Ed Lacy - Breathe No More My Lady

I knew I was talking too much, but it all made me feel slightly better. Although Wilma was hardly my idea of a confessor. But she was a fine listener.

She said, “In her case running home to mama is some hop, skip and jump. If—”

“You should have seen how proud her folks were—he's the head of a school there—to have an American officer for a son-in-law.”

“... if Joel ever hits it, well live in Europe. While I'm not on a baby kick myself, things are so unsettled for us, but if Joel had a regular job like yours.... I can see her point Maybe.”

Wilma decided the bar was too lonely and we drove on. It seemed to me as if we'd been together for a long time, but it wasn't quite midnight. We stopped in Long Beach for more drinks and I said she must have something to eat In the middle of a seafood meal Wilma announced she wanted fresh air—in a hurry. I drove down a deserted road that ran along a bay until she moaned, “Stop. I'm getting sick.”

Pulling off the road, I hit a soft shoulder or maybe it was some swampy sand. The car lurched, seemed about to turn over. There was a bad moment as I battled the wheel, stepped on the gas. We seemed to hang in air, then the car leaped back on the road. Ahead I saw a tiny dirt lane leading to the water. I turned into it a ways and stopped.

Holding one hand over her mouth, Wilma ran out of the car and into some tall swamp grass and gave up. I wasn't drunk, and I suppose it was the near accident and her being so messy—but I was suddenly very sober and tired. This would have been such a stupid way to die. And why was I being so childish about an affair when I had a wife like Michele?

Wilma came near the car, said, “Wasn't that a charming sight? Told you not to feed me.” She shook her hand violently, looked around. “I know I smell like two other girls and I feel the same way. Seems to be a beach down there. Swimming, anybody?”

“Okay.”

She undressed so quickly it seemed I glanced down to turn off the ignition and looked up to see her nude in the dim moonlight. The nipples of her breasts were as red as her hair. She ran toward the water, running gracefully, and dived in. A minute later she was running back, stuck her wet head in the window. “Well, Tarzan?”

The door window framed her breasts and shoulders. She arched her chest out, as though that was necessary, and said, “You see, they are real. Your eyes have been like a bra all night.”

There was something so pat about it all, I became sore. I told her coldly, “That's me, very bosom conscious. Here's another book idea for your husband; no part of the human body, including the brain, has changed the world's history as much as a firm pair. In fact, at the moment, breast shots are the mainstay of a high percentage of our magazines; they're the new literary movement.”

“Odd time for a lecture, isn't it?” Her big eyes were mocking me.

I slid along the seat and stepped out of the car on the other side, undressed. Wilma ran into the water and I followed her. The water was wonderfully salty and cool. Wilma was a good swimmer and we went out about a hundred yards before turning back. It was a fine beach, very few rocks or mud on the bottom. We walked up and down the beach, shivering a bit. She kicked up the sand with her toes and stared at me, her face more intense than ever. “You strip big, Norm. You really have good shoulders, and those hands.... so strong.”

I looked down at the sand, kicked some on her feet. She seemed to have perfectly formed feet. “Why do you wear those funny looking shoes?”

“Find they relax me. The old gag about taking a cold shower—the swim did it for us, didn't it?”

“Did what? We wanted to take a swim, and we did. Let's go back to dry ourselves.”

As we headed back toward the car Wilma took my hand. We walked along like a couple of kids. She said, “You have such hard rough palms, like a laborer's. What do you do at Longson's, use your hands for a paper press?”

“I play a lot of handball,” I said, knowing I must sound like an idiot.

She suddenly placed my hand on her breast. And then we were thrashing around on the sand. It was all over before I could even think about it. Lying beside her I didn't feel a thing but confused. Then I wondered if I had let her down.

I glanced at Wilma and in the pale light she seemed to be smiling up at the stars. She was still breathing heavily. She turned, smiling at me, and said, “Talk to your juvenile editor about Joel. I think a change in publishers might be good for him. You see how I have to look after Joel, wear his pants. But I don't mind.”

The words bounced off my face and I looked away, wondering if she was stark crazy. Then I realized it hadn't meant a damn thing to her... or to me. It seemed so downright childish. Why had we done it, then? Instead of being full of sand and probably catching at least a cold as I lay beside this nutty broad, I should be with my wonderful Michele. The exciting, sensuous strength to her arms around my back. How embarrassed I'd been at first, the way she would embrace for hours afterward in sleepy satisfaction. I would finally awake in the middle of the night, my arms cramped and distant, but so aware of her soft beauty. I would be proud of her and....

Now, all I wanted was to be rid of Wilma and this dirty sand. I stood up. “Shall we wash up with a swim?”

I pulled Wilma to her feet—and she still had this kind of patronizing smile on her face. She held up her face and we kissed with absolutely no feeling. She giggled as we walked slowly into the water and swam around. Then I jogged back to the car for our clothes. I tossed her my T-shirt for a towel, while I tried to dry myself with my shorts.

I tossed the shorts into the grass. Wilma threw the T-shirt into the back of the car. Being dressed again seemed to be an act of sanity. I drove back to New York, her head resting on my shoulder. She happily didn't talk until we crossed the 59th Street bridge when Wilma sat up to ask: “What time is it?”

