Kurt Vonnegut: Miss Temptation

In this rather short story written by Kurt Vonnegut, Fuller is a eighteen month veteran of war who comes home to a small town and encounters a “temptress” in their local drugstore. The temptress is Susannah, who is a young struggling actress staying in town awhile.
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Miss Temptation
Fuller felt his lips move, heard the words come out.
“Who do you think you are?” he said to Susanna.
“I beg your pardon?” said Susanna. She drew her newspapers about herself protectively.
“I saw you come down the street like you were a circus parade, and I just wondered who you thought you were,” said Fuller.
Susanna blushed gloriously. “I-I’m an actress,” she said.
“You can say that again,” said Fuller. “Greatest actresses in the world, American women.”
“You’re very nice to say so,” said Susanna uneasily.
Fuller’s skin glowed brighter and hotter. His mind had become a fountain of apt, intricate phrases. “I’m not talking about theaters with seats in ‘em. I’m talking about the stage of life. American women act and dress like they’re gonna give you the world. Then, when you stick out your hand, they put an ice cube in it.”
“They do?” said Susanna emptily.
“They do,” said Fuller, “and it’s about time somebody said so.” He looked challengingly from spectator to spectator and found what he took to be dazed encouragement. “It isn’t fair,” he said.
“What isn’t?” said Susanna, lost.
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He stood. “Miss,” he said, his voice full of pain, “you do everything you can to give lonely, ordinary people like me indigestion and the heeby-jeebies, and you wouldn’t even hold hands with me to keep me from falling off a cliff.”
He strode to the door. All eyes were on him. Hardly anyone noticed that his indictment had reduced Susanna to ashes of what she’d been moments before. Susanna now looked like what she really was-a muddle-headed nineteen-year-old clinging to a tiny corner of sophistication.
“It isn’t fair,” said Fuller. “there ought to be a law against girls acting and dressing like you do. It makes more people unhappy than it does happy. You know what I say to you, for going around making everybody want to kiss you?”
“No,” piped Susanna, every fuse in her nervous system blown.
I say to you what you’d say to me, if I was to try and kiss you,” said Fuller grandly. He swung his arms in an umpire’s gesture for “out.” “The hell with you,” he said. He left, slamming the screen door.

He didn’t look back when the door slammed again a moment later, when the patter of running bare feet and the wild tinkling of little bells faded away in the direction of the firehouse.