The Secret History - Donna Tartt [142]
We sat for a while without saying anything. I put my teacup on the windowsill and leaned back. The Demerol had set off some kind of weird Doppler effect in my head, like the whine of car tires speeding past and receding in the distance. I was staring across the room in a daze—how long, I don’t know—when gradually I became aware that Francis was looking at me with an intent, fixed expression on his face. I mumbled something and got up and went to the bureau to get an Alka-Seltzer.
The sudden movement made me feel light-headed. I was standing there dully, wondering where I’d put the box, when all of a sudden I became aware that Francis was immediately behind me, and I turned around.
His face was very close to mine. To my surprise he put his hands on my shoulders and leaned forward and kissed me, right on the mouth.
It was a real kiss—long, slow, deliberate. He’d caught me off balance and I grabbed his arm to keep from falling; sharply, he drew in his breath and his hands went down to my back and before I knew it, more from reflex than anything else, I was kissing him, too. His tongue was sharp. His mouth had a bitter, mannish taste, like tea and cigarettes.
He pulled away, breathing hard, and leaned to kiss my throat. I looked rather wildly around the room. God, I thought, what a night.
“Look, Francis,” I said, “cut it out.”
He was undoing the top button of my collar. “You idiot,” he said, chuckling. “Did you know your shirt’s on inside-out?”
I was so tired and drunk I started to laugh. “Come on, Francis,” I said. “Give me a break.”
“It’s fun,” he said. “I promise you.”
Matters progressed. My jaded nerves began to stir. His eyes were magnified and wicked behind his pince-nez. Presently he took them off and dropped them on my bureau with an absent clatter.
Then, quite unexpectedly, there was another knock at the door. We sprang apart. His eyes were wide. We stared at each other, and then the knock came again.
Francis swore under his breath, bit his lip. I, panic-stricken, buttoning my shirt as fast as my numb fingers would go, started to say something but he made a quick, shushing gesture at me with his hand.
“But what if it’s—?” I whispered.
I had been about to say “What if it’s Henry?” But what I was actually thinking was “What if it’s the cops?” Francis, I knew, was thinking the same thing.
More knocking, more insistent this time.
My heart was pounding. Bewildered with fear, I crossed to my bed and sat down.
Francis ran a hand through his hair. “Come in,” he called.
I was so upset that it took me a moment to realize it was only Charles. He was leaning with one elbow against the door frame, his red scarf slung into great careless loops around his neck. When he stepped in my room I saw immediately that he was drunk. “Hi,” he said to Francis. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You scared us to death.”
“I wish I’d known you were coming. Henry called and got me out of bed.”
The two of us looked at him, waiting for him to explain. He jostled off his coat and turned to me with a watery, intense gaze. “You were in my dream,” he said.
“What?”
He blinked at me. “I just remembered,” he said. “I had a dream tonight. You were in it.”
I stared at him. Before I had a chance to tell him he was in my dream, too, Francis said impatiently: “Come on, Charles. What’s the matter?”
Charles ran a hand through his windblown hair. “Nothing,” he said. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers folded lengthwise. “Did you do your Greek for today?” he asked me.
I rolled my eyes. Greek had been the about the last thing on my mind.
“Henry thought you might have forgot. He called and asked me to bring mine for you to copy, just in case.”
He was very drunk. He wasn’t slurring his words, but he smelled of whiskey and he was extremely unsteady on his feet. His face was flushed and radiant as an angel’s.
“You talked to Henry? Has he heard anything?”
“He’s very annoyed