That cracked her up. She fell all over me with love. Ever been kissed by someone who can't stop laughing? Their lips keep sort of trembling. It tickles.

I mixed us another drink. Halfway through that one I began to get "Sloane's Reaction" (that's the name I gave it. If Bright could have a disease named for him, why couldn't I have a response to liquor in my name?). "Sloane's Reaction" consisted of most of the effect of the alcohol being concentrated in one particular area. Some people get weak in the knees from booze. Up about a foot and a half was bull's-eye for anything I drank.

If we were going to come to any solution that night I'd have to push the conversation right then, before my mind goofed off with my body. "Allison."

"Yes, baby?"

"Ugh. Don't use that word now. Since you brought up that mother subst.i.tute routine I've gotten self-conscious about it."

"You never objected when I used it before."

"I know. But now it's too blatant. I crave subtlety in my regressive acting outs."

"Who's been reading books now?" She lifted one eyebrow mockingly. Allison did this as she winked, by closing both eyes and then opening one. Perfectly adorable. "Anyway, tell me how I can subtly shanghai you aboard the plane to California next week?"

"Allison! Please, baby... I mean, darling... try to be serious for a moment. We could reach a conclusion about this in a few minutes. Then, I promise you, I won't bother you with any more of my troubles for the rest of the night."

Allison composed her face into that absurd caricature of attentiveness that drunks wear. It was ludicrous. She looked as if she were trying to convince an arresting officer of her sobriety.

"Don't you have any thoughts on the subject?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, looking very grave. "To me it's all very simple. I don't know why you insist on making a prime spot production out of it."

She stopped speaking. I could see the alcoholic fuzziness creeping back into her eyes. I fought it fast.

"So it's simple. So tell me about it," I said.

"Very simple. Lovely girl, Sloane Britain, wonderful girl... but she's got some strange idea about herself."

"What do you mean?"

"Like she thinks she's some kind of real down cynic. A mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded orangutan would see through that pose five minutes after meeting her. But she's lived with herself for over twenty years and she still believes most of the nonsense she tells herself. Very sad."

I was beginning to feel highly uncomfortable. The truth doesn't always hurt. More often it is just embarra.s.sing as all h.e.l.l.

"So, being the adorable idiot that she is, she thinks that she can work in an office where honesty and sincerity are dirty words," Allison continued. "She thinks that she ought to believe that all human beings are out to exploit each other. So what difference does it make if Happy Broadman happens to have carried exploitation to the point of being an art? Cynic Sloane wants to think that working for him might be a good idea. She might learn the fine points of being self-seeking from her boss."

Allison stopped and stared at me fixedly. Then she stretched out on the couch with her head in my lap.

She was still staring at me with eyes that held a potpourri expression of amus.e.m.e.nt, compa.s.sion, mischievousness, and advanced inebriation.

I was no temperance advertis.e.m.e.nt myself. Otherwise, I don't think I could have taken her observations. That she was saying those things at that time didn't bother me too much. What got me was realizing that she had most likely held the same opinions for a long time. All the while that I had been trying to come on as a juvenile delinquent version of a composite of Messrs Shaw, Wilde and Voltaire, with a dash of Dorothy Parker thrown in, Allison had been seeing through it.

"My beloved Miss Britain," she went on, "I have news for you. You're no cynic. Sure, you see that life and people are ludicrous. It's the foundation of your humor. You laugh at the absurdity of everything and everybody, including yourself. Nothing wrong with that, human beings are ridiculous and some people, I among them, suspect that life is nothing but a cosmic joke."

She raised one finger, like a platform lecturer about to make a point. Instead, she continued the gesture upward and grasped a strand of my hair with it. She continued to play with the lock of my hair throughout the remainder of her discourse.

"In fact, at the risk of having you throw an apoplectic fit, I will go so far as to say that I think you're almost naively idealistic. Emotionally, I mean. Intellectually you know that the great majority of people will be doing more good when they're fertilizing the flowers than they ever did in their lifetimes.

"Now, to the point of all this: In the light of your aforementioned idealism, it is my opinion (don't blame me, you asked me for it) that for you to continue working for Happy Broadman would be self-destructive. In fact, I would predict that before too long one of two things would happen if you did. Either you'd get the screaming meemies or an ulcer or some other form of hysteria... or you'd blow the whole works one day by denouncing Happy to his face and putting yourself through a highly unpleasant scene. So, wouldn't you agree that it's a better idea for you to quit your job now before things get any messier than they are?"

