Rapture

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Now that she had set him free by taking the first step, Jeff knew how to act. It came naturally. Everything worked, everything was right. He told her what to do, and she did it, never once giving him so much as a questioning glance. When she had pleased him, composing herself into a hundred pictures and poses, doing things to herself, he called her back to bed and made love to her with no thought for his own pleasure. He worshiped her body with his fingers and mouth. He took her through thrashing energetic responses that seemed somehow superficial, as if this was how her inexperience told her to react, and then to a deeper level where ecstasy was wide, roaring, and irresistible. When she was hardly aware of him any more, and was caught up in a series of thundering orgasms, a feeling of great joy filled him. Bonnie had a genuinely rejuvenating effect on him. With her, he had rediscovered the wonder and delight there can be in making a woman feel that good. It was a high in itself, the power to give such pleasure. He couldn't remember the last time he had done this to a woman. It was a godlike sensation, and he wondered if he could go on all night or if she would pass out first. She was helpless at his touch, and that made everything right with him. He was in a clearing, free of the past and the future.

Finally Bonnie grabbed at his shoulders and clumsily pulled him up. Her whole body was slick, her face bathed in moisture, and her hair drenched. She couldn't open her eyes yet, but her fingers moved over his face like those of a blind person trying to read a mysterious script. After they hugged and stroked each other for a few moments, Jeff rolled her over onto her belly so that he could rest his head in the small of her back. He wanted to see nothing but the perfect curve of her bottom, which he encompassed with one arm across the top of her thighs.

It was nearly eight in the evening when they stumbled into the shower and washed each other thoroughly. Jeff got out first, dried himself, brushed his damp hair back, and dressed. He took the elevator down to the ground floor, where he bought an inexpensive hair drier in the drugstore. When he returned to his room, he found Bonnie standing by the bed, combing snarls out of her hair. His first thought was how wonderful it would be to have her around the house, nude, all the time. She was an astonishing creature. He tossed the carton containing the hair drier onto the bed.

"A little present for you."

"Oh, fantastic. Thank you."

He went to her, took her in his arms, and ran his hands down her backside. It was like holding the warm, glowing fire of life itself, he thought happily.

"You look and smell and feel like heaven."

"Mmm ..."

Bonnie went into the bathroom and dried her hair, and when she came out a few minutes later, she called her roommate. She was on the telephone for about five minutes. Jeff was pleased with the way she handled the situation. He stood right behind her, running his hands up and down the front of her body while she chatted casually, resting her head back on his shoulder. Bonnie was like some amazing toy he had picked up in a magic shop, so remarkable that even after you'd played with it for hours you still wanted to look at it and fondle it lovingly.

"What about your mother?"

"Yeah, I should do that now too."

While Bonnie talked to Georgianne, Jeff moved away and lit a cigarette. He would have loved to kiss and touch the girl at that moment, and catch the sound of Georgianne's voice, but just the thought of doing it made him tremble, and he was afraid his body would betray him in some way to Bonnie. She told her mother, as she had her roommate, that she would be out with friends for most of the weekend, not to expect to find her in, that she would call again. Bonnie kept it vague, but she sounded so casual and convincing that no serious questions were asked. Jeff, watching her from the armchair across the room, admired what he saw. She was cool, she could deal with a delicate situation, and in a few years she'd probably be able to get people to do whatever she wanted. She showed more potential than Georgianne ever had, but he knew he was looking for something else. In the long run, Bonnie might well prove to be too much to handle. Georgianne was the dream, a promise of love secure and solid.

"Are we going anywhere tonight?" she asked after hanging up.

"Sure. Let's go out and get something to eat," he replied. "I'm starved."

"Okay, great. Now let me just see what I can come up with here. Don't panic."

Jeff smiled but said nothing. He took another sip of malt and watched. Bonnie pulled on her panties and black jeans, then a clean pair of Jeffs socks and her boots. She found the one white shirt he'd bothered to bring and put it on, rolling the sleeves up over her wrists. She tucked it in her jeans and left the top four buttons unfastened. Then she took his off-white linen jacket from the closet and tried it on. The sleeves were again too long, but she carefully folded them back, forming neat cuffs. Finally she arranged her scarf so that it looked like an explosion of silk and color erupting from the breast pocket of the jacket. She grabbed her handbag and went into the bathroom to apply some make-up. When she returned, Jeff noticed the faint lavender lipstick and the blue shading around her eyes.

