Seed on the Wind

Nonsense. That she had a rendezvous with Pete was no excuse for going out of her mind. She had said she would stay all night. Well, she wouldn’t. Not that it couldn’t be done, Lillian could very well look after the children. Roy and Panther could for that matter. She could say to Roy, I’m going to stay in town all night, and probably neither of them would ask what for. If they did she would have to have something to say. Also she must tell them not to mention it to Lewis; but that wouldn’t be safe, on account of Julian. Better to tell Lewis; but that meant lying to him, and it wouldn’t be easy; with all his transparencies he was no fool. Once or twice she could get away with it perhaps, but was this a matter of once or twice? A Night of Love, that was a piece Panther played on the piano, and Albert made fun of it. Albert too would know about this, for it was folly to suppose that once or twice would do it. A Life of Love rather. A life of love, she was ready for it and had it coming to her. Pete didn’t call it love, he wouldn’t use that word. Lying afterwards on his back with a cigarette in his mouth and his hands behind his head, he would discuss it at length, using words she had never heard of, most of them invented on the spot she suspected, saying the most outrageous things, stopping only to inhale a puff of his cigarette or to burst into a roar of laughter at himself. She scarcely listened to any of it, lying in languor beside him, not caring. Not caring about her body either, naked if it so happened, naked and satisfied. They would do that again, not once or twice, but a thousand times, ten thousand... a life of love...

Pull down your skirt, her father said. Dead and done with. Those letters she had sent, Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Winter, and the snapshots, and him dead all the time, and her mother perhaps showing the letters and pictures to her bald and gentle husband...

She had lied to her father month after month about the money he sent for the piano lessons, and the money had gone to Pete. Now she was going to lie to Lewis. But that was impossible, and it was nonsense. Why lie to him, it was none of his business. She went to town to see Pete; that didn’t concern Lewis or Albert either. The children? Well, really, that was too much, dragging the children into it; it was about time she found it out if she was nothing but a nursemaid. A dried-up nun, Pete had said. Ha, not yet, thank god. It was a long time since she had properly looked at herself, but the point was not without testimony. He would see how dried-up she was — she didn’t need to look, she could feel.

Well well, he would say, lying on his back with a cigarette in his mouth, my seed on the wind again; we must confess, my love, that nature’s breeze has the true and ultimate vigor; compared with that, man’s puny petty perversions are an electric fan in a pullman car — they give you a headache, and cure it if you can. Seed on the wind. He would inhale the smoke deeply and blow it out in a long thin column, straight up towards the ceiling, and stretch himself and close his eyes. His seed. She did not want that. Definitely now she did not want that, from him or anyone, and she would see that nothing of that sort happened. Her body had done enough work for a while. Forever. She wished she knew more about it; there was no one she could ask. Undoubtedly Pete would know; it was something you got at a drugstore, and she would see that it was used whether he wanted to or not.

However, she would rather not trust Pete. It would be much better if she could find out about it herself. Probably the druggist at the little corner store on Eleventh Street, the one who had been so sympathetic long ago when Roy was coming, would tell her. She hadn’t seen him for years, but he would remember her if he was still there. It would certainly be better not to trust Pete, on that point or any other. He wasn’t a liar though; Lewis was wrong to think that if he paid him he couldn’t rely on his word. She would as soon take Pete’s word as Lewis’s or anyone’s. He wasn’t a liar, he was just cautious. You could depend on him to do anything he said he would do, but that didn’t help much, since he would never say. Oh, she wasn’t taking anything for granted with him; once or twice might do it after all and off he would go; but meanwhile...

She was jerked back into the immediate present by the sound of the radio, suddenly turned on downstairs. Startled, she glanced at the clock on her dressing-table. Already past twelve, and the children home for lunch! Ha, if she missed that train! What was it Albert said, you never miss a train you want to catch? More of his nonsense — what if you fell down and broke your leg? Well, she wasn’t going to miss this one...