69 Barrow Street by Lawrence Block Page A

adamant.
    And, as the days passed, Stella demanded less and less of his time. With Maria established permanently in a tiny room on the second floor Stella had found a ready and willing outlet for her sexual abnormalities, and the two women were together almost constantly.
    More than once that week Stella had given him Maria’s key and told him to leave them alone for the evening.
    Ralph was glad to be left alone. For the first time in a long time he was completely absorbed in his work, wrapped up in it so deeply that his mind was on the painting even when he was far from Susan’s room, even when he was lying in bed and ready for sleep. After only a few days with the girl he could have painted her portrait from memory, so firmly was her appearance fixed in his mind. Every shadow and line, every perfect detail of her perfect head and body was imprinted upon his memory.
    But the thought of finishing the picture alone was a thought that he couldn’t take seriously for a moment. He enjoyed Susan’s company much too much to give up a second of it. For the first time in his life he found himself able to talk to a girl, to tell her all the things that were on his mind and to listen to everything she had to tell him. He talked to her about his childhood, about the small town in Ohio and the small local college, about his hitch in the army and the void that followed it.
    He told her about Stella—about the cruel and twisted woman he lived with. And he told her all these things without shame or fear, knowing that she was listening sympathetically and accepting all that he told her.
    For the first several days he did the bulk of the talking. She would be sitting on the chair in the pose he had selected, both feet on the floor a foot or so apart, her small hands folded over her pubic area, her back straight and her mouth unsmiling. She would sit and listen, her face never changing expression while he went over his life in detail.
    Then, after a while, she began to talk. She too started with her childhood and moved on, through the years in school to the years after school. One afternoon with no show of embarrassment she explained to him that she was a lesbian. Inwardly he flinched but he made no outward show of surprise or irritation. After all, he had been almost certain of it already.
    She told him about the women she had been with, about the fear of men that overwhelmed her. And even as she told him these things, even as she bared her soul and confessed her secret, something happened to him.
    Something that had been happening all along. Something that he had refused to see coming, but something that he was quite unable to prevent.
    He fell in love with her.
    That evening he left the building as soon as he finished the day’s painting. He walked out the door without even pausing at his own apartment, and he walked west on Barrow Street toward the Hudson River.
    He walked slowly.
    The love he felt for Susan was something new and different, something totally out of the ordinary and totally removed from emotions he had felt in the past. It was a fresh, vibrant feeling, and it was all the more beautiful for the absolute hopelessness of it all.
    Ralph had been in love before. In a way he had even been in love with Stella, although he felt less and less for her every day. But all his previous affairs had begun with a strong physical attraction that had sexual gratification as their prime objective. After that they occasionally ripened into something more, something approaching love if not love itself.
    This was different.
    He never laid a hand on Susan. From the moment he met her he was conscious of the striking beauty of the girl, but somehow he had never thought of her as a woman to take to bed, a woman to make a pass at. Instead she represented friendship to him—friendship in the classic sense, coupled with a deep exchange of ideas and a sharing of secrets. That in itself was a very valuable and rewarding sort of thing, and the