Free Hearts Unfold by Karen Welch Page A

benches.   He pressed his back into the edge of the
table, bracing against the wind that tore at his hair and caused his eyes to
fill with tears.
    He was angry,
most of all at himself.   If he had only
said no to Betsy's impetuous invitation, he'd be sleeping peacefully in a warm
hotel room, instead of freezing on some dark hillside in the middle of the
night.   While Betsy and Mark expressed
their ill-begotten passion on the front seat of a car, like teenagers at a
lover's leap, he was probably contracting pneumonia.   How would he explain that to Milo, when he
collapsed with fever and missed his concert dates?
    Not that he
hadn't engaged in the same sort of frenzied, spontaneous sex himself.   It seemed to be what was expected by the
girls who approached him at parties, who dressed themselves in the provocative
uniform of the current sexual revolution.   They were warriors indeed, preferring aggression to seduction.   Stani would have preferred a gentler, more
sensual form of lovemaking to that which always seemed to include the tearing
of clothes and the biting of flesh.   His
first sexual experience had been with a much older woman, who had taught him
well the more considered methods that led to mutual pleasure, rather than
frantic, uninspired coupling in dark corners with a perfect stranger.   He found himself avoiding the inevitable
pairing off.   How had Lil described
it?   Disgusting?   Whisky helped there, too.   He had discovered that if he drank enough
early on, by the time the offer came, he was in no condition to accept.
    Stani knew that
deep down, he found casual sex offensive.   How could anything so intensely personal be considered casual?   Although he had never been in love, he felt
sure such an intimate act must be most satisfying when the man and woman
involved actually knew and respected one another.   Surely, through coming to know a partner's
mind, their passions and aspirations, the act of lovemaking would become
something shared, not merely performed, something spiritual, even sacred.   He had yet to experience anything remotely
like his ideal.   He doubted he would ever
find it if he persisted in following people like Betsy and Mark to smoke-filled
lodges, or drinking until he couldn't remember what he'd done the night
before.   Once again, he thought of the
girl at the party.   She had been a flash
of conscience, showing him his world through her eyes.   He would do better, he promised himself.   Exercise a little discipline, grow up.   Just as soon as this unholy night was over,
once he was back in DC doing what he'd come to do, he would try harder to be
the Stani Moss that Lil Salvatore would expect him to be.
    Betsy opened
the window and waved to him to return to the car.   He got in silently, grateful to be out of the
blistering cold.   As Mark steered back
onto the roadway, Betsy turned to Stani and smiled sweetly.   “Thanks,” she whispered.   He hoped again that she wouldn't be too badly
hurt by this man she believed she was saving.
    In the warmth
of the car's interior, Stani quickly fell asleep.   The music from the radio, soft jazz, blurred
the sound of voices in the front seat.   When he woke again, Mark had stopped the car close to the entrance of an
all-night truck stop.   They were near the
junction with the interstate highway that would carry them back to DC.   Betsy ran inside, he supposed to use the
restroom, and for the first time since they'd left the lodge, Mark acknowledged
Stani's presence in the car.   Meeting his
gaze in the rear view mirror, he asked if Stani had known Betsy long.
    “Since high
school,” he replied, implying a long relationship.   For some reason, he felt Mark should know that
Betsy had friends who cared what happened to her.
    “You're some
kind of musician.   Piano?”
    “Violin.”
    “Bet that gets
you lots.   Chicks go for that kind of
thing.   Romance.   You ever done Betsy?”
    By this time,
Stani knew he was