Garden of Eden Read Free Page B

and even in Paris it
was rare and strange and could be beautiful or could be very bad. It could mean
too much or it could only mean showing the beautiful shape of a head that could
never be shown as well.
     
    They
ate a steak for dinner, rare, with mashed potatoes and flageolets and a salad
and the girl asked if they might drink Tavel. "It is a great wine for
people that are in love," she said.
     
    She
had always looked, he thought, exactly her age which was now twenty-one. He had
been very proud of her for that. But tonight she did not look it. The lines of
her cheekbones showed clear as he had never seen them before and she smiled and
her face was heartbreaking.
     
    In
the room it was dark with only a little light from outside. It was cool now
with the breeze and the top sheet was gone from the bed.
     
    "Dave,
you don't mind if we've gone to the devil, do you?"
     
    "No,
girl," he said.
     
    "Don't
call me girl."
     
    "Where
I'm holding you you are a girl," he said. He held her tight around her
breasts and he opened and closed his fingers feeling her and the hard erect
freshness between his fingers.
     
    "They're
just my dowry," she said. "The new is my surprise. Feel. No leave
them. They'll be there. Feel my cheeks and the back of my neck. Oh it feels so
wonderful and good and clean and new. Please love me David the way I am. Please
understand and love me."
     
    He
had shut his eyes and he could feel the long light weight of her on him and her
breasts pressing against him and her lips on his. He lay there and felt
something and then her hand holding him and searching lower and he helped with
his hands and then lay back in the dark and did not think at all and only felt
the weight and the strangeness inside and she said, "Now you can't tell
who is who can you?"
     
    "You
are changing," she said. "Oh you are. You are. Yes you are and you're
my girl Catherine. Will you change and be my girl and let me take you?"
     
    "You're
Catherine."
     
    "No.
I'm Peter. You're my wonderful Catherine. You're my beautiful lovely Catherine.
You were so good to change. Oh thank you, Catherine, so much. Please
understand. Please know and understand. I'm going to make love to you
forever."
     
    At
the end they were both dead and empty but it was not over. They lay side by
side in the dark with their legs touching and her head was on his arm. The moon
had risen and there was a little more light in the room. She ran her hand
exploringly down over his belly without looking and said, "You don't think
I'm wicked?"
     
    "Of
course not. But how long have you thought about that?" "Not all the
time. But quite a lot. You were so wonderful to let it happen." The young
man put his arms around the girl and held her very tight to him and felt her
lovely breasts against his chest and kissed her on her dear mouth. He held her
close and hard and inside himself he said goodbye and then goodbye and goodbye.
"Let's lie very still and quiet and hold each other and not think at
all," he said and his heart said goodbye Catherine good bye my lovely girl
goodbye and good luck and goodbye.
     

–2–
     
     
    HE
STOOD UP and looked up and down the beach, corked the bottle of oil and put it
in a side pocket of the rucksack and then walked down to the sea feeling the
sand grow cool under his feet. He looked at the girl on her back on the sloping
beach, her eyes closed, her arms against her sides, and behind her the slanted
square of canvas and the first tufts of beach grass. She ought not to stay too
long in that position with the sun straight up and down on her, he thought.
Then he walked out and dove flat into the clear cold water and turned on his
back and swam backstroke out to sea watching the beach beyond the steady beat
of his legs and feet. He turned in the water and swam down to the bottom and
touched the coarse sand and felt the heavy ridges of it and then came up to the
surface and swam steadily in, seeing how slow he could keep the beat of his
crawl. He