The Burnt Orange Heresy

Knowing this much, and after thinking about it, I realized that I knew very little about her, it was unreasonable of me to expect a wakeful interest from Berenice in Jacques Debierue. Berenice was a funny valentine, that is what she was, and her chin was a little weak, too. In a vague abstract way I loved her. At the same time, I wondered what to do with her. She had been a sounding board to diminish some of the excitement inside me, but now it was two AM. and I was going to be busy today. Busy, busy. Perhaps if I used her right, she would be an asset. Wouldn't it help to have a beautiful woman in tow when I called on Debierue?' He would hardly slam the door in the face of a strikingly attractive woman. A Frenchman?' Never . . .

The bubble of spit ballooned suddenly as she exhaled, and inaudibly popped. Berenice whimpered in her sleep and tried, wriggling, to find a more comfortable position in her chair. This was impossible. With her long legs cramped up under her rear and in a tight-fitting canvas officer's chaiz it was miraculous that she could fall asleep in the first place.

I stopped rationalizing, recognizing what I was doing- rationalizing-and prodded Berenice's soft but rather flat belly with a stiff forefinger.

"Wake up, Audience," I said, not unkindly.

"I wasn't asleep," she lied. "I just closed my eyes for a second to rest them."

"I know. I forgot to ask, but where have you been the last couple of days?"

"Here." Her eyes widened. "Right here."

"Not today you weren't."

"Oh, you mean today?"

"Yes. Today."

"I was at Gloria's apartment. Honestly, I got so blue just sitting around here all alone waiting for you to come back that I called her. She drove over for me and took me in."

"I thought as much. Gloria tried to pump me on the phone when! got back. I thought something was odd about her phony laughter, but couldn't figure it out. If you didn't intend to go back to Duluth, why did you take your bags and leave that weird note for me?"

"I tried to go, I really did, but I just couldn't!" Her eyes moistened. "I want to stay with you, James. . . don't you want me to?"

I had to forestall her tears. Why can't women learn how to say "Good-bye" like a man?'

"We'll see, baby, we'll see. Let's go to bed now. We'll talk about it in the morning, much later this morning."

Berenice rose obediently, crossed her arms, and with a sweeping, graceful movement removed her shorty nightgown. No longer sleepy, she grinned wickedly and crawled onto the tumbled Murphy bed, shaking her tremendous stern as she did so. I smiled. She was amusing when she tried to be coy because she was so big. I undressed slowly and crawled in beside her. The air-conditioner, without enough BTUs to cool the apartment adequately, labored away-uh uh, uh uh, uh uh... . As a rule I could shut the sound out, but now it bothered me.

I was tense, slightly high from drinking four cups of black coffee, and overstimulated by my ability to recall, with so little effort, the details of Debierue's career. Three, no, four days had passed since the last time, and yet, strangely, I wasn't interested in sex. To make love now would be to initiate a new beginning to a something I had written "ending" to-perhaps that was the reason. That, or my unresolved feelings about Berenice now that I was on the verge of a future-if everything worked out all right-that held no place for a woman who was interested in me as a person. Any relationship between a man and a woman that is based upon bodies and personalities alone can lead only to disaster.

It was a premonition, or some kind of precognitive instinct for self-preservation, I should have heeded. But at two in the morning, with my mind still reeling with matters intellectual, I was physically unable to muster enough brute bellicosity to toss Berenice and her suitcase down the stairs. She was loving, too loving.

The inchoate premonition, or whatever it was, of some disaster, froze my body as well as my mind into a state of flaccid inaction. Berenice was puzzled, I know. When none of her usual tricks worked, she climbed over me suddenly, got out of bed, and switched off the floor lamp. Except for the tiny red light on the electric coffeepot, which was not a red, baleful staring eye, but merely an effective reminder that the coffee was hot if I was not, the room was as dark as my thoughts. We had never made love in the dark before. I didn't know about Berenice, but such a peculiar idea had never occurred to me in my lifetime. It is too impersonal to make love in the dark. Your partner could be anyone, anyone at all.