658
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Yeah, anything could have happened. I could have dropped
dead, or been run over, or arrested by a cop. I always say you've got
to take your chances. When you get off YGlur ass you're on your own."
She stopped abruptly, leaned back on the bed, and said, laughing,
"What's the matter, honey, are you scared?"
He looked at her breasts and the rise of her belly, and he began
to feel nauseous.
"I'm awfully thirsty," he said, making for the bathroom again.
He splashed his face and neck with cold water, and took a drink
out of his hand, because the glass on the washstand was rimmed
with lipstick.
When he came back, she lay slumped on the bed, her head
flat on her arm, cushioned by a pillow. Still a little shaky, he pulled
himself together by taking a judicious attitude, and he began to
answer her question as though he had been thinking about it a long
time.
"That is not so," he said, "the weighing of consequences is not
necessarily an expressiori of fear; to be blind to them is just stupidity.
Anyway, as I told you, I only wanted to talk to you, which you
agreed to do."
J. J.
looked at his watch. "It's late," he continued,
"I guess I've kept you long enough. You probably want to go out
again now."
"No," she said, "I think I'll go to sleep. It's too hot, and you
talk so much you've knocked me out."
"Here's the rest of the money lowe you," said
J. J.
getting up.
"Thank you very much."
"O.K.," she said, sitting up, "leave it here. You're one for the
books, but you're a gentleman, I must say so, a real gentleman and
I can't brag I've met so many of them."
As
J. J.
opened the door, he turned to look at her again and
blurted, "Good-by, maybe I'll see you again some day."
"Sure," she said, leaning back on the bed, chest high, running
her hands through her hair, "you know where to find me. Keep your
nose clean. And don't make any noise going out."
J.
J.
walked out into the soggy night, wet and limp. He stopped
to get his bearings, looking stealthily around.
He had forgotten about his meeting.
As
he walked to the subway,
he kept thinking about Mary, but he could not recall very clearly
