Change Partners

23

Change Partners

    Caro hadn’t noticed the length of Charlie’s absence in the bathroom, because after blindly going into the kitchen and putting the kettle on she’d caught sight of her reflection in the uncurtained kitchen window and had shot into the bedroom to do something about it. She brushed the bird’s nest on her head furiously but it was so full of static that it just stuck out in all directions. Her face was greasy; she mopped it with a tissue and doubtfully applied some powder, which she almost never used. This looked absolutely vile. She dabbed on a bit of remover cream, which cost the earth so she hardly ever bought it, but tonight had been supposed to be special, and removed the powder with more tissues. Her face looked greasier than ever. Desperately she picked up the blusher and brushed some on her cheeks. That looked marginally better, so she put on a bit of lip-gloss. The total effect was still entirely unsatisfactory: why was it that other people never got red noses and shiny faces but she always did? Then she recalled that Charlie would be waiting and shot out, but fortunately he was still in the “john”. She went into the kitchen and made the tea, first warming the pot carefully, though recognizing as she did so that this was probably totally unnecessary with herb tea in teabags.

    When she came back into the sitting-room with the teapot and two mugs on a tray Charlie was sitting on the sofa with the coffee table neatly adjusted in front of him. Danny’s books and a half-built plastic aeroplane which had been on it had been neatly transferred to the dining table.

    Charlie looked up quickly. He stood up. “Let me take that.”

    “It isn’t heavy; I can manage,” said Caro, in some surprize.

    “Jesus!” said Charlie. He sat down limply on the sofa again.

    Caro bent and deposited the tray on the table in front of him. Disturbed though he was, Charlie couldn’t help noticing that that was one of the most wonderful views he’d ever had in his life—to Hell with the Grand Canyon, who needed it?

    “Please come sit here, Caro,” he said quickly before she could sit down elsewhere.

    Caro came and sat neatly at the other end of the sofa. As it was only a little, cheap, two-person sofa she wasn’t very far away.

    “Listen—Caro.” He stopped.

    “What?”

    Charlie swallowed. “Listen, I think we oughta get a few things straight; I don’t think I can handle this—this aggression thing between us any more.”

    “Oh,” said Caro dully.

    “It’s—uh—it’s the cultural difference between us.”

    “Eh?” said Caro in surprize. She stared at him.

    Charlie swallowed again, but he’d made up his mind to get it all out in the open. “Now, you take just now—when I offered to take the tray for you.”

    Cautiously she replied: “What about it?”

    “We-ell,” said Charlie slowly, “I wasn’t trying to put you down because you’re—you’re feminine, or—or little,”—his voice shook—“or anything like that. I wasn’t trying to put you down at all; that’s just the way I was brought up: a gentleman gets up when a lady comes into the room, he doesn’t let her carry a heavy tray—or even a tray that isn’t heavy,” he added quickly as she opened her mouth; “and especially he don’t let her carry a tray when’s she got an injured hand that he’s responsible for!”

    “Oh,” said Caro.

    “I—I know that must all go against the grain with you, Caro, because—because you’re a feminist. Well, I believe in women’s equality as much as anyone; only I—well, you can call it cultural brainwashing or sex-stereotyping as much as you like, I guess—but I just can’t seem to ditch the manners that were drummed into me as a kid.”

    “In Georgia,” said Caro doubtfully.

    “Uh—yeah, I guess; in Georgia to start with, sure.”

    “A Southern gentleman,” said Caro, trying it out for size.

    Charlie gave a startled laugh. “Well—I guess so; if you want to put it like that!”

    “Mm… To you it is only manners, I see that,” she said thoughtfully, “only to me it—isn’t just a form; do you see? It’s real—you may not mean it to be patronizing, but it’s the impact it has that matters, not your intention.”

    “So my manners do really make you feel sm— I mean, make you feel put-down—patronized?”

    “Yes,” she admitted.

    Silence fell. Caro reached for the teapot.

    “Please let me do that,” said Charlie.

    “You’re doing it again.”

    “Yes; can’t you let me?”

    Caro swallowed. “No,” she replied honestly.

    “Not even—not even when it was me that hurt your hand?”

    “I don’t think that makes any difference,” she said thoughtfully.

    There was another silence. Neither of them dared to reach for the teapot again.

    “Not even,” said Charlie in a strangled voice: “if I told you it’d give me a great deal of pleasure, for you to let me do things for you, Caro?”

