IN THE ROOM OF MISTER DePAUL.

The room looked as a room for a bachelor, cluttered beyond hope with things.  She saw upon his mantel a wallet, a pen, some cuff-links, a small leather notebook.  For a long moment she looked at the leather notebook, wondering what names occupied its pages.  Her eyes wandered further down the mantel to the two half-spent packs of cigarettes, the ashtray full to overflowing.  She looked further around the room to his dresser.  She saw clean socks neatly rolled beside a newspaper, a book lying open, but upside down, to mark its page.  She took a step and read the title, twice, wondering briefly what the book might be about.

         She looked at the bed, neatly made, and the bedside table with its lamp.  She tried to picture Mr. DePaul sleeping in the bed.  She tried to visualize his blond hair, his broad chest.  She wondered if he had a hairy chest, and found herself hoping that he did not.

        She walked over to the bedside table, and saw a picture lying beside the lamp.  She picked it up and saw a smiling woman, in her late twenties, or early thirties, wearing a white bathing suit.  The smiling woman seemed to call with her eyes, call with a certain voice she could not hear, in words she had yet to understand.  She could feel the sexuality of the woman in the picture.  She could feel the need of the woman, to step out of the picture and place her arms around Mr. DePaul, and he lips against his lips.  She could feel the need of the woman to slide her body beneath his body.  She put the picture down, carefully down, so as not to have it look disturbed.  She plugged in her vacuum cleaner, and quickly vacuumed the rug and the floor.  Then she took her rag, and her bottle of furniture polish and began to polish the dresser, the mantel, the small bedside table with its lamp and the picture of the woman in the white bathing suit.  She found herself looking again at the woman and wondering how that woman might feel in his embrace.

        She looked down at the bed, and pulled back its spread so that she might strip the bed and put upon it clean sheets.  She pulled back the spread, and then pulled off the top sheet.

        She saw upon the bottom sheet a red hair.  Her hand reached down to it, and refused to touch it when she realized that it must have come from another woman.  She could not touch that hair from another woman.  She looked at the bed, and wondered about that woman, the act of man and woman together.  She knew as much about men and women together as she knew about planetary motion.  Less perhaps.  She knew the planets from the teachings of the nuns at her school, but she knew of man and woman together only from the giggling whispers of the other girls in the convent halls.  In her eighteen years she learned nothing of men, nothing of the meaning of the feelings rising within her own body.

        She stood with unbreathing stillness, trying to feel the image imagination could not form before her eyes.  She felt her body begin to rock sideways, the way a mother slowly sways when she has a child upon her hip.  Her hands came up and around the back of her neck.  She pulled her neck hard against hem, pressing her arms together in front of herself.  She put down her arms, put them by her sides.  She closed her eyes, gently closed her eyes.  She stood and felt herself breath, heard herself breath.  Slowly she crossed her hands in front of herself, standing as she might stand before the Virgin.  She seemed as though in prayer, praying for the soul of the man, or perhaps the woman, who had lain upon those sheets.

        No prayer escaped her lips.  Her hands lay crossed over her chest, not in prayer, but in gentle touching.  Her palms pressed against the tight rises beneath them.  She felt that pressing, felt it flow through her body.  Her palms moved in slow motions of pressure, first hard, then soft, then hard again.  She felt the pressure invade her body, radiate out and through it into some part of her she did not know she possessed.  Still she stood there, feeling, delighting, wondering at the sensations flooding and ebbing within her.

        Then she stopped.  Her hands fell to her sides.  Long slow breaths filled her lungs.  She opened her eyes and saw that the door to the room had been left open, and she wondered if had someone seen her then, beside the bed, what thoughts would that someone have held.  Would Mr. DePaul looking in upon her cleaning his room, and standing beside his bed realize her thoughts, and would he then come to her and hold her, and, and, and…

        The thought had not an end she could endure.  To be seen at that moment, for him to know her feelings, that she could not endure.  For him to see her at that moment, and come to her and hold her, and perhaps even so much as lightly kiss her upon the cheek or upon her forehead, that she could not endure.  No other thoughts were possible.  No other dreams could she allow.

        She could not choose to be held, truly held.

