opened her mouth to him, and ran her hands up inside his jacket, and dug
her fingers into his chest with a force that surprised him; then she
pulled away and looked furtively up and down the path.
Quickly he said: “Have dinner with me? Soon?” “Soon,” she said.
Then they walked back to the party and split up. She left without saying
good-bye to him. The next day he took a suite at a hotel in Park Lane,
and there he gave her dinner and champagne, then he took her to bed. It
was in the bedroom that he discovered how wrong he had been about her.
He expected her to be hungry, but easily satisfied.
Instead, he found that her sexual tastes were at least as bizarre as his
own. Over the next few weeks they did everything that two people can do
to one another, and when they ran out of ideas Laski made a phone call
and another woman arrived to open up a whole new series of permutations.
Ellen did everything with the delighted thoroughness of a child in a
fairground where all the rides are suddenly free.
He looked at her, sitting beside him on the couch in his office, as he
remembered; and he felt suffused with a sentiment which he thought
people would probably call love.
He said to her: “What do you like about me?”
“What an egocentric question!” “I told you what I like about you. Come
on, satisfy my ego. What is it?”
She looked down at his lap. “I give you three guesses.”
He laughed. “Would you like coffee?”
“No, thank you. I’m going shopping. I just came in for a quick feel.”
“You’re a shameless old baggage.”
“What a funny thing to say.”
“How is Derek?”
“Another funny thing to say. He’s depressed.
Why do you ask?”
Laski shrugged. “The man interests me. How could he possess a prize like
Ellen Hamilton, then let her slip through his fingers?”
She looked away. “Talk about something else.”
“All right. Are you happy?”
She smiled again. “Yes. I only hope it will last.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” he said lightly.
“I don’t know. I meet you, and I fuck like .. like …”
“Like a bunny.”
“What?”
“Fuck like a bunny. This is the correct English expression.”
She opened her mouth and laughed. “You old fool. I love you when you’re
being all Prussian and correct. I know you only do it to amuse me.”
“So: we meet, and we fuck like bunnies, and you don’t think it can
last.”
“You can’t deny the whole thing has an air of impermanence.” “Would you
have it otherwise?” he asked carefully.
“I don’t know.”
It was the only answer she could give, he realized.
She added: “Would you?”
He chose his words. “This is the first time I have had occasion to
reflect upon the permanence or otherwise of our relationship.”
“Stop talking like the Chairman’s Annual Report.”
“If you will stop talking like the heroine of a romantic novelette.
Speaking of Chairmen’s Reports, I suppose that is what Derek is
depressed about.”
“Yes. He thinks it’s his ulcer that makes him feel bad, but I know
better.”
“Would he sell the company, do you think?”
“I wish he would.” She looked at Laski sharply.
“Would you buy it?”
“I might.”
She stared at him for a long moment. He knew that she was evaluating
what he had said, weighing possibilities, considering his motives. She
was a clever woman.
She decided to let it pass. “I must go,” she said.
“I want to be home for lunch.”
They stood up. He kissed her mouth, and ran his hands all over her body
with sensual familiarity. She put a finger into his mouth, and he sucked
it.
“Good-bye,” she said.
“I’ll call you,” Laski told her.
Then she was gone. Laski went to the bookcase and stared unseeingly at
the spine of The Directory of Directors. She had said, “I only hope it
can last, and he needed to think about that. She had a way of saying
things that made him think. She was a subtle woman. What did she want,
the marriage? She had said she did not know what she wanted, and