LITMIR.BIZ

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thudding pattern.

      “At least you got away,” she said.

      “No,” I said. “You never get away.”

      “You must have got away from something—or somebody—whatever it was eating on you.”

      “It was myself eating on me.”

      I felt her shudder.

      “Did we come out here to be philosophers?” I said.

      I turned in the seat and looked at her face. She let me grab and hold her eyes. We stared at each other.

      “No,” she whispered.

      Her face moved toward mine. I reached for her and she came against me. Our lips met and hers were quivering. She made a low sound in her throat.

      I ran out of breath and pulled away. I drew her across my lap and held her in the crook of my arm. She lay with her head back, her eyes closed, her thick hair tumbled against the door of the car.

      “Chris—” she said. “Take me away from here—from this damn town.”

      “Sure,” I mumbled. “Anything you say.”

      My mouth was on hers, my lips searching. She held my face in her hands, staring at me.

      “I mean it, Chris,” she said. “I’ve got to get away. It’s been in the cards a long time, but I never had the nerve, not by myself. I need help.”

      “O.K.,” I said, trying to free my face, but she held it more tightly.

      “I’ve got a little money—this car. We could start out and keep going. They’d never find us. If you’ll help me get away, Chris, there won’t be any strings. You can come and go as you please—” She had lifted her head and her eyes were boring into mine. My brain was foggy and I wanted to get on with what we had started. I kept thinking, what a thing to hold out for. If you want to leave, why don’t you take your car and go?

      I guess she read my mind.

      “I’ve been alone too long, Chris,” she was saying. “I’m afraid of the lonesomeness. If I went away by myself, I’d be more alone than ever. I can’t stand that. Not at first. I’ve got to have somebody help me over the hump.”

      I tried to pull myself together.

      “You know how it feels to be on the run?” I said.

      “I don’t care. It can’t be any worse than this—living with a pig, in a dead, narrow-minded town where nobody ever has a new idea—it’s like living in a closet.”

      I looked down at her face, straining toward mine, at her pleading eyes, wide and clear now as they watched mine, and partly because she was getting under my skin, but also because I wanted her to stop talking, I said, “Sure, honey. We’ll go.”

      “Tonight, Chris? You mean it? We’ll go away?”

      “Yeah, tonight. After—” She sighed and her eyes closed again.

      “All right. Yes. After—” She relaxed into the crook of my arm and the fever started in me. She turned and buried her face in my arm. I felt her tremble slightly and then she looked up at me again. We kissed a long, hard, sweet kiss that drove through me, making a music you could never hear, only feel. But you knew it was there. You both knew.

      She spoke muffledly into my arm. “…feel shut in…” she said.

      She twisted her body and groped behind her for the door handle. I reached across and opened it. She pulled herself off my lap and climbed onto the ground. She turned from the car and ran across the clearing toward a clump of low trees, her dress fluttering and billowing behind her.

      She stopped among the trees. There was grass, deep and cool. She sank down into it, gazing up at me. She shrugged free of the dress and held out her arms. I knelt beside her. Her hands touched my neck, moved along my back. I felt the music: the graceful, heady figures of Mozart, the plaintive, singing melody of Tchaikovsky, the surge of Beethoven, and then, drowning out all the rest, an insistent, throbbing beat—half jungle, half civilized…

CHAPTER 2

      Hazel was asleep, her tangled hair dark against the pale grass, her body silver and gray shadows under the moon. Her breasts rose and fell gently with her breathing. The inner music had stopped and there was nothing now but silence, broken now and then by the chirping of crickets, the hoarse croaking of a frog. The grass was cool against my face as I turned to look at her.

      I had felt calm and peaceful at first and I had slept for a while, easily, without dreams, but now I was jumpy. I raised myself slowly, easing my arm out from under Hazel’s head, trying not to waken her, and groped for my clothes. I found the pint bottle in my coat pocket and drew it out. I uncapped it, took a long pull and felt the warmth of the whisky spread through me. While I was putting the bottle away again, I felt Hazel stir beside me and when I looked around, her eyes were watching me.

      “Drink?” I said.

      “No, darling.”

      I sat there for a while.

      “Think we’d better go?” I said.

      She stretched lazily, lifting her arms in the air.

      “There’s no hurry,” she said. “We’ve got all the time in the world—now.”

      Then I remembered what I’d forgotten, what had been drowned in the music and the fire and the sleep that followed. We were going away together. Suddenly it didn’t seem so crazy. It seemed all right. It seemed natural.

      “Do you want to go home first?” I asked.

      “There’s nothing there I need,” she said. “How about your hotel?”

      “Two dirty shirts and a worn-out pair of shoes.”

      “We can get more shirts.”

      “Sure.”

      She stretched again, luxuriously in the deep grass. Slowly she got to her feet and began doing something with her hair. I watched her for a while—the good, full breasts, the clean, curving lines of her thighs. Pretty soon I reached out and caught her ankle. She smiled at me with her hands in her hair. I pulled her down beside me. Faintly and far off, the music started again.

      Suddenly she stiffened in my arms. She raised her head, listening. I paused and listened too.

      There was the sound of a car, a smooth motor purring far away, but coming closer.

      After a minute I relaxed and pulled her close to me. “We’re off the road,” I said. “They’ll go on by.”

      She pulled away, tense. My hand was on her thigh and I felt gooseflesh. The car came nearer, winding up the low hill, the way we had come into the clearing. Suddenly Hazel jumped to her feet, picked up her dress and began pulling it on. I got up too.

      “What’s the difference?” I said. “We’re going away.”

      “The car,” she said. “Somebody might recognize it. It’s in plain sight.”

      “But listen—” The car was quite close now and we could see the waving glow of its headlights through the trees. We were only a few feet from the road. Hazel was struggling with her dress, fumbling at the buttons. She didn’t seem able to work them. I began to dress. Some of her fear had got into me and my own fingers were trembling, but I made it. I buttoned my shirt, listening to the sound of the car, watching Hazel. And then the car stopped.

      It had stopped close by. The light from the headlights was bright in the clearing. And then they went out and there was quiet. Hazel had given up trying to button her dress. I put my hand on her arm and she was trembling.

      “Get hold of yourself,” I whispered. “Some farmer. He’ll go away.”

      She didn’t seem to hear me. She stood,

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