She lets her head rest on his shoulder, she puts both arms around him, down around the small of his back, and she presses her pelvis against him, but it’ s not passionate. It’s dancing. Matthew is so excited that it’s beginning to get embarrassing, but she’s just dancing. He presses her against him. Not really. I’m just squeezing her a little, just a little. He can’t detect any response.
The song ends. “Thank you,” he says, thanking her for pressing herself against him, not for dancing with him.
“Thank you,” she says, and he can tell that she hasn’t thought of their dance in the same way he has, that they’re not playing the same game. If they were, she would have said something like “You’re welcome,” with a twist to it, a hint of a leer, so that he’d know that everything she’d been doing was deliberate, and that it was meant to lead somewhere. She’s just too young. She doesn’t even understand.
Nonsense, says BW. Even you would have to admit that for much of the evening you haven’t been thinking of her as a child. Nor have you been thinking of yourself as some gray-haired lecher taking advantage of a girl. Maybe you are, technically, but you haven’t been thinking of yourself that way. Admit it. In this dark room, wearing that dress, lit only by the light of the city, she’s a woman. Look at the two of you, taking a sip of your drinks. You’re just like a pair of grownups.
“What was that tune?”
“‘Angel Face.’ It’s pretty, but the next one’s a real classic. ‘Body and Soul.’” He takes her in his arms again, and they go back to hugging to music. This time, though, he’s holding her differently, in a way that, he tells himself, he shouldn’t be holding her, both arms around her, running his hands slowly over her bare back. He’s getting carried away.
I am. This has to stop.
Oh, come on. This is pretty tame. Your hands aren’t exactly all over her. Please don’t stop now, Matthew. For your own sake, don’t stop now.
He kisses her neck, low, near her shoulder. Again he cannot detect a response. She doesn’t hug him, she doesn’t turn her face up to him, she doesn’t push him away, she doesn’t scream and run for the door. He kisses her shoulder, and the song ends, but she doesn’t end their embrace, and all at once, with the truth of their embracing out in the open, he does feel like an old lecher, and he says, “I think I’d better take you home,” but only part of him means what he has said; another part is just using the remark to tell her that he’s excited by her, that he wants her, and he’s inviting her to say something like “Oh, not yet.”
I don’t believe this, Matthew.
I don’t, either. I’m trying to get her to approve of what I want to do with her. A fifteen-year-old girl. I’m trying to get her to tell me it’s all right to fuck her. What’s wrong with me?
And what does she do? She kisses him. It’s a real kiss, warm, promising, provocative. He loves it, loves it, returns it, holds her tighter and tighter, and in the middle of it all, he says to himself, Belinda’s sure to find out. And if Belinda finds out, Liz will find out. And on top of that it isn’t right. I’m going to have to take her home.
He ends the kiss, and he says, “Thank you. And now, I’m going to take you home.”
Coleman Hawkins is playing “I Love You,” a tune with a poignant and lovely lyrical line, deep and penetrating, that goes right to your heart and makes it tremble.
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 520, Mark Dorset considers Music: For the Reservations Recommended Soundtrack Album from this episode.
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🎧 520: She lets . . .