        She could not choose to be kissed, truly kissed, deeply kissed.

        Such choices were choices impossible to make, for touching, and kissing and holding, and feeling her breath come deeply into her lungs were all things strongly taught against her.

        She looked at the open door as she breathed, wondering what would happen if perhaps he were to come and see her standing there.  She wondered if he knew how she loved him, and how she hated him for the woman in the white bathing suit, and for the red hair in his bed.  She looked again at the sheets, with her small fists balled tightly at her sides, and wondered how he touched her, how he kissed her.  Did his hands touch her the way her body demanded that she be touched?  Did he press his lips against her lips?  Did the red haired woman offer up her lips, or surrender to the demand of his lips?

        She turned from the bed and went to the vacuum cleaner and unplugged it, and wrapped the cord around the handle.  Then she went to the mantel and neatly arranged the things he put upon the mantel.  Her fingers lingered on the small leather note book, and she thought for an instant of putting her name on its pages, and her phone number, and she wondered that if he found her name and her number would he call her, and then plan a meeting with her, or perhaps come down the steps late at night and into her room, and be greeted by her standing at her window in her long nightgown.

        She abandon the thought.  Her fingers left the notebook.  She could not hold such a thought, for such a thought demanded that she commit an action, that she invite him into her room.  She could not invite Mr. DePaul.  She could give him no invitation to unlock her door.  He would have to know to unlock her door, he would have to commit that action without invitation.

        She picked up the clean sheets and walked to the bed again, putting the sheets upon the bed, her eyes seeking out the red hair.  She found it with her eyes, and she stood there looking at the red hair wishing she knew in herself what the woman with the red hair had learned within herself.  The woman had given herself to Mr. DePaul and she could not give herself to Mr. DePaul.

       She looked again at the open door.

        She thought of him standing at the open door, the door to the room, the door she unlocked.

        She closed her eyes.  Tightly closed her eyes.

        She felt him at the door.  Felt his eyes looking at her, standing in her white schoolgirl blouse and her green schoolgirl skirt, and her body frozen at his bedside.

        She demanded that he know.  She demanded that he know that she must not move, or look up at him, or see him, or give him any invitation to the actions he must commit.  Actions she herself could not commit.

        He walked across the room and stood behind her, and with his hands that were her hands, he brushed the hair away from her face, and his hands that were her hands, slid down her face to her chin, and lifted her chin so that her head came back and her neck lay exposed and her lips were held up, ready to accept the kiss that he must give to her.

        She felt through her closed eyes his kiss, and her lips parted and her hands came down her neck so that her fingertips rested at the top of the valley between her breasts.  Then her palms rested against her breasts, and she felt his touch against her white blouse, and through her blouse, and through her bra, and into her breasts.  She took a sudden intake of breath, for his palms brushed nipples rising against the fabric of her clothing.

        She stood there, feeling his kiss upon her lips, and feeling the touch of her hands, that were his hands, against her breasts.

        She demanded of him a commanding of her, for she could not offer to him her breasts, or tell him that she wished his fingers to unbutton her blouse and take possession of her breasts.  She could not.

        He responded to her demand to command her, to possess her, and his fingers came to the uppermost button of her blouse, and unfastened that button, and his fingers opened her blouse that they might lightly trace gentle designs upon her flesh.  She did not give her permission for that act.  She could not.  For he demanded of her a surrender to him, a surrender to herself that was him.

        His fingers came to the second button, and that button too was undone, and the next and the next in rapid succession, until her blouse was all undone.  And there his fingers stopped.  There his fingers stopped and touched her flesh at the hem of her schoolgirl’s skirt.  Slowly the fingers rose, parting the blouse, moving to the sides of her breasts, so that her breasts, cradled in her bra, were exposed.  His fingers lingered at the top of her breasts, the flesh uncovered.  His fingers moved in slow circles across the top of her breasts and to the straps that held her bra about her shoulders.

        She could not remove her shirt.  She could make no action of her own.

        He must demand of her action.

        She stood very still waiting for him to demand her, command her so that in obeying him, she absolved herself of the sin of action.

        He demanded of her the white shirt, and her fingers came to her shoulders, and pushed her shirt off of her shoulders, and she felt it fall to the floor.

