She dropped beside him and reaching for a towel, threw it across her shoulders.
"I didn't think the water would be so cold."
He laughed. "It's wonderful." He reached for a cigarette. "When I was a kid, we used to go swimming off the docks in the East River. It was never like this." He lit the cigarette and passed it to her.
"Feel better now?" she asked.
He nodded. "It's just what the doctor ordered." He laughed. "All the knots came untied."
"Good," she said. She dragged on the cigarette and passed it back to him.
"You know, Rosa," he said, almost shyly, "when my mother asked me to dinner to meet you, I didn't want to come."
"I know," she said. "I felt the same way.
I was sure you'd be a real slob."
She came down into his arms, her mouth tasting of ocean salt.
His hand found her breast inside her bathing suit.
He felt a shiver run through her as the nipple grew into his palm, then her fingers were on his thigh, capturing his manhood.
Slowly he reached up and slipped the suit from her shoulders and drew it down over her body.
He could hear her breath whistling in her chest as he pressed his face against her breasts. Her arms locked around his head, closing out the night. Suddenly, her fingers were frantic, leading him to her, her voice harsh and insistent.
"Don't be so gentle, David. I'm a woman!"
13.
Rosa came into the cottage and went directly into the bedroom.
She glanced at the clock on the night table.
It was time for the six-o'clock news.
She turned on the radio and the announcer's voice filled the room as she began to undress:
Today the pride of the German army, Rommel, the "Desert Fox," got his first real taste of what it felt like to eat desert sand as, in the midst of a whirling, blinding sandstorm, Montgomery began to push him back toward Tobruk.
Obviously inadequately prepared for the massive onslaught, the Italians, supporting Rommel's flanks, were surrendering en masse.
With his flanks thus exposed, Rommel had no choice but to begin to fall back to the sea.
In London today, Prime Minister Winston Churchill said-
She flicked off the radio.
War news. Nothing but war news.
Today she didn't want to hear it.
She turned and looked at her naked body in the mirror over the dresser. She pressed her hand to her stomach.
It felt strong and somehow full to her.
She turned sideways and studied herself.
She was still flat and straight.
But in a little while, she would begin to get round and full.
She smiled to herself as she remembered the surprise she had heard in Dr. Mayer's voice.
"Why, Doctor, you're pregnant!"
There had been a look of amazement in his eyes. She had laughed.
"That's what I thought, Doctor." "Well," he sputtered. "Well!"
"Don't be so shocked, Doctor," she said, almost dryly. "These things are known to happen to many women."
Then she was surprised by the sudden feeling of pride and happiness that swept through her.
She had never thought she would feel like this.
The thought of having a child had always frightened her.
Not a physical kind of fear but rather that pregnancy might keep her from her work, interfere with her life.
But it turned out to be not like that at all.
She was proud and happy and excited.
This was something only she could do.
There had never been a man, in all medical history, who had given birth to a child.
She threw a robe around her shoulders and went into the bathroom, turning on the tub water.
Almost languidly she sprinkled the bath salts into it.
The fragrance came up and tickled her nostrils.
She sneezed. "Gesundheit!" she said aloud to herself and pressed her hands to her stomach. She laughed aloud.
The baby wasn't even shaped inside her yet and already she was talking to it.