The Casanova Embrace (13 page)

"Here is something also very human."

"What?"

"Me. Feel me."

She cradled his head in her arms, against her breasts. His
hands reached for them, squeezing and fondling. Opening her blouse, she let him
touch them with his lips, stroking the back of his head. She felt an uncommon
stirring inside of her. The old Freddie is coming back, she told herself.

He kissed and suckled her breasts for a long time, like a
child gaining sustenance. And she felt as if milk were actually flowing from
them. After a while, she reached down and opened his pants, caressing his
hardness, her fingers gentle, seeking, it seemed, the hurt place. The need to
kiss the hurt place was overwhelming and finally it became an irresistible
longing and she moved downward and did it, feeling the soft moving flesh, as if
it were not attached to him, a hurt animal.

She heard him moan and knew that she had succeeded in
making him forget the pain and she felt the pleasure of giving pleasure, a
sensation barely remembered, but now returning to her in full strength. Through
her lips, she felt the tightening, the throbbing, and then the release as he
felt the moment of his greatest joy, this magic gift that she had proffered. I
am me again, she told herself. Giving again. And, for the first time, sharing,
taking.

For a moment there had been a confused sensation, as if her
body had burst into flames, a pleasure-pain exploding somewhere inside her.
Again the image of the fire-bomb flashed in her mind, the heat a targeted
flume, aimed at her essence. It had never happened that way, ever.

"Why you?" she whispered. "Why now?"

He looked at her, saying nothing.

"Chemical or psychic?" she asked. When he did not
respond, she said, "There are only questions. Right?"

Again, he said nothing, studying her.

They had coffee together, watching the gray Washington
morning. It had begun to rain, a steady downpour that put a sheen on the
streets and the cars, making her apartment seem like a refuge. She had opened
the studio couch and they had repeatedly made love there and then he had begun
to dress.

"I wish you could stay." she said. "I don't
have to go to work until later in the day."

"Unfortunately, I must go."

"Where?" She waited, but there was no answer.
Questions again.

"Are you going to be one of these mystery men?"

"No."

"Who are you really? What do you do, really? Did it
mean anything to you, really?"

"Really," he whispered, smiling.

When she had first moved into her apartment and invited men
to stay with her she couldn't wait for them to leave. Some she had actually
chased out the door without regard to their feelings. Now she felt a sense of
impending loss, but hesitated to make it known. She wanted to ask, "When
will I see you again? When will we love again?" Instead she said,
"You will always be welcome, Eddie. Anytime. Really. Anytime. There are no
other men in my life."

"I'm being watched." he said, buttoning his
shirt. "It may not be very healthy to be around me."

"You think I'm afraid of them."

He explored her face. "No. I don't think you're
afraid. But you should know that I'm being watched. Perhaps hunted."

"I've been there myself. And I don't give a
damn."

He put on his jacket and stood over her as she sat now on
the hassock near the easy chair, her terrycloth robe drawn tightly around her
body. Unlike the passionate younger men of those other days, with long hair and
little glasses, straggly beards, blue jeans and scuffed boots, he looked
thoroughly conventional, an establishment figure. Except for the gray,
silver-flecked eyes. There was something beyond them that she could not fathom.
They seemed to operate on their own energy, with a power to command.

"I'll call you," he said. She wondered about his
sincerity. Others had said it in precisely the same way. She did not get up to
let him out, but listened to his walk as he moved down the corridor.

Because she had been so long with her indifference, she
distrusted this renewed interest, even her strange wonderful new sensations.
But when she found herself going through the motions of her day and nightly
work serving tables in Clyde's Omelet Room, with thoughts of Eddie dominating
her mind, she felt reassured. She had not slipped back into her mental and
emotional grave.

Even the other waitresses noticed some difference in her.
One of them, a slim redhead named Marcia with whom she had developed a kind of
"at work" relationship, expressed the collective insight.

"You seem to be pretty perky, Frederika."

