Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [175]
“Who were the other men that had you?”
He looked at her as if the question were a sight visualized in every detail, a sight he loathed, but would not abandon; she heard the contempt in his voice, the hatred, the suffering—and an odd eagerness that did not pertain to torture; he had asked the question, holding her body tight against him.
She answered evenly, but he saw a dangerous flicker in her eyes, as of a warning that she understood him too well. “There was only one other, Hank.”
“When?”
“When I was seventeen.”
“Did it last?”
“For some years.”
“Who was he?”
She drew back, lying against his arm; he leaned closer, his face taut; she held his eyes. “I won’t answer you.”
“Did you love him?”
“I won’t answer.”
“Did you like sleeping with him?”
“Yes!”
The laughter in her eyes made it sound like a slap across his face, the laughter of her knowledge that this was the answer he dreaded and wanted.
He twisted her arms behind her, holding her helpless, her breasts pressed against him; she felt the pain ripping through her shoulders, she heard the anger in his words and the huskiness of pleasure in his voice: “Who was he?”
She did not answer, she looked at him, her eyes dark and oddly brilliant, and he saw that the shape of her mouth, distorted by pain, was the shape of a mocking smile.
He felt it change to a shape of surrender, under the touch of his lips. He held her body as if the violence and the despair of the way he took her could wipe his unknown rival out of existence, out of her past, and more: as if it could transform any part of her, even the rival, into an instrument of his pleasure. He knew, by the eagerness of her movement as her arms seized him, that this was the way she wanted to be taken.
The silhouette of a conveyor belt moved against the strips of fire in the sky, raising coal to the top of a distant tower, as if an inexhaustible number of small black buckets rode out cf the earth in a diagonal line across the sunset. The harsh, distant clatter kept going through the rattle of the chains which a young man in blue overalls was fastening over the machinery, securing it to the flatcars lined on the siding of the Quinn Ball Bearing Company of Connecticut.
Mr. Mowen, of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company across the street, stood by, watching. He had stopped to watch, on his way home from his own plant. He wore a light overcoat stretched over his short, paunchy figure, and a derby hat over his graying, blondish head. There was a first touch of September chill in the air. All the gates of the Quinn plant buildings stood wide open, while men and cranes moved the machinery out; like taking the vital organs and leaving a carcass, thought Mr. Mowen.
“Another one?” asked Mr. Mowen, jerking his thumb at the plant, even though he knew the answer.
“Huh?” asked the young man, who had not noticed him standing there.
“Another company moving to Colorado?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s the third one from Connecticut in the last two weeks,” said Mr. Mowen. “And when you look at what’s happening in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and all along the Atlantic coast ...” The young man was not looking and did not seem to listen. “It’s like a leaking faucet,” said Mr. Mowen, “and all the water’s running out to Colorado. All the money.” The young man flung the chain across and followed it deftly, climbing over the big shape covered with canvas. “You’d think people would have some feeling for their native state, some loyalty ... But they’re running away. I don’t know what’s happening to people.”
“It’s the Bill,” said the young man.
“What Bill?”
“The Equalization of Opportunity Bill.”
“How do you mean?”
“I hear Mr. Quinn was making plans a year ago to open a branch in Colorado. The Bill knocked that out cold. So now he’s made up his mind to move there, lock, stock and barrel.”
“I don’t see where that makes it right. The Bill was necessary. It’s a rotten shame—old firms that have been here for generations ... There ought to be a