Free Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner Page B

some laughing gas.”
    “What would you say if I told you that it’s almost eleven twenty and I should get ready to pick up my son?”
    “I’d say make love to me first.” In her sudden giddiness it came out without warning and made her more giddy. Suddenly she got up and moved over so that she was sitting in his lap instead of next to him on the floor. She threw her arms around him and kissed him. He was thrown off balance and went down backward butshe continued to cling to him, kissing him, rubbing against him until finally he gave in to her and returned her warmth. She felt quite wild and out of control; she was on a tightrope but he was there with her and if she fell, he would fall too. She unzipped his fly, lying on top of him. He asked what on earth had gotten into her but he was laughing and having a good time, too. She kissed him—his face, his neck. Leaning slightly to one side she took his penis out of his pants and caressed it. He put both his hands under his head and lay absolutely still, watching her. She got off her underpants and straddled him as he’d straddled her last time except that she was sitting on his penis, which felt marvelous, and she moved around on it and bounced up and down on it with almost total abandonment to pleasure, only the tiniest corner of her mind telling her that she was crazy, that she was too far out someplace, that when you were having this much fun something terrible had to happen next, be careful, Theresa, something terrible has to happen but doesn’t it feel wonderful—oh, oh, oh—
    He came when she could have gone on and on and on.
    He opened his eyes. She smiled. He watched her without smiling. Suddenly she became self-conscious. A little frightened. She got off him. He looked at his watch. He stood up, fixed his pants. When he spoke his voice was neutral but she was convinced that he was looking at her with hatred.
    “I have to get Jed. Slam the door on your way out, don’t bother about locking it.”
    On Friday, the last day she was to see him before vacation, a period she was not certain she would survive, he handed her an envelope and told her it contained her payment for the months that she’d worked for him.
    She said that she’d thought he’d forgotten about that, that she had never wanted him to pay her. He said that was silly, her services had been invaluable to him, she had saved him countlesshours of tedium and stress, and besides, the money was not only tax deductible but was meaningless to him. Which, of course, was why she didn’t want it.
    He kissed her cheek and told her she was a lovely girl and he was going to miss her. He said he was expecting her to be a marvelous typist by September and then they would begin work on his masterpiece.
    In the envelope was a check for $216; in the bottom left-hand corner of the check, where there was a line for explanation, it read: Cler. Assist. 18wks/6 hrs/wk @$2/hr.
    She was unutterably depressed.
    She took the check home and hid it in a drawer (she’d never told her parents about him), thinking she would keep the check forever. Then she thought he would be angry with her if she did that, so she spent the first morning of her vacation finding the savings bank nearest his home and opening an account there with his check.
    Brigid got married to Patrick Kelly and began having babies.
    Katherine was trying to get pregnant and couldn’t. With Brooks’s encouragement she was going back to school in the fall. She didn’t know just what she wanted to do with her schooling, she was just going to go to NYU and start working to get a B.A.
    “Unless you get a B-A-B-Y,” Theresa said, meaning it as a casual joke, but Katherine burst into tears and ran out of the room.
    “Theresa,” her mother said.
    “I know you didn’t mean it to hurt,” said Brooks, on his way to find Katherine and comfort her. “But she’s very sensitive on this one, Terry.”
    So would I be if I’d had an abortion.
    “I don’t know