing David.
She said slowly, "I—I suppose I see what you're saying. But I don't know if I'm the kind of person who can be objective about anything—even this, my being here with you. What am I doing here with you, Brant?"
"You're here because I brought you, because I caught you in a weak moment when you were confused and unhappy and you wanted to show David that you didn't care. And because I took you by surprise when I asked you to marry me, isn't that it?"
He kept his voice flat and expressionless, but she had the impression that he was challenging her in some way. She looked at him, but his eyes were unreadable.
"Maybe you're right, but I'm still confused. Tell me again, Brant. Why did you ask me to marry you?"
"Because I want to, dammit! I'm not going to try to feed you a line of bull by saying I've fallen madly in love with you, but I do want you. Even now. There's something about you, Eve, some quality in you I haven't come across in any of the other women I've met. I can't define what it is, but it keeps bugging me—you keep bugging me, and I'm not used to that. I think I need you, I think you'll be honest with me and that— Shit, I talk too much sometimes. What about you, Eve? You were brought up an old-fashioned Catholic girl. Why haven't you been married before?"
His words stung her somehow, and she retorted without thinking.
"Because I never thought about marrying! I wanted to be free to find myself, do something, learn about life instead of reading about it. Marriage always sounded like a trap until I met David, and then I—"
"Did you really think he would marry you?"
"Why not? He made me feel right at the beginning he—he didn't want me to go with anyone else. He called me every day, took me everywhere he went! If that stupid house party hadn't happened and that bitch Gloria Reardon hadn't pulled what she did, he might have—"
"You going to console yourself with might-haves, Eve? Shit, doll, he was using you, you said so yourself, and I've used enough women in my life to know how easy it is. Did he tell you he loved you? That you were the greatest lay he'd ever had? Talk's cheap, baby. What else did David Zimmer do for you besides screw you when he felt like it and keep you dangling with half-promises? Yeah, Francie used to talk a lot about her big brother and the way he operated with women."
"Brant, don't!"
She felt attacked and would have squirmed away if his hands hadn't pinned her shoulders down. His bright blue eyes were hard.
"Tell me something, Eve. That night, the night of my party when you went running back to him for comfort, when you told him what had happened, what did he do for you? Take you in his arms, apologize for sending you here to do his dirty work for him, tell you to file a complaint—or did he accuse you of being a willing participant in that little orgy you were a part of? You don't have to answer that—I can see the answer in your eyes! Why don't you admit the truth to yourself? You're hooked on the way the bastard screwed you, the way he manipulated you and kept you dangling, never quite certain—isn't that it? Me, I'm the expert on kicks, baby —all kinds of kicks, like the party scene, and that poor little bitch Francie with her SM hang-up, and anything else new or different. Is that the route you want to go? Were you going to wait around and hope that David would come back to you? Would you have gone with him and that new chick he's been seeing if I hadn't been there at the airport, telling yourself that he was only trying to make you jealous, that maybe he'd call you afterward?"
His voice sounded harsh and almost evil, and Eve could feel herself flinch from every word he'd flung at her, every truth she hadn't wanted to hear.
"Brant, please!"
"Please what, Eve? Please leave you alone, or please don't say anything more that you don't want to hear, or please fuck you again so you can close your eyes and pretend it's him?"
She shut her eyes against the studied cruelty of his words and reached out blindly, touching his thigh.
"Please, try to understand that I'm afraid! I don't know what to believe in any longer—everything's been happening so fast. In New York, I felt like I was dreaming all the time because I'd got to where I'd always thought I wanted to be, and that scared me, too, and I wanted to put David out of my mind, but I didn't want that to be the reason for— Oh, God, I don't even know what I'm saying!"