    “Ah! There! You see? You see? It isn’t just manners! It does mean something! Why should I let you put me down just so as you can feel good? See—you’ve admitted it!”

    Charlie got up abruptly, almost knocking the coffee table over, and strode across to the other side of the room, shoving his hands into his pockets. He stared blindly at her new bookcase.

    Caro simply poured the tea.

    Charlie went on staring at the bookcase without seeing ít.

    “You might as well admit it,” she said after a while.

    “Jesus God! You don’t understand anything about men and women, do ya?” he said bitterly.

    “I understand that you feel all smart and superior because you know about—about the insides of cars—and—and stupid acoustics and balances and things and I don’t!” said Caro loudly. “Well, I don’t want to know all about the stupid insides of cars, anyway! And it I did I’d be perfectly capable of learning all about them, so there! But I’ve got better things to do with my time!”

    Charlie turned round slowly and came and got his tea. He sipped it slowly and looked down at her in a considering way.

    Caro glared at him. After a while she said irritably: “And stop standing there like that! If you think you’re dominating me, or something, well, you’re wrong!”

    He laughed. “Honey, don’t! You’re killing me!”

    Caro went scarlet.

    “Caro, honey, I can’t help being six-three any more than you can help being—what is it? Five-three?”

    “You can help standing there domineering over me!”

    “Sweets, it ain’t my fault if you’ve got an inferiority complex about tall men—that’s something you’ll have to deal with yourself!”

    Caro’s lower lip trembled. “I haven’t got an inferiority complex.”

    Charlie put his head on one side and said: “You suffer from vertigo, don’t you? Now, I wonder if the two could be connected...”

    “Stop it!” cried Caro. “I thought you wanted to be serious! If you can’t say something sensible, then—then go away!”

    Suddenly Charlie went very red. He came and sat down on the sofa again. “Caro,” he said, not looking at her: “you—you’ve just put your finger on—on this thing that I do when I’m—when I’m real scared!” He gave a silly laugh.

    “Scared?” said Caro blankly.

    “Uh-huh; when I’m shit-scared—what’s your British expression—‘in a blue funk’? Well, something like that,” he added weakly, as she just goggled at him. “When I—when in a situation I can’t deal with, or I’m scared to deal with, I—I try to turn it into a joke; or I—uh—needle the other person. You see?”

    “I see what you mean,” replied Caro dubiously. “But why are you scared?”

    He put down his mug abruptly and buried his face in his hands. Caro drank her tea blindly.

    “Listen,” he said in a muffled voice: “you scare the Hell outa me.”

    “So it would appear,” she said in a hard voice.

    “Listen—when I—like when I fixed the car for you...”

    “I said thank you!” returned Caro indignantly.

    “Yeah—well, why do you think I did it?”

    “We-ell, I don’t know,” said Caro, going very red, which Charlie couldn’t see as he still had his head in his hands. “I s’pose you were just being kind.”

    “Not trying to put you down; not—uh—stroking my own ego at the expense of yours?”

    She blinked at this last phrase. “Um… Um, well, I suppose there was a bit of that involved; men always like to feel superior about mechan—”

    “Men always!” he cried, turning to face her. “Jesus, you’re doing it again! You’ve got this little box, haven’t you, labelled ‘Men always’, and you’ve put me right in it! I didn’t fix the damn car for you because men always fix cars and it made me feel superior, for Chrissakes!”

    “Well, all right then, you tell me why you fixed the bloody car! It wasn’t my idea. You fixed it, it was your idea—how the Hell do you expect me to understand why you did it, am I supposed to be a bloody mind-reader or something?”

    “I did it—” He stopped.

    “Well, go on: let’s hear the great analysis from Mr Manners,” she said sarcastically.

    Charlie’s nostrils flared. “I did it because I can’t bear to see anything go wrong for you.”

    “What?” said Caro faintly.

    He drank herb tea blindly. “You heard,” he said, not looking at her.

    Caro was silent.

    “I—it kinda hurts me inside—ya know? It kinda kills me, I guess, when—when I see you in trouble, Caro, and I just—well, I just have this need to—to fix it for you.”

    She stared at his regular profile. His mouth trembled; he drank some more tea.

    “Is this—do you mean... Is it some kind of psychological problem?” she ventured uncertainly.

