The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [362]
“Just a minute,” she gasped.
Studs sat beside her, humiliatingly impassioned, his hands almost trembling, and he felt that he must look like a fool to her. She sat up, smiling painfully. He sank back limply. He was thirsty, his hair was mussed, and he had lost all control of himself. Perspiration dripped under his armpits, making the hair in that spot stiff and sticky.
She arose and he felt it was goodbye. She pulled her dress over her head. He leaped to her and pulled it off. He quickly removed his coat, tie, shoes, socks, and shirt, and looked at her, partially nude in the semi-darkness. He choked with pride. She was doing this because of him, passion for him, because of his kisses, his touches, himself. She lay down wantonly, and like a grateful puppy he kissed her gently. She held him against her, and he could feel the warmth of her flesh. He tore wildly at the straps of her undergarment.
“No,” she feebly protested.
“Come on,” he muttered with hoarse impetuosity.
She sat up, and permitted him to strip her. She turned her head aside, shyly, and sat beside him, naked.
“I better save the press in my trousers,” he said seriously. She smiled. Suddenly he was beside her, feeling ridiculous in B.V.D.’s.
“No, we can’t do that, please, please, darling,” she begged, almost frantic.
He disregarded her. She sighed, moaned in pain. Clumsy, impatient, uncontrolled, he sensed that it was all a mess. She moaned again, and he winced. And then they lay together, their bodies warm and moist, and she trembled, sobbing quietly.
Darkness was covering the room like a cloak, and he felt as if they were off alone somewhere in space or the sky, away from all the rest of the world. A kind of lassitude filled him. He remembered what had happened, the way he had so messily hurt her, and shame, like the conviction of and contrition for, sin, grew in him as the weight of sins had often grown burdensome before he would go to confession. He kissed her gently.
“Catherine,” he said huskily.
“Bill, I did this because I couldn’t help myself, because I love you, and oh, you hurt me so much,” she cried.
“Kid,” he muttered, patting her arm, sitting up, gazing down at her in a state of helplessness.
She sobbed. Her naked body again trembled. He lay back, falling into a half-doze, with her warm beside him. As if in a nightmare, he began to see himself clumsily soiling her. He opened his eyes, and felt self-disgust. He became aware that she was breathing more calmly. He buried her face against his chest.
“I’m afraid.”
She’s my woman now, he told himself with pride. And again he remembered the act, visualizing himself like a goddamn bull. And all the mess it was, too. Ugh. He had hurt her, done something to her that could never be undone. It had not pleased him. It had been pain to her, a mess to him, and maybe in the morning she would hate him for it and only remember him on her like a goddamn, wheezing bull. Ugh.. Jesus Christ... He was disgusted with himself as he had sometimes been when he had a hangover and remembered how the night before in his drunkenness he had been a chump and a clown.
He looked around the darkened room as if to fasten his attention on something that would make him forget what he couldn’t just now forget. He heard footsteps outside, a telephone ringing in the flat upstairs, and he felt, again, removed from all the world with her burying her head against him, his skin wet from her tears. Would he ever be able to look her in the eye again? He had acted with her the same as with a whore or that Jackson bitch. And Catherine had been decent. This was the same way, the same way, too, it seemed with any girl, except that Catherine had been hurt, and she had been so stirred and excited by him that she had trembled and quivered. Never before had he done that to a decent girl. It made him proud, and again his pride left him.
“Kid,” he said gruffly.
“Yes, darling.”
“I’m sorry.”
She lay against him, stroking his legs. They fell asleep