The Sinful Ones by Fritz Leiber Page B

the chair’s rung, knees together, head poised like a bird’s. One hand held an elbow. From between two fingers of the other, cigarette smoke curled. Her face was at once taut and serene—Carr thought of the portrait bust of Nefertiti, the millennia-dead Egyptian princess—as if Jane had lost herself in a quietness near eternity or the grave.
    He finally drew the third game, his king just managing to nip off her last runaway pawn. It felt very late, getting on toward morning, when they finished.
    She leaned back, massaging her face.
    “Nothing like chess,” she mumbled, “to take your mind off things.” Then she dropped her hands.
    They walked down the stairs. An old woman was wearily scrubbing across the lobby, on her knees, her head bent, as if forever.
    In the street they paused uncertainly. It had grown quite cold.
    “I’ll see you home,” said Carr.
    Her lips formed the word “No,” but she didn’t say it. Instead she looked around at him and, after a moment: “All right. But it’s a long walk.”
    The Loop was deserted except for the chilly darkness and the hungry wind. They walked rapidly. They didn’t say much. His arm was linked tightly around hers.
    They crossed the river over the Michigan Bridge, where the wind had an open channel. Moored, perhaps a block up the river, was a large black hulk that looked to Carr like the motor-barge he had seen earlier in the evening. Now it seemed a funeral boat, coffin-shaped, built to carry coffins—a symbol of endings.
    Carr’s vague notion of making himself a friend of this girl, of solving the mystery of her existence, of helping her get a real hold on life, died in the cold ebb of night. No. Marcia was his girl—he’d patch things up with her somehow. This was just…a weird night.
    As if sensing his thoughts, Jane shrank closer to his side.
    They turned down a street where big houses hid behind black space and trees. They crossed another street, passing a stylishly archaic lamp with a pane splintered into odd spears. Then the trees closed in again and it grew darker than ever.
    She stopped in front of a high iron gate that stood open a couple of feet.
    All at once he got the picture in his mind he had been fumbling for all night. It fitted Jane, her untidy expensive clothes, her arrogant manner. A rich man’s daughter, overprotected, neurotic, futilely rebellious, tyrannized by relatives or servants. Everything mixed up, futilely and irremediably, in the way only money can manage.
    “It’s been so nice,” she said in a choked voice, not looking at him. “So nice to pretend.” Her small sobs (if they were that) trailed off. Still without looking at him, she squeezed his hand, standing close to him so that her side pressed his, as if gathering courage to leave him and go in. He turned fully toward her, embraced her, and as her face came up, kissed her full on the lips.
    She yielded to the kiss and he became aware that he was reacting physically. The need which Marcia had aroused earlier in the evening returned with unexpected force. She made a slight effort to pull away from him. He quickly shifted his hand to the small of her back and pressed her to him, while his other hand dropped hers and caressed the back of her neck while the kiss kept on.
    She did pull back then with a gasping chuckle and looked at him, almost comically, a startled question. He nodded ruefully, looked down, and gave a little shrug, as if to say, “I didn’t plan on it happening.”
    “Oh Lord,” she said in consternation that was again more comic than not. “Look, Carr, it’s much too cold out here and I simply can’t ask you in, but I can’t leave you like that.” A mischievous look came into he eyes and something of her earlier merriment retuned as she grabbed his hand. “But first let’s get into a little shadow.”
    And as she tugged him through the gate and toward one of its big pillars, she told him swiftly and eagerly, “When I was twelve years old there was