enovel The Peeper Orrie Hitt [Future Story Codes]

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The Peeper ....(94k)    by Orrie Hitt

PEEP SHOW

I could see the house next door, not more than twenty feet away. The shade on the girl's room was raised.

I lay down on my bed, flat on my stomach, and stared across the short distance. I had to wait until darkness came, when she would turn on her light.

I began to sweat as I lay there on the bed. I knew this whole thing was wrong, very wrong. I began to tremble, getting cold and then hot. I had been lucky so far, but some night a dog would nail me or I would be caught by a cop. What would they do with me then? Send me away?

I had to stop. I had to stop!

Part One

1

IT WAS EARLY when I arrived at the office, not yet seven-thirty, but Mrs. Lambert was already at her desk.

"Good morning, Larry," she said.

I nodded hello, shrugged out of my jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. It was hot in the office, even at that time of the morning, and by noon the place would be an oven. I had asked her several times about getting the place air-conditioned but nothing had come of it. A paper like the Mountaindale Dispatch doesn't make much money and the people who work for it are lucky to have jobs and get paid every week. "You keep long hours," I said to her. She nodded and returned to her typing. For a brief moment I stood there watching her. She was a small girl, well-developed, with a pink-white face and short red hair. She was in her late twenties and she had been running the paper since the death of her husband the year before. Ted Lambert had been quite a bit older than Janet, possibly twenty years, and he had died suddenly of a heart attack. Her family was wealthy, lived in Florida, and they kept asking her to sell the paper or even give it away and come to live with them. But she was an independent sort and I guess she wanted to make her way on her own. Or perhaps her refusal to give up was due to the fact that the paper had been Ted's dream and she was trying to keep it alive. I had no way of knowing-she was quiet and seldom talked much about herself, except to mention her family once in a while.

"There's a Cub Pack write-up that needs doing over," she said. "I put it on your desk."

"Okay."

"I would have given it to Sid but he hates those things."

"I don't mind. One job is the same as another to me.

She paused in her typing and reached for a cigarette. "After that you might go down and check with the police station."

"Sure."

"I heard there was an accident last night but I couldn't get anything further on it. See what you can come up with. You might, if you have time, try the hospital."

"Will do."

I sat down at my desk and looked at the Cub Scout thing. It had been written in pencil and it was a mess, with stuff marked out and other stuff written in. I started to work on it, watching her out of the corner of my eye as I did so. She was nice, very nice, and I wondered if Sid Malone had ever made time with her. He tried hard enough, that much was for sure. He was always hanging around her, getting coffee for her from the diner, and a couple of times they had had lunch together. Sid was tall and blonde, about thirty-five and a heavy drinker. He had been with the Dispatch since shortly after Ted's death. He was married but he didn't live with his wife, contending that the child to which she had given birth didn't belong to him.

"She's a slut," he had often told me. "She'd go with anything that wore pants."

"Why don't you divorce her?"

"Knowing what she is is one thing and proving it in court is something else again."

I won't pretend that I cared much for Sid but I recognized that some of my reasons might have been founded on jealousy. Janet Lambert was all woman, especially when she wore tight-fitting sweaters, and if it hadn't been for Nan Edwards-she worked in the same office-I might have made a play for her myself. As it was, Nan and I were as close as you can get without being married and when I needed something in the female line I knew where to go for it. Two or three nights a week Nan and I went for a ride in my car and each trip ended the same way-on the back seat.

I rewrote the Cub Pack announcement and threw it in the basket. Just as I got up from the desk the door opened and Nan came in.

"Hi," she said cheerfully.

She was wearing a white blouse that didn't hide the pink fine of her bra and a tan skirt that complimented her thirty-six inch hips. Once, when we had been swimming and horsing around, I had measured her up above and she was thirty-eight, perhaps a trifle larger. There wasn't anything to her tummy-just twenty-one. She was nineteen, two years my junior, and the first time I had gone all the way with her had been two years before. She was in school at the time, a senior, and she had been half scared to death that she would have a baby. But her fears had been unfounded and she never seemed to worry about the subject again. She knew that I didn't want to become a daddy so young in life, and so our affair had continued at a torrid rate. Sometimes we spoke of marriage-she was the one who started the conversation in this direction-but she was supporting a widowed mother and the old lady had proved to be a convenient stumbling block. I wasn't ready for marriage, far from it, and I was fairly certain that I never would be. Nights when I didn't see Nan Edwards there were other things that I did.

"I think I'll go out for coffee," Janet Lambert said, crossing the office. "I didn't have any breakfast."

"We'll keep things tied down until you get back, Mrs. Lambert," I said.

She walked into the hall and the door sucked closed behind her.

"Why do you call her Mrs. Lambert?" Nan wanted to know.

"I don't know. It's just a habit When her husband was alive he insisted on it and I never got over being formal."

"Nobody else does."

I checked the Cub Pack write-up, made a correction with a pencil and reached for my coat. "Off to the cops," I said.

Nan tossed her head, fluffing out her brown hair, and her equally brown eyes sought my face.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Larry?"

I knew what she was talking about and I kissed her. She liked to be kissed and she liked to shove her body in against mine, those breasts of hers full and tilted, her thighs against mine.

"I missed you last night," she breathed.

I laughed and kissed her again.

"Much?" I teased her.

"Terribly."

"I'll make it up to you tonight."

"You better. What I have is for you and you alone."

"Me and how many other guys?"

"Don't say that. You know it isn't so."

"Yes, I know it."

My mouth lingered over her lips and then crushed down. My right hand came around to the front and found her breast.

"Don't, Larry."

"Why not?"

"It's time for Georgia to come in and I don't want her to catch us this way."

"Hell, I forgot about her."

We broke apart and it was a good thing we did. Seconds later Georgia Conley came into the office.

"Well, greetings, kiddies," she said. "How are things on this miserable Wednesday morning?"

