When Jack had been in his early twenties the relationship between men and women seemed very simple. It was not something he had ever sat down and thought through. In a way it had just developed, and it seemed, among his friends, to be pretty generally accepted.
Men wanted to go to bed with women, and women, in turn, wanted to go to bed with men. But for some reason, perhaps because of the way they were made, women had to put up a fight. So the man’s part was the attack, the woman’s was defense. It was a struggle, with the odds on the side of the man; he realized that. But there was nothing really lost either way. If the woman lost, well, she enjoyed it as much as he did, because, underneath, it was what she had really wanted too. And if he should lose he had only to look elsewhere.
Before he left the CCC camp he had never had many opportunities to play the game. He had gone to whores a few times, but he had not liked that much; it was as though you were going deer hunting and there was some way you could pay the deer to walk up near you where you could shoot it. But in Fresno there had been a waitress at the café around the corner from his rooming house, where he and Ben ate every night. She had been fat and much older than he, but she was his first real conquest, and he learned much from her. From her he learned about the second struggle.
The second struggle came always after the man had won the first one, and in this the positions were reversed; the man went on the defensive and the woman pursued him. The waitress had talked about getting married, and he had been so frightened he had almost left town. But after the original fright was over he had known intuitively how to handle her. At first he had stayed away, and when that hadn’t worked and she had come up to his room once, and another time bothered his landlady, he got to talking to a truck driver who ate in the same café, and discovered that the truck driver had been sleeping with the waitress too. He picked a fight with her on this count, and that had finished it.
Then there were others; a girl who worked in the cannery, a redheaded girl named Mary Ann MacNicoll, whose father owned a big furniture store and who had gone for a while to the college at Fresno, Peggy, the waitress at the Hitching Post, and Ruth Adams. It was a simple and exciting game with one goal and no rules that he knew of, and he was good at it. He played it with a great many women in Fresno and Bakersfield and Visalia and Porterville; he nearly always won, and he always got out of it when they wanted to hang onto him, or tried to get him to marry them. He was attractive to women and he knew it, he liked playing the game and he didn’t want to get married and drop out of it for a long time yet.
The fact that V was a virgin did not seem to exempt her from playing the game. It meant that he would be the first, but someone had to be the first. He had seen her a great many times around the Baird ranch before he had a chance to talk to her; he would look up to see her sitting motionless on the copper-colored horse on the top of the far hill behind the ranch buildings, watching him. She would watch him for a long time, sitting up very straight on the horse, and then when he would look up again she would have disappeared, as suddenly as she had come. She was blonde, young, and she had a nice build, and he liked the way she sat on the horse, but he had never seen her closely until she rode down into the bottom one day when her father was talking to him, and that night after work he got her to let him ride the horse.
She was standing at the corral gate when he returned. His legs were stiff and his hands ached, because Tony had got the bit in his teeth and had run all the way back to the corral. Tony was panting and sweating and V grabbed the reins from him when he dismounted. Her face was flushed. Her hair was done up in two short braids tied with blue ribbons, that swung out when she jerked her head toward him.
“You know a lot about horses!” she said fiercely.
“Boy, you’ve sure got him spoilt,” Jack said. She pulled on the reins and Tony clopped past him. He stepped over to the fence and leaned on it, grinning, as V threw a blanket over Tony’s back and walked him around the corral. She looked at him angrily from time to time. Her levis were tight over her bottom, the legs rolled up around her brown ankles.
“Aren’t you going to give him his bottle?” he said.
“Shut up!”
He watched her, leaning against the fence, till she had rubbed Tony down and led him into his stall. When she walked out toward him, he said pleasantly, “That’s a good horse, V.”
She said nothing, sulkily wiping her hands on the seat of her levis. Jack slapped at a fly. “How come you want to spoil him like that?” he said.
“Oh, shut up!” V said. She started past him, but he grabbed her arm, swung her around and kissed her, hard. She relaxed for a moment, as though she didn’t know what he was doing, but then she stamped on his foot. When he released her arm she hit him in the face.
The blow made his eyes water. He put his hand to his mouth and looked at it to see if he was bleeding. “Oh…” V said.
“You pack a mean right.”
Her eyes narrowed and she rubbed her hand roughly across her lips. “You get out of here!” she cried. “I ought to tell my father on you.”