    Charlie’s mouth fell open. He swung round and goggled at her. Caro flushed and shrank. Something twisted inside Charlie at the little movement. “Honey,” he said softly, “give me your hand.”

    Dubiously Caro held out the bandaged hand. Charlie took it very gently in his right hand and covered it with his left. “Honey,” he said, “I know there’s this goddamn cultural thing between us; I know I’m only a hick American; and I know you think I’m the male chauvinist pig to end all male chauvinist pigs. –No, don’t say anything. Listen: you musta noticed when we were dancing— Jesus, it was obvious enough...” His voice trailed off. Caro just stared.

    “I guess you could say it is a psychological problem, at that!” he said with a sad chuckle. She went on staring. “Jesus, I’m talking too much!” said Charlie. He took a deep breath, went very red indeed, and said: “I’m trying to say I’m in love with you, Caro.”

    Caro’s hand jerked in his. Her face flamed; she goggled at him. “Is this some kind of a joke?” she said faintly.

    “No,” said Charlie miserably. He stared down at his hands over hers. Caro attempted to pull hers away. Charlie let go as if he’d been stung.

    “You— I mean— We’ve never even been out together, not by ourselves. And you’ve hardly even spoken to me, these last couple of months!”

    “These last couple of months,” he said bitterly, not looking at her, “you’ve been seeing that architect guy.”

    This was true; though she hadn’t been seeing him as often as Donald would have liked. Although she thought he was quite sweet, she found him rather boring when they weren’t actually making love. “Oh, him!” she replied dismissively.

    Charlie looked up quickly. “Doesn’t he—doesn’t he mean anything to you, then?”

    Suddenly she felt furiously impatient with him—with his politeness, his hesitancy, his... American-ness! Why the Hell was he sitting there talking, instead of—getting on with it? “Is that any of your business?” she said loudly and angrily.

    Charlie’s mouth tightened and his nostrils flared. He took off his glasses and glared at her. “Yeah, it damn well is my business! I thought I’d made that perfectly clear! Look, you may not care whether I live or die—but don’t I even rate some kind of reply?”

    Caro swallowed and said hoarsely: “Yes; I suppose so.”

    “Well?” he said fiercely.

    She looked down at his neat bandage on her right hand and picked at it with her left.

    Charlie felt very sick, as well as considerably angry. He didn’t dare to say anything more. Inwardly he was cursing himself for a fool—he’d said all the wrong things, he’d done it all wrong...

    Finally Caro said: “I don’t know… I mean, I haven’t thought of you in that way... I mean, you’ve always seemed as if you didn’t want any sort of a relationship, so I—I tried just to think of you as a friend.”

    Charlie’s heart leapt at the “tried just to.” He covered her small, agitated hands gently with his long right one, and said: “Well, could you try thinking of me not as a friend, do you think?”

    “I don’t know,” she said in a tiny voice. Her heart beat very fast and she was in a turmoil of shock, arousal, and terror because this was far too serious, and the last thing she wanted was another serious involvement with a man. Only—she could hardly say that; because what if he didn’t want a serious involvement at all, but was just being long-winded and American about it?

    “Try,” he said huskily, wanting to kiss her but terrified of scaring her off.

    After a considerable time Caro said hoarsely: “What did you have in mind, exactly?”

    Charlie’s long mouth twitched. “The usual things, I guess!”

    “Be serious!” said Caro in a voice that to her own horror sounded suspiciously as if it had a sob in it.

    He was flummoxed, as much by the cultural gap between them as anything. How the Hell did Kiwis put it, anyway? “I guess—I just want for us to—to have a relationship.”

    “What sort of a relationship?” said Caro gruffly, not looking at him.

    He released her hands and ran his own through his short, straight black hair. “What sort of a relationship? Hell, Caro, how many sorts are there?” He began to wonder if maybe “relationship” didn’t mean the same thing out here...? No—surely not? That was absurd!

    “There’s lots…” She swallowed painfully, not daring to ask him how serious he meant it to be.

    “Uh—well—maybe you call it something else out here!” he said desperately.

    She looked up in surprise.

    “I mean—well, a sexual relationship,” said Charlie, feeling a complete idiot and going scarlet to the roots of the short black hair. “Isn’t that what you thought I meant?”

    “Yes, of course; only what sort?”

    “Caro,” he said miserably: “if you don’t want to, just—just tell me, huh?”