I said things were all right and put on my coat. The scent of her perfume filled the office and as she walked over to her desk my glance followed her. She was twenty-four, a divorcee with a ripe shape, long black hair and gray eyes. She wasn't much of a typist and she couldn't file two things and get them straight, but she was Janet Lambert's friend and anything she did was all right. I guess she could stay in her room all week long and still draw her pay every Friday.

"Stinking personals," she said, sitting down at her desk. "Who cares what half of the crumbs in this town do?"

"The other crumbs," I said.

She made a face and reached inside her dress to tug a strap into place. She did this often, drawing attention to the fact that she had the biggest bosom in the office. I won't say it didn't disturb me; it did. She was loaded with sex and any male who didn't recognize it was blind in both eyes. She was still young, she had been married and she obviously knew the score. With a combination like that she was bound to give a guy ideas.

"I'm going down to city hall," I told Nan. "Ring me there if you want me."

"Checking on the peeper?" Georgia inquired, inserting a sheet of paper into her typewriter. "I hear he was at it again last night."

I paused at the door. "Is that a fact?"

"So they were saying in the diner this morning. A woman out on Garfield Avenue. I didn't get the name and nobody seemed to know much about it, only what some off-duty cop said."

"I hope they catch him pretty soon," Nan put in. "When you hear things like that you don't feel safe at night."

"It takes all kinds," I told her. "If the world was made up only of good people we wouldn't have much news to print." I grinned at Georgia. "Thanks for the tip," I said. "I'll inquire."

I left the office and walked down the hall to the front entrance. As I stepped outside the heat reflected from the sidewalk slapped me in the face. I got out my handkerchief, wiped my forehead and turned in the direction of city hall.

Mountaindale isn't a very large place, slightly over ten thousand population, and the Dispatch office is near the center of town, handy to the bars and restaurants and stores. I say a little over ten thousand but that doesn't hold for the summers. Then the population probably doubles with the number of people who come up from the city for their vacations. There are a couple of rivers nearby, several decent lakes, and the fishing and swimming are both excellent. This may not mean much to the paper in sales, but the extra load helps ring the cash registers in local stores and provides much of the money that goes into advertising. As far as advertising is concerned the Dispatch doesn't have any competition. Somebody tried to start a radio station once but the plan fell through and there is just a county daily that only a few people buy. It isn't even necessary for the paper to have a space salesman; business walks in through the front door and it walks in often enough to pay all expenses and show a slight profit.

City hall is a red brick building that houses the police department on one side, the city clerk's office on the other and an inadequate jail in the basement. There have been three bond issues put up to build a new city hall but all of them have been turned down. In the most recent election the paper had carried the torch for the city fathers but it hadn't done any good.

I walked up the steps, mopping at my forehead again, and pushed open the glass door. Some woman was coming out with a dog and I almost tripped over the leash.

"Watch your step," she said. "Sure, sure."

I turned right and entered police headquarters. There was no one on the desk, but the chief, Eric Foster, was standing at the window and looking outside. He swung around as I came in and favored me with a smile. He was young for a police chief, hardly more than forty, and he had a big, solid build. He had been chief for three years and kept his department running smoothly.

"The snooper," he said and his smile changed to a grin.

I loosened my necktie and made a mental note to stick to more comfortable sport shirts for the summer.

"Mrs. Lambert wanted me to check on an accident Anything to it?"

"Not much. A taxi and a teenager came together on Wilton Place and some woman who lived in one of the houses got excited and called the ambulance. You'd have thought the whole town had broken necks. As it turned out the accident wasn't even reportable-not enough damage to either car. They shook hands and drove off."

"No names?"

"No names."

It was hotter in police headquarters than it had been in the office so I removed my coat and draped it over one shoulder.

"What about the Peeping Tom?"

He left the window and came over to where I was standing.

"You're on the ball," he said.

"Out on Garfield Avenue?"

"Correct again."

"Mind giving me the details?"

"Not at all, but there aren't many. This Mrs. Gardner called in about midnight and said she had seen a man's face at her bedroom window."

"He must have had a ladder."

"No, not at all. The Gardner house is a one-story thing and the bedroom is on the first floor. She had come out of the bath and was preparing for bed when she saw him."

"Where was her husband?"

"He was in New York on business and he stayed overnight. He's an artist and she models for him. If you go out there and talk to her you'll see why she does. He couldn't get a better-looking model this side of Hollywood."

"Go on."

"Well, there isn't much more to it. She'd read your articles in the paper about this Peeping Tom but she didn't lose her head. She simply walked out to the living room and called down here."

"That made him run?"

"It did. When our men got out there the man was gone. We tried to get a description from her but the result was the same as it has been with the others. She thought he was wearing something over his face, like a silk stocking."

"Anything else?"

"Not unless she didn't tell us."

I shifted the coat to the other shoulder and dug for a cigarette. The chief held a match for me and I took a deep drag.

"Many people are concerned about this peeper," I said. "You should see the letters we get at the paper. Most of them," I added, "aren't kind to the police."

"Everybody is concerned but the public has to understand that a peeper is one of the hardest criminals to catch. You have to be there when he is or you don't have a thing to go on. And he has the whole city in which to operate. We can't watch every window in every house all of the time. Catching a peeper is pretty largely a matter of luck."

"Unless he rapes or kills somebody and then you've got a serious crime on your hands."

The chief shook his head. "The chances of that are slim. I've talked to doctors about it and they tell me that most peepers are content to peek and let it go at that. Oh, there are exceptions, of course, but we're hoping that this fellow isn't one of them."

I didn't agree with the chief and I told him so. I said that I thought that peeking was a sort of passive violence that could lead to real violence. We argued the point a few minutes but neither one of us really knew what he was talking about and we finally gave up on the whole subject.

