From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [214]
“Come on, honey,” Lorene panted. “You’re not even trying.”
Then, as if to prove it, there was a big broad knock on the door and Petunia hollered, “All right in there, yawl. Y’time’s up, Miss Lorene.”
“All right,” Lorene bawled.
“Try,” Lorene panted. “Or I’ll have to give you a raincheck.”
Try what for?
“To hell with it,” he said. “Fuck it. I quit. I give up.” He got up and got a handkerchief from his pants and wiped the sweat out of his eyes.
“Whats wrong with you tonight?”
“I guess I had two too many drinks. Piss on it,” he said. He put his pants on. Then he put his shirt on. Then he wiped his face again. He did not have to put his shoes on.
“I’m sorry it didnt work, Prew.”
“Whats to be sorry for? You done your best, dint you? Your professional best.”
As she handed him the printed card and refund, Lorene looked rather like a girl who has failed to pass her finals and been flunked out. She wanted to redeem her reputation.
“Will you be back tomorrow night?”
“I dont think so,” Prew said, looking at the buck and a half in his hand that would make the car fare for tomorrow night. “Anyway, dont you hold your breath until you see me, lady.”
“Now don’t be like that. Thats no way to be. Theres no need to get mad. Lots of fellows get rainchecks, all the time. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Raincheck?” he said. “Piss on the raincheck.” He tore the card in two and laid it carefully on the bed. “Give that to some other three-minute man. I aint worried about my virility.”
“All right, if thats the way you feel.”
“Thats exactly how I feel.”
“Okay. Well, I’ve got to go. Maybe I’ll see you sometime.”
He watched her put the gown on and leave, hoping she would say something else, something more, wanting her to make the overture he could not make. Even in the anger he did not want to destroy it between them. She stopped at the door and looked back at him a second and he knew she was waiting for him to make the overture. But he could not make it. She would have to make it. But she could not make it either. And she left.
He finished dressing in the room alone. The room was muggy like before a storm with evaporated sweat, but when he stepped out in the hall it was no better and his eyes and temples pounded with undischarged, unrelieved, too-rich blood. His face was flushed with it, and already he had sweat through the back of his shirt and the ass of his pants. Well, he thought, thats the first time that ever happened to you. You must be changing somehow. Some way or other. He felt very sick and very angry.
In the hallway he met Maureen standing in the doorway of her room taking a breather. Somebody had sneaked a bottle in to her and she was half drunk.
“Well, look who’s here,” she bawled. “Hi there, Babyface. Hey, why so glum? Cant you get in to see your own true love?”
“You want to go to the room with me?”
“Who? Me? Whats wrong with the Holy Princess, Babyface?”
“To hell with her. I’m asking you.”
“They really keep the Princess on the move, dont they? all the lonesome lovesick joes? God-damn, wish I looked like a virgin. They dont want whores any more, they all want mothers. To protect them. What you need is a wife, Babyface.”
“Okay, lets get married.”
Maureen stopped guffawing and looked at him. “Hell, you dont need no wife. What you need is a drink, and you need it bad. Come on, I got a bottle hid under the bunk,” she