Naked Came the Stranger (17 page)

Billy: I remember when I had a narrow waist.

Gilly: Well, it's still quite slim, dear, thanks to all that
squash and tennis you play.

Billy: Now, it's my turn to thank you.

Gilly: Also, there's something so reassuring about a strongly
built man.

Billy: Really?

Gilly: Yes, I think there's a wonderfully masculine quality in
thick biceps.

Billy: But seriously, don't you think women are more interested
in a man's mind than in his muscles? Don't you think they're more
concerned about his… uhm, personality, his
intelligence?

Gilly: Certainly, over the long haul. But it doesn't hurt if he
looks good, too. There's nothing worse than spindly shoulders and a
potbelly. I'm half-kidding, of course, but muscle men are quite
stimulating. After all, it's the same the other way around. What
about pin-ups? And you can't tell me that a man who meets a girl with
a figure like Sophia Loren's for the first time is thinking about her
brain.

Billy: I'll have to admit you have a point, there.

Gilly: So it's the same with a woman. I mean you might not want
to spend your life with Hercules, but you wouldn't mind watching him
lift weights. Or something. Billy: Let's watch that
something.

Gilly: Oh Billy, you're awful.

Billy: Actually, I'll settle for watching Sophia Loren model
bikinis.

Gilly: Right. The body beautiful in action. I think every woman
enjoys watching a Pancho Gonzales playing tennis. Or a Cassius Clay
boxing. I think prize fighters are especially exciting. All that
concentrated violence. They're so direct. So beautifully
brutal.

Billy: I know what you mean. It's like watching Billy Blake
play squash.

Gilly: That's pure poetry, dear.

Billy: You do know the way to a man's ego, hon. Gilly: And
don't forget his biceps.

The wind, which bore only a twinge of its Canadian
origin, had long since blown the last of the leaves from the twin
oaks in the backyard. Now it stacked them like a fragile brown dam
against the bottom of the privet hedge that lined the southwest side
of the half-acre that Agnes Madigan called "our estate."

That is, Agnes said "our estate" to neighbors and strangers. When
her only company was her husband, Paddy, she called it "my estate."
And she said it because it was so.

The deed was in Agnes's name. And so was Paddy for that matter.
The money had originated with Paddy, but he had realized years
earlier that without her guidance the money would have disappeared.
Everything disappeared without Agnes. All that he had was because of
Agnes. She had told him this, and he knew it was true. He had become
hers, both body and soul, because he had purchased the refuge of her
mother-arms.

On this mild winter Thursday, Paddy was casting about for the
leaves under the hedge with a wire rake. He knew it was late in the
year to rake leaves but it was something to do. The tines of the rake
caught in the roots of the hedge and Paddy cursed under his breath.
As he cursed, he glanced instinctively at the house even though he
knew that Agnes had gone to the hairdresser's. Agnes didn't like
cursing. She didn't like cursing or sleeping in church or drinking
beer in the parlor, and when Paddy violated any of these rules he
looked over his shoulder.

The rake jammed into a root and was caught there. Paddy said
"shit." He looked behind at the house and shrugged his shoulders.
Then he heard laughter from the backyard across the split-log fence.
It was from either the Blake place or the one where the Earbrows used
to live.

"Oh, honey," the voice said, "you don't want to let some little
thing get you all in an uproar. Don't let a little thing like leaves
goose you."

Paddy took his time finding the voice. Women embarrassed him, and
women who talked like bartenders frightened him. He knew what Agnes
said about women like that and she was right. Agnes was always right.
Finally he saw the her of the voice. She was leaning against a birch
tree. She was wearing a cape she'd had made from a Peruvian blanket
and it didn't button in the front. It was loose and Paddy looked at
her and wondered what held her breasts up that way. They lolled and
swayed in the loose, low jersey she wore under the blanket
jacket.

Paddy gulped and started to sweat. He looked up at the house
again. Agnes would kill him. He had to do something. But he just
stood there and wondered about the breasts. He was dressed in blue
jeans, sneakers and an undershirt that allowed his muscles the
rippling freedom they needed. It was much too cold for an undershirt
and Agnes would talk to him about that, but still it felt nice, nice
and cool. The breeze softly stirred the gray reddish hair on his
arms, chest and shoulders but inside he was stirring as if his
viscera were caught in the eye of a hurricane.