"I'll go out and talk to this Gardner woman," I said. "What number is the house?"

Twenty-five. It's the same as mine on Chestnut so I don't have to look it up."

Thanks."

Garfield Avenue is in the north end of town and I drove out there in my sixty-four Ford. It was a convertible and at one of the stop lights I put the top down. The sun burned against the back of my neck and I wished I had the time to go out to some beach and just lie around for the rest of the day. I liked to go to the beach. You see a lot of stuff there that you don't see anywhere else. I remembered the time I had come upon this couple behind some bushes. I was fifteen and no longer curious about sex, but I had stayed there and watched them. The girl had been a lot older than the boy and the words she used when they were in tight embrace had made me blush.

Twenty-five Garfield was an expensive stone structure with a big lawn and a driveway covered with white flag stones. I parked the car in front of the house, shut off the motor and got out, leaving my coat on the seat. Walking through the heat I approached the front door.

"Hello."

I stopped, looked to my left, and then I saw her. She was standing near the corner of the house, wearing nothing but yellow shorts and a yellow halter that threatened to release its contents at any moment. She was tall, maybe five-seven, and she had rich blonde hair that hadn't come out of a bottle. Her lips were full, slightly pouting, her legs long and tanned.

"Mrs. Gardner?"

"I'm Cleo Gardner."

I moved toward her. I'm Larry Cole. From the Dispatch."

The pout became more pronounced. "You must have the wrong place," she said. "I don't have anything to tell you."

"What about last night?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

I had met this kind before. They yell for the cops when they're scared but after the fright is gone they don't know up from down.

"The peeper," I said. "He paid you a visit."

"Get your information from the police."

"But I don't want the information from the police. I want it from you."

"I don't have any."

"Oh, come on now. I won't use your name or even use your home address. All I want is a story. The only way we can stop this is by letting people know what's going on. We get everybody watching for this guy and sooner or later hell be caught-caught before he kills somebody. You don't want that to happen, do you?"

She knew that I was seeing more than I was supposed to see and she adjusted the halter.

"I've read your articles," she said. "I think you're trying to do a good job."

"You can help me do a better one."

She thought about it a moment and I had a chance to look her over fairly closely. She had the body of a model, generous in every detail. She had the biggest breasts I had ever seen on a girl and I was sure she didn't need the assistance of the halter to keep them in place. Her tummy was flat and her hips had the flowing lines of wonderfully mature womanhood. She was stacked in all directions.

"You won't use my name?"

"Not at all."

"My husband would be mad if he knew I hadn't closed the blinds. We're out here almost by ourselves but he always tells me to keep them closed."

"Your husband is an artist?"

"Nudes. That's how I met him. The agency didn't have steady work for me and when he asked for somebody real sexy they sent me up to see him. I got the job, eventually got a ring, and I've been modeling for him ever since."

"Tell me about last night"

"There isn't much to tell."

"Something must have happened."

"Well, Russell wasn't at home so I gave the cook the night off. I fixed my own supper, watched television for a while and then, because it was so hot, took a shower. I came directly from the shower into the bedroom."

"Were you wearing anything?"

Her face colored slightly.

"Only my skin, but that isn't unusual. Posing in the nude the way I do, I'm used to going around that way. As I was combing my hair I saw him."

"You were still naked?"

"Very much so."

"What did you do then?"

"Well, I was scared but I tried not to show it. I finished with my hair and left the bedroom to call the police."

"Anything else?"

"The police came and by then the man was gone. I felt like a fool. They told me he wouldn't be back."

"Naturally not."

The halter needed fixing again but she didn't bother with it. I made the most of the opportunity and she didn't seem to notice.

"He did come back," she said. "He must have come back later. I didn't hear him."

"Oh?"

"After the police left I tried to get to sleep but I couldn't. My husband had some sleeping pills in the bathroom and I took two of those. I don't remember anything after that When I woke up this morning I saw that the screen in one of the windows had been cut-a cut big enough to let a man come through."

"Was there anything missing? Were you molested?"

"I wasn't molested but something was missing. My bra."

"From the bedroom?"

"From where I left it on the foot of the bed."

"You undressed there before taking your shower."

"Yes."

"He must have been there all the time."

"Perhaps. I hate to think of that though. It's one thing to pose for a nude painting and another thing to expose yourself to a strange man."

"I'd imagine."

"The nudes are business but this other stuff is just sex-demented sex."

"I agree with you."

We talked a little more about it, and she made me promise that I wouldn't use her name. I promised that I wouldn't and when I was ready to leave she walked with me to the car.

"I hope they catch him," she said.

"I hope so, too."

I didn't drive right back to the office but over to the city dump. There was a fire burning and there wasn't anyone around. I unlocked the glove compartment, got out the bra and fondled it for a few moments. It was big and it had belonged to her but it was too dangerous to keep.

No one saw me when I threw it in the fire.

2

I CAN'T TELL you how or when it started, this compulsion to peek that has blacked out everything else in my life. It is like a disease which slowly but surely corrupts; everyday its worse and more agonizing. I notice a pretty girl on the street and I want to see her in her bedroom, watch her while she undresses. If there is a husband and wife I want to see what they do together. I get a kick out of it.

I guess it must have started a long time ago, when I was just a kid. My father was a salesman, traveling for a drug concern; he got home only about once a month. While I was in school my mother worked and almost every night I would have to eat in the diner on the corner. I liked the diner because there was a pretty girl working behind the counter; when she bent over the sink to rinse out dishes I could get a look at some of the things the other boys talked about in school.

"Don't stare," she told me one night. "You make me nervous when you do. And you're just a kid."

