From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [193]
“Nobody ever loved me like you love me,” Karen said snugly cozily.
“Nobody?” he said.
Karen laughed and it was like honey dripping from a spoon back into the jar between you and the sunlight.
“No, nobody,” she said.
“Not even one?” he said, jokingly. “Out of all the many men you’ve been loved by?”
“Well,” Karen said still laughingly, “that will take some figuring. Have you got a pencil? How many men do you think I’ve been loved by, darling?”
“I wouldnt know,” he joked. “Cant you even make me a rough estimate?”
“Not without an adding machine,” Karen said, a little less laughingly. “Do you have your adding machine with you?”
“No,” he joked. “I forgot to bring it.”
“Then I guess you wont find out, will you?” Karen said not laughingly at all.
“Maybe I already know.”
She sat up in the bed then and looked at him demandingly, suddenly a more positive personality than he had ever seen her, more even than that first time at the house before the kid came home.
“Whats the matter, Milt?” she said still looking at him. It sounded crisp and wifely, as if she had called him Milton.
“Why, nothing,” he grinned stiffly. “Why?”
“Yes there is,” she said. “What are you hinting at?”
“Hinting at?” he grinned. “I wasnt hinting at anything. I was only kidding you.”
“No you werent,” she said. “What are you upset about?”
“About nothing,” Warden said. “Why? Is there something I should be upset about? Is there something to hint at?”
“I dont know,” she said. “Maybe a lot. Or maybe you just think theres a lot.
“Tell me,” Capt Holmes’s wife said. “What is it? Dont you feel well? Did you eat something?”
“Dont worry about my health, baby.”
“Then tell me what it is. Why dont you tell me?”
“Okay,” he said. “Did you ever hear of a guy named Maylon Stark?”
“Why, yes,” Karen said distinctly. “I know Maylon Stark. He’s the company mess sergeant.”
“Thats right. He also use to be a cook in Holmes’s troop at Bliss. Maybe you knew him then too?”
“Yes,” Karen said looking at him. “I knew him then too.”
“Maybe you knew him pretty well then?”
“Well enough,” Karen said.
“Maybe you know him even better now?”
“No,” Karen said looking at him. “I dont know him at all now. In fact, I havent seen him to speak to in eight years.” She kept on looking at him, when he did not answer, and then she saw his hand. “You must have hit him very hard,” she said.
“I didnt hit him at all,” Warden said. “Lets not romanticize anything. I hit the wall. Why should I hit him?”
“Oh, you damn fool,” she said angrily. “You crazy damn fool.” She picked his hand up tenderly.
“Ouch,” he said. “Watch out.”
“What did he say to you?” she asked him, still holding his hand tenderly.
Warden looked at her, then at his hand. Then he looked back at her.
“He said he’d fucked you,” Warden said.
It spread out across the room like a shell burst and he could have bitten off the tongue that said it. In the sustained suspension of the roar he could see the glaze of shock from the concussion take hold of her. But she recovered quickly. She recovered very quickly, he thought bitterly admiringly. Probably she had known what was coming.
Why are you doing this? What ever made you say a thing like that? Does it make any difference to you if she did? No, it doesn’t make any difference to you. Then why are you doing it? But he had known, of course, what he was doing. He knew the first word, once uttered, led inevitably to this. It all seemed remarkably familiar like something