“Nearly three. Would you care for something to eat?”

“No, I feel fine. Norm, when you get straightened out with your wife, come over and visit. I think we can all be wonderful friends. Joel is very amusing, usually.”

“Sure.”

When I parked in front of her door Wilma held up her face and we kissed lightly. She said, “Don't forget,” waved and walked into the house.

My teeth were chattering. I drove to the first coffee pot and had two cups of hot coffee. I still felt completely confused. The coffee warmed me and I thought, Okay, so now I'm a man, and all that slop. I've had my affair, got it out of my system.

Oddly enough, I did feel very much a man. And I also had the same childish feeling as when Frank and I would dress in old slacks and a sweatshirt some Sunday mornings, drive to the handball courts on the lower Drive. With stupid delight we would play a sloppy one wall game until we were 'suckered' into playing for two bits a man with some of the other players. We'd tighten up, win. Between us we made nearly forty grand a year, yet winning a half a dollar gave us pure delight.

When I reached the apartment I sat in a hot bath for awhile, then fell into bed, wondering if the coffee would keep me up. It didn't; I slept the sleep of the just.

I awoke at nine and felt so good I winked at myself in the mirror while shaving... like a happy jerk.

Prof. Henry Brown

As I was closing the windows of my car in front of Prof. Brown's 'hotel,' I saw my crumpled T-shirt on the back seat. I stared at it for a second, almost with pride. Last night had been lousy but it had done something to my malehood, childish as that may sound, to know that these sexy-looking babes were not very good at it, as I always expected. True, I was basing this pearl of wisdom only on Wilma, but she was a fair sampling, I decided.

The heat and insecticide perfume hit me as I stepped into the lobby. The clerk waved as if I was an old buddy, then slapped his face and ran around the desk, rushed me to the door. I couldn't get his rapid French, but he kept gesturing madly at the back of the little man walking up toward Broadway. When I asked if that was Prof. Brown, the clerk nodded and waved his arm even more violently.

Thanking him, I walked and ran up the street, reaching Broadway in a blaze of sweat. Brown was making for the subway and I sprinted after him. He seemed to be in his late fifties, a slightly built little man, wiry and lean, walking with a neat stride. He was wearing an old tropical suit As I caught up with him his face surprised me. It was a thin face, the skin tight, a sort of owlish expression under a great deal of brushed gray hair. Only owls don't have broken noses and the Professor's nose had been broken sharply, probably a lot of years ago.

I touched his shoulder and he jumped as I said, “Prof. Brown? I'd like to talk to you. I'm—”

“I've nothing to say.” He didn't stop walking.

“But Professor, I only want to ask you...?”

“I told you, I have nothing to say!”

“I'm Norm—” I never finished the sentence for he actually dashed down the subway stairs.

Wiping my sweaty face I felt angry and bewildered. But I hadn't ran a block on a hot day for any brush-off. I raced down the steps and caught him at the change window.

He said, “Will you stop annoying me? I told you I—”

“Professor, I'm Norman Connor from Matt Anthony's publishing house. I only want to ask you some questions about Matt, and I can't understand your rude—”

“I'm sorry,” he said quickly. “I... eh... assumed you were somebody else. I was rude and I apologize.”

“Perhaps it was my fault, grabbing your shoulder. I was up to your hotel yesterday. Didn't the clerk tell you?”

“He merely said a man had been asking for me.” We stood there beside the subway change booth, awkwardly silent for a moment. Then I asked, “Shall we go into a bar for beers and talk?”

“No. We can go back to my room. I have beer there.” We walked up Broadway and over to the hotel without saying a word. The clerk waved merrily at us as we rode a dirty self-service elevator to the 6th floor. The Professor unlocked a door and took off his coat. What they had done with the 'hotel' was to take an old apartment house and make each room into a kind of unit. This one must have been the maid's room in the 'old days.' It was just wide enough to walk by the narrow bed. There was a small window, an improvised closet, a chair, and in one corner water was running slowly on something covered by a rag in the tiny sink.

Brown grinned at me as he said, “I imagine you must be puzzled by my performance on Broadway. I thought you were an FBI man. I've been stopped and harassed by them, and local agents, so often I've found the best policy is not to talk to them at all. In fact, I'd be more at ease this second if you showed me some identification, Mr.—eh—”

“Norm Conner,” I said, pulling out a thick envelope the efficient Miss Park had sent in the morning mail—a number of synopses of fall books. Brown glanced at these, as he motioned for me to take the chair. He sat on the unmade bed. When he handed them back he said, “I apologize, if you feel one is needed, Mr. Connor. Take off your coat. Beastly hot. I'm trying to rent a fan. What can I do for you?”

“I trust I'm not putting you out, Professor—”

“No point in calling me 'professor,' I haven't been one in months. You're not putting me out at all: Saturday is not a day for job hunting. Are you Mart's editor?”

“Oh, no. I'm the advertising manager of Longson and—”

“Hmmm. I'm not sure there is any real need for advertising in the world. Sets up false standards. But we won't argue the matter.”