I didn't go back to the diner after that but found a soda fountain where the girl was just as pretty and the view was just as good. And this girl didn't mind having somebody look at her; she used to joke with the older boys about what they saw. I would sweat when she did that, fascinated by the beginning swells of her breasts, and I would want to touch her. I knew that she dated after work and that some of the older boys must touch her there. It made me angry that I couldn't. But I was too young for her to pay any attention to me and after she quit-some fellow got her pregnant-it wasn't much fun going to the soda fountain any more. The girl who took her place was prim and unfriendly and half the time she didn't seem to care whether she waited on me or not.

"I'm going to eat home," I told my mother one night. "Why?"

"Because I'm big enough to fix my own sandwiches and I can do better than they do at the soda fountain."

This was only part of the reason; the main reason was that a new girl had moved into the apartment directly across the alley and I could lie on my bed and see into her bedroom. Sometimes I had to wait a long time for her to get there but the wait was usually worth it. She wore tight dresses and she generally had a hard time getting out of them. Then she would walk around the bedroom, wearing just bra and panties, and I would silently curse her when she finally put on another dress.

Most nights my mother didn't get home until late and she usually had a man with her. There wasn't a door to my bedroom and she would come in to see if I was asleep.

"Larry!"

I would never answer her. "Larry!"

Satisfied that I was asleep she would return to the living room and I would listen to them talking. It was seldom the same man and sometimes they argued about money. I was too young to realize what she was doing for the price. Then one night my father came in unexpectedly and caught her with some fellow. My life changed rapidly after that.

"She's a prostitute," my father told me. "You may not know what that means now but you will someday."

"What's going to happen to us now?"

"You'll go to live with your grandmother and I'll send money every week for your board. As for your mother and me-we are through."

My grandmother was glad to have me and so was my aunt. My aunt's name was Helen and she reminded me of the girl who worked in the diner.

"We'll give you the room with the stove in it," my grandmother said. "You won't need it now, not during warm weather, but when it gets cold this winter you'll be happy to have a fire."

I thought I would miss the city and I was determined to hate the farm. We were miles from town, more than a quarter of a mile from the nearest neighbor, and I was sure I wouldn't find anything to do.

"Your room is next to your Aunt Helen's," my grandmother said. "There's a door between and she'll leave it open in case you want anything."

They made me go to bed early the first night I was there and it angered me. I wasn't sleepy and there wasn't any girl next door to watch. I lay there and cried because life seemed so hopeless.

It must have been midnight when my Aunt Helen came upstairs but I was still awake. She turned on the light in her room and I could see her reflection in the dresser mirror against the far wall. She began to undress.

I can't describe what I went through that night. She got out of her clothes and stood there naked. My fingers dug into the pillow and I clamped my teeth shut. She was lovely, very lovely. She had wide hips and a narrow middle and her breasts were bigger than any I had seen in the magazines some of the boys had sneaked to school. It was the first time I had ever seen a totally naked woman and the more I saw of her the more I wanted to see. I was sweating and breathing hard when she turned out the light

It was summer, there wasn't any school, and my grandmother put me to work in the garden the next day.

"Just for the morning," she said. "In the afternoon you take a nap."

My aunt worked in town for a grocery store and she was away during the day.

"Isn't there anywhere to swim?" I asked.

She told me of a lake back in the woods but she said I couldn't go there by myself.

"I'll phone Lily Barton about going with you."

"Who is Lily Barton?"

"She's sixteen and she lives just down the road. She helps me out some and she might take you."

I had never worked in a garden before and it was rough going. By the time we had finished lunch I was ready for a nap.

"You rest until Lily comes, Larry. She said she couldn't get here before three."

I went upstairs but I didn't go to bed. I sneaked into my aunt's room and searched her dresser drawers. The number of bras she had fascinated me and I examined each one carefully, remembering how she had looked the night before and wanting to see her that way again. I held the bras up to me and closed my eyes, wondering if she dressed in front of the mirror every morning. I would have to wake up early enough to find out. I couldn't miss that

My grandmother called me down to meet Lily Barton at that moment. Lily was carrying her bathing suit under one arm and she looked more like twenty than she did sixteen. She wasn't tall, about my own height, but she was fully developed, the red halter and red shorts displaying round, ripe curves.

"This is Larry," my grandmother said.

Lily smiled. "Hello, Larry. How are you?"

"Fine."

"You look older than twelve."

"Well, I'm almost thirteen."

"In October," my grandmother said. "It doesn't seem possible."

I had brought my suit down from my room and I asked where I would change into it.

"At the lake," Lily said. "You use one side of the rocks and I use the other."

It was a difficult walk through the woods to the lake and on the way Lily told me about herself. She went to the central school but she had failed a subject that year-English-and she was thinking of quitting.

"I want to dance," she said. "In a nightclub. You don't need any education to dance in a nightclub."

"I guess not."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought much about it. My father is a salesman and he seems to do all right"

"My father is a farmer and he's starving to death. How I hate the farm. The place to live is in town where you can see people."

When we arrived at the lake she showed me the rocks she had mentioned.

"You use this side," she said, leaving me. "And I'll use the other." She turned and smiled at me. "No fan-peeking."

I felt guilty but, of course, she had no way of knowing what was uppermost in my mind. I wanted to climb up on those rocks and watch her. "I won't," I said.

It only took me a few moments to change but it was almost ten minutes before she came into view.

"That damned bra," she said. 'I couldn't get it opened."

We walked toward the water and I didn't say anything.

"That's what you get when you have a fussy old mother," she went on. "She even makes me wear a bra with a halter. Can you imagine that, Larry?"

"I don't know anything about it."

"Well, you know what girls wear, don't you?"

"A little."

"A young girl shouldn't have to wear those things. A young girl doesn't need them. When you get older-say, twenty-five-and you start to sag, it's time enough."

My face burned from the trend of the conversation and when I looked at her, it burned even more. Her body was better than I had thought and the white suit was very tight.

"I wish you were three or four years older," she said when we reached the water.

"Why?"

"If you were that much older you wouldn't have to ask why."

