Fall of Giants

Lev touched her closed lips with his tongue. She pulled away and gave him a startled look. He realized she did not know about kissing this way. She really was inexperienced. “It’s okay,” he said. “Trust me.”

She threw away her cigarette, pulled him nearer, closed her eyes, and kissed him with her mouth open.

After that it happened very fast. There was a desperate urgency about her desire. Lev had been with several women, and he believed it was wise to let them set the pace. A hesitant woman could not be hurried, and an impatient one should not be held back. When he found his way through Olga’s underwear and stroked the soft mound of her sex, she became so aroused that she sobbed with passion. If it were true that she had reached the age of twenty without being kissed by any of the timid boys of Buffalo, she must have a lot of stored-up frustration, he guessed. She lifted her hips eagerly for him to pull down her drawers. When he kissed her between her legs she cried out with shock and excitement. She had to be a virgin, but he was too heated for such a thought to give him pause.

She lay back with one foot on the seat and the other on the floor, her skirt around her waist, her thighs spread ready for him. Her mouth was open and she was breathing hard. She watched him with wide eyes as he unbuttoned. He entered her cautiously, knowing how easy it was to hurt a girl there, but she grasped his hips and pulled him inside her impatiently, as if she feared she might be cheated at the last minute of what she wanted. He felt the membrane of her virginity resist him briefly, then break easily, with only a little gasp from her, as of a tinge of pain that went as quickly as it had come. She moved against him in a rhythm of her own, and again he let her take the lead, sensing that she was answering a call that would not be denied.

This was more thrilling, for him, than the act of love had ever been before. Some girls were knowing; some were innocent, but keen to please; some were careful to satisfy the man before seeking their own fulfilment. But Lev had never come across such raw need as Olga’s, and it inflamed him beyond measure.

He held himself back. Olga cried out loud, and he put a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. She bucked like a pony, then buried her face in his shoulder. With a stifled scream she reached her climax, and a moment later he did the same.

He rolled off her and sat on the floor. She lay still, panting. Neither of them spoke for a minute. Eventually she sat upright. “Oh, God,” she said. “I didn’t know it would be like that.”

“Usually it’s not,” he replied.

There was a long, reflective pause, then she said in a quieter voice: “What have I done?”

He made no answer.

She picked up her drawers from the floor of the car and pulled them on. She sat still a moment longer, catching her breath, then she got out of the car.

Lev stared at her, waiting for her to say something, but she did not. She walked to the rear door of the garage, opened it, and went out.

But she came back the next day.

{VI}

Edith Galt accepted President Wilson’s proposal of marriage on June 29. In July the president returned to the White House temporarily. “I have to go back to Washington for a few days,” Gus said to Olga as they strolled through the Buffalo Zoo.

“How many days?”

“As long as the president needs me.”

“How thrilling!”

Gus nodded. “It’s the best job in the world. But it does mean that I’m not my own master. If the crisis with Germany escalates, it could be a long time before I come back to Buffalo.”

“We’ll miss you.”

“And I’ll miss you. We’ve been such pals since I came back.” They had gone boating on the lake in Delaware Park and bathing at Crystal Beach; they had taken steamers up the river to Niagara and across the lake to the Canadian side; and they had played tennis every other day-always with a group of young friends, and chaperoned by at least one watchful mother. Today Mrs. Vyalov was with them, walking a few paces behind and talking to Chuck Dixon. Gus went on: “I wonder if you have any idea how much I’ll miss you.”

Olga smiled, but made no reply.

Gus said: “This has been the happiest summer of my life.”

“And mine!” she said, twirling her red-and-white polka-dot parasol.

That delighted Gus, although he was not sure it was his company that had made her happy. He still could not make her out. She always seemed pleased to see him, and was glad to talk to him hour after hour. But he had seen no emotion, no sign that her feelings for him might be passionate rather than merely friendly. Of course, no respectable girl ought to show such signs, at least until she was engaged; but all the same Gus felt at sea. Perhaps that was part of her appeal.