"I... I guess so," I said weakly.

"Good. I'm glad that's taken care of. Now, Sloane," Allison's voice became pathetically beseeching, "could I get drunk again? I had such a lovely buzz on before."

Placing me on an equal footing again. Restoring the frayed edges of my ego by asking my permission. Having me mix the drinks for us both like I was the efficient hostess and she only an invited guest dependent on my largesse. What a woman!

More than ever before I was aware of my luck. Allison was the kind of woman most men looked for all their lives and never found. Warm, loving, intelligent, beautiful, charming and completely feminine. And she was in love with me!

My moment of humility didn't last but at the time I was filled with wonder... what did someone like Allison see in me? Could it have something to do with the rotten things that had happened to me before? Maybe there was something to that idea of suffering being rewarded?

I stayed deeply engrossed in remembering what Allison had said. Not that I was thinking about it or a.n.a.lyzing it. It was more like I kept repeating her words to myself. Like it was religious. Like I had had a mystical experience or something.

All right, so everything Allison had said was so true of me it hurt. So what? This proves I should pack up and follow her across the country? Maybe I was making too big a deal over it? After all, she hadn't told me anything new about myself. I knew those things about myself, I just acted as if I didn't because I fully expected by doing the right things I would someday become more like what I was on the outside.

That naive idealist routine, for instance. I knew that underneath my a.s.sumed hard exterior (hard like gla.s.s... impervious to all but the sharpest a.s.saulters but likely to shatter if hit by the wrong tone of voice) I was like somebody's overgrown dog, ready at any time to pledge undying devotion to any slob who threw me the right bone. Lucky for me no one did. The gimmick was that I thought that continually a.s.saulting my naive convictions with the seamy facts of reality would eventually penetrate and teach me to be less trusting. The way I saw it, you had to be tough. Real hard, like steel or the world would walk all over you. I was in great shape. I thought I was like the most mature, well-informed on all the latest trends in morbidity, a regular Hedda Hopper of neurotica. The truth was that I had gotten older but not much smarter. I was still mentally only on the second landing and the window wasn't open.

The big deal was that someone else had seen through the facade. It's possible Allison wasn't the first one to do so. I was having conniptions because she was the first one who had the conviction to let me know what she saw. Can't blame most people if they kept their thoughts to themselves. Usually, I had had an aversion to people giving me their a.n.a.lyses of my psyche. Among the literati of New York City that's the favorite indoor sport. Like charades, every goof who had read a magazine article about psychology felt qualified to play the game, what was the other guy acting out? That jazz gave me the chills. Those lovelies wouldn't dream of diagnosing a physical illness but they had no qualms about regarding themselves experts in the science of psychology. I didn't go for it and I wouldn't put up with hearing half-baked interpretations of my unresolved Oedipal conflict and all that sort of stuff. That stuff's for the professionals. I must have frustrated a lot of armchair Freuds in my time. Tough, baby dolls, real tough.

What really counted was that Allison loved me. She saw through me but that didn't mean she didn't like what she saw. That meant that she had a right to see the personality I presented to the world and the .private one I had gone to such lengths to submerge. After all, she loved both sides of me and that's what really mattered.

"Hey, come back. You haven't said a word for ten minutes."

"I was thinking about one of the reasons why I love you," I said.

"What's that?"

"Let me try and ill.u.s.trate it this way: if you hadn't been able to eat for three days, what would you say" was wrong with you?"

Allison looked at me as if she were afraid that I had finally flipped out so far I'd never come back. "I'd say that I was hungry."

"That's what I thought. And that's one of the reasons I love you."

"Because I get hungry? Girl, I've heard of being weird, but this beats all."

"Really? You should read Stekel. However," I explained, "that is far from being my hangup. No, the point I'm trying to make is that you can get hungry without calling yourself oral-retentive. That's one of the reasons for my loving you. I've known too many of the other kind. People who can't enjoy eating an artichoke without thinking they're oral-regressive."

"I know the type. Sounds like some of the friends I made when I first came to the city. They bored me stiff."

"Yeah. You know, I've gotten revoltingly sober in the last hour. What about you?"

"Me too. I thought this drink would get me back where I was before but it hasn't. We're almost out of Scotch too."

