From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [190]
“Well,” Karen said, “at least I know with whom I am classed now. I wonder what their husbands do, to pass the time?”
“How the hell should I know?” Warden said, gradually being forced back onto the defensive. “Hang around down town and smoke cigars and discuss business prospects for next year, I guess. What would you guess?”
Karen laughed. “I thought perhaps they might go to stags. In a private apartment upstairs in the Officers Club. Thats where mine goes.” She stood up primly. “Well, I guess its about time for me to be getting back home, isnt it?” she said.
“Isnt it?” she said lightly.
“Isnt it, Milt?” she said piercingly sweetly. “Isnt it time?”
Warden swallowed his gorge. He saw that if anybody swallowed their gorge it would have to be him, so he swallowed his. “Listen,” he said humbly. “What the hell started all this? I didnt start it, or if I did I didnt mean to.”
Karen looked at him and then she sat back down. She reached over and took his hand, the nearest one which was the left one. She smiled brimmingly at him through the half dark. “And I would let it all go to pot, wouldnt I? Because of my silly pride.
“I’m not very pleasant to be around, am I?” she said softly. “I wouldnt see why you’d love me. I’m not gay at all. You never see me gay and happy, do you? Sometimes I am gay though, when I’m feeling well, really I am. You’ll have to believe I’m gay sometimes. And I’ll try and be gay for you.”
“Here,” Warden said painfully. He handed her the bottle. “I brang you a present, lady.”
“Why, darling,” Karen said. “A bottle. I love it. Give it to me. I’ll drink it all up by myself.”
“Hey now,” he grinned, “wait a minute. I want a little.” He felt, foolishly, very near to crying, and over nothing.
“Give it to me,” Karen said again. And she stood up and the prim tenseness had left her completely, leaving her looking suddenly long and loose and free swinging. She took the bottle and held it in her left arm against the confining thinness of the summer print, carrying it that way, cradled lovingly like a baby, and looking at him.
“I’ll give it to you, baby,” Warden said, watching her. “I’ll really give it to you, baby, all of it.”
“Will you?” she said, leaning her head back and looking at him. “Really? All of it? You like to give it to me, dont you? I mean because its me?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
“Then lets go now,” she said emotionally. “Lets go home now, Milt. Little Milt.” She took his left hand with her right, still holding the bottle cradled with the other, and swinging them as they walked leaned her head back and looked up at him.
Warden grinned down at her. But inside he felt the irritated anger come back strong, now that he was sure she was not going to run out on him. He was hurt and provoked suddenly because she had made him feel like crying foolishly over nothing, just to satisfy her pride.
“We better walk down the beach,” he said, grinning to hide it. “Be hardly nobody on the beach now at night.”
“All right,” Karen said silkily. “The beach it is. And to hell with them, what do we care for them? A fig for them. Wait a minute,” she said and holding onto him with the hand that held the bottle she raised first one long free-moving leg and then the other and slipped her shoes off, wiggling her toes in the sand.
Warden felt his irritated anger fade before a surge of a much stronger emotion.
“Now,” she laughed throatily, and leaned her head back and looked at him in that way she had. “Lets go.”
They walked down the beach, the narrow, much touted, disappointing, grapefruit rind floating in the daytime but lovely now at night, Waikiki Beach, walking at the water’s edge where the sand was firm and damp, Karen in her bare feet and with her head leaned back exposing the long smooth lovely line of throat looking up at him and swinging their two arms childishly