Chapter 5D

I walked toward the living room and stood in the doorway, allowing the sheet wrapped around me to make as much noise as it wanted, and hoping she would respond if she were awake.

Dimly across the room I saw her rise and look toward me. "Speedy?"

"Yes," I answered. "It's me."

"I thought you were going to sleep?"

"Are you awake?"

"What do you think? I was worried about you."

I told myself: Do something, show her some fight.

In the faint light I saw a pencil on the lamp table near the door. I reached for it and held it like a cigarette, twiddling it gingerly in my fingers and puffing on it. The bedsheet wrapped around my waist and below, I walked into the middle of the room. Martha Jane had turned toward me on the sofabed and was lying on her side, staring at me quizzically.

I took a deep breath and started my act in full force. I opened with my Deep South Truck Driver's gruff, heavy drawl, the pencil dangling sloppily from my lips like a cigarette.

"Hey, bay-beh! Wonna beer?"

She smirked. On her side, she leaned on an elbow and propped her head in her hand. "Oh my, what is this strange child up to?"

Then I made the pencil a cigar, touting and flipping it onehanded. I propped my other hand on one hip. Then I faked the higher-pitched, tightly clipped voice and speech of the Leo Gorcey, right out of a Bowery Boys' movie.

"Dey call me Doubtless Dan. 'Cuz When Dan's About, There Ain't No Doubt!" I smugly pretended to straighten my tie. "Pahdon me, ladies, whilst I make myself pre-sent-able."

Then I jammed my hands deep into my pajamas' pockets, stuck out my tummy to simulate a beer belly, put the pencil in one corner of my mouth, and rocked back and forth for my W.C. Fields act.

"I recallll when were stranded in the Andeeees. It was TERRibble, couldn't find a bottle o' whiskey anywherrre. Had to live on nothing but food and waterrr for tennnn daaayzz!"

Each character brought me a step or two closer to the sofabed where she still lay propped on an elbow and keeping a straight face.

Then I put one hand behind my back, pursed my lips, and at the same time raised my eyebrows and squinted my eyes at the same time-not easy to do, but it was essential for an effective Clark Gable.

"Now listen, Scarlett. I know we haven't been gettin' along, sweetheart, so... I'll make a deal with ya. You keep the child, and the money, and the lumber company, and... I'll stay here at Tara with Ashley Wilkes."

With understated sarcasm she broke in. "Does this have an end?"

"Why, Scarlett, whenever you say."

"End, please."

Myself again, I dropped to my knees and my face was level with hers. "Yes, ma'am."

"Speedy... What in the world are you doing?"

"I'm trying."

"You're trying? Trying what?"

"Trying. You wanted me to try harder."

"Well... that's not *exactly* what I had in mind, angel."

"Well," I said, simply, "that's... right now, that's all I know."

"Oh," she said forgivingly. "Well then... what's next?"

"I want to kiss you."

"Kiss me?"

"Yeah. Kiss me, you fool."

She looked at me blankly. Perhaps she realized, as I did, that we had never truly, romantically kissed.

I prompted, "Alright?"

"Well... sure. I guess so."

"You sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be sure?" She frowned. "What are you going to do?"

"Kiss you."

"So kiss me."

I took a deep breath for courage. "Okay."

This was something I had not only never done, but had never imagined doing. I had no idea how to go about it. I walked on my knees the short distance to her, then stretched up over the edge of the sofabed, and brought my face close to hers. She appeared a little apprehensive and unsure, but she didn't flinch. One motion at a time, I gently took the arm she was propped upon and laid it flat on the bed, prompting her to recline on her side. I touched her hips and nudged her to lie flat on her back, which she did, smiling indulgently and watching me closely. I leaned forward a little more and put my right hand on her cheek, then I slipped my left arm under her neck. Cradling her in the best romantic style of the movies, I held her thus and brought her a little closer to me. She adjusted herself uncomfortably and I waited until she was settled.

I looked into her eyes. At first I attempted to do this with a certain panache, using a soppy, longing Charles Boyer gaze. But her eyes and her face undid me. Immediately, I fell victim to her effect on me, and my phony gaze faded. Her half lowered eyelids, her milksmooth, softly sculpted face, her slightly parted, expectant lips with their moist, dewy glaze, and her lucid, penetrating, expectant blue-gray-green eyes...

All pretense disappeared. I wanted, more than anything else in the world, to give Martha Jane the kiss of her life. A real kiss. A kiss that would be uniquely me. The kiss of the century. I returned her waiting gaze with one which I'm certain must have reflected the poignant tenderness that swept over me. Gently I lowered my lips toward hers, miraculously managing on my first effort to get the interlocking tilt of our faces just right. I waited ever so momentously before touching my mouth to hers. Then I joined our faces. Never before had my lips felt hers -- and never before had they felt anything like it! Meeting no resistance, I mouthed her gently at first, massaging my way into a complete awareness of the shape and texture of her yielding petals. Amazed, I felt her return my kiss with a slight, tentative, moist pressure against me. I settled my lips into hers until her almost imperceptible return of movements matching my own told my lips that her lips had found the most agreeable, the most telling contact. Surprised, my lips began melting into hers, into the wondrous, creamy velvet of her that met my seeking mouth with a seeking of her own, which I learned to read and respond to like a mirror image of her every oral gesture. Enthralled, I allowed my lips to caress hers with slightly more pressure and a series of small, slow, ovular movements, which seemed as natural to me as breathing. She, too, returned the pressure and the movement. Enraptured, I felt my insides sizzle as she slid one arm along and then around my shoulders. A sudden hunger rose in me; but I controlled and tempered it, expressing it with my hand on the side of her face as a small caress and a tender hug, a subtle drawing of her head closer to me. Captivated, I lifted my lips only slightly and, still touching hers, I allowed my lips to caress hers like a tantalizing, slippery, mothering feather. Enchanted, I felt her return the favor. Intoxicated, I moved my mouth closer again, this time with a sure but carefully restrained ardor, and then I simply allowed my lips to disintegrate into hers. Gently we writhed our mouths together for another long and nourishing moment, increasing the pressure gradually, then releasing, withdrawing with languid, reluctant slowness, until I opened my eyes and saw hers still closed, blissful, tranquil. Never had I been so close to her mouth or her face, which filled my view and shut out any and all awareness of the universe. My lips were still wet with hers; my lips still felt hers, felt *LIKE* hers; my lips seemed to have disappeared, her own lips taking their place.

Gazing raptly, I stroked her cheek.

She opened her eyes sleepily. At first they were questioning, uncertain. Then she seemed to come awake and she gently pushed me away.

"Where," she asked skeptically, "did you learn to kiss like that?"

"That's the way I kiss."

"No, Speedy, nobody kisses like that. I bet you picked that up from the movies. You kissed me the way somebody like William Holden kisses."

"That," I insisted, "is the way I kiss."

"No. That's the way William Holden kisses."

"He got it from me."

"Oh... I see. Well, that's some kiss."

"Thank you." Daringly, without pause, I declared, "I wanna sleep in here."

"There's not room enough for two."

"Then, uh..." My eyes rolled as I tried to overcome this latest obstacle. "Okay, I'll have to sleep on top of you."

"That would be very uncomfortable, Mister Holden."

"Well, then... I guess we'll have to sleep in the bedroom."

Her only response was an insolent, waiting smirk.

I stopped right there. I rose upright on my knees beside the sofabed. I looked at her, thinking that this just wasn't at all what she wanted. And I knew it wasn't, because I knew that to a large extent, except for what I felt during the kiss, it was a show on my part. I felt dishonest.