We swam for quite a while and she was a good swimmer. Later we lay on the sand and let the sun dry us.

"I like to get tan," she said and pulled down the straps of her bathing suit. "And I don't want any white lines."

The suit clung to the shelf of her breasts and my throat got dry. There was something about this girl that was forward, something that frightened me.

"You're just a kid," she said once.

"I'm big for my age."

"Are you?"

"That's what people say."

We stayed until after five and then we dressed behind the rocks. I thought of climbing up and trying to see her, but I fought down the urge. If I worked it right there would be other days, other chances. If she caught me peeking at her my grandmother would find out and there would be trouble. I couldn't afford that kind of trouble. I was just a kid and I didn't have a home of my own.

On the way back she walked beside me, brushing her arm against mine. "You're not used to girls," she said. "Not much."

"You're too young to know what a girl wants."

"What does a girl want?" I asked.

She laughed. "If you don't know I won't tell you. Or I don't believe I will. Let me think it over."

The second night at the house was the same as the first one. I went to bed early, stayed awake, and at midnight my aunt came upstairs. She undressed in front of the mirror again but this time when I looked at her I wasn't seeing my Aunt Helen. I was seeing Lily Barton and we were out in the woods, both of us stripped to our skins. I was doing to her what the fellows in school had said a boy did to a girl and I wasn't fumbling or uncertain about what to do. I went to sleep that night lying face down. It was wonderful.

The next morning I worked in the garden, weeding the onions, but I didn't get a chance to go upstairs after lunch.

"Lily is here for you," my grandmother said. "I think it's awfully nice of an older girl to take an interest in you, Larry."

"So do I."

"When you're with her I don't have to worry."

"I know you don't."

"She comes from a nice family."

We followed the same route to the lake as we had on the previous day but once we were hidden by the woods she took my hand and held it.

"We don't have to go swimming," she said.

"What are we going to the lake for?"

She let go of my hand. "You see? I said you didn't know what it was all about."

She had me confused. I really didn't know what it was all about. She talked in circles and I couldn't keep up with her.

When we reached the lake she went behind the rocks and I got out of my pants and T-shirt. I was soon changed and sat down to wait for her.

"Larry?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you help me for a second?"

I got up and rounded the rocks. She was standing under a small pine tree, her halter off and a smile on her face. She had gotten into the bottom part of the suit and her stomach was all bare.

"It's this bra," she said. "I can't do a thing with the snap." I see.

"All you have to do is open it up for me."

I walked over to her, a strange sensation in my legs. The bra was thin, made of net and I could see much of her flesh.

"I'll bet you never did this before," she said.

"Never."

"There's always a first time."

"Looks that way."

She swung around, her back to me and my hands shook as they sought the snap. I didn't have any trouble with it. All I did was push at it a little and it came apart.

"You didn't need me," I said thickly."

"Would I have called you if I hadn't."

"I don't know."

Her back was still to me but she was all naked up there and I had to feel the softness of her flesh beneath my fingers. Sweat was pouring off me and I'm not sure just what I said as my hands found her.

"Don't worry," she said. "It isn't something that you have to learn. It comes naturally, the way it does with a dog or a cat."

"What comes naturally?"

"The thing you're doing."

I pulled my hands away.

"I didn't mean to touch you."

She swung around, laughing at me.

"The hell you didn't, Larry. You've been on the make for me ever since yesterday."

I swallowed hard, trying not to look at her. She had dropped the bra to the ground and she made no effort to cover herself.

"Take a good look," she said.

"Do you think-"

"Do I think this is the right thing? I don't. But how many people do the right things? You see a candy bar and you eat it. You see a girl and you either have her or you don't. Which would you rather do?"

"Well-"

She came to me, her mouth after my lips, her arms going around me. She pulled me down to the ground with her, saying funny things, saying things I didn't understand.

"Don't be alarmed," she said as we struggled on the pine needles. "I'll show you. I'll help you. I won't laugh at you, Larry. I've never been the first with a boy before but I want to be now."

She was kind to me, understanding, and her lips were wet with the fury of desire.

"Haven't you ever wanted to do this before, Larry?" guess so.

"You guess so? Say, what's the matter with you anyway? Every boy wants to."

"I'm not even thirteen yet."

"I don't care if you aren't. I knew a boy last year who was eleven and he was more man then than most men ever become." Her hands were experienced, silently pleading. "You aren't so bad," she whispered. "You aren't so bad at all. This is going to be all right."

Somehow I knew what I had to do and how I had to do it. I had thought of it before, of course, thought of it a thousand times, but now that the moment was upon me I was unsure of myself.

"I'll help you," she said again, her breath hot on my face.

She did, and as I went to her the day and time stood still. I thought of my aunt, naked and before the mirror, and I thought of this girl and all that she could do for me. I lost myself in her flesh, buried every doubt that I had ever had, buried every fear I had ever known. She gave herself with the savage moaning of an animal of the forest, an animal trapped and conquered, and I responded to her with all of the violence of the male who has discovered that single second when he can be superior to the female. I hurt her, laughed at her when I did, and hurt her all the more. Her mouth was wide open, gasping for breath, and one or two times she bit me on-the neck.

"You glorious boy!" she cried. "Nobody has to teach you anything."

"Not this, anyhow."

"Just don't ever let it end."

But it ended and later, as we lay side-by-side, she began to sob.

"I didn't mean to," she said. "But I couldn't help myself. I can never help myself. I say that I won't but I do. Maybe I've got something wrong with my glands or something."

"Maybe."

"It started when I was thirteen with a hired hand and I haven't been able to stop. He quit because he thought I might get pregnant"

"Aren't you afraid that you will?"

"Afterward I am sometimes. I think of having a baby and it makes me sick. I don't want a baby, Larry. I just want the fun and I don't want to pay the price."

"Someday you will."

"Maybe this was the day."