"I could go down and buy some more," I suggested.

"Hey, I just got a better idea. Ever had a Sidecar?"

"No."

"You've been missing something. It's my favorite c.o.c.ktail but I seldom drink it because after three of them I've been known to start thinking I was Madame b.u.t.terfly."

"That must be quite a scene," Allison said.

"You shouldn't know from it. Once, at a party, I lost count of how many I drank. All I know is that at one point I came out of the john with the end of a roll of toilet paper in my hands. I unwound it all the way into the living room where I proceeded to announce that I was that b.u.t.terfly cat. All the time I was tearing the tissue into little pieces and tossing them about like they were flower petals."

"You're making it up."

"So help me Giacomo Puccini, I'm telling the truth. At least that's what I'm told I did. I don't remember that night too clearly," I protested. "Anyway, I have a bottle of brandy in the kitchen and some Cointreau somewhere around the place. A smidgeon of lemon juice and we've got a Sidecar. How about it? Should I mix up a batch?"

"On top of Scotch? Oh, what the h.e.l.l, let's try it anyway. But please," Allison requested, "no Madame b.u.t.terfly tonight."

"Don't worry, I pa.s.sed the Puccini stage long ago. It'll be Der Rosencavalier, at least."

"H-m-m-m. As I remember, the opening scene holds some interesting possibilities."

"Hold it. We better take this topic up again after I've made the drinks or we'll never get around to them."

I had never mixed a Sidecar before. I guess it takes practice. Anyway, mine were palatable... but just barely. We had three each. I was seeing the world through rose-coloured gla.s.ses... someone else's prescription.

We were sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch. I felt safer down there. Allison had her head on my shoulder and my arm was around her.

Suddenly I became aware that she had her tongue in my ear. No, that couldn't be right. She wouldn't just start out that way. She'd build up to something like that. Guess I had been drinking up such a storm I hadn't known that she had been kissing my neck.

When she withdrew her lips I turned and gathered her to me. "Well, h.e.l.lo there, pretty girl. Where did you come from?" I teased as I took liberties with her clothing.

"Glad you're back. For a while there I thought you were more interested in your drink than you were in me."

"Baby, you know I'm weak for you. Wait a minute and I'll prove it," I said, standing up and unfastening what appeared to be a million zippers.

"You should have music." Allison got up and put a stack of records on the phonograph. She turned the volume control way up. She had selected some jazz records of the Kansas City and Chicago barrelhouse and blues styles. Old stuff like they used to play in the speakeasies and brothels. It came swinging out of the speaker real raunchy and low-down. So right for the occasion. It was very definitely not the time for Italian opera.

"O.k., you've got your accompaniment. Now do your bit," Allison said.

I didn't get what she meant at first but then I dug it and I goofed. I mean, like brother, I flipped. That wasn't my bit.

Allison was still standing by the phonograph. "Come on, I'm waiting. The curtain's up. The music's playing. What are you waiting for? A fan?"

"Allison, I couldn't. I'd be too embarra.s.sed."

"Nothing to it. Just make like you're in bed. Let the music reach your hips. Like this." She came toward me slowly, giving it back to a frantic ba.s.s fiddle with b.u.mps and grinds that would do credit to a shake dancer twenty years in the business.

By the time she reached me she had me in a sweat. I grabbed her and ripped off what few clothes she still had on. She let me but when I tried to kiss her she backed away and began moving around again.

They hadn't taught her that in her ballet cla.s.ses. But the training had helped make her graceful. There wasn't much room for her to show her stuff but she didn't need much.

She mostly stood in one spot and made her body go places while her feet stood still.

Man, I was kicked right out of my mind. But I really cracked up when she pulled a bit I had seen once at a strip joint on Third Street in the Village. When I watched that professional stripper do it I had been a little embarra.s.sed but mostly as bored as the dancer had been. When the woman I loved did the same thing the effect, to understate to the point of absurdity, was different.

Allison extended her tongue out as far as it would go. She brought her hands up and licked the palms of each. Then, arching her body back from the waist so that her gorgeous b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled out full and inviting toward me, she brought her hands down and cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, like she was offering them to me. Then, she placed her palms flat against the pink tips and caressed them, her body swaying longingly, an expression of languid sensual delight on her face, her eyes open and staring at me with defiance and excitement.