    She frowned and looked away from him. “It’s not that I don’t want to, exactly... Only, if you want to know the truth, I’m scared!” she ended loudly.

    He moved a little closer to her on the small sofa and said: “Honey, I’m not like that Australian bastard, you know; I’d never lay a finger on you as long as I lived.”

     She twisted round quickly and stared at him. “How did you—”

    “Danny’s told me all about him,” replied Charlie, sounding and looking rather grim.

    “Danny told you?”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “But he never talks to anybody about it...” she said dazedly.

    “Well, he told me,” he replied simply.

    “Oh.”

    There was a little silence, during which Caro stared fixedly at her hands and Charlie looked at the curve of her cheek with a little smile. Since she didn’t seem to be about to say anything else he added: “He told me about his dad, too.”

    “About Perry? But… What did he tell you?” she asked suspiciously.

    “That he’s gay, and that’s why he doesn’t live with you guys any more.”

    “Oh,” said Caro limply; Danny never talked about Perry, either.

    “Anyway, like I said: you don’t have to be scared of me, honey,” said Charlie, apparently treating it as quite natural that the introverted Danny—who still occasionally wet his bed, even though he was eleven now, and had settled in very well at his new school—should have confided in him.

    “No, I know; I’m not,” replied Caro honestly.

    “Well, that’s good; but you are scared of something, aren’t you?” he said gently.

    She gripped her hands tightly in her lap, staring hard at the rug. “I’m scared of getting involved.”

    “But— Oh, I getcha. So—with this architect guy, then, it’s not serious: you’re not seriously involved?”

    “No. It’s just a thing—you know.”

    “Just for the sex,” he agreed.

    “Yes,” she said, going scarlet.

    He put his hand on hers again. “But with me it would be serious—is that what’s worrying you?”

    “I don’t know!” cried Caro loudly, bursting into tears.

    Charlie put his arm around her and pulled her into his side. “Well, that’s okay, honey; because it’d be serious for me, too.”

    “I—don’t—want—!” sobbed Caro.

    “What don’tcha want, honey?”

    “—involved!” she sobbed.

    This didn’t seem quite clear to Charlie. He frowned and thought it over carefully before speaking again. “You’re scared of a serious involvement—is that it? Scared you might get hurt—emotionally, I mean.”

    “Yes!” sobbed Caro into his chest.

    Charlie put the other arm round her too. “I won’t hurt you in any way, Caro.”

    “’S what—they all—say!”

    He laid his head gently against hers and said: “You’re putting me in one of those ‘They all’ boxes again.”

    She gave a rending sniff and sat up, pushing him away—or trying to. “You said your appointment was only for three years; what’ll happen to me if you just decide to pack up and go home in another couple of years?”

    Charlie held her upper-arms gently, trying to ignore the surge of lust that engulfed him at their softness, and said: “It’s too soon for either of us to be making any promises, isn’t it?”

    She nodded convulsively, and sniffed.

    “So I guess all I can say right now is that I feel Helluva serious about you, Caro.”

    Caro swallowed convulsively. “But... We haven’t got anything in common, really. And—and we do keep fighting all the time.”

    “Ye-ah; I guess the fighting thing is partly the cultural problem—I guess we’ll have to work at that, huh? But it’s partly...” He hesitated.

    “Partly what?”

    “Partly sexual antagonism. Didn’t you... Well, maybe you didn’t. But I felt it, right from the start: there you were, sitting on that damn desk, and you bit my head right off the minute I opened my mouth. I guess I wanted you like crazy, straight off!” He laughed ruefully.

    She stared. “You’ve hidden it pretty well, then!”

    “Yeah,” said Charlie, flushing. “I was pretty scared of getting involved, too, you see.”

    “Oh.”

    “Uh-huh.” He took a deep breath. “Guess I’ve never told you about Christabel, huh?”

    “No.”

    “Well—it was a pretty bad experience for me... She let me down pretty bad, I guess.”

    “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

    “No—I’d like to.”

    “Go on, then.”

    He was still holding her upper-arms. He looked away from her, and squeezed the arms tightly. Even sitting down, he was quite a lot taller than Caro. She looked up at him doubtfully and saw his mouth tremble.

    “Charlie—”

    “Oh, shee-ut!” said Charlie. He pulled her close and hid his face in her neck.

    “Was it really bad?” said Caro, after a little.

    “Uh-huh; real bad.”

    “Go on; tell me.”