"Don't say that!"

We stayed at the lake until five o'clock and it happened again, better this time and not so brutal. When she dressed I helped her and she watched me as I dressed. It was primitive sex, the kind the fellows in school said was the best.

"Well do it again tomorrow, Larry."

"All right."

"And every day after that"

That night I didn't eat much for supper and my grandmother thought I was sick.

"Too much swimming," my aunt said.

I looked at her across the table and I felt sure I would never want to peek at her again. I was wrong. That night was worse than ever. She didn't undress in front of the mirror and I almost went out of my mind. The passion of the afternoon had worn off and I had only this left this wild moment that was secret from all the rest of the world. I knew, in those hours I lay awake, that watching was almost better than having. But to be honest I wanted both-there was a difference, a vast difference. I finally fell asleep, hating my aunt for having been so careful.

And now that I was an adult, I knew something else. I was victim of a sickness that no one could cure.

3

AFTER I LEFT the city dump I drove to a restaurant on the lower east side. Lily Barton was working the counter and when I sat down she smiled at me.

"Long time no see," she said.

I ordered coffee and a hard roll.

"Been busy," I told her.

"Still on the paper?"

"You couldn't pry me away from it."

She went about getting the coffee and the roll. She wasn't as pretty as she had been, only around her face, and I knew she had three kids who could toss coins to find out who their fathers might be. I also knew that she drove a big car and had money in the bank. She didn't give it away.

"Anything new that's hot?" she wanted to know, putting the coffee in front of me.

"Only another peeping incident out on Garfield Avenue."

"That guy still at it."

"Must be."

She put her elbows on the counter and rested her chin in the palms of her hands.

"They ought to get that guy pretty soon," she said. "Bad as I am I wouldn't want some guy staring in the window at me." She thought about that a moment and then smiled. "If he wants to pay the fare he can see enough to make him happy and get the works too."

I drank some of the coffee.

"A peeper doesn't follow those lines," I told her. "He isn't normal in any respect."

"I wouldn't think so."

"He would rather see you get out of your clothes than possess you physically."

"Well, thanks."

"No, I mean it. He gets his kicks in other ways, the way that some men get their kicks by looking at nude pictures in a girlie magazine."

"You mean that every girlie magazine buyer is a peeper?"

"Hardly. Some of them may have the urge but they lack the guts to go out and do what they have to do. Hell, you know men well enough. They aren't perfect"

"Who is?"

"Not many of us. We all have something to hide." There wasn't anybody else in the restaurant and she reached out and touched my hand. "Like that summer we had at the lake."

"Sort of."

"You had me worried that summer, Larry. I thought sure you would give me a kid."

"But I didn't"

"No, but sometimes I wish that you had-or that it had come later and it had been you. What have I got to show for my life? Nothing."

"You made it," I said, finishing the coffee.

"Did I?" Her tone became hard. "Did I, Larry? A man says he's nuts about me and I give him what every man wants. Am I different than a thousand other women? So what happens? He rings the bell, I tell him about the noise and he says he's sorry, so damned sorry, but he's married to another dame. What do you make of that."

"Rotten."

"You can say that again. And what did I get from my mother and father? I'll tell you what I got. You made a kid, they said, so go off somewhere and have it. And don't come back. You come back and the damned door is going to be locked."

"That was just the first," I said, biting into the roll. "Everybody can make one mistake but you made three of them."

"How much do you earn in a restaurant?" she countered. "I don't know."

"Forty or fifty bucks a week in this town and you're lucky. Once in a while you get a customer who has a few extra dollars and who wants a time for himself. You either steer him to a cab driver or you take him on. I took them on. I'm not lying to you, Larry. Somebody waves a ten dollar bill in front of my face and I see a couple of sheets. You can call me what you want to call me but I've done it all for the kids. I'm not sorry. Nothing that can happen to me can ever make me sorry."

I ate the roll and pushed the empty plate aside. No matter how I figured it she was better than I was. She put her sex out into the open and I carried mine through the shadows. Someday she would grow old and hate the world but she would never go to jail. If I kept it up I couldn't miss the iron bars that would shut me away from society.

"Double or nothing," I said, nipping a quarter.

She gave me a smile. "You know I don't play with you. You always win."

I had beaten her three or four times before. . M

"Okay," I said and left the quarter on the counter. "Don't forget what I told you before," she said as I got up. "What's that?"

Her eyes drifted away from my face.

"It would be nice to have a little part of love again," she said. "I'm available if you should ever want me."

"I may take you up on it."

"Just let me know ahead of time."

"And you'll dismiss the line?"

"Don't be crude, Larry. It doesn't become you."

I left the restaurant, got into the car and drove toward the office. I wasn't in any hurry-Mrs. Lambert never checked on my time-and after I put the car in a parking lot I stopped into a bar for a drink.

"Here comes the slave," Sid Malone said.

I sat down next to him and ordered a rye and soda.

"That makes two of us," I told him.

Sid had been in the newspaper business since he finished college and if he had kept his feet on the ground he could have gone far. His main troubles were with booze and women-he couldn't seem to get enough of either.

"Get anything on the peeper, Larry?"

"Not much. The guy looked in the window and the dame hollered for the cops. He was gone by the time they reached her house."

"Same as always?"

"Just about. She said he had a stocking or something over his head. I doubt if she would be able to recognize him if she stumbled over him in broad daylight."

The rye and soda wasn't the best drink for that time of the morning but I put it away and ordered another.

"Have to return to the salt mine," I said, rushing the second drink. "What about you?"

"Give me time."

"There isn't much if we want to get a paper out today."

He emptied his glass and pushed it across the bar.

"Most of my work is done," he said. "I did the common council write-up right after their meeting last night. Sometimes I wish Janet wouldn't give me that assignment."

"How come?"