With an involuntary moan, I fell to my knees before her, clasping her legs tightly and burying my lips in the silken pliancy of her thighs. Allison swayed sinuously in my arms.

Ardent pulsations coursed through the writhing body in my arms. My legs had lost their power. I couldn't rise. My body stretched upwards, stretching, straining for fulfillment. Up, up, my body pressed against the muscular hardness of her legs, my lips and tongue seeking, needing. Allison was shivering, small meaningless sounds coming from the depths of her throat.

Allison tossed limply, leaning against me for the support her trembling legs could no longer give her. A thin high-pitched scream and long shudders wracking through the length of her body and then my name repeated and repeated over and over again.

We were lying on the floor, the rayon rug p.r.i.c.kling my bare skin. I was too relaxed to bother moving.

Allison was lying with her face cradled on my bosom. Her body was limp, her eyes closed. I could tell that she wasn't sleeping, though, by the rhythm of her breathing and by the small grasping motions she made at me every time I shifted my position slightly.

She stiffened one arm against the floor and propped herself up to a near sitting position. Her face was almost white, drained, exhausted. I noticed that the arm she was using to support herself was trembling as if too spent to expend any effort.

She stared at me long and hard without speaking. Then, a voice that was heavy with desperation said, "I love you much. Too much. I'll have to pay for this, Sloane. It must be sinful to get so much pleasure from one person. Somehow I feel that there must be something evil in my wanting to have you be the center and meaning of my life. Sloane, I want that so very much. G.o.d help me, I adore you!"

"Darling, you shouldn't look at it that way. That way of thinking's merely a carry-over from the medieval..." I never got to finish my statement. A look of longing had come over Allison's face. Feverish desire set her eyes aflame. She cut me off in mid-sentence with an insistent kiss.

Her lips, which I had always known to be soft and gentle, bore down on me inflexibly. I was taken aback and put off by the punishing fierceness of her kiss.

It was Allison who was kissing me, however. Allison who was roughly fondling me. The woman I loved whose body was crowding mine. As the initial surprise pa.s.sed away, I began to respond. I could feel my taut muscles relaxing. My lips parted and I invited more sensual kisses.

Allison reacted by lessening the whiplash ferocity of her lovemaking. She became tender and adoring.

Briefly, she raised herself a few inches, to tell me, "Every time we touch, I feel as if a miracle were happening." Then she came back to my lips. But in the brief moment when she had her eyes open I had seen pa.s.sionate desire that bordered on desperation.

I wriggled free and stood up. "I got up because I can't really believe that you want to make love again. Not so soon. I think you're doing it for some other reason. I don't know what it is but I'm highly suspicious of its being something other than s.e.xual."

"Wrong, my love. I want you because I love you. If you think I should be some sort of limp lily now, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Sloane, I want you. I'm aroused again, honest. Maybe I'm turning nympho in my old age."

"Sure?"

"Dammit, what do you want? A signed affidavit? Let me put it this way, if you don't stop questioning me this instant and get back here in my arms where I can say whatever I have to say in sign language, I'll make you stop."

"Oh? You're also getting pretty c.o.c.ky in your old age," I said. "What makes you so sure you can stop me?"

Allison smiled. Now I know what they mean by that Cheshire cat bit. She looked as if swallowing the canary were her hourly habit. "The records are still stacked. All I have to do is put them back on the changer and start the music playing. I don't think you'd keep giving me such a hard time if I were to start dancing again."

"Aah, I've seen that act already. Your performance would suffer from repet.i.tion. It just wouldn't have the same effect," I lied. "You know, like a mystery story. Once you know the ending, there's not much point in re-reading the story again."

Allison stretched luxuriously, emphasizing the slim voluptuousness of her figure. Then she put her hands on her sleekly rounded hips and gently kneaded the supple flesh. "You only saw the first act. There are two more and an encore. Shall I begin?" she cooed.

"D-don't bother. Any more of that and I'd be a candidate for a nut hatch." I meant it. I was so steamed up it was killing me to keep up the teasing and not just fall to it. Another performance of Allison's and I'd be locked up for loving her to death.

"There's only one way to keep me from dancing again. Come over here, darling," Allison cooed.

"Do we have to use the floor again? My back already feels like the bottom of a birdcage. If you want me, come after me." I turned and ran into the kitchen.