ALICE MUNRO
"Spaceships Have Landed"

When they parked, and sometimes even while they drove, Billy put an arm around Rhea’s shoulders and squeezed her. A promise. There were promises also during their dances. He was not too proud to nuzzle her cheek then or drop a row of kisses on her hair. The kisses he gave her in the car were quicker, and the speed, the rhythm of them, the little smacks they might be served up with, informed her that they were jokes, or partly jokes. He tapped his fingers on her, on her knees and just at the top of her breasts, murmuring appreciatively and then scolding himself, or scolding Rhea, saying that he had to keep the lid on her.

“You’re quite the baddy,” he said. He pressed his lips tightly against hers as if it was his job to keep both their mouths shut.

“How you entice me,” he said, in a voice not his own, the voice of some sleek and languishing movie actor, and slipped his hand between her legs, touched the skin above her stocking—then jumped and laughed, as if she was too hot there, or too cold.

“Wonder how old Wayne is getting on?” he said.

The rule was that after a time either he or Wayne would sound a blast on the car horn, and then the other one had to answer. This game—Rhea did not understand that it was a contest, or at any rate what kind of a contest it was—came eventually to take up more and more of his attention. “What do you think?” he would say, peering into the night at the dark shape of Wayne’s car. “What do you think, should I give the boy the horn?”