Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
Шрифт:
cigarette and flashed his lighter out to hold the light for her. She puffed on the cigarette
and sipped her drink and he sat down beside her again. His glass had considerably
more brandy in it than hers, he needed it to warm himself, to cheer himself, to charge
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himself up. His situation was the reverse of the lover's usual one. He had to get himself
drunk instead of the girl. The girl was usually too willing where he was not. The last two
years had been hell on his ego, and he used this simple way to restore it, sleeping with
a young fresh girl for one night, taking her to dinner a few times, giving her an
expensive present and then brushing her off in the nicest way possible so that her
feelings wouldn't be hurt. And then they could always say they had had a thing with the
great Johnny Fontane. It wasn't true love, but you couldn't knock it if the girl was
beautiful and genuinely nice. He hated the hard, bitchy ones, the ones who screwed for
him and then rushed off to tell their friends that they'd screwed the great Johnny
Fontane, always adding that they'd had better. What amazed him more than anything
else in his career were the complaisant (обходительный,
[km'pleiznt]) husbands who almost told him to his face that they forgave their wives
since it was allowed for even the most virtuous matron to be unfaithful with a great
singing and movie star like Johnny Fontane. That really floored (to floor – валить
наземь, сбивать с ног; смущать, поражать) him.
He loved Ella Fitzgerald on records. He loved that kind of clean singing, that kind of
clean phrasing. It was the only thing in life he really understood and he knew he
understood it better than anyone else on earth. Now lying back on the couch, the
brandy warming his throat, he felt a desire to sing, not music, but to phrase with the
records, yet it was something impossible to do in front of a stranger. He put his free
hand in Sharon's lap, sipping his drink from his other hand. Without any slyness but with
the sensualness of a child seeking warmth, his hand in her lap pulled up the silk of her
dress to show milky white thigh above the sheer netted gold of her stockings and as
always, despite all the women, all the years, all the familiarity, Johnny felt the fluid sticky
warmness flooding through his body at that sight. The miracle still happened, and what
would he do when that failed him as his voice had?
He was ready now. He put his drink down on the long inlaid (мозаичный,
инкрустированный) cocktail table and turned his body toward her. He was very sure,
very deliberate, and yet tender. There was nothing sly or lecherously lascivious
(похотливый, сладострастный [l’sivijs]) in his caresses. He kissed her on the lips
while his hands rose to her breasts. His hand fell to her warm thighs, the skin so silky to
Мультиязыковой
his touch. Her returning kiss was warm but not passionate and he preferred it that way
right now. He hated girls who turned on all of a sudden as if their bodies were motors
galvanized into erotic pumpings by the touching of a hairy switch.
Then he did something he always did, something that had never yet failed to arouse
him. Delicately and as lightly as it was possible to do so and still feel something, he
brushed the tip of his middle finger deep down between her thighs. Some girls never
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even felt that initial move toward lovemaking. Some were distracted by it, not sure it was
a physical touch because at the same time he always kissed them deeply on the mouth.
Still others seemed to suck in his finger or gobble it up (жадно есть, заглатывать) with
a pelvic (тазовый) thrust. And of course before he became famous, some girls had
slapped his face. It was his whole technique and usually it served him well enough.
Sharon's reaction was unusual. She accepted it all, the touch, the kiss, then shifted
her mouth off his, shifted her body ever so slightly back along the couch and picked up
her drink. It was a cool but definite refusal. It happened sometimes. Rarely; but it
happened. Johnny picked up his drink and lit a cigarette.
She was saying something very sweetly, very lightly. "It's not that I don't like you,
Johnny, you're much nicer than I thought you'd be. And it's not because I'm not that kind
of a girl. It's just that I have to be turned on to do it with a guy, you know what I mean?"
Johnny Fontane smiled at her. He still liked her. "And I don't turn you on?"
She was a little embarrassed. "Well, you know, when you were so great singing and
all, I was still a little kid. I sort of just missed you, I was the next generation. Honest, it's
not that I'm goody-goody (паинька). If you were a movie star I grew up on, I'd have my
panties off in a second."
He didn't like her quite so much now. She was sweet, she was witty, she was
intelligent. She hadn't fallen all over herself to screw for him or try to hustle (толкать,