Then he came back to the bathroom.
Sophia was naked now, standing under the warm water, her long, curly hair already wet. "My God," she said through the open shower door, "you are paranoid."
Kurtz took off his bloody clothes.
Kurtz was excited, but not crazy excited. After the first couple of years without sex, he had realized, the need for it stayed the same but the obsession for it either drove men crazyhe had seen plenty of that in Atticaor leveled off to a sort of metaphysical hunger. Kurtz had read Epictetus and the other Stoics while serving his time and found their philosophy admirable but boring. The trick, he thought, was to enjoy the hard-on but not be led around by it.
Sophia soaped him all over, not neglecting his erection. She was very gentle when cleaning his face, making sure not to get soap into the cuts there.
"I don't think you'll need stitches," she said and then her eyes widened a bit as he began soaping hernot just her breasts and pubic hair, but her neck, face, back, shoulders, arms, and legs. Evidently, she had expected a bit more straightforward approach.
She reached up to what looked like a covered soap dish on the tile ledge, removed a condom packet, tore it open with her teeth, and slid the rubber onto Kurtz's stiffened penis. He smiled at her efficiency but wasn't in need of the protection quite yet. Kurtz pulled the shampoo off the same ledge and lathered it into the woman's long hair, rubbing her skull and temples with strong fingers. Sophia closed her eyes a minute and then found the shampoo bottle, rubbing the liquid into his short hair. The top of her head came just about to nose level on Kurtz and she raised her face to kiss him after they rinsed the shampoo off and let it flow down their bodies. His penis rubbed against the soft curve of her belly and she held the back of his neck with her left hand while her right hand went lower to grip and massage him.
She pushed against him, raising one leg high as she leaned back against the tile. Kurtz rinsed the soap and shampoo from her breasts and tasted her nipples. His right hand was set against the small of her back while his left hand gently massaged her vulva. He felt her thighs tremble and then open wider and then the heat from her poured into his cupped palm. His fingers probed gently. It was still amazing to Kurtz that they could be in a pounding shower and that a woman could be palpably wetter there than anywhere else.
"Please, now," she whispered, her mouth wet and open against his cheek. "Now."
They moved together hard. Kurtz made his right hand a saddle and lifted her higher against the tiles while she wrapped her legs around his hips and leaned back, her hands cusped behind his neck, her arm and thigh muscles straining.
When she came it was with a low moan and a fluttering of eyelids, but also with a spasm that he could feel through the head of his cock, his thighs, and splayed fingers of his supporting hand.
"Jesus Christ," she whispered in a moment, still being held against the tile in the warm spray. Kurtz wondered just how capacious this loft's hot water tank was. After another moment, she kissed him, began moving again, and said, "I didn't feel you come. Don't you want to come?"
"Later," said Kurtz and lifted her slightly. She moaned again when he slid out
of her and she cupped his balls while his erection throbbed against her pubic hair.
"My God," she said, smiling now, "you'd think it was me who'd been in jail for a dozen years."
"Eleven and a half," said Kurtz. He turned off the shower and they toweled each other off. The towels were thick and fluffy.
As she rubbed between his legs, she said, "You're still hard as ever. How can you stand it?"
In answer, Kurtz lifted her and carried her into her bedroom.
CHAPTER 16
Sophia lit a cigarette and offered him one. Kurtz shook his head.
"A con who doesn't smoke," she said. "Unheard of."
"Watching TV from the inside," he said, "you get the impression that everyone on the outside has given up smoking and is busy suing the tobacco companies. Guess it ain't so."
"Say it ain't so, Joe," said Sophia. She set a small enamel ashtray on her sheeted belly and flicked ashes. "So, Joe Kurtz," she said, "why did you come to my father with this private-investigation bullshit?"
"It wasn't bullshit. It's what I do."
Sophia exhaled smoke and shook her head. "I mean the offer to find Buell Richardson. You must know as well as I do that he's in Lake Erie or under four feet of loam somewhere."
"Yeah."
"Then why offer to find him and haul him back for a bonus?"
Kurtz rubbed his eyes. He was feeling a bit sleepy. "Seemed like a way to get work."
"A lot of effort you've spent on the job so far. Went to visit Buell's widowwho got herself killed as soon as you left, it sounds likeand crippled our poor, late Carl."
"Late?" Kurtz was surprised. "He's dead?"
"Some complications in the hospital," said Sophia. "What did Skag tell you about the truck hijackings and Richardson's disappearance?"
"Enough to let me know that it's more complicated than it looks," said Kurtz. "Someone's either moving in on your father, or there's something else in play here."