"It interrupts my drinking for one thing and for another I'm tired of listening to these small town politicians. They make speeches on subjects they don't know anything about."

At one time I had covered the meetings and I knew what he was talking about. Sid, however, was a good man for it. He could take a dry subject and make it breathe in print. I'm not much on that. The news is either there or I'm lost.

"Some night I'm going to get her," Sid said.

"Who?"

"That Janet Lambert."

"Wish you luck."

"Luck has nothing to do with it. How long has Ted been dead?"

"A year, maybe more."

He nodded and pulled out a cigarette.

"She needs a man," he said. "She needs one bad. Once a woman has a man she can't get along without the old hay ride. How about it, Larry?"

"You can't prove anything by me."

"Don't tell me you wouldn't."

"I don't know whether I would or not."

"The hell you don't. There are two hot numbers in this life, the married ones and the widows. You get one of them to put out and you've got something. The best I ever had was a married woman-and I don't mean my wife. My wife is a ass."

I downed my drink and waved the bartender away. I had heard about his wife before and I didn't want to hear about her again. My guess was that he had been playing the field and that she had become bored with the marriage. As to whether or not he was the father of the kid, I didn't know and I didn't care.

"See you," I said.

"Have another?"

"Better not. The peeper has to make page one."

"Don't let on that you saw me."

"Hell, no."

"Janet thinks I'm running down a story on the new highway. I'll kill a little time, tell her I couldn't find anybody and let it go at that."

He was ordering another as I left and I doubted if he would get back to the office again that day. Most likely he would phone in, say he was tied up and Janet would believe him. Janet believed almost anything that Sid told her, or she seemed to. And my guess was that he would score with her some night. She sometimes hit the bottle after work herself and it would just be a short step for her to walk into deep water. My second guess was that she would find the water over her head.

I left the car in the parking lot and walked toward the office. It was hot, hotter than any day we'd had so far, and I could feel the sweat on my back. It was an ideal day to visit the beach and he around in the sun. Better still, it was ideal to take a trip into the country, find a shady spot and just park.

It was quite a walk to the office and I didn't hurry. It gave me time to think and I had to think. Where was I going? What was I doing with my life? I was destroying it, that's what I was doing. And I couldn't help myself. One minute I wanted to be normal and the next minute I had the urge to crawl up to some window and peek inside a house. I guess I was born with something twisted in my brain and I couldn't shake it. A doctor? Well, I had thought of that and the previous winter I had gone to one. But I hadn't been honest with him-how can you say such things about yourself?-and he had told me I was perfectly normal. Blindly, hoping that I would forget these things, I had stumbled on. But I hadn't forgotten them. I remembered every incident, every house, every woman. I remembered, in particular, the two girls on Billings Drive, one of the best places in town. They had been of the third sex, the sex you often read about, and I had had a perfect view from the limb of a tree. I had watched them for more than an hour, fascinated by this forbidden love.

But most of all I remembered that Cleo Gardner. Man, what a build she had! Some night I would go back there again, some night I would see her again. I would be more careful the next time and I wouldn't get so near the window. And I wouldn't take anything afterward. That had been a dangerous, crazy thing to do. It wasn't the first time I had stolen things but I had to stop that. When I was outside a house I could run but once I was inside anything could happen. What if there was a struggle and the stocking was ripped from my face? What could I do then? I would have to get out of Mountaindale, go somewhere else. And I didn't want to leave Mountaindale. The room I had on Clifton Road was swell. From my room, lying on the bed, I could look next door. The girl over there never turned out the fights or pulled down the shades. I knew the girl only by sight, but nights when I didn't feel like prowling I could always please myself with her. She was young, probably in her early twenties, and when she removed her clothes, she made a production of it. She set me on fire with her movements and she should have been enough for me, but she wasn't. I had to have more, a thousand times more. I had to view a strange body, a strange face, and only then would I feel that insane delight which could be satisfied only in one way.

I crossed the intersection of Grove and Main and continued on toward the office. A few people spoke to me and I returned their greetings, hardly noticing who they were. I had to stop, had to stop. If I didn't stop the whole world would come slamming down on top of me.

Everybody was busy in the office when I returned and Janet asked me to read the editorial she had written. It was about the school bond issue, favoring it, and I told her she had made the paper's point very clear.

"We need new schools," she said.

"You're right."

"If Mountaindale is to attract new industry, there have to be proper educational facilities."

"Right again."

"It's one of the first things company officials look into."

"Good selling point."

She dropped the editorial into the Out basket and picked up a cigarette.

"What about that accident, Larry?"

"Just a lot of noise. Nothing to it."

"And the peeper Georgia was telling me about?"

"More on that. We can't use the woman's name but it happened out on Garfield Avenue."

"Maybe I should do an editorial on it for tomorrow."

"Why?"

"To review the facts for the people. This has been going on for a long time. When is it going to stop."

"When they catch him."

"How long will that be?"

"That's hard to say. The chief of police tells me it's a tough assignment."

"It'll be even tougher if he kills somebody."

It didn't take me long to work up a story on the peeper and Janet decided to put it on the front page.

"People have to know about these things," she said.

"Agreed."

"I've watched these accounts for months now and he doesn't seem to have any set pattern. One night he's in one section of the town and another night he's in another."

"That makes it impossible for the police to tie it down."

"I don't get it," she said. "Why would a man want to look into another person's window."

"To see what's inside."

She stubbed out her cigarette and pushed the ash tray out of the way.

"He must be a nut," she said. 'It's the only way I can figure this thing."

Everything went out to the print shop before noon and we got ready to go to lunch.

"I've got an idea," Janet said. "It's so miserably hot and there's so little to do, there is no sense in all of us staying here this afternoon. Larry, you and Nan can take off today and Georgia and I will take off tomorrow. How does that sound?"

"Perfect," I said. "But what about Sid?"

"He gets tomorrow, too."

