Texasville (41 page)

Then Suzie dropped something—her comb, an earring?—and bent over to retrieve it from the floorboard. She found it, and just as she did the light changed to red again. Suzie eased up to it. By the time she was fully stopped Duane was at the window on the driver’s side. Suzie looked up. She didn’t seem in the least surprised to see him standing under the traffic light in the very center of downtown Thalia with his boots and pants in his hand.

“Hi, you rat,” she said, and put her car in park. Duane stuffed his boots and pants in the back seat and kissed her. Her kisses were as quick and eager as they had been at the hospital. He considered trying to go through the window, which would have made things perfect, but he decided to be mature and settle for 98 percent. The streets were totally empty. He opened the door, still not sure how things were going to work. He was every bit as aroused as he had been the first time, but felt a momentary faltering of confidence. Cars did pose logistical problems.

Suzie had lost none of her confidence, though—in such matters she seemed to experience no doubt.

“Sit in the seat, dummy,” she said, with a grin. “We don’t have to do it like we was married.”

She slid as far from the steering wheel as she could. Duane got in, his legs stretched toward the far door. They were long
legs, and the far door not really very far, but Suzie immediately straddled him. Passion, which rendered so many people awkward, brought her a heightened grace.

“This way I can watch the road,” she said, easing him into place.

“We might have to hurry,” Duane said. “We might have to set an all-time speed record.” He felt as if he easily could, though he was also highly aware of what a bizarre thing they were doing. The town looked more brightly lit than it had when he was hiding in the darkness by the courthouse.

Suzie smiled. She opened his shirt. Then she leaned back and touched her breasts.

“We don’t have to do any such thing,” she said. “We can just take our time. There’s not a soul in sight.”

CHAPTER 59

E
VENTS PROVED
S
UZIE RIGHT
. T
RAFFIC FLOW
through downtown Thalia obligingly lapsed for five minutes, more time than Duane needed and then some. Suzie rose and sank with an authority that quickly proved irresistible.

Though, as she said, not a soul was in sight, the fact that he was involved in a deeply exciting sex act practically beneath the red light in the epicenter of Thalia may have hastened matters too. Seconds after enjoying a fine orgasm, Duane began to wonder why he hadn’t asked her to pull around in the darkness behind the post office. That would have been an excellent site, he decided too late. Suzie soon came too, but that didn’t mean she was through. The first orgasm often merely served to heighten her interest—if she paused at all it was merely to consider what kind of little game she might enjoy next. She liked to make a leisurely selection, to rummage through the possibilities for a while, perhaps choosing one game only to stop it after a bit in favor of another. Caution played no part in her choice, or her life—she seemed to feel that whatever time was needed was hers by right. She had no intention of hurrying from one pleasure to the next.

Duane found such leisure understandable when they were in bed, but less so when they were parked under bright street lights at a public intersection.

“Let’s drive around behind the post office, where it’s dark,” he said.

“No,” Suzie said. She was seated rather firmly on his legs, and gave him a squeeze with her inner muscles to emphasize her point.

“Why not?” he asked. “Then we don’t have to worry about traffic.”

“What traffic?” she asked. “There’s not a car in sight.”

“I know, but somebody’ll come along sooner or later,” he said.

“I like to see you,” Suzie said. “The street lights make your body look different—sort of like a ghost. It’s real interesting.”

“Yeah, and it’ll be real interesting to anybody who drives by,” Duane said. “And I
will
be a ghost if Karla drives by.”

Suzie was unimpressed. “It might just be strangers,” she said. “People passing through. They won’t even know us. Didn’t you ever want to know how it would feel if people were looking?”

“No,” Duane said truthfully. “It wouldn’t feel at all, if people were looking, because I’d be too embarrassed to do anything.”

Then he saw lights, far behind them—truck lights, he guessed.

“Here comes somebody,” he said. “We gotta move.”

He attempted to squirm out from under her, but Suzie gripped him more firmly with her inner muscles. She smiled and teased her nipples.

“It feels sexy, just knowing they’re coming, don’t it?” she said.

“No,” Duane insisted. “It feels embarrassing. I can’t appreciate sexy feelings when I’m embarrassed.”

