privately that he would not even mention the invitation to Winch, and that he would not take it up himself, either. He liked Curran, more and more, and admired him, but he did not intend ever to become a buddy of his.
He felt exactly the same about the officers at the Hotel Peabody when Landers took him there.
Because of Col Curran’s postoperative treatment he was able to go much sooner than he had expected, the third day after instead of a week. Curran told him only that he should be careful of the hand. “When you’re on top of some girl,” Curran grinned, “make sure you support yourself on the plaster plate on your palm. Not on your finger knuckles.” Strange had only grunted.
He had no intention of picking up some woman. And yet, when he got there, he found himself in bed with one almost before he had time to get a few drinks down him. And before the afternoon and after it the evening were over he had been to bed with four different women. Of course so had Landers. But he would have expected that of Landers. He would not have expected it of himself.
But the operation seemed to have changed him in some deep-down basic way. Either the operation itself, or perhaps it was that damned vision or dream or revelation or whatever it was he had had coming out of the anesthetic.
Being strapped down and put to sleep and made helpless while some guy opened up and cut on a part of you to try and repair it could do a lot of damage to a man’s self-esteem.
And Strange could not shake off the picture of the judging figure, its hand pointing. And he couldn’t shake off the way it made him feel. There had been no anger or frustration or outrage at the figure. No crying of unfair. You could no more be outraged at the figure than you could be outraged at the universe. Both were there, both existed, it was the way things were. It had to be accepted. In the dream he had felt a compassion. Compassion for himself and for everything. He had always been compassionate. Why else would the old company nick-name him “Mother Strange.” But this new compassion was different and deeper and included everything in God’s created universe. And yet deep underneath it in him was an indigestible despair. And way down deep under the despair was a fiery-red, sneaky little anger. Over the fact that things must be the way they were. This tiny little white-hot core made him rebellious.
His rebelliousness included Linda. If Linda didn’t care much about fucking him any more, and probably never had done, Strange guessed that was her privilege. But there were plenty who would. And if some of these excited him, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t take advantage of it.
He had not felt like that before the operation. But if the white figure had judged against him and pointed him away, back to whatever it was he must go back to, what did he have to lose?
It was silly perhaps, but he was taking the dream quite seriously, in a grinding sort of way. And his sexual proclivities were a long way from being washed up, as he had thought two weeks ago.
None of that had anything to do with his commitment and loyalty to Linda Sue, and her crazy defense-plant family, and her dream restaurant. He would stand by that.
Thus Strange sat and figured it out for himself with a drink in his hand, in the loud, crowded, smoke-filled, booze-fumed sitting room of the Peabody hotel suite Landers had brought him to, before swiftly becoming entangled and intertwined with his first female body of the afternoon. He realized there was some question whether he had chosen it, or it had chosen him.
The place was so crowded a certain protocol had to be followed. The suite had a bedroom on either side of the sitting room. With doors that closed. The sitting room had a double bed. So the management could rent that room singly, if needed. This bed was a necking, feel-them-up way station while waiting for a bedroom, and couples were always sprawled on it. You were supposed to note how many couples were already there waiting when you got on the bed, and to keep track of your place in the lineup.
Both bedrooms had single cot beds placed against the wall in addition to their big