“Okay, okay,” Jack said. “Just don’t hit me again.” He pretended to be staggering as he went around the shed to his car, and when he drove past the corral she was still standing in the gateway, her fists doubled up on her hips and her legs braced apart, glaring at him. He could see her breasts tight under her white shirt. He waved at her and laughed to himself, racing the car around the jutting corner of the house.
He didn’t think she’d stay mad. The next day he brought her a box of candy and apologized, and when he had finished dozing the stumps in the bottom she invited him up to the house for iced tea with her and Baird. And when he had the D-4 in the orchard clearing the irrigation ditches, she began packing her lunch and coming down to eat with him. They ate together every day.
One day they were sitting in the shade, leaning against the cat with their feet in the sun, teasing the glass-eyed dog. After a while Jack slid down and covered his face with his cap, listening to V chatter about Tony and about a Mr. Denton. But finally she stopped, and after a pause, said in a low voice, “Why did you kiss me that day, Jack?”
Without moving he peered out at her from under the brim of his cap. Her face was turned down and she was sitting with her legs crossed, intent on plucking out blades of grass, one by one, and arranging them in a pattern on the blue cloth of her knee. “Because I wanted to,” he said.
“Do you always do what you want to?”
“Well, sometimes I don’t get away with it.”
He saw her frown. He pushed his cap back from his face and sat up. He said seriously, “I didn’t get away with that.”
She brushed the blades of grass from her knee and wiped her hands together, still frowning. When she looked up at him there was an embarrassed smile on her lips. Jack put his hand on her arm and smoothed the hairs on her wrist, knowing that she wanted to be kissed again, but that it would be best not to kiss her yet.
Her arm was warm from the sun, brown, the hairs golden. He stroked her forearm gently, ready to take his hand away if she moved. But she let it stay.
Finally he stopped and they both leaned back against the side of the cat. Their shoulders touched. The sun was hot on their legs, and they said nothing more until it was time for Jack to go to work. When he had started the cat and climbed into the seat, V walked slowly away through the trees toward the house. The dog followed her, barking and jumping at her legs. Jack saw her put her hand down to pat its head as he swung the D-4 around toward the irrigation ditch.
The next day at noon he parked the cat a little more in the sun, whistling as he cut the engine and climbed out of the seat. V came down the hill, carrying her lunch in a paper bag. She hadn’t brought the dog with her, and she wore her levis and a fresh white shirt with the sleeves rolled up on her brown arms. Sitting down beside him, she opened the sack and took out two waxed-paper-wrapped sandwiches.
The day was hot and the trees left checkerboards of brightness and shadow on the cool ground. They didn’t talk while they ate. V seemed shy. She thanked him stiffly when he let her drink some of his coffee.
He let his shoulder touch hers. She moved away at first, but then they touched again. When he put his arm around her she looked up at him with an embarrassed smile, and said, “Jack.” He thought she was going to tell him to stop, but she said, “Who did you have a date with the other night?”
“When?”
“You know. You said you had a date.”
“Where did you go?”
He shrugged. “To some dance.”
“Where?”
“At the Chamber of Commerce Hall.”
“Is it a nice place?”
“It’s all right.”
She leaned against him and he pressed her closer, smoothing his hand in the soft hollow of her back. He felt her shiver. “Is she pretty?” she asked.
“Who?”
“This girl. Is she prettier than me?”
“She doesn’t even come close,” Jack said. He could feel the heat of the sun spreading up between them. He stroked her back. Her lips parted over her teeth as she smiled, and her eyes, half-closed, shone through the blonde lashes. When she turned her face away he touched her throat with his lips. She gasped and put her hand up to the place, but he didn’t kiss her again. He stroked her back slowly, softly, feeling the warmth creep up between them.
Gently he ran his hand around and over her belly; it was hard and flat and she sucked it in under his hand. When he moved his hand back she stretched, and then her arms went around his neck.
He could feel the hot points of her breasts against his chest, and he kissed her, slowly and softly. Then he kissed her harder, gradually harder, until he felt her breath quicken. Her lips were sweet and pressed back against her teeth and she made a tiny, thick sound in her throat, as though she’d known all along what it would be like, but now, although it was proved to her, it was still wonderful and new.
He had never known a virgin before and at first it was impossible. It hurt her and she was afraid, but he realized ashamedly that she was trusting him. But she was too nervous and too scared, and he did not force himself upon her.
