There was the pine scent and the perfume and the savage odor of whisky on hot breath and then there was the faint saline taste of blood on his tongue and the rigid breasts of the girl pressed against his bare skin and she was trying to gasp an insane gibberish of love words and sex words and sounds that were not words at all. He shut off the gibberish with his hard mouth and then he started to lose himself in the devils that were coursing through his blood and the sharp pain of her nails digging fitfully into the back of his shoulders and the taut smoothness of her writhing thighs. For a searing moment the emptiness and the agonies of the past four years rose to the surface like a two-edged razor in his brain, rose slashing wildly to torture and torment, and then, as suddenly, they were lost in the devils and the blood and the white, pine-scented thighs of the girl and Hall stopped thinking and gave himself completely to the one, to the only one, to the only thing that could answer the devils and the pain and the moment.
Then she lay at his side, limp, whispering, "God, oh my God, oh my God," and smiling at him with tear-filled eyes.
"Hello."
"Was I good? Was I, Matt?"
And he realized how adept she actually was at it. Sex was a soy bean, something you used, developed, exploited. "You're very good at this sort of thing," he said, "and you know it."
"I'm not always good," she said. "This is one thing that takes two for perfection. Like now." She reached into the drawer of the night table. "Cigarette?"
"No."
"Light mine for me, darling. I'm half dead."
She smoked her cigarette in happy, satisfied silence, moving closer to Hall and putting her free arm under his neck. Then, with an abrupt movement, she ground the butt into the ash tray and kissed the scar on Hall's chin. "Who cut you up?" she asked. "Some Frenchwoman's husband?" But before he could answer she was lying on his chest with her open mouth pressing heavily against his lips.
This time he could ignore the devils until the hot furies that drove the girl finally moved him to respond. But what had earlier been an experience which reached in and shook the guts was now a performance—overture, theme, variations, theme and soaring climax and maybe it was what she wanted and maybe it wasn't but baby that's the best you get this trip. When it was done she seemed happy enough. She smoked another cigarette and then she fell into a light sleep, her head nuzzling under his arm pit like a puppy's.