    In a very muffled voice, and without any circumlocutions, Charlie told her how Christabel had been two-timing him right from the start with a much older and much richer man; even during their engagement she continued the relationship with this man; and finally, a week before the wedding, she agreed to a live-in arrangement with the guy and went off with him.

    When he’d finished Caro put her arms round his slim torso and said: “I’m awfully sorry, Charlie.”

    After a while he said: “I guess you could say we’ve both been through the mill, huh?”

    “Mm. I wouldn’t do anything like that to you.”

    “I know; I think you’re the most straightforward person I’ve ever met,” he replied, sitting up.

    Caro looked up in surprize. “You look funny without your glasses on,” she said uncertainly.

    Charlie gave a laugh that cracked, and kissed her. After some time he sighed deeply and admitted: “I’ve been wanting like Hell to do that!”

    “So’ve I,” replied Caro, blushing deeply.

    He looked at her uncertainly. “Have you, honest?”

    “Mm; ever since... Well, like you said: ever since you came in, that first day... I was absolutely furious with myself! I mean, I don’t even like Americans!”

    “I’ve noticed that,” he replied seriously, and kissed her again.

    This time Caro responded much more enthusiastically, pulling him to her tightly. Charlie let himself relax against her. After a little he put his right hand on her breast; she shuddered and moaned a little.

    “Caro?” he said.

    “Mm?” replied Caro with her eyes shut. She slipped her hands under his dinner jacket and held his strong back.

    “Jesus, honey—I can’t think if you do that!” he said in a shaken voice.

    “Good.”

    “No—listen—what about Danny?”

    She opened her eyes reluctantly. “What about him?”

    “Uh—well,” he said, reddening, “we don’t wanna disturb him or anything.”

    “Oh! He’s at Pam’s!”

    “Three hearty Briddish cheers,” said Charlie into her neck. “I guess we can let ourselves go, huh?”

    “Uh—yeah,” said Caro doubtfully; Charlie Roddenberry, much as she wanted him at this moment, had not struck her as at all the sort of man who really lets himself go—under any circumstances. When he then sat up and said seriously: “I guess your bedroom’s like the frozen northern wastes, huh? Shall I go turn the heater on—have you got a heater in there?” she was pretty sure he wasn’t the let-himself-go type—more the plan-every-move-carefully-in-advance type.

    “Of course I’ve got a heater!” she replied indignantly.

    “Good; and an electric blanket?”

    “Yes!”

    “Great; I’ll turn that on too,” he said, getting up and going over to the door; “because,” he added with a grin: “getting my balls frozen off in bed ain’t one of my favourite pursuits!”

    He was absolutely ages; Caro began to wonder if he’d gone to the “john” again—maybe he had a weak bladder? After fidgeting a little, and starting to get terribly nervous and trying to tell herself there was nothing to be nervous about she went cautiously into the bedroom.

    “Charlie? What are you doing?”

    “Looking at your books while that electric blanket does its thing. –This is a real nice edition of Hôtel du Lac.”

    “Yes. A friend in Melbourne gave it to me for my birthday; I never buy hardbacks, of course.”

    “Mm-hm,” he returned, closing the book. “I’ve only got it in paperback myself.” He returned it neatly to its correct place after the Stan Barstows and next to a very battered paperback of Our Mutual Friend.

    “You have?” said Caro weakly.

    “Sure. Why not?”

    “Uh—it’s just so English,” she said limply, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

    “Does that mean I can’t appreciate it?” said Charlie, grinning.

    “Not that you can’t,” replied Caro seriously. “Just that it isn’t a very likely thing for you to like, I wouldn’t have thought.”

    “You wouldn’t have thought wrong, then!”

    Caro didn’t reply. She felt the bed in what she imagined was an unobtrusive fashion.

    “Not warm yet.” He shivered. “Nor is this room; gee, how can you bear it?”

    She flushed. “Not everyone can afford a nightstore, you know!”

    “I’m sorry, honey. Listen...”

    “What?” said Caro, wishing the stupid trembling sensation inside her would stop; she wasn’t a kid, for God’s sake!

    “Shall we take a nice warm shower together? That’d warm us up; and then the bed’ll be good and warm by the time we came back... I guess,” he ended doubtfully, putting his hand inside it and frowning.

    “Okay,” said Caro, hoping he wouldn’t see the blush and assume she’d never done that before. He was definitely a planner, she decided. “That door over there is the bathroom door; it’s quite good, really: you can get to it either from the passage or from in here.”

