Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon

naked in the bedroom, standing in front of a gentleman she had never seen before?
    It was warm. His hand crept on. She hadn’t the strength to resist forever, and when she lost ground, her fingers would squeeze Frank’s gently, like a prayer.
    She put her lips close to his ear and stammered, “Frank …”
    And in the way that she pronounced that word, which he hadn’t even had to teach her, she admitted she was beaten.
    He would have thought it would take weeks at best, and already he was almost there. It was only a question of inches; the skin grew smoother, warmer, moist.
    She was a virgin, and he suddenly stopped. But he felt no pity. He was unmoved.
    She was like all the others!
    He told himself it wasn’t Sissy who interested him, but her father, and it was preposterous to think of Holst while he had his hand where it was.
    â€œYou hurt me.”
    â€œPardon me,” he said politely.
    And suddenly he became formal again, while, in the darkness, Sissy’s face must be full of disappointment. If she could have seen him it would have been worse. When he was formal, he was terrible, calm, cold, absent—no one knew how to handle him. At such moments even Lotte was afraid of him.
    â€œAt least get mad!” she would say, exasperated. “Go on, yell, hit me, do something, anything!”
    Too bad for Sissy. She no longer interested him. Several times lately he had caught himself thinking of those couples walking down the streets, thigh pressed to thigh, of their warm, interminable kisses at every corner. He had sincerely thought that it might be exciting. One detail, among others, had always intrigued him—the steam issuing from the lips of two people, under a streetlight, as they drew close to each other to kiss.
    â€œHow about a bite to eat?”
    All she could do was follow. Besides, she’d be happy to have some pastry.
    â€œWe’ll go to Taste’s.”
    â€œThey say it’s always full of officers.”
    â€œSo?”
    She would have to get used to the fact that he wasn’t just a young man you exchanged love letters with. He hadn’t even let her see the end of the movie. He had dragged her out. And when they were outside the pastry shop with its lighted windows, he saw her glancing at him stealthily, with a curiosity already full of respect.
    â€œIt’s expensive,” she ventured again.
    â€œSo?”
    â€œI’m not dressed to go there.”
    He was used to that, too: the too-short, too-tight coats with their sewn-on, hand-me-down fur collars. She would find Taste’s full of girls like her. He might have replied that they always showed up there like that, the first time.
    â€œFrank …”
    It was one of the few doors that still had a neon light around it, this one a very soft blue. The dimly lit hall was thickly carpeted, but here the lack of light wasn’t due to poverty. Instead it conveyed an air of luxury, and the liveried doorman was as well dressed as a general.
    â€œCome on.”
    They went upstairs. There was a shining copper strip on each riser, and the lights along the stairway were imitation candles. From behind mysterious curtains a young woman stretched out a hand to take Sissy’s coat. And meekly Sissy asked, “Should I?”
    Like all the others! Frank was at home. He smiled at the cloakroom girl, gave her his coat, and stopped in front of a mirror to run a comb through his hair.
    In her little black wool dress Sissy looked like an orphan. Frank drew back one of the hangings and disclosed a warm, scented room, pulsing with soft music, full of well-dressed women whose complexions vied with the bright braiding of the men’s uniforms.
    For a moment she felt like crying, and he knew it.
    Who cared?
    Kromer arrived very late at Timo’s, at ten-thirty. Frank had been waiting for him for more than an hour. Kromer had been drinking, which the unnatural tautness of his skin, the