“Maybe you could learn to,” Suzie suggested.

“I don’t think I can learn to before that truck gets here,” he said.

“You could try,” Suzie pointed out. “Men don’t ever want to try anything different.”

The truck, by that time, was only a quarter of a mile away.
Duane managed to reach under the steering wheel and turn on the hazard lights. If the truck rear-ended and killed them in the position they were in, the town would receive a rude shock. They themselves would be dead, and the credibility of the Centennial Committee destroyed forever.

Suzie continued to squeeze. The roar of the approaching truck aroused her even as it chilled Duane. His erection was shrinking so fast that even Suzie’s squeezing failed to hold him in.

The truck, seeing the hazard lights, cut smoothly to the right of them. The driver tapped his brakes for a second at the light, glanced east and west, and roared on toward Wichita Falls. He didn’t look at the occupants of the car at all, though one of the occupants came just as the other ceased to occupy her.

The fact that an orgasm occurred at a moment of exit didn’t seem to diminish Suzie’s pleasure at all. She grabbed his hand and stuffed it underneath her, leaning far back in ecstasy.

The streets were empty again. Duane relaxed a little. Suzie was an unusual woman, he had to admit. Though not entirely at ease in the situation, he wouldn’t have wanted to miss her.

She straightened up, draping an arm across the seat. She scooted back down his legs, stroked his stomach lightly and fingered his equipment.

“Sorry,” he said, assuming still more was expected.

“Why?” Suzie asked. “It’s cute when it’s floppy.”

She scooted farther back down his legs, until her back was against the far door. Then she squatted on her haunches.

“Put your toe in me,” she said.

“No,” Duane said, horrified. He had just spotted another set of approaching headlights.

“I’m real wet,” Suzie said. “Put your toe in.”

“Another truck’s coming,” he said.

“I know,” Suzie said. “I like that sound they make when they come roaring through town.”

Duane decided she was interesting but crazy. He kept his feet to himself.

“I got my socks on,” he said. “It won’t work.”

Suzie immediately reached down and peeled the sock off one foot.

“Now what’s your excuse?” she said.

“Why would you want me to do that with my old smelly foot?” Duane asked, as the truck roared nearer.

“To see if it feels interesting,” Suzie said. “Stop asking dumb questions.”

“I don’t think I can. My foot’s gone to sleep,” Duane said, grasping at straws.

“Dickie does it,” Suzie said. “Dickie’s not afraid. He’s the only one in this town with any imagination.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Duane said, “but I’d rather be hearing it on the back side of the post office. What if that trucker saw me with my toe in you and lost his mind? He might run right through the hardware store, and then what would we do for lawn-mower parts?”

Suzie was still squatting on her haunches, more or less over his feet, when the truck arrived. This time the truck driver braked carefully at the light. The big motor throbbed beside them for several seconds, then the truck went on. The second driver showed no more interest in the car or its occupants than the first one had.

“If I let you drive around behind the post office will you try it?” Suzie asked.

“I don’t know,” Duane said. “It’s a possibility. I don’t want to commit myself.”

“What do you think I’ll do, make your stupid toe rot off?” Suzie asked. She seemed to be becoming irritated.

“No, of course not,” Duane said.

“You put your finger in me,” Suzie said. “You put your dick in me. Why not your toe?”

“Let’s see what life’s like around behind the post office,” Duane said. He got his feet free and slipped under the wheel. He waited for Suzie to sit down, but she didn’t sit down. She continued to squat.

“It’s not very far to the post office,” she pointed out.

Duane started the car.

CHAPTER 60

I
N THE COMFORTABLE DARKNESS BEHIND THE POST
office Duane gingerly indulged in a number of games. Suzie made it clear that she regarded him as a coward, but she didn’t let his cowardice prevent her from pursuing her interests.

When she was content, he asked her if G. G. Rawley had ever participated in any of her games.

“You bet,” she said. “He was the first man I was ever unfaithful to Junior with. It happened in the Sunday-school room. He got me up there pretending he wanted me to help him tune that old piano they use in Sunday school.”

“Is that why you’re mad at him?” Duane asked.