    He got it that she was imparting this information out of nervousness, and didn’t bother to reply. He grinned down at her. “Well, I’ll turn the shower on, huh? Warm up the bathroom?”

    “Yes,” she said limply. “There isn’t a heater in there.”

    “I noticed.” He went through to the bathroom.

    Caro just sat there limply.

    “Do we seem very primitive, compared to America?” she said abruptly when he came back, pulling at his tie.

    He sat down beside her and smiled at her. “Will you bite my head off if I say yes?”

    “No.”

    He laughed. “Well, then: in some things—home comforts, in particular—yes, I’d say you were kinda primitive! You seem to think—well, judging from your houses, anyway—that there’s something wrong with being warm and comfortable—something almost sinful!” He laughed again. “Especially in the john—that downstairs one of the Riabouchinskys’ was as cold as charity!”

    “Yes, you’re right,” said Caro, watching out of the corner of her eye as he gave up on his tie and removed his dinner jacket. “It’s—it’s the pioneer heritage, or something.”

    “More like the Nonconformist and Low Church influence,” he replied mildly. ‘You gonna take your clothes off, honey?”

    “What?” she said faintly.

    He smiled into her eyes. “Never to mind; you just sit there; I’ll do it.” He knelt at her feet. This time when the long, strong hands touched her ankles Caro shuddered and gasped.

    Charlie looked up, grinning. “Does that turn you on?”

    “Yes!” she gasped.

    He kissed the inside of her right ankle, just below the bone. She shuddered and gasped: “Oh, Charlie!”

    He ran his hands up her calves and she shuddered again. “Did it turn you on at the party, when I took your sandals off?”

    She went very red. “All right! It did! So what?”

    “Turned me on, too,” he admitted, slipping her left sandal off and kissing the inside of that foot.

    Caro gasped again.

    He smiled, and stood up. “I’ll just check on that shower.”

    Yes, definitely a planner, decided Caro.

    When he came back, reporting that the shower was good, she got up and said: “Let me undo your tie.”

    Charlie stooped; Caro reached up. “You’ve got it all knotted—don’t you know how to tie a bowtie?”

    “Nope,” he said cheerfully. “I just try to get it looking okay; hadda cut one off myself, before now.”

    “Well, I think we may have to cut this one. –Ow!” She stuck her right forefinger in her mouth.

    Charlie took her hand gently. He stuck the right forefinger in his mouth. Caro shuddered all over as the dark eyes looked teasingly into hers.

    “Come on!” he said cheerfully. He stripped off his shirt.

    She smiled; he was wearing a woollen singlet under it. “You do feel the cold, don’t you?”

    “Sure do!” He stripped off the woolly singlet.

     Caro looked at his sinewy torso and forgot to smile.

    “What’s up?” said Charlie in surprize.

    “Nothing.” She flushed and turned away from him.

    He looked down at himself doubtfully. “I seem to have lost most of my tan... Don’t tell me it turns you off?”

    “If you must know, I—I like it too much,” said Caro in a muffled voice.

    Charlie pulled her round gently to face him. “There’s no such thing as liking it too much.”

    “Yes, there is! I’m awful! You’re—you’re so calm and collected, and I—”

    “I want you like Hell!” he said, jerking her into his arms and kissing her fiercely. “It’s killing me, I want you so much! Jesus—calm and collected!” He gave a crazy laugh and kissed her again.

    Caro gave a sudden sob and hid her face against his chest.

    “Don’t cry, honey; I can’t bear it... Am I—am I doing something wrong?”

    “No!” she gulped

    “Then what is it? Is there something you want me to do for you, honey?”

    “No— I—”

    “Something you want to do to me?” he said in a very low voice.

    “It’s stupid,” she muttered.

    “Just do it, sweetheart; you don’t have to ask me, or talk about it.”

    Caro kissed his chest timidly. She began to caress his torso. “Oh, Charlie!” she said suddenly.

    “Go on,” said Charlie hoarsely. “That’s so good`”

    “Is it?” she said doubtfully.

    “Uh-huh.”

    She ran her hands over his chest. He threw back his head and sighed deeply. “Oh, gee, Caro! Do that again!”

    Caro ran her hands all over his chest, his sides, his back, quite losing sight of the fact that he was a planner and maybe he hadn’t planned for this.