"You're Mrs. Blake," Paddy said.

"Call me Gilly," she said. She was laughing, laughing at the way
he talked – it was like Red Skelton talked at a show they once
did together. But Red Skelton had been kidding and Paddy Madigan was
not kidding.

Gillian cut the laugh short. She had assumed that the rough, tough
approach would be best with Paddy but now she was not so sure. She
had mentally slotted Paddy Madigan beside Ernie Miklos, the late
Ernie Miklos, in a category she thought of as, simply, Musclemen. But
now, for the moment, she was not so sure.

Paddy couldn't take his eyes off her breasts. They bounced when
she laughed, and when she stopped they ended up pointing up. He
thought of the girl he had seen in
Playboy
Magazine once; she
had breasts that pointed up. Agnes had found the magazine and burned
it. Paddy's mind saw through the fabric and he could see molded pink
flesh and sturdy nipples and he dropped his rake. He hoped he
wouldn't get a hard-on.

"I've been dying to meet you," Gillian said. Her eyes turned
brilliant and brindle like a feline in catnip and she planted a small
lie. "I've wanted so much to meet you. You were always my hero."

Paddy stopped gulping. He understood the word "hero." There was a
time – and the boys in any bar in Mineola would remember it
– when he had been a hero. Paddy Madigan had been the pride of
the gin mills, the man announcer Johnnie Addie always mentioned after
the magic words: "And the stellar attraction." Paddy Madigan had been
the white image on the Thursday night fights televised from St.
Aloysius Arena; the man who fought his way to a fight with the light-
heavyweight champion of the world. He was the crinkly-haired
left-handed fighter who carried almost all before him – until
the desperation that worked so long failed when it had to fail.

Paddy preened. The muscles on his shoulders stiffened into chunks
and he unconsciously drew in his stomach, drew up his buttocks and
inhaled. Mentally, he whomped a left hook into a body bag.

"Don't overdo it, honey," Gillian said. "Don't waste all that
muscle until I get there, will you?"

She settled then on the direct approach. Subtlety, she knew, would
be a waste. She scampered to the fence, and, hurtling it, tripped. It
was a sprawling fall and it carried her to Paddy's feet. He looked
down at her numbly and didn't move.

"For Christ's sake!" she exploded – then changed the snarl
to smiling Arpège. "Please, hon, give me your hand."

Paddy, at that moment, would have given her the loving cup from
the mantel, the one that the President of Argentina handed to him
when he won his division championship in the Pan-American Games. That
was just before Paddy was old enough to vote. He gave her his hand
and she took it. As he pulled Gillian to her feet, her free hand
traveled lazily up his forearm and the skin there exploded in
goosebumps.

"Are you hurt, missus?"

There was pain in Paddy's voice as he asked the question. When she
didn't answer – when all she did was stroke his arm and smile,
he asked the question again – the same words with precisely the
same intonation.

"Good God, you're strong," she said. "Touching you gives me
shocks."

Her palms rubbed up his arms and over his shoulders and down his
chest. Paddy looked over his shoulder at the house. He reminded
himself that Agnes was at the hairdresser's. Gillian was talking some
more about Paddy's muscles, but he couldn't hear a word she said.
What he heard was a gentle purring sound and the sound stirred him.
He reached both hands behind Gillian, caught her by the globes of her
rump and pulled her a foot off the ground. Then he kissed her
hurriedly, catching only the last quarter of an inch of her lips on
the right side. Gillian clenched her teeth and then, before opening
her eyes, managed a smile.

"You certainly sweep a girl right off her feet," she said.

"Oh, missus…."

Paddy was gulping again. He wanted to tell her he was sorry but
the words wouldn't come. He stammered. And she cut off his misery
with another smile and a light lingering touch that brushed over his
chest and made a wide circular movement just above his belt
buckle.

"Maybe it's not right," Gillian said – she tried spacing the
words neatly between manufactured heavy breaths.

"Maybe it's not right but I could keep my hands on you all
day."

