The Second Coming

rose and dressed in the dark, walked out to the Mercedes, unlocked the trunk, took out the leather case containing the Greener and the holster containing the Luger. It was a cold starry night. The mists of summer and fall had all blown away. He walked down the highway holding the Greener like a businessman with a briefcase. When he reached the overlook the Holiday Inn looked over, he did not even pause but swung the case like a discus, the throw turning him around and heading him back. He did not hear the Greener hit bottom. As an afterthought, he pitched the Luger back over his shoulder and went away without listening.
    6
    It was light.
    â€œWake up. What’s wrong? What is it?”
    â€œWhat is what?” Instantly he was awake and unsurprised.
    â€œWho were you talking to? What were you saying about Georgia? Why do you want to go to Georgia? Where did you go?”
    â€œOutside for a walk.”
    She must have gotten up. The drapes were open a little. The morning light poured in. The Holsteins were grazing beyond the chain-link fence. There was something pleasant about the unused ungrazed Holiday Inn corner. Her pajamas hung in the alcove.
    â€œCome here,” he said.
    â€œI’m here,” she said. “In the bed. By you.”
    â€œCome here.”
    â€œWell, you’ll have to straighten up. You were all bent over, covering your head with your arms like somebody was after you. Were they?”
    â€œNo. I don’t know. Now.”
    â€œYes. That’s better. Now.”
    â€œYes, it is.” Her skin was like silk against him.
    â€œThere you are,” she said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIt’s you.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou against me, yet not really opposed.”
    â€œYes. That is, no.”
    â€œPut your arms around me in addition.”
    â€œThey are around you.”
    â€œThey sure are.”
    When she came against him from the side, it was with the effect of flying up to him from below like a little cave bat and clinging to him with every part of her.
    They were lying on their sides facing each other.
    â€œCome here,” he said.
    â€œI’m here.”
    â€œNow.”
    â€œYes.”
    There was an angle but it did not make trouble. Entering her was like turning a corner and coming home.
    â€œOh my,” she said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s you for true.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThis was not in the book.”
    â€œWhat book?”
    â€œNo books, no running brooks, just you.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI don’t believe this,” she said. “I don’t, I don’t.”
    â€œIt’s true,” he said.
    â€œOh my, what is happening? I think I’m going to have a fit.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhat is going to happen?”
    â€œYou’re going to have a fit.”
    When he woke up, she was gazing at him. “Were you having a dream?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou were talking about—loving.”
    â€œYes, I remember.”
    â€œWas it love like this?”
    â€œNo, not like this. I’ll take this.”
    â€œDon’t ever let me go,” she said. “Now I know what it is I wanted. Before I only wanted.”
    â€œI won’t let you go.”
    â€œAh, do you want to know what it is?”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œIt is a needfulness that I didn’t know until this moment that I needed. What a mystification.”
    â€œYes, it is a mystification.”
    â€œDon’t you think you better get up and close the curtain?”
    â€œNot necessarily. The consequences of not closing the curtain are neither here nor there and in any case not direful.”
    â€œAre you making fun of me?” she said.
    â€œYes.”
    They laughed. It was the first time he had heard her laugh so, a tickled hooting laugh, the way a girl laughs with other girls.
    â€œOh my,” she said after a while. “Perhaps that was it, after all.”
    â€œIt?”
    â€œYes, you know, it.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWould you have ever believed?” she asked someone, perhaps herself, absently.
    â€œYes, I would have believed,” he said.
    â€œOh my,” she said again presently. “It is now evident that whatever was wrong with me is now largely cured. Quel mystery.”
    â€œI have an idea,” he said after a while.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLet’s stay together. I do not wish to leave you