402
"Don't I get a kiss," Adriana wanted to know.
"Yeah," Mick said, "sure."
PARTISAN REVIEW
Her lips swam up and surrounded his. Mick kept his mouth closed.
She would not take the hint, though, and she pried with her tongue at his
lips until at last he gave in, the point was not worth making, and she ran
her tongue over his teeth and gums and poked with it behind his lips. Mick
kept his eyes open. Heimlich's wife was standing there with her arms fold–
ed across her chest, watching the whole thing.
Adriana drew back finally and squinted up at him as if inspecting her
work. Then she turned to Heimlich's wife.
"Men,"
she said. "All they want is just one thing."
"Right," Heimlich's wife said. "And then they want to fuck."
The two women stared at each other, one refusing to be embarrassed,
the other refusing to be shocked.
"You like my shoes?" Adriana said finally. All three of them looked
down at her shoes. They were glossy black Forties-style fuck-me shoes. " I
gottem at a thriff shop," she said. "I painted'm myself. I got this terrific
shoe paint stuff you can paint your shoes with."
"Ginchy," said Heimlich's wife.
"It's terrific stuff," Adriana told her. "If you like it I can get you some."
Heimlich's wife smiled and said nothing.
"Listen," Adriana said. "You ever been to Italy?"
"Twice."
"You know where Reggio is?"
"It wasn't my turn to watch it," said Heimlich's wife.
"I went there two years ago with this friend of mine I know named
Cynthia."
Adriana's lips were slick with saliva, and it was beginning to drip down
her chin. Mick fought back the urge to wi pe it off. He reminded himself
that this was not his problem any more. None of it mattered. Nothing
could touch him.
"We were hitch-hiking allover Italy," Adriana said. "And we got a
ride with these two guys and they took us as far as I think it was Sorrento.
They were Italian. This one guy kept pinching my nipples. You ever had
anybody pinch your nipples? He kept pinching my illpples like this, hard."
She seized one of her own nipples and squeezed it through her blouse. "I
don't know whether he thought he was trying to turn me on or what," she
said. "I was having my period too, and they were really sensitive. I really
like hated this guy, all right? And then there wasn't anything I could like
do
about it either because Cynthia was in back giving this other guy H-E–
A-D in the back seat." She hunched up her shoulders and giggled.
"Anyway, we got to this hotel and we took these separate rooms and every-