Oh you sexpot, she thought, you incorrigible sexpot. Her eyes
closed and her head rolled against Paddy's chest. Paddy was gulping
hard when Gillian slumped and cried out a feeble "Oh!" Paddy grabbed
her.

"Whatsamatta, missus?" he choked. "I do somethin' to you?"

"My ankle" – Gillian tried her best Bette Davis look –
"I think I'm going to faint. Maybe you had better take me
inside."

Paddy hadn't seen the movie. He tenderly gathered her up to him
and minced his steps across the yard, up the back steps, through the
kitchen and into the living room. He held her out in his arms and
looked at her. She seemed in pain and there were tears in Paddy's
eyes. Then he knelt in front of the couch and deposited her carefully
among Agnes's doilies and antimacassars.

"Jesus, you're strong," Gillian said.

For the moment Bette Davis was forgotten. Paddy was squatting in
front of her, and her hand roamed up his thigh. She hoped her eyes
were properly glassy.

"I didn't know you were so strong," she said – trying to get
a grip on his thigh. "I didn't know."

Paddy wanted to look at her and he fought against it. His eyes
roamed over the room. There were the lamps that Agnes had bought when
they were first married; the bookends her brother had given them at
the same time; the prints, The Ruins of Pompeii and Blue Boy; the
wallpaper with the violets on it – Paddy had found that
wallpaper difficult to live with but Agnes told him it was "refined."
And on the opposite wall was the crucifix, four feet high, that Agnes
had bought from the Sisters of the Poor. Behind him – he knew
without looking – was the tinted picture of Agnes that she had
been sold years ago in Kresge's.

Paddy's inattention annoyed Gillian. What was
his
hangup?
She squirmed and went into her kitten stretch.

– When even this didn't get his attention, she sighed. With
the sigh she brought his hands together in front of her and allowed
the knuckles to rest against her breasts. Paddy stopped thinking of
the room.

"I can feel your strength going through me," she said, pressing
his hands harder against her breasts.

"Oh, missus, Agnes…."

"More," she said, unfolding his hands and placing the palms
against her breasts. "More."

His hands were gnarled and stumpy, hands that had been broken and
repaired countless times. She rubbed her long fingers over the
twisted hands, and Paddy gently rubbed his hands against her breasts.
Finally. Gillian sat up.

"I have to feel free." she said. "Undo me."

She lifted the top of her jersey and pointed out the three clips
that held the bra in place. Paddy loosened two of them, but the third
was more than a match for fingers that had grown thick and suddenly
clumsy. Finally he put his hand between her back and the elastic and
gave a short tug. The bra was in his hand then and he looked at it
wonderingly.

"Not too fast, honey," Gillian said.

But the hands that had seemed so inexpressive a moment earlier
were now strong and full of purpose. The protest died in her throat.
Paddy lifted her. His left hand grabbed out, covered all of her right
breast and part of the other and his right hand grabbed at the top of
her beige slacks and ripped them down in one yank. He pulled them off
and left them in a tired wad at the foot of the couch.

Then he lifted her up. He looked down at his possession for a
moment, and Gillian assumed the glance was one of admiration.
However, there were no words to reinforce her belief. Paddy carried
her across the room and with his foot pushed open the bedroom door.
This time there was no gentleness. He threw her body onto the large
double bed. Gillian's initial fear was being replaced by another
emotion, an emotion that was becoming increasingly familiar to her.
Anticipation of the inevitable. And now she felt a need to hurry it
along, to help him get where he wanted to be. To her small surprise,
she found herself more than ready for him, eager for him, eager for
him to pack some of that muscle into her.

Gillian reached up to his belt and tried to undo it, but he
slapped her hand away. Wild-eyed now, Paddy tore his clothes off and
fell upon Gillian, hardly giving her time to raise her legs and
receive him in comfort. Paddy snorted and gasped. His body strained
and convulsed. Then, in seconds, he subsided and, as he subsided, he
breathed a low groan from his diaphragm and fell prostrate upon
her.

"Oh, come on lover, come on." Gillian could wait no longer. She
felt she might climax before he even entered her if he delayed much
longer. "Put it in. For Christ's sake, put it in."