"Well?"

"Fantastic," he told her. "You look better in my clothes than I do."

"No offense, but I should hope so."

They took a taxi into downtown Boston and wandered around the streets for a while, enjoying the cool night air. They ate in an Italian restaurant, talking about college and Bonnie's future. Jeff painted a glamorous picture of high-tech work in Southern California, telling her of the endless possibilities, the generous pay, and how important it was to get some practical experience. He didn't want her to think she had to stay on at Harvard until she had her master's degree and doctorate.

After dinner they walked until they came upon a place called the Seafront, a night club that featured a good jazz quartet. No one questioned Bonnie's age. They drank through two sets of music. Then she tried to persuade Jeff to take her to one of the strip bars in the Combat Zone.

"I want to see what they're like," she explained over an elegant saxophone solo. "I'd be safe with you."

Safe. The word seemed to echo in the back of Jeff's mind, but he wasn't sure why. He liked Bonnie's sense of curiosity, though, and her trust in him.

"I've been in those kinds of places," he said dismissively, a man of the world. "They're full of lonely men, tourists, and other stray suckers."

Bonnie looked as if she were about to answer that, but she stifled it beneath an odd smile.

Back in the hotel room later, they took their clothes off, got under the covers, and watched a made-fortelevision movie about cloning. Rock Hudson created Barbara Carerra in his laboratory and then had to ex plain the twentieth century to her. It wasn't easy. Why bother? Jeffs mind drifted. He was trying to understand something about sex. Time was the extra, invisible ingredient. Sex was one way Bonnie forged ahead with her life, seizing her future and making it the present. But for Jeff it seemed to be all about the past, his way of driving back through the years toward some lost, incomplete version of himself. When he made love to Bonnie, wasn't he also making love to Georgianne? Or was he really just trying to penetrate a ghost that existed only in the spirit world of his own mind? Could Georgianne ever be as good as he hoped and dreamed? That was the cruelest question of all. Before he fell asleep, he tried to plan how he would talk to Bonnie about her mother. There had to be a right way. He had a crucial opportunity in the palm of his hand, but he also knew that time was working against him-and his ghost.

In the morning, Jeff and Bonnie walked to a diner for breakfast and then strolled along the Charles watching four- and eight-man shells streak downriver. She put her arm through his and they walked slowly, close together, like lovers. She mentioned her father almost accidentally, in reference to something else, and Jeff did not respond. A moment later she stopped and looked at him.

"What do you think about my father's murder, Jeff?" she asked. "What do you really think?"

It was a clear, bright morning, but there was a brisk breeze coming off the Charles. She was watching him with curiosity and interest, he thought, rather than with any real suspicion. He felt safe and unworried, and although he didn't care for the subject, he hoped he could use it to reassure Bonnie in some way. Especially about himself.

"It was mistaken identity," he said.

"Do you have any doubts about that?"

"Not really. Do you?"

"Sometimes I wonder if ..."

"If it was someone your father knew?"

"Yes."

Jeff took his time cupping his hands and lighting a cigarette, then tossing the match aside before speaking.

"Of course that's a possibility," he allowed reasonably. "But then you have to look for a motive. Who were your father's enemies-that kind of thing. And from what I understand, your mother and you and the police couldn't think of any reason why someone would have wanted to ... do that. It's been quite a while now. Mistaken identity isn't nice. It's absurd, when you think about it. But it also makes a kind of sense. What else could it be? I thought you said yesterday that you did think it was mistaken identity. But obviously you don't. Okay, what do you suggest instead?"

He hadn't expected to say so much, but now he was pleased. The words had come naturally, and he could feel the confidence growing within him as he spoke. How long would it take to bury Sean, for Chrissake? It seemed to work, because Bonnie looked less sure of herself.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't have any thing ... not really, I guess. It's the not knowing that hurts.'

But you do know, if you let yourself," he said obscurely. 'It's hard, but it's the acceptance of death."

Too much, he thought immediately. She can't handle that yet. Still, it was good to get it said. Sooner or later she would realize he was right. For now, Bonnie had fallen silent and had a distant look on her face. She started walking again. Jeff kept up with her.

"Hey, are you all right?" he asked, patting her back gently.

`Yeah, sure." She pushed across a smile. "You know what I'd really like though? A change of clothes."

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