After Claude by Iris Owens Read Free Book Online

why.”
    “Harriet, don’t make a scene. I was very explicit about the reasons.”
    “Ridiculous. You mean that babble about pots and pans and plants. I’m not a charlady. I’m a sensuous woman. Please, Claude, please. I’m not asking you to take me to rapturous heights. Your feeble efforts mean more to me than all your mountain goats rolled into one. Remember how it was for us at the beginning, Claude? Gigantic. You were a tidal wave. All right. Maybe it’s not in you to maintain that hectic pace. I don’t care. I’m not like other women. I’m not asking for heaven, Claude, I’m just asking to be held.”
    When the echo of my shrill voice died out, there was a resounding silence left in the room, as if a monster rock-and-roll concert had ended on one abrupt note.
    “Harriet, don’t cry.”
    “Why not? After all we’ve meant to each other, suddenly you’re horrified by my touch.”
    Claude, completely dressed, took my hand and held it tightly. “I’m sorry if I’ve given you that impression, Harriet, because it’s not correct. I had no right to blame the breakup on you.
    “There doesn’t have to be a breakup. I don’t want to hear about breakups,” I wailed.
    “You’re a beautiful girl, an intelligent girl, a sensitive girl. It’s just that we’re not suited.”
    “Are you determined to spend your life with a stupid slut?”
    Claude sighed. “I need to be alone.”
    “What is this suicidal despair? So you haven’t been King Farouk for a couple of weeks. It’s not such a tragedy.”
    “Harriet, I’m not a one-woman man. Can you understand that?”
    “For most women, yes, but not in my case.”
    “I must have my freedom. Maybe it’s immature of me, but, I cannot live with a woman. For me she is a delicacy, a treat, but in my home, no. I suppose I’m a born bachelor.”
    “All men are born bachelors, but they change. Don’t push me away because you fear the change. How many times must I say I don’t expect to be dazzled. I don’t ask you to be perfect. You’ll find me patient, understanding, tolerant, and most important, always waiting to give you a helping hand. And even if you don’t change as much as you feel you should change, I love you as you are.”
    “I have to go to work,” Claude mumbled. “I’m late.”
    “Will you promise to think over what I’ve said?”
    “Will you remember my shirts?” the brute answered. Then he actually slapped his forehead. I dimly hoped he was awakening himself. “Oh, good God, today is Friday, isn’t it?”
    “I wouldn’t know. I’m the laundress, not the court astronomer.”
    “Charles and his current stewardess are coming here to dinner tonight.”
    “What? You managed to arrange for that eunuch to come here and gloat over my eviction?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s been in Washington for ten days. I don’t know how to reach him.”
    Claude went into the living room, which was better designed for pacing.
    “When were these disgusting arrangements made?”
    “You were there.”
    “Why does that freak keep inviting himself over when he hates me so much?”
    It was too disturbing for me to even think of Charles and the Miss America Contest he paraded before Claude’s glazed eyes, in the hope that one of the entries would have the guts to do what he couldn’t, namely, to disembowel me.
    “He doesn’t hate you. He’s just a bit frightened of your direct manner.”
    “Ha,” I said, “I forgot, it’s not fashionable to hate. It’s all fear. Hitler will go down in history as the most frightened man of the twentieth century.”
    “This is impossible,” Claude said, looking at the deep-sea-diving watch that was strapped around his fag wrist. “I’ll try somehow to reach him and call it off.”
    “Couldn’t we just not answer the doorbell?”
    Claude looked scandalized. I intuitively sensed that it was crucial to my boy friend to keep up appearances, since it was essentially the only thing he could keep up. With that