In the dark of the stoop in front of the tenement door, he reaches for her and drags her to him. “Dont Bouy, dont; dont be rough.” His arms tighten like knotted cords round her back; her knees are trembling. His mouth is groping for her mouth along one cheekbone, down the side of her nose. She cant breathe with his lips probing her lips. “Oh I cant stand it.” He holds her away from him. She is staggering panting against the wall held up by his big hands.
“Nutten to worry about,” he whispers gently.
“I’ve got to go, it’s late.... I have to get up at six.”
“Well what time do you think I get up?”
“It’s mommer who might catch me....”
“Tell her to go to hell.”
“I will some day ... worse’n that ... if she dont quit
pickin on me.” She takes hold of his stubbly cheeks and kisses him quickly on the mouth and has broken away from him and run up the four flights of grimy stairs.
The door is still on the latch. She strips off her dancing pumps and walks carefully through the kitchenette on aching feet. From the next room comes the wheezy doublebarreled snoring of her uncle and aunt. Somebody loves me, I wonder who.... The tune is all through her body, in the throb of her feet, in the tingling place on her back where he held her tight dancing with her. Anna you’ve got to forget it or you wont sleep. Anna you got to forget. Dishes on the tables set for breakfast jingle tingle hideously when she bumps against it.
“That you Anna?” comes a sleepy querulous voice from her mother’s bed.