Part 52 (2/2)

”Your beret. You can take it off, you know. I like a spot. Daddy has a simply humongous spot, now.”

”Great.”

”Anyway, don't be sorry, is what I want to say.”

”Thank you, Mindy.”

”But roll over.”

”What?”

”You heard me. I think I can help you out if you'll roll over.”

”What?”

”Trust me.”

”What are you doing?”

”This is ... going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Is that what I should say, Rick?”

”Good Lord. What on earth have you been told?”

”Daddy used to say I knew ... everything from the ... beginning ... of time. A ... witch in a tartan skirt, is ... what he said.”

”Jesus.”

”Now this is definitely cuddling,” Lenore said. ”Am I right? I think I know cuddling when I see it, and this is it.”

Lang laughed.

Lenore and w.a.n.g-Dang Lang were on Lang's bed, on their sides, facing each other, amid s.h.i.+rts and socks in their plastic wrappers. Lenore had on her bra and panties and socks; Lang had on just his chinos and belt. Lenore's legs were together, and Lang had one of his legs thrown over her hip. Lang was looking at Lenore's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, in her bra. Being on her side was pressing them together, and they were pus.h.i.+ng partway over the bra, which Lang obviously liked. He looked at Lenore, and touched her. He rubbed the back of her neck for her. And from time to time he would trace lines on her body with his finger. He would trace a line down the center of her lips, her chin, her throat, and down the line where her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed together, and over the bottom of the bra, and onto her stomach, where his hand would spread out and cover her, making Lenore need to blink, every time. He would also s.h.i.+ft a bit and trace the line where her legs pressed together, from the bottom of her panties to the tops of her knees. He would press his finger deep into the line between her legs, and Lenore knew her legs felt soft and hot to him, from being pressed together. Lang had an erection in his slacks, Lenore could tell.

As for doing anything much more than they were doing, though, Lenore had said she needed time to think it over carefully, and to think about absolutely everything having to do with Rick, before anything like that could even be possible.

”I couldn't have intercourse with you without coming to an understanding with Rick first,” she'd said. ”Not the way things are now. I have to talk with him. That's just the way I feel.”

Lang had traced a line. ”I don't think I agree that we owe R.V. anything, but I'll respect your decision for now.”

”Thank you.”

Lang laughed. ”You're welcome.” He was very smooth: Lenore ran her hand over his arm and part of his back. It was really smooth. His chest had a fine covering of yellow hairs that were hard to see in the bright line of the overhead fixture. There was more hair on his stomach, in a line.

”And you shouldn't say 'intercourse.' You should say something else. 'Intercourse' sounds like you saw it in a manual.”

”I'm sorry.”

”Well don't be sorry,” Lang laughed, touching Lenore's lip with his lip. ”I was just making a point is all. Intercourse is what people have when they're married, and about maybe sixty, and they've been married for years, and have kids and all.”

”What would we be having, then, do you think?”

”Something very much else, believe you me. You just trust me and you'll see.”

Lenore had been tracing a line of her own, from the point on Lang's forehead where his eyebrows almost met, down his nose and into the furrow of his upper lip. When she got to his lip she stopped and looked at him and took her hand away.

”Hey,” she said. ”What happened to the way you talk all of a sudden? Why aren't you talking the way you usually do? Why aren't you saying stuff like, 'Well strap me to the hind end of a sow and sell me to Oscar Mayer'?”

Lang laughed at Lenore's imitation of his voice. He ran his hand over the flank of her hip and smiled. ”I guess I don't know,” he said softly. ”I guess I just don't feel like it about now. I guess maybe we all talk differently with different people. The good old boy stuff is what I grew up on, and then at school I was from Texas and so everybody expected this sort of talking, and so it kind of became my thing, at school. At school you more or less got to have a thing.”

”So I hear.”

”Without a thing there, believe me, you're nothing,” Lang said. His finger was in the hot part of her legs again.

”What about Biff Diggerence?” Lenore said. ”What was his thing? No, let me guess: I'll bet his thing was burping.” She made a face.

Lang took his hand out of her legs to scratch along his jaw. ”That's kind of a tender subject, Lenore,” he said. ”Old Biff got screwed up at school. School messed him up. He got weird.”

”What's he doing now?”

”I do not know. I think he's back in Pennsylvania or wherever. He got real screwed up, at school.”

”Screwed up how? Did he maybe get teta.n.u.s from making people sign his bottom, or what?”

”Now that's not very kind, Lenore,” Lang said. He sat up and bent to get his gla.s.s of warm wine by the bed. Lenore looked at his back while he drank. ”He just got real screwed up,” he said. ”Basically he just started stayin' in his room all the time. And I mean all the time. Never seein' anybody, never talkin' to anybody. Just locked up in his room, with the door locked.”

”Well that doesn't sound all that awful,” Lenore said. ”Lots of people keep to themselves. Lots of people stay in their rooms a lot. I stayed in my room a lot at school.”

Lang turned around to her and shook his head. ”Yeah,” he said. ”But when it gets to the point where you're like p.i.s.sin' in empty beer cans so you don't have to go out of your room to the bathroom just down the d.a.m.n hall, then that's gettin' to be bad news, in my opinion.”

”No argument on this end.”

”He got creepy. He got weird.”

”Maybe he pounded too many walls with his head.”

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