There was no bed; just a mattress on a pallet covered with quilts. I laid her down and sat on the edge of the mattress, my long legs jammed up awkwardly. A shaft of light from a streetlamp cast a diffuse glow over the room and let me pick out shelves overflowing with books and walls adorned with Picasso prints and labor activist posters from the Depression.
Sarah looked up at me, her hand resting on my knee. I stroked her hair, then bent over and placed short dry kisses on her neck and shoulders. She sighed. I told her she was very beautiful, and she giggled. I looked for imperfections, the little body flaws that speak volumes. I found them: a small growth of dark hairs above her nipples, an acne cluster on her right shoulder blade. I kissed these places until Sarah grabbed my head and pulled my mouth to hers.
We kissed hard and long, then Sarah opened up yawningly and arched to receive me. We joined and coupled violently, strongly, muscles straining in our efforts to stay interlocked as we changed positions and thrashed the quilts off the mattress. We peaked together, Sarah sobbing as I mashed my face into her neck, rubbing my mouth and nose in the little rivulets of our combined sweat.
We lay still for a long time, gently stroking odd parts of each other. To talk would have been to betray the moment; I knew this from experience, and Sarah from instinct. After a while she pretended to sleep, a silent, loving way to ease the awkwardness of my departure.
I dressed in the dark, then reached over and brushed back her long dark hair and kissed the nape of her neck, thinking as I left that maybe this time I had given as much as I had taken.
I drove home and got out my diary. I wrote of the circumstances of my meeting Sarah, what we had talked about, and what I learned. I described her body and our lovemaking. Then I went to bed and slept long into the afternoon.
2
“Getting laid, Freddy?”
Wacky and I were pulling into the parking lot at Rancho Park Municipal Golf Course very early the following Saturday morning. I was hungry for golf, not masculine banter, and Wacky’s question felt like a knife in the side. I ignored it until Wacky cleared his throat and started to speak in verse:
“Whither thou, O pussy-hound, O tireless fiend for Venus Mounds, O noble cop, you’ll never stop . . .”
I set the hand brake and stared at Wacky.
“You haven’t answered my question,” he said.
I sighed: “The answer is yes.”
“Great. What’s it costing you?”
“Very little. I go to bars only as a last resort.” I hauled my clubs out of the backseat and motioned Wacky to follow me. As I slung my golf bag over my shoulder and locked the car, Wacky gave me one of his rare cold sober looks.
“That wasn’t what I meant, Fred.”
“What _did_ you mean, Wacky? I came here to hit golf balls, not write my sexual memoirs.”
Wacky clapped me on the back and waggled his eyebrows. “Are you still planning on being chief of police someday?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Then I hope you realize that the commission will never appoint a bachelor pussy-fiend as chief. You know that they’re going to get to you, don’t you?”
I sighed again, this time angrily. “Exactly what are you talking about?”
“Price, Freddy. The dames are going to start to get to you. You’re going to get tired of one-nighters and go loony romantic and start searching for some tomato you screwed back in ’48. The woman, who’ll never be able to compete with the thrill of one-nighters. You’ll be screwed both ways. You make me damn glad I’m not big and handsome and charming. You make me damn glad I’m just a poet and a cop.”
“And a drunk.” I regretted saying it immediately and fished around for something to make it right.
Wacky preempted me: “Yeah, and a drunk.”
“Then you watch the price, Wack. When I’m chief of police and you’re my chief of detectives I don’t want you croaking of cirrhosis of the liver.”