He said, “Do you want to sleep?”
She considered the question as if the idea were new, then shook her head. It was raining and a gray light loomed in the garret, threatening to return all things to their quotidian form. Tom felt the grip of an unnameable fear but Mary lit another cigarette and smiled at him so impishly that it restored his faith. The bright sexual smell of her, her slightly comical frown of concentration, her breasts quivering as she worked the wheel of the lighter. Her slim belly as she sat up in bed to find the ashtray. The rain came in squalls, hard as handfuls of rice against the window.
He made them both tea, in the jam jars they used for cups, and climbed back into bed. They sat against the headboard and leaned shoulders. They were tired, their eyes cast inward. They forgot to sip the pale tea. The steam condensed on the inner rims of the jars.
He said, “Have you ever been . . . you know. In bed with anyone before?”
She blinked. “Oh yes.”
As if it were nothing. Tom’s fear returned. He supposed he had been perfectly prepared for her answer to be yes or no, but this third possibility had not even slightly occurred to him: that perhaps it really was nothing. It had seemed the most important thing that had ever happened to him. But of course he had been a fool. He felt as if he could easily cry.
He wouldn’t let himself. He would set his face just like this: in this worldly grin. And when their conversation naturally picked up again he would engage in the new topic with all levity. As if yes, this were nothing, and that therefore this feeling he had—that he had been struck through like the clumsy first draft of a letter—were nothing, too. And still . . . and still.
He realized that he did not mind if she had slept with five men or even a dozen: he just wanted Mary—who had trembled in his arms and crushed her face into his neck—to speak about what had happened as if it were something. Tears threatened again and he stopped them.
She was digging him in the ribs.
“Darling?” he said, keeping his tone light.
She prodded him again and he turned to look. She was watching him strangely and he didn’t understand. There was so much, he now realized, that he did not understand. He had lost his virginity—sailed to a place where land had been marked on the chart—and yet here was just more open sea.
He could not decipher her eyes. An anxiety came over him that she wanted them to make love again. He didn’t know if he could. Then he worried that perhaps making love was not what she wanted at all, and that maybe this strange and terrible look she was giving him was something else, a prelude to the sort of conversation where in which she would be serious and kind. She would speak softly, noticing the lateness of the hour, and saying that perhaps they should sleep after all. And then, as soon as the time was decent for young women to take to the streets, she would excuse herself and leave.
He stroked her cheek. How pathetic he was. She had seen his reaction, and she must think him ridiculous. Now that she was certain to leave, he understood that he did not even care if she felt nothing for him, or for any of the men she had slept with. What he could not bear was to be without her. How dreadful the days would be from now on. How empty.
She smiled.
“What is it?” he said.
“I haven’t slept with anyone else.”
“So why . . . ?”
She took his hand. “I wanted to see if it counted for you.”
Above them the dawn sounded with engines. Tom drew the blanket around them. He held Mary close in the improvised darkness. How bedclothes would protect them, he didn’t know. The engine noise drew nearer and increased in volume until it was directly overhead, rattling the windows. Then it faded away to the east. Aircraft were being delivered, or pilots trained—that was all—and afterward they laughed at their own fear.