Does it show, she wondered. Like her, Marcia had been
through the various stages of the "greening" as they jokingly
referred to it, the drugs, the politicalization, the easy exchange of flesh,
the crash pads, the rock turn-on, the euphoria of protest and rebellion, now
gone stale. There was nothing left to feel, they had decided, since they had
felt everything. And since their indifference was shared, Marcia could be
depended upon to notice subtle changes.

"I'm not sure yet," Frederika told her.

"What does that mean?"

"I met a man."

"Really." There seemed an element of sarcasm in
her response.

"But I'm not sure yet."

Toward the end of the week, she was sure. She could not
find his name in the telephone book and he hadn't told her where he lived or
anything beyond his cause. When he had not called by then, she began to feel
anxieties. Would she ever see him again? Perhaps he was merely an aberration, a
strange illusive interlude. She was conscious of Marcia watching her all week.

"Want to come over to my place for a drink after
work?" she had asked repeatedly.

"Can't."

"That man still working."

"Still working." It was the kind of feeling she
wanted to keep to herself.

By Friday evening, she had decided that maybe it was better
to feel nothing. Certainly it was safer. But she did not give up, and when he
finally appeared near closing time on Friday her hope was vindicated. She had
not seen him come in and find a seat in the corner near the window, and the
sudden shock of recognition made her knees shake and she had nearly dropped a
plate of omelets.

"Eddie." She moved to his table. "You
came."

"Of course." His eyes burned into her, telling
her what she wanted to know. "I was getting worried." She had lowered
her voice, as if in response to what she imagined was his furtiveness. Marcia
was standing near the omelet bar watching her. She mustn't let on, she decided.
She mustn't identify "the man." As if he were an ordinary customer,
she handed him a menu.

"I made better eggs at home," she whispered,
pencil in hand.

"I know," he said.

"I'll bring you some wine."

She went to the bar, ordered a goblet of wine, then
returned.

"Will that be all, sir?" she said raising her
voice for Marcia to hear.

"Yes."

"Will you meet me later?" There were, after all,
logistical arrangements to be decided.

"Of course."

"When I bring you your change, I'll give you my
key."

He smiled. Why was she being so conspiratorial, he
wondered. But it obviously pleased him. It was the way he apparently wanted it
to happen. I will let him keep my key, she decided. When she had carried out
the secret operation and seen him palm the key in his hand, she drew a deep
contented breath.

"No more than a half hour," she said.

"Was that him?" Marcia said when he had gone.

"Who?" Had she been that transparent?

"That dark man. The one in the corner."

"Him?"

"I guess not." Marcia shrugged, but Frederika had
no illusions. She had sensed something.

He answered her ring swiftly, and she observed with
pleasure that he had lent another dimension to the space of her apartment, an
aura, the lingering smoke of his cigarette which still smoldered in the tray,
the odor of his presence. His coat lay on the cocktail table and he had removed
his tie and laid it across the back of the couch. To her it seemed like he
belonged there. Then she was in his arms, breathing in the essence of him,
nuzzling his neck, holding his head between her hands, kissing his face, his
eyes, his nose, his cheek. He moved her away with a strong tight gesture and
looked at her.

"You're very beautiful, you know," he said.

"I feel that way."

"And I wanted to come sooner."

She had wanted to inquire further, but held back, feeling a
growing understanding between them. In time, she thought, he will trust me.

"Can I get you something?" she asked. But he was
unbuttoning her blouse and reaching for her breasts.

"I know what I want." She felt his eyes watching
her, caressing her breasts, the nipples hardening. She was proud of her body
now as she arched forward, enjoying his pleasure in her bosom, happy that it
was large, full, well formed. She was aroused by his growing passion, reaching
for him, then kneeling to squeeze his erection around her breasts, which he
kneaded, and she felt the pulsating of his heartbeat against her own, drawing
his buttocks toward her, feeling his warmth, his closeness.

