Free The Last One Left by John D. MacDonald

with a blitheness and directness that disconcerted him as much as it pleased him. He had taken her bay fishing on her afternoon off, and then they had gone to a place which would broil their catch for them and which served cold draught beer in big chilled steins. Then he had to hurry her home because she was alarmed that she might miss the beginning of what she declared was her third favorite television program.
    The show did not intrigue him. He sat on the couch, dulled by the afternoon on the water, by the beer and food. He fought to stay awake. Then he was awakened by the sudden warm weight of her on his lap, her arms around his neck. The set was off, the room dark. A weak lamp in her bedroom made a path of light out through the half-open bedroom door. There was a nervous edge to her small laughter, and an anxious quaver in her voice as she said in her butchered English, “What kind of boyfriend I’m telling Rosita I’m having, eh? Sotch a trouble her boy is giving her, I tell you, every minute. I see you looking to me with the quick little eye, eh? I wait, wait, wait. Nothings, eh? I am loving you, Kelleeeee, something tough. But ’Cisca is maybe a little scare now you theenk—I’m a bad theeng.”
    As he held her, turned her to find her lips, telling her she was not a bad theeng, but indeed a very fine, a very splendid theeng, he realized with a shock and exultation there was nothing between thewarmth of her and the clasp of his hands upon her but a wispy sheerness of short nightie.
    She was shaky and nervous, and quite unschooled in her role, but eager in a rather dogged and determined way, and intensely inquisitive. They were together many times before quite suddenly, a week later, it began to be right for her; and once she knew what was sought, and could identify the earlier warnings, it became vastly right, and after many times when she indulged herself to the point of drugging herself with pure and prolonged sensation, she quite suddenly and earnestly set about learning him as completely as she had learned herself, asking intent little questions about how this was for him, and that, and how near was he now.
    During this past month, the second month of their lovemaking, they had gradually established agreeable physical patterns. Yet he felt a sense of loss he could not quite identify. This supposedly ultimate intimacy was less than the intimacy he had sought. She was as merry and happy as before. At the beach he had taught her an efficient crawl. In the bays he had taught her how to manage a spinning reel and play a fish. This bed business was apparently, to her, another activity they could share. She had a casual and willing acceptance of him whenever the time and the place was suitable, and she would talk of other things at times, and then become intent when passion began to become more immediate. Pleasure made her chuckle. And she took quite an obvious satisfaction in their being able to make love quite skillfully. She would tell him, with a little shading of regret, the moment she realized she would not be able to finish, then would settle herself to making it as enjoyable for him as she could, sometimes adding mischievous innovations.
    When she had been ended, she liked to be held quietly for a little while, petted and kissed, but with hardly any more emotional content than in the cuddling of a trusting puppy exhausted by play.
    It was all hearty and easy and most enjoyable, but once when hewas on the edge of sleep, where reality and fantasy are merged, not daring to let himself go to sleep because he knew he had to get up and leave her bed, he had the strange conviction that he had desired Francisca Torcedo y Sarmantar, but knowing the impossibility of ever possessing her, had eased the itch of wanting by taking this girl who now rested in his arms, a servant girl, one of the chunky little ones with a broad dusty pocked face, a willing laugh, a casual acceptance of him and his needs. So vivid was the