The next time it hurt her again, but crying, she made him go through with it; crying and laughing at the same time, her arms holding him to her with strength he would not have believed was there. And afterward she would not release him, holding him with the strong arms and crying and talking to him and to herself and to no one, and laughing hysterically, her eyes shining with tears.
Then had come the night in the shed. He heard her make a sound that wasn’t the right kind of sound, he felt her body tense, and looking up, he saw the old man standing in the doorway; short and stocky, with just enough light behind him so that Jack could see his thick bush of white hair. He took a step back, and then he stood motionless, staring down at them. And then with a quick motion he turned and disappeared.
Everything was quiet. They were both silent, hardly breathing, and Jack could pick sounds out of the silence; the buzz of flies around the manure pile behind the shed, the crickets calling, the horse stamping a foot, the sound of the old man’s steps as he went up the hardbeaten path to the house.
“Get up!” V whispered. “Get up!” Her face was averted, her body felt cold and she was shivering. They stood up and stared at each other in the darkness. He put out his hand toward her. He was glad he had. She snatched at it and pressed it to her cheek.
“Jack,” she said, just “Jack,” trembling, gripping his hand as though it were the only thing in the world she had to hold onto. Jack felt his shirt trembling over his chest; he had realized suddenly what this meant. He had been playing the game, but she was not, and now it wasn’t a game anymore. She had lost, but he hadn’t realized all she would lose. He took a deep breath.
“I’ll go talk to him,” he said loudly. His legs felt weak; he didn’t want them to be weak; he tensed the muscles in his calves. He felt very young and very frightened.
“Oh, God, Jack!” V whispered.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go talk to him.”
“Wait!” she said. “Wait,” she whispered. “What’re you going to say?”
“I don’t know.” He tried to take her arm but she wouldn’t let go his hand. Hay crunched under their feet as they moved over to sit on the low stack of oat sacks that lined the wall. Opposite them the door was a rectangle of lighter blue in the darkness of the shed. He put his arm around her.
“Jack,” she whispered hoarsely. “What’ll we do?” Suddenly he was surprised she wasn’t crying.
“Don’t cry,” he said. He licked his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to go talk to him.”
“But what will you say? What’ll you say?”
“Goddamn it, I don’t know. You want to wait here while I go?”
“No,” she said breathlessly. “No. Please don’t go yet,” trembling as he tightened his arm around her. When she relaxed it was all at once, and she clung to him, still not crying, but holding him fiercely, her fingers digging into his back, her face tight against his chest. “What can you say?” she whispered.
“I’ll think of that when I see him. Maybe I’ll tell him we’re going to get married.”
She was silent, pressed against him. After a long time she breathed, “Oh, yes!”
“Let’s go,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get it to hell over with.” He heard the faint whack of a door slamming.
“Oh, please, wait!” V said. She put her lips up for him to kiss. They were cold and pressed flat against her teeth and she was trembling again. “I love you, Jack,” she said. “I love you.” He closed her lips with his mouth but still they moved; she was telling him she loved him. He pushed her away and stood up. He could talk to the old man now.
“Come on,” he said, and holding each other they went out past the corral. V didn’t look at Tony who snorted gently as they passed. She clung to Jack’s arm, slowing him down. He pulled her on toward the lighted windows of the house.
Then he saw the bags. At first he couldn’t make out what they were; merely squarish shapes in the darkness on the driveway. Then he saw they were suitcases and he gasped at the stupidity and righteousness of them. He hated them. He hated what they meant and he cursed the old man. He cursed himself.
He stopped as V’s hand tightened on his arm. She made no sound as they stared down at the suitcases. Jack felt his breath whisper through his lips, dry and hot. “Goddamn you to hell,” he whispered.
Turning, he pulled her along behind him as he hurried back to his car. They drove up beside the suitcases, he got out and slung them savagely into the rumble seat. When they passed the house through the window he could see the old man bent over his food, shoveling it in. “Goddamn you to hell for this,” he whispered.
They drove down the rutted road between the trees to the highway. The Ford squeaked and jolted and V clung to his right arm with both hands, her body pressed close to his. She was silent, staring at the short slice of road ahead that was bathed in the hard, white glare of the headlights. When he turned onto the highway, she had begun to cry.