Everything Happened to Susan Read Free

because that’s only the rate for one-shots and specials. It would have to be maybe half of that — like fifty, say, but it would be steady and you’d have yourself a secure income.”
    Susan thinks abstractedly about the epic. “What kind of movie is this? Is it a straight part?”
    “Something like that,” Phil says. “The sex emphasis would only be there to keep the viewer’s attention but actually it’s a very serious idea. You want to go up to my place with me and maybe discuss a little bit what this project will be?”
    “I don’t — ”
    “Yeah, I know about dinner and so on but the thing is I don’t like to do business in public places because you never know who might be listening in. But if we can go to my apartment where I know it’s confidential, I’ll be able to fill you in very quickly. Of course it’s up to you to say yes or no about that, but, unless I have a chance to talk to you very soon, I have no way of knowing if you’ll be right for the part, and there are lots of others I could ask. You saw them all around you. Kids coming into that loft are desperate for work; they’d grab any part. I don’t really have much to do with the production but I’m like a liaison in case you want to know my basis of authority.”
    He extends his hand. He is a heavy, short, man, not unlike her father physically although her father has what Susan has come to think of as a suburban veneer or maybe only a kind of resignation which has turned him expressionless. Phil has vigor or at least a certain attitude of positiveness and hope which she finds rather attractive by contrast, not that she ever had much use for him because he had felt that she was wasting time in a dramatics major and should have done something practical like teaching which would have made her very much like her mother. She and her mother have nothing to do with one another at present. Her mother would hardly be sitting across a table from the New York producer who is now patting her gently across the table, his eyes fixed upon her with concentration. She feels the touch, cold as guilt, harsh as memory, and her fingers curl against his palm. She realizes she is being suggestive, that not to follow through would be unfair to him. “All right,” she says. “I’ll go to your apartment and discuss it if you really want me to.”
    Susan imagines herself in bed with him. This is one of her oldest traits; she can always picture herself having sex with any man, no matter how repellent he may be. In her mind she lies spent against his necessity, the feel of him rushing into her again and again and finds that, despite what has happened to her already today, she can apprehend him as she never could Timothy … or even the German Shepherd.

CHAPTER XIII
    Susan lies underneath Phil in his bachelor apartment. It was very simple really; he wanted to discuss business but, first he must have a drink and, as long as he is having a drink, she might as well too and then the shades in the apartment were drawn and they went into the bedroom and Phil began to tell her how really attractive she was and Susan felt the old mixture of reluctance and fascination coming over her. The tensions of sex emerged from the contradictions between the two of them and it became very easy, in fact inevitable to undress. She took off all of her clothes and lay beside him. In the dark she could hardly see him and imagined his body as it came down to drape her, as the flesh of many lovers. A multitude of scenes pass through her mind, recollections from college through Timothy. Then somewhere in the middle she has a twitch of feeling, a small explosion and an uncoiling. “That was good,” Phil says, getting off her, instantly talkative, instantly efficient, “that was very good; you’re really very good.” And, putting on the lights, he begins to dress hurriedly, tossing Susan’s clothes over to her at the same time to indicate that she should dress as well. He seems to be