"I want you to want me," she said, looking up at
him. Then she moved toward the couch, opened it, revealing her double bed, and
they undressed fully, moved toward each other, filling the chill between the
sheets with their warmth. She drew him inside of her now, felt her body billow
like a sail to a fresh wind, as he moved slowly with a languor that told her he
did not wish their lovemaking to end. Not ever, she told herself.

"I wish I could say what you mean to me," she
said, hoping that he, too, might be discovering this same wonder, the sense of
rebirth. She marveled at the calm, unhurried progression of their mutual response,
the relentless sputtering of the fuse on a stick of dynamite, then the
explosion, powerful, absorbing; the pulsating stillness of heated tungsten,
long burning and bright, the climax of a burst of light lingering hotly. It was
strange to her, this sensation of joy non-ending and she whispered her
gratitude at the power of him, the long hardness.

They dozed and when she stirred again he was still in her,
only soft now, sleeping. Gently, she disengaged, then held him in her arms
until she grew drowsy. Again, in the darkness, they awakened, held each other,
long, endlessly until the light filtered through the drawn blinds. When their
passion ground down, the explosions ended, she propped pillows behind them and
they half reclined while he smoked a cigarette. What she wanted now, most of
all, was to know him. Details were vague, incomplete. Was he nontrusting? He
had told her that he had a wife in Santiago and a son and that he had studied
at the University of Santiago. He was born in Santiago, grew up there, in the
shadow of the Cordillera. He had believed in Allende, had followed him, was
appointed in his goverment, had been imprisoned and finally exiled. The story
was fleshed out, of course, but the dominant detail was the passion for return,
revenge.

"Will they ever let you come back?" she asked. He
seemed to be watching her during her questioning, although her eyes were
deliberately closed, fearful, perhaps, that they would reveal the fierceness of
the attachment growing inside her.

"They? Never. Besides, they have eliminated me from
the rolls of the citizenry. I am a man without a country." He hissed the
words.

"Will you become an American citizen?"

"Of course not. I am a Chilean."

"Then what will you do?"

"I will come home again."

She knew what he meant. He had lit another cigarette and in
the quiet of the room she could hear the tobacco burning as he puffed, and the
light changed as the glow reddened.

"Is there a movement?"

He was silent, puffed again, but this time she pressed,
sensing that it was the right moment.

"Is there a viable exile movement?" She sat up.
"Eddie, I want a piece of your life. Don't shut me out."

"It is not as simple as it sounds."

"I thrive on it." She told him then about her
early life, the politics and the violence, and she told him about the fire
bombing. The words came out in a rush as if they had been pressed against her
brain for too long and needed this release. She knew now that she had been
waiting for this moment to tell somebody.

"You've given me life again, Eddie. I'm ready to be a
soldier again."

"Were you ever caught, ever questioned by the
authorities?"

"No."

"They knew," he said. "They had their people
infiltrated into every group. They were watching you all the time."

"If they were, they would have pulled us in. We did
damage. We violated laws. Even in that last gasp. The May Day thing. I was not
arrested. I always managed to escape." She remembered then how much she
hated the thought of being jailed, although she had enjoyed that one time with
the others.

"You were never fingerprinted?"

"No." She had remembered how they had always been
frightened of being fingerprinted.

"And you are certain there were no informers?"

"How could I ever be certain of that?"

She was conscious now of a sudden irritation. Was she telling
him everything? They had actually been making Molotov cocktails in the basement
of that house in Haight and were taking instruction in preparing plastic
explosives and learning how to construct crude timing devices. The instructor
was called José but it was obviously not his real name. They did not
use real names. Her name had been Bunny, because once, during that summer
before she had entered Berkeley, she had lied about her age and worked as a
Playboy bunny and someone had seen a picture of her in costume hanging in her
room before she had taken it down out of shame. There had been that explosion
that destroyed half the house, killing José, and someone had said
they had combed the place for fingerprints. She wondered if she should tell him
that?