    When the hands came down to his buttocks he gasped, laughed a little, and pulled them gently away.

    “Don’t you like that?”

    “Sure I like it! You could take my pants off,” he noted.

    She took his pants off. Without being prompted she took his underpants off, too. There was a little silence.

    “I guess we can take it,” said Charlie, laughing a little but terribly excited, too, “that that view’s okay?”

    Caro looked up at him earnestly. “Yes.”

    He jerked her into his arms and kissed her fiercely. “Let me undress you, huh?” He laughed a little. “I’ve been kinda putting it off; afraid I’d get too excited—you know?”

    “Mm.” she agreed, as he fumbled at the zip in the back of her black dress. She swallowed hard. “Do it slowly.”

    Charlie chuckled. “I always do it slowly, honey—it ain’t near so much fun, otherwise!”

    She gave a surprized snort of laughter, and Charlie undressed her very slowly.

    “Yeah,” he said in satisfaction, “I thought it was a black lace bra.”

    “What?” she said faintly.

    He began to kiss her chest. “I thought it was black lace when I looked down your dress at the party.

    “When you what?”

    “You heard.” He tried to undo the bra one-handed while the other cupped her right breast.

    “I’d never have thought you were the sort of man who looked down girls’ bodices at parties,” said Caro dazedly.

    “I guess you don’t know a Helluva lot about me, yet.” He gave up on the one-handed bit and used both.

    Caro was sensitive about her bust measurement: she stood very still. She was quite sure that glamorous Californians like Christabel didn’t have busts that were too large for their height. Like most men, in her experience, he wasn’t very good at describing women, but he’d said she was “kinda tall” and blonde and, in a surprized voice, that yeah, she sure did go to the hairdresser a lot, he guessed; and Caro could just see her.

    Charlie gave a grunt of triumph as the bra’s hooks parted. To her astonishment he didn’t hurl it to the floor, but looked at it closely, running it through his fingers; then he looked hard at the label inside it. Caro went very red and stared fixedly at the flat, muscly chest that she so much admired.

    “I lose, I guess,” he murmured.

    “I suppose you were betting I wasn’t that big!” she said crossly.

    “Nope; I was betting you were a 40-C cup!” he said cheerfully.

    “38-D,” said Caro weakly.

    “Even better!” He threw the bra at the bed.

    “Better?”

    “Yeah—better for this!”

    “Oh, Charlie!”

    After a little they both began to breathe very heavily, and Caro clawed his back a bit. Finally he said: “I think we’d better take that shower, huh?”

    “Yes.” She put her hands to her waist to pull her pantyhose down.

    “I’ll do that,” he said in a funny voice.

    Oddly enough, Caro didn’t retort that she was perfectly capable of doing it. Charlie knelt and began to ease her pantyhose off. She was wearing lacy black bikini panties. He pressed his face into her belly. Caro shuddered. He licked her belly-button. Caro’s hands grabbed his shoulders very tight.

    “That turns you on, huh?” he said in a muffled voice.

    “Yes,” said Caro in a squeak. Her legs trembled.

    “Your belly turns me on like crazy. …Jesus!” He began to nibble it.

    “I thought Americans liked thin women,” Caro said dazedly.

    “Boxes,” he said indistinctly.

    “Mm—ooh!”

    He eased the pantyhose right off her. Then he put his face against her belly again.

    “Charlie—” said Caro uncertainly.

    “I love you, Caro,” said Charlie in a very funny voice. He slipped his hand inside the bikini panties and began to pull them off. Caro’s legs trembled again.

    He took a deep breath. “Gee, honey, when you react like that it’s all I can do not to jump right on top of you—y’know?”

    “Mm.”

    Charlie pushed his face against her thighs.

    “OH!” cried Caro.

    He sat back on his heels and grinned in triumph. “I guess we better stop right there, huh? Otherwise we’ll never get round to taking this shower.”

    “No; yes; I mean no,” agreed Caro.

    In the shower, seeing she’d got rather shy after starting in to soap him, he took the soap off of her and rubbed it on her left hand—since the right still had its bandage, now very soggy, on it. Then he placed her left hand on his cock. Then he gave a very loud, ecstatic groan. It was at around this point that Caro began to wonder if one could be a planner and still really let oneself go.