“I’m mad at him because he wouldn’t do it anywhere except in the Sunday-school room,” Suzie said. “He could have come to my house, or we could have gone to a motel. I got tired of trying to get comfortable on a piano bench.”

“There’s the floor,” Duane observed. Now that he was in the dark, he enjoyed talking to Suzie about sex.

“G.G.’s got arthritis,” Suzie said. “It’s all he can do to stoop over.

“It was good, though,” she added. “I yelled so loud I scared him to death a couple of times. Doing it with a preacher’s real exciting, I guess because they’re not supposed to be doing it with you. It sure beats doing it with your husband.”

“Couldn’t get old Junior to play too many games, huh?” Duane said.

Suzie looked out the window. Her face changed—it looked for a moment as if she might cry.

“No,” she said. “Junior gets scared if you even mention a game.”

Duane saw that he had touched a raw nerve. He felt sorry he had asked.

“That was the sadness of our marriage,” Suzie said. “I could have made him very happy if he’d let me. But he just never would let me.”

She sighed and came back into his arms.

“We got nice kids,” she said. “They win everything, everything. I think we would have had a real nice marriage if Junior hadn’t been so scared. It seems such a waste. I don’t think he wanted to be happy. Why would anybody not want to be happy, Duane?”

“I don’t know,” Duane said. He thought of Sonny, who had never been happy. Though he himself had often been sad, he had also been keenly happy. Sonny hadn’t. He had concentrated on holding some middle space between victory and defeat. Now, despite a life of good planning, defeat was staring him in the face anyway.

“Junior’s mother was never happy,” Suzie said. “She had a real hard life. I guess it made Junior feel guilty to think of being happy when his mother never got to be.

“I’ll tell you who’s happy, and that’s Dickie,” she said. “You ought to be proud of yourself for raising such a nice kid. It just lifts my spirits the minute I see him coming. That’s a great gift, to be able to lift people’s spirits just by showing up.”

Duane knew she had paid his son a fine compliment. But he was remembering Junior, her husband, nervously asking the question about whether women wanted sex more than men, at the Dairy Queen a few weeks earlier. It seemed sad. Junior had struggled hard and become wealthy. He had done all that
he had been taught to do: work hard, save, get ahead. Then the economy had turned out from under him and he had lost his wealth. And all the while, for rich or for poor, he was being overmatched at home by a nice woman who just happened to have a much richer sexuality than he had.

“What are you thinking about?” Suzie asked.

“I just can’t help feeling sorry for Junior,” he said.

“Oh, well,” Suzie said, “Junior enjoys feeling sorry for himself. Maybe all you men enjoy feeling sorry for yourselves. I’m hanging on to Dickie while I can. He don’t feel sorry for himself. Dickie likes to live.

“I gotta go,” she said. “The kids will be getting home from their swim meet any time.”

Duane got into his pickup and followed her around the courthouse. They both caught the red light beneath which they had had such an interesting ten minutes. Duane felt a little sad. He—they—would never do that again, not in that place, that way. A short but exciting part of life was behind him.

Suzie had recovered her spirits. She wasn’t sad at all. She grinned and blew him a kiss.

“I sure hope your toe don’t rot off, Duane,” she said, as the light changed.

CHAPTER 61

I
T WAS STILL EARLY, SO DUANE DROVE TO THE BALL
park. He saw Julie hanging around the Sno-Cone stand with two of her girlfriends. Jack was on the mound. Duane parked and walked over to the small section of bleachers. There were lots of spectators, but few of them bothered with the bleachers. They pulled their cars and pickups up to the ball-park fence and sat in their cars, drinking beer and chatting.

Jacy sat in one of the lower rows of the bleachers, Shorty dozing beside her. That Shorty was asleep in the bleachers was in itself a remarkable thing. He was never allowed out of the pickup at ball games because he ran around biting people. Sometimes he bit children; at other times, excited by the play, he ran onto the field and bit the players.

Jacy not only had Shorty, she also had Little Mike, who was walking barefoot in the dust behind the home-plate screen, talking happily to himself. When he noticed his grandfather he smiled and ran over. Duane hoisted him into the bleachers.