Pentimento

Carole was helpful, he remembered, but not managerial. He was tentative. She was patient. He hurried. She patted him gently.

“Just let it happen,” she murmured, “people know how to do this at birth, just let it happen.”

He could feel himself loosen, feel the rhythm of it, feel himself expand and intensify, feel his existence narrow to her face, just below him, her eyes very wide.

“Let it come, Marine,” she murmured, “let everything come.”

It was his first time. He didn’t last long. As he ejaculated he hugged her so hard she could barely breathe.

“Everything,” she murmured, “everything.”

He began to cry, gasping for breath as the sobs racked him, his body shaking. Eventually he slowed, and finally he lay still against her, his face against her naked breast. He cried softly. She kept her arms around him and patted.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m here. You’re here with me. It’s all right.”

“Can I stay with you?” he said.

“Of course,” she said and patted him some more. “Of course.”

He kept his head against her. She smelled of soap and perfume, and something else, something female and alive. Like her bare legs, he would always remember how she smelled.

They were quiet like that, lying in her bed, in the small apartment, on the second floor, with the air stirring through the open window enough to stir the curtains.

“I feel funny about crying,” he said.

“No need.”

“Men shouldn’t cry.”

“Of course they should,” she said. “They cry all the time.”

“You’re the first woman...”

“I know,” she said. “It’s been all men, and high places, and not being afraid. No softness. No love.”

“My father loved me,” Burke said.

“Not like a woman,” she said.

“No,” he said. “Not like that.”

“With a woman you needn’t pretend,” she said. “You can be whatever you are.”

“I guess so,” Burke said. “Can we have intercourse again?”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course we can.”

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