    Shortly after he’d wrapped her in a bath towel, picked her up bodily and, ignoring her cries of “What are you doing?” and “Put me down!” and similar futilities, carried her through to the bedroom and dumped her down on the bed, she became almost sure of it.

    Charlie hadn’t quite known what to expect from a funny little short, round girl, never having actually been to bed with one before. He’d known he wanted her like crazy—for reasons which he’d long since given up trying to understand—but he hadn’t been all that sure just how much she wanted him; and he’d rather thought that perhaps he might have to hold back more than a little—his natural style was rather athletic and entirely uninhibited. But after the first time, when—having groaned and writhed in quite a flattering way in response to his mouth and hands at various parts of her anatomy—Ms Webber had cried: “For God’s sake, Charlie! Put it into me!” and they had both climaxed cataclysmically as he had done so; after that first time, which was quite understandable as to his part in it, for hadn’t he been wanting her like crazy for months?—but perhaps not quite so understandable in one who’d been “going with” an architect guy for some time; after, then, that first time, Charlie soon found that this particular little round girl was as keen on it as he was and, with a bit of encouragement, almost as uninhibited; and certainly as athletic as one of that very satisfactory sort of roundness could possibly be expected to be.

    … “Jesus God,” he said weakly, quite some time after they’d both come for the third time and the grey light of dawn was filtering into the now very warm not to say steamy bedroom. “You’re a great lay, Caro.”

    “So are you,” said Ms Webber, from his chest.

    After quite a while she said sleepily: “I’d never have dreamed…”

    “What, honey pie?” He’d somehow started calling her that, round about the middle of the second time. Caro knew it was awfully American, not to say downright silly; but somehow it was rather nice.

    “Well—that you’d be like that in bed.”

    “Like what?” said Charlie blankly.

    “Well... So keen on it!”

    Charlie gave a shout of laughter.

    “So good at it, too,” she added, and yawned hugely.

    Dr Roddenberry, flat on his back, stark naked in Caro Webber’s very warm bedroom, went to sleep with a huge smirk on his long, thin American face.

    Caro stayed awake for a few minutes longer, wondering if she ought to get up and turn the heater off and retrieve the duvet from the floor. But she might disturb him; and he might get cold, if she turned the heater off. To Hell with the bloody electricity bill, she decided, and went to sleep, too.

    Donald Freeman’s lips trembled and he gave Caro a spaniel-like look of pathetic pleading: the sort of look that never failed to annoy her. Caro had been coping quite well up to this point; now, of course, she began to feel irritated.

    “I’m sorry, Donald,” she repeated firmly, “but that’s the way it is.”

    “But Caro—” said Donald in a trembling voice.

    She scowled. “No buts, Donald,” she said firmly and not very kindly. “That’s the way it is. –Sorry,” she added, for what felt like the fourteenth time.

    Donald’s lips trembled again and he said in a sulky voice: “I thought you loved me.”

    “I never said that!” she said hastily.

    His sherry-coloured eyes filled with tears. “I don’t understand... I mean—what’ve I done wrong?”

    “Nothing,” said Caro quickly. “It was good—honest.” Donald looked unconvinced, and very tearful still. “It was great!” she added quickly.

    “Then why?” he demanded in a sort of wail.

    She went very red and growled: “I told you; I’m in love with someone else. I can’t help it, Donald!”

    Donald ignored this last and said sulkily: “Who?”

    Redder than ever, Caro replied: “None of your business!”

    He went scarlet with mingled hurt and humiliation and mumbled, in what even to himself sounded like a babyish sulk: “All right, don’t tell me, then.”

    She repressed an impulse to say Well, all right, she wouldn’t, then, and looked at him doubtfully. He still looked as if he might cry at any moment. “Look, it was never serious for me, but it really was good, Donald; I mean it.” Donald didn’t reply. “I can’t help being in love with someone else,” she added, a note of desperation creeping into her voice.

    “No,” he agreed hoarsely.

    There was a silence. Caro stared fixedly at her sitting-room carpet.

    “I suppose I’d better go,” said Donald abruptly.

    “Yes,” she agreed, unable to keep the relief out of her voice.

    Looking very cross all of a sudden, he marched over to the door. “Well... Goodbye, then.”

    “Goodbye,” replied Caro weakly.

    Donald marched out, slamming the door after him.

    Caro sank limply onto her sofa. “Oh, boy,” she muttered after quite some time. “Still, at least it’s done. Phew!”

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/corollaries-and-complications.html