“I told her how you are about seeing women right before a fight.”
“It’s all right,” Victor Sovich said to Kane, his pudgy trainer. She stood in the doorway after Kane left. She looked crisp in her white dress, and beautiful. In her right hand was a suitcase.
Sovich smiled as she walked into the dressing room. “You did it, huh?”
“My mother is not happy.”
“She’ll survive.”
“She says you’ll get tired of me and throw me away. Or do something worse.”
“You know how mothers are.”
She came over and stood by the table he sat on. He had been rubbed down. He smelled harsh. The gloves had been put on his hands. “You seem so calm.”
“I am calm.”
“You don’t ever get afraid?”
“What’s to be afraid of?”
“Do you suppose you’ll ever marry me?”
“I thought we were talking about boxing?”
“Is my mother right, Victor? Are you that kind of man?”
He brought her to him and put his face into her soft breasts. “I’m not exactly forcing you to go with me at gunpoint.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“What did I tell you about the next time you asked me that? I said I wouldn’t tell you anymore.”
“Are you ashamed to tell me your feelings?”
He laughed. “No. But I am tired of repeating myself.”
If he wouldn’t repeat himself, she would repeat himself for him. “You told me you wanted me to go with you.”
“If I said it, I must have meant it.”
“You told me that I was beautiful and that you have never felt this way about any woman.”
“I’m pretty good with the words, aren’t I?”
“You said that if everything went all right that perhaps someday we would be married.”
“Oh, I did, did I?”
“Yes.”
“And how much did I have to drink?” He smiled and brought her tender body to his again.
“It was very hard saying good-bye to my children.”
“I’ll bet.”
“They cried so hard I could hear them three blocks away.”
“They’ll get over it. You know how kids are.”
“You don’t care about them, do you?”
Just then his trainer knocked again. He held up a bottle. “This’ll be your last drink before the fight.”
He was happy for the chance not to get into the mess about her children. He held out his thick arm. “I could use some water.”
He took the bottle and drank. The water tasted odd. He assumed it was from the well out here.
Finished, he handed the trainer back the bottle.
The trainer left.
Victor said, “Let’s not talk anymore. Let me just hold you.”
“You don’t care about my children, do you?” she said. There were tears in her voice.
Victor sighed. “This isn’t what I need right now. You understand?” He paused, then spread his arms for her. At first she would not come into the circle he made for her. She stood and stared like a frightened animal. Her tears made her seem much younger and quite vulnerable. Victor found this very erotic.
More softly he said, “Come here. Please.”
“Will you say you love me?”
“Yes. If that’s what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say it because you want to say it.”
Women were so simple, he told himself. All you had to do was shave and wear clean clothes and know when to tell them the right lies and they were yours.
So of course he told her that he loved her, and he told her that it was something that he wanted to say.
Her tears then were not of remorse but of gratitude. She thanked him in the same little-girl way she thanked him after they had made love.
But even as he held her, he was tiring of her. This would not be a long one. He liked them with some fight in them, and there was almost no fight left in her at all anymore.