Contrary Pleasure by John D. MacDonald

old man sat at the desk.
Brock read off the names and accounts and where the guys lived. The old man
copied them all down and totaled the figures. Ninety-six dollars and fifty
cents. “Have you hocked anything?”
    “My watch and some clothes.”
    “Give me the tickets.” Brock took the tickets out of the back of his
wallet and gave them to the old man. He stood up. “You wait here. I’ll redeem
this stuff and pay those boys back.”
    “I got the addresses. You could send them checks. That would be all
right.”
    “I’ll pay them in cash.”
    “But it would be a lot easier to—”
    “I know that. I know that.”
    “I don’t get it, Dad.”
    “I wouldn’t expect you to.”
    The old man was back by one o’clock. He had a suit box tied with string.
He took the wristwatch out of his pocket and handed it to Brock. Brock strapped
it on his wrist. He remembered that it had been the big high-school graduation
present. He even remembered the box and the way it was wrapped and the card.
The old man had a funny look. He went into the bathroom and shut the door.
After a little while Brock heard him being sick in there. He thought of the bad
time the guys probably had given him. They had no reason to do that. The old
man hadn’t done anything. Brock called through the door, asking if he was all
right, if he could help. The old man said no in a strained funny voice. Brock
sat on the bed. His father was in the bathroom for a long time. He looked pasty
when he came out.
    He planted his feet and stood in front of Brock. “What was it? Gambling?”
    “No sir.”
    “A girl?”
    “Y-yes.”
    “Get her in trouble?”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “You wanted the money, then, so you could give her a big time.”
    “I… I guess so.”
    “Sleeping with her?”
    “Yes.”
    The old man stared at him expressionlessly. “Every damn thing in the
world. Every damn thing. Every damn chance. Now a thief. A stinking filthy
sneaking thief.”
    “Wait a minute, Dad. I—”
    “Oh, shut up. I hope that she was the best lay since Cleopatra. And it
would have had to be a thousand times better than that to make it worth what
you’ve done to yourself, what you’ve done to your mother and to me. Love
doesn’t come that high, kid. There’s too much of it around. Pick up your stuff.
We’ve got a flight to catch. And don’t open your damn mouth.”
    The old man had never spoken to him that way before. He had never used
that kind of language. He was glad his father hadn’t seen Elise. That would
have made it worse. But he didn’t see how he could feel worse. It couldn’t ever
get any worse than those minutes when he was at the foot of the three flights
of stairs putting things back in the suitcase, knowing the two of them were up
there in her room…
    Now he lay in darkness in his own room and he heard the faint buzzing and
knew the records had ended some time ago. He got up in darkness and reversed
the stack and started it over again. School was out now. Next year they would
come back and they would talk about him in the fraternity house. And maybe the
next year they might remember him and talk about him too. And then nobody would
remember any longer. He saw himself in Marty’s room. They talked about moments
of decision. That wasn’t any moment of decision. There hadn’t even been any
thinking. Just taking the money in an automatic way, as though he were
dreaming. If you could find any moment of decision, it was that moment when he
left the bar and walked toward the booth where the strange girl sat. Or maybe
the moment he had turned away from the lab door after walking all the way over
there.
    He saw himself in Marty’s room. A little automatic toy figure about four
inches high standing there opening the top drawer of a toy bureau. Why? Like a
sickness. As if he hadn’t been there when it was happening. One day in high
school one of the guys had worn a trick ring. You held it up to the light and
looked through a little hole and