Free Shiva and Other Stories by Catska Ench, Barry N. Malzberg, Cory Ench Page B

the light. There, he said, that’s good. That’s what I want. His voice had thickened, whether with passion or contempt she had no idea. They were still at that tentative state of connection where all moves were suspect, all signals indeterminate.
    Ah, he said, you’re a piece all right. That’s what you are.
    I’ve never done this before, she said. I’ve never done anything like this before. I want you to know that. She looked out the window, the gray clouds on the high floor hammering at the panes. Way, way up now. For everything there’s a first time, she said.
    Right, he said, humoring her. Whatever you say. I’m your first. Best in the world. Anything for a hump. He backed against a chair, crouched, fell into the cushions, stared at her from that angle, looking upward intently, checking out her crotch, then the high angle of her breasts, pulled upward within the brassiere, arching. He muttered something she could not hear and raised a hand.
    What is it? she said. What do you want?
    Come here. I want you to come here right now.
    Tell me why.
    I don’t want games, he said. We’ll have time for that later. You want to fool around, play with yourself. Come over here. Move it.
    Can’t you be a little kinder? I told you, I’ve never done anything like this before.
    You want a commendation? he said. A Congressional Medal of Honor? He cleared his throat, looked at her with an odd and exacting impatience. Everybody has to have a first time, he said. Even I did once. I got through it. You’ll get through it too. But you have to close your eyes and jump. Move it over here now.
    This isn’t the way I thought it would be, she said.
    How did you think it would be? Flowers and wine? Tchaikovsky on the turntable? White Russians with straws? This is the setup, he said, this is what a nooner feels like. You don’t hang out in bars midday if you’re not looking for a nooner.
    She looked at him, almost as if for the first time, noting the age spots on his arms, the fine, dense wrinkling around the eyes, which she had not noticed in the bar. Could she back out now? No, she thought, she couldn’t. This was not the way it was done. That was all behind her now. I’m on the forty-eighth floor and that’s all there is to it and no one in the world except this man knows I’m here. Not the kids, not Harry, not the cops. Okay, she said, I’m coming. She went toward him, trying to make her stockings glide, trying to move the way they moved in this kind of scene on Dallas . Maybe she could break him on the anvil of desire. Maybe she could quit him. Maybe—
    There was a pounding on the door. Open up, someone in the hall said, open it! Open it now! The voice was huge, insistent.
    For God’s sake, she said, who is that?
    He was trembling. I don’t know, he said. What have you put us into? Detectives? Photographers? You got me into this, bitch. He backed away from her. His lips moved but there was no sound.
    The noises in the hall were enormous, like nothing she had ever heard. The hammering was regular, once every three or four seconds now, an avid panting just beyond earshot. Like fucking, that’s how it sounded. Last chance, the voice said. You open the goddamned door or we break it down.
    What have you done? she said to the man. Stunned, absolutely without response, he ran his hands over his clothing, looked stupidly at the belt. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she said. This wasn’t part of it. Who is out there?
    Nothing. He had nothing to say. He brought his clothing against him helplessly in the thin off-light in which she had so recently posed. She heard the sound of keys in the hallway. They were going to open the door.
    * * *
    An hour earlier in the bar she had said, Let’s go now. I have a room in the Lenox around the corner.
    Fast mover, he had said. His briefcase was on his lap, concealing an erection she supposed, one elbow draped over it awkwardly, clutching the briefcase there, the other hand running up and