Free Contrary Pleasure by John D. MacDonald Page A

clerked in a
supermarket—a dull young man of the bovine type who loved her very much indeed
and they were both saving money toward the marriage.
    In spite of the very delicate and very lovely configuration of her face,
she would be supremely dull. She would buy confession-type comic books, and she
would have one of those little record players and a collection of sweet-and-low
records, and she would have a whole collection of sticky pet names for her
bovine friend.
    He told himself that he was a stable and well-adjusted thirty-six, and it
was a bit too early for the reputedly dangerous forties. And he told himself he
couldn’t possibly get acquainted with her without the whole damn mill knowing
about it, snickering behind his back at this lurid spectacle of this
mustachioed chaser of mill girls, this Eros-smitten executive, this deviant
Delevan.
    But he found Lefferts Avenue and drove down it
and found Number 60 and noted its shabbiness and the smeared window signs which
told of furnished rooms to rent.
    Counterbalancing the sour case histories he made up there were the warm
bright dreams. And those dreams sent him walking in the mill, walking by her
station as often as he dared. He knew that she had become aware of him and of
his interest. She showed that by her intent preoccupation with her routine task
when he was near, by the faint coloring of cheek and throat, by a certain
self-conscious awkwardness of movement.
    He learned more about her. He learned that she walked back and forth each
day and he learned the route she took. Yet he did not quite dare take the next
step. Yet knew that he would take it. Soon. Knew that he had to. Knew he was being
driven by something more involved and ornamented than a simple lust for the girlness of her.
    And there came an early evening near the first of April when he left the
parking lot as the factory girls were leaving. It had been unseasonably warm
and there was a line storm moving on the city, yellowing the western sky,
muttering with the first untried thunder of the year. He started to drive home.
The first fat drops spattered the asphalt, thrummed on the canvas top of his
car. He saw how it could be and he turned recklessly and bulled his way back
through traffic, intersecting the route she took. He looked for her, imagining
how she would look running through the rain. And he nearly missed her. He
caught a glimpse of her, standing in the doorway of a small store. He braked
quickly and the car behind him yelped in surprise and indignation before
swerving around him. He backed up when he could and opened the door on her
side. The city was dark with the rain. He touched the horn ring and saw her
look rigidly in the other direction, purse hugged in her arm.
    “Bonny!” he called and saw her start and stare toward the car and knew
she hadn’t recognized him, knew she could not see him clearly. She took two
slow steps out into the heavy rain and then scampered across the wide sidewalk
and then stopped, half in and half out of the car, looking at him with
recognition and uncertainty.
    “Get in before you drown,” he said.
    She got in with that young awkwardness and pulled the heavy door shut,
and with it shut he could smell the wet fabric of her. She laughed in a thin
nervous way and, sitting far forward on the seat, said, “I’m getting your car
all wet.” Her voice disappointed him a little. It was thin, childish, a bit
nasal.
    “That doesn’t matter.”
    “How did you know my name, Mr. Delevan?”
    “I guess I heard one of the other girls talking to you. Something like
that.”
    He started the car up. She accepted his answer. She moved her legs a bit,
with a sort of slow caution. She still held her purse hugged tightly against
her. He sensed her uneasiness, her shyness. This, after all, was an executive.
One of the owners.
    “You turn left at the next corner, Mr. Delevan, and then—”
    “I know,” he said, speaking before he thought. And he waited for her to ask
him