        His hands held her breasts and demanded that she unfasten her bra, and her fingers came to the clasp between the cups and freed the clasp.

        Then his fingers, that were her fingers, parted the cups and exposed her breasts to his sight.  She could feel him standing behind her, feel him pressing his body against her body.  She could feel his eyes looking down at her breasts with their nipples pointed and hardened.  His fingers came to touch those nipples and she took another sudden intake of breath in the excitement of being aroused by him.

        He demanded that she remove her bra, and her fingers came to the straps, and she slid her bra down her arms until it fell upon her shirt lying upon the floor.  She stood there.  Her arms at her sides.  Her small fists balled tightly.  Her breath uneven.  Her body exposed to his sight.  Her eyes closed, and in those tightly closed eyes she saw his eyes looking down at her body.

        He demanded that she turn and face him.  She turned slowly.

        She stood and faced him, with her eyes closed to the unreality of him.

        He demanded of her the skirt around her waist.

        She unbuttoned the skirt and unzipped it, and pushed it over her hips and to the floor, and let it lie around her feet.

        He did not demand that she remove her pants.  He reached for her, and with his hands, her hands, his hands, pulled her pants down and off until they too lay about her feet.

        Then her hands, and his hands, came up to her breasts and touched them, and gently traced outlines across them, until his fingers brushed her nipples, and in their erection, they reached out to him.

        He grabbed her and forced her to sit upon the bed, and then forced her to lie back upon the bed, her legs over the side of the bed, and spread out slightly so that her most private place was just exposed to his view.  His hands came from her breasts, to glide down her chest, across her narrow hips to her thighs, her inner thighs.  His hands pressed against her thighs, spreading her legs, opening her body more widely to his sight.  His fingertips touched her, and caressed her flesh, and slowly the touch of him, the commanding touch of him, came up and further up until it touched her private place, and she felt her muscles tighten.

        Her head fell to the side, pressed itself against the sheets.  She smelled him in those sheets.  She smelled the manness of him.  And she could smell the woman with the red hair.  She could smell beneath her head the passions of her, the needs of her.  She felt an almost instant hatred of her, an almost instant kinship with her.  Did he command her, command her as she was commanded?  Her dreams made such commands necessity. 

       In her necessity he commanded her.

        He commanded her to respond.

        Her body responded with perfect obedience.

        Her tightly closed doors, her never opened doors, parted to his touch, molded to his touch.  She touched a wetness that allowed her fingers to slide smoothly through the narrow valley between her hips.  Her hips rocked forward, pushing pleasure against her fingers.  His left hand slid up her body, tracing gentle patterns up her body, to her breast.  The fingers between her hips slid back to the wetness, and she felt his finger push further beyond the doors.  The hand upon her breast excited it, pinched lightly the hardened nipple between the tips of thumb and finger.  Her other finger left the wetness of her passage and moved again to the hardening place above her wetness, and touched it, and explored it, and played with it, until she felt her body tighten under his touch, between the feeling of two sets of fingers exploring and playing.  She felt her touch, and his touch.  She felt her passion, and imagined his own.

        A sound escaped her lips.

        A sound she never knew her tongue could voice.

        The sound of an infant’s cry.

        The cry of escape, of pain that was not pain.

        Her body leaped against her fingers, and leaped again, and her legs closed together as her body leaped against his fingers, her fingers that were his fingers.

        Then his fingers stopped.

        Her breath came in ragged gasps.

        She felt him looking down at her body, her body exposed totally to his view, to his touch.  She pressed her whole hand against her mound, and she felt the pressure and the warmth of her hand.

        She turned her head and pressed her head into the bed.

        A tear escaped her eyes.

        She felt shamed

        Mr. DePaul no longer stood looking down at her body, no longer demanded a thing of her.

        She lay upon the bed aware of her act, and she cried softly into the sheets at the taught wrongness of that act.

        She felt shamed lying upon his bed, in her long white socks and her penny loafer shoes, and her unclothed body exposed.

        She felt aware of her body, and her hand pressing tightly against that private place, and she wanted to move that hand, and she could not move that hand, for it covered her shame.

        For it touched her, and her body demanded of her touching.