Chapter 6

Roberto

When they'd finished their coffee Toni took the cups and put them in the sink. She stood there for a moment, and Roberto looked at her. He noticed how straight her back was – it reminded him of a piece of thin, flexible spring steel, in the way it would bend and then return to its upright position. It wasn't a rigid back, but it was certainly a straight one. From this angle he could see the softness of her jawline, and the slight roundness of her cheek – a roundness that was just barely there, for she was indeed a slim girl. She stood there, looking out the window, apparently, at what was now dark, for they'd spent a lot of time over their coffee. And he looked at her, realizing that she was not only the most unusual woman he'd ever known, but perhaps the best looking. The women he'd been with had gotten older than their years, but though Toni seemed to be his age, in some ways she actually seemed younger – not younger, exactly, but unspoiled perhaps.

She turned now from the window and looked at him, her hands clasped in front of her. "I'm going to go to bed now, Roberto. If you want to you can stay up, but I'd really like it if..."

He stood up, but remained in his position by the table, the table between them still. "I'll go to bed now too, Toni," he said, and heard nervousness in his voice. "You go on, and I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Okay." She stepped forward, and he stepped around the table, and as they met at the end of the table she reached up her fingers and stroked them gently across his cheek before she turned into the living room, and down the hall.

Suddenly Roberto found himself in an odd state. It wasn't the sort of state he'd been in with all the other women. This was almost a spiritual thing – though thinking of anything in spiritual terms was so completely new to him that he could barely formulate the thought. He desired her not because she was physically attractive, he realized – although she most certainly was physically attractive – but because she was attractive in some other way. A spiritual way, he thought, using the word only because he didn't know any other word to convey his meaning. For the first time in Roberto's life, he wanted to demonstrate something that was essentially beyond the physical, above it, perhaps. He suddenly wasn't thinking of Toni's flesh, but of her self – he wanted to be with her, more than anything else.

He went out into the utility room and made sure the door to the back yard was locked. It was, but the door didn't seem really strong, so he locked the kitchen door too. He turned out the overhead light, and the light over the stove which was still on from when Toni had been cooking their supper.

He went into the living room and made sure the living room door was locked, and turned out that light. Down the hall he saw a faint glow coming from the bedroom – apparently there was a nightlight on in there.

He'd expected to hurry into the bedroom – but suddenly he stopped dead. What am I doing here? he asked himself. This isn't one of the women from the bar. This is a nice girl. 'Vangeline was right on that one – she's nice, truly nice. She shouldn't be doing this. But it was too late to back out now. The dryer, he'd seen in the utility room, was still going, though the cycle was running down, and he could hardly leave in the clothes he was wearing. Whoever they belonged to wouldn't appreciate that, probably.

Who did the clothes belong to, anyway? That question came into his mind suddenly. Was Toni already seeing someone? Would he find himself looking, in the morning, into a very angry face? Surely that couldn't be it. There were no signs of a man in the house – the pictures on the walls, the calendar hanging in the kitchen, the towels and shampoo and soap in the bathroom, everything said woman, and nothing said man.

No, Toni wasn't anyone's woman. Where the clothes came from was a question, but there was no need to fear an angry husband or boyfriend. He was certain, now that he thought of it, that she had no man in her life, and wherever the clothes had come from, he felt suddenly that they'd been in her closet for a long time, untouched. In fact, she'd said that she had to check to see what was there, hadn't she?

So here he was, back to the sudden nervousness of knowing that just a few steps away, a girl waited for him, a girl he wanted more than he'd ever wanted any woman, and who at the same time seemed like she deserved such attentions less than any woman he'd ever known. She's not that kind of girl, he thought.

And then her voice came to him, calling his name. And he knew that it was too late now to back out. She had made it completely clear what she wanted, and he'd gone along, not thinking of the kind of girl she was. And now all he could do was be for her the best young man he could be – and that, he thought, wasn't necessarily very good.

He took the few steps and was in the doorway to the bedroom. There was indeed a nightlight in the socket on the far wall, and its gentle, dim light showed him Toni, lying in the bed, on the far side, the sheet up to her waist, the nightgown full around her, and her hair now fanned out on the pillow like a spill of satin.

"I hope you don't mind the nightlight, Roberto," she said. "I can't sleep without one, not since—"

He knew better than to ask. She wouldn't tell him, just as she hadn't told him anything else that she'd almost said, before she caught herself. "That's all right," he said. "I'm used to all sorts of things."

"Then come here, and I'll rub your back."

He took off the clothes he was wearing, and, suddenly shy, slipped into bed. With the sheet up around his waist, he sat with his legs under him while Toni sat up, and put her fingers to work on his back. He hadn't realized how tense he was, and as her strong fingers probed at his muscles, he felt himself relax. It was as though a soothing warmth slowly washed through him, softening him in places he hadn't known were hard and knotted. She worked from his shoulders down to his waist, and then her fingers left him.

He turned, and saw her face there, almost touching his. "Now you do my back," she said softly, so softly that he could barely hear it. She turned and laid down on her face, her arms around her pillow. He put his hands on her shoulders, just resting them there for a moment, and then began working at her muscles. He'd never done anything like this before, and he wasn't sure how. But he had the feel of her hands on his back in his memory, and tried to imitate what he'd felt, and soon a soft murmuring sound, almost a purr, came up as Toni luxuriated in the feeling. He must be doing it right; he could almost see her relaxing under his hands.

It was, in a way, the most intimate thing he'd ever done. He kept his hands to her back, refusing to move them down. Yet he seemed to be touching her in the most intimate possible way; the sensations that came up through his hands were electric, as though Toni were some sort of generator, creating an energy that filled her and overflowed into him. He knew vaguely that this was again something that was more than physical, that it sprang from some connection between them which existed independent of their bodies. But he was rapidly losing himself in her, in the wiry muscles he felt in her back, in the startling slenderness of that back that his hands outlined through the fabric of the nightgown. For the first time in his life, the woman he was with meant more to him than his own sensations did, and he thought that he'd keep on working on this back forever, if she asked him to.

But he came, in time, to her waist, and she rolled over under his hands, which he hastily lifted from her. She looked at him lazily for a moment, and then sat up, her hair cascading gently over her shoulders. "Undo my buttons," she said in a voice that was scarcely louder than her breathing.