Nan and I left the office together.

"I don't feel like any food," she said.

"Neither do I."

"A swim would be fine."

She took my arm and we walked toward the parking lot.

"I've got trunks in my car," I said. "I can drive you out to your place and you can pick up a suit."

"Swell."

It took about ten minutes to get out to where she lived in Bell's Hollow. Bell's Hollow is inhabited by the low income group; in almost any other town it would have been called a slum section. She lived on the third floor of an apartment building and I had been up there only once. The rooms were small, in need of paint and paper, and even the fresh curtains she had put at the windows hadn't helped.

I waited for her in the car, listening to the radio. A girl and a boy came along, their arms around each other's waists. I judged the boy to be sixteen or seventeen and the girl a couple of years younger. The boy's hand was under her blouse and she didn't seem to mind. The kids grew up fast in Bell's Hollow. There was no such thing as rape in the area. The boys took what they wanted and the girls kept quiet about what they gave.

She came out of the apartment house, looking fresh and clean in white shorts and a white halter. She had a bathing suit in one hand and a camera in the other.

"I don't have a picture of you," she said, getting into the car. "Today would be a good time to take one."

"Charge you a kiss for it."

"Collect your payment."

I did, right then and there. Her lips moved under my mouth, returning the kiss, and her fingers dug into my hair.

"I don't think you want to swim," she said, breaking away. .

"I can think of something I would rather do."

"Fresh!"

"But it would be hotter than swimming."

I put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. She leaned back, her hair blowing in the wind. "Nice of Janet to give us the afternoon off, Larry."

"I thought so."

"Ten to one Sid is in some bar."

"I wouldn't take your bet."

I took Center Avenue across town and then caught the highway going north. There wasn't much traffic.

"I don't know what to do about my mother," Nan said. "She's always complaining. This morning she had the doctor again. She doesn't seem to realize that I make a small salary."

"It was the same way with my grandmother," I told her. "When we lived in the country she was as healthy as a horse but after she sold the farm and we moved to town she blew everything she had on doctors. By the time she died my aunt was a thousand bucks in the hole."

"Where is your aunt now?"

"She moved away. She ran off with a married man and I haven't heard from her in years, not even a Christmas card."

"Funny how people do those things."

"Yes, and she didn't seem to be the type." I laughed and pulled around a milk tanker. "The guy must have had something that she couldn't do without."

"There you go with your mind in the gutter again."

"It isn't the gutter. It's life. You take that part out of life and there isn't much left"

"You've had a rugged life," Nan said to me.

"A little."

"When did you start working for the paper?"

"At sixteen. I had a route I delivered every night and then the man who had charge of us died. They couldn't get anybody else and I took over. It meant more money and more responsibility but I managed."

"And you've been with them ever since?"

"There wasn't enough money for college so I didn't have a choice. But it hasn't been so bad. It could have been worse. Seventy-five a week won't set the world on fire but a lot of men in Mountaindale don't make that much."

"Even men with families."

I had walked into it and there it was again, staring me in the face. She wanted marriage and children. Of course, one of the things against it was her mother but she had said once that she could keep on working, continue supporting her mother. That sounded all right until you considered the fact that she wouldn't be able to do it after she became pregnant. Then what? And what did I have to offer her? No amount of sex had cured my desire to peek and it was a simple matter to see that marriage wouldn't cure it. I would go on and on, drifting downward, until some night I would get caught and I would be known for what I was.

"I'd hate to raise a flock of kids on seventy-five bucks a week," I said.

"There doesn't have to be a flock. Two would be about right. A boy and a girl. Or two boys. Or two girls. What's the difference as long as they are healthy?"

"None, I guess."

We hit a severe bump and she fell against me.

"If I'm not that way already," she said.

"Hell, don't say that."

"What would you do if I was?"

"What would any man do?"

"Some would run."

I didn't know whether I would run or not. Marriage was right for most men but I couldn't see that it would be right for me. It wasn't a question of love-maybe I loved her and maybe I didn't-it was a question of common sense. The bands of marriage would mean that

I would have to account for my time and I couldn't do that. As it was, she wondered what I did nights when I didn't see her. I could go one night, perhaps two, without prowling through the darkness but then my blood boiled over and I had to get on the move.

"Don't worry about it," I said.

She patted my thigh and left her hand there.

"I try not to, but it isn't always possible. They say if you light a match you're apt to start a blaze. That's the way I feel about it."

"I don't take any chances."

"I know you don't but there's a girl on our block who didn't take any chances either. She was going with this fellow and they thought they had all the answers. Then it hit them. She's going to have a baby and he lost his job. What are they going to do?"

"There's only one thing to do."

"To be decent, yes, but he doesn't want it that way. He's got a car and he can sell it for a few hundred dollars. He wants her to have an abortion. But she won't. She's afraid."

The road narrowed and I slid the car into second.

"This is a nice spot," I said, bringing the car to a halt.

The beach was ahead of us and the river spread out beyond it There were trees on either side of the beach, small trees with thick green leaves.

"Cool," Nan said. "Cooler than town or that hot office."

"It's the river that does it."

She fingered her bathing suit. It was yellow and so tiny that it didn't look as though it could cover her. "Where can I change, Larry."

"In the bushes or the car."

"Doesn't anybody ever come down here."

"Hardly ever. It's quite a distance from town and most of the kids who swim in the afternoon don't have cars. They go to Joyland or the other beach."

"How often have you been here?"

"Once."

"Alone?"

"No, I wasn't alone."

She turned her head, put it back against the seat and smiled at me.

"That's one thing about you," she said. "You don't he."

She didn't know the half of it.

"What's the use of lying?"

"You could have said you'd never been here."

"And you'd have wondered how I knew about it."

It was a good afternoon, a lazy afternoon, and I watched a fish hawk hit the water and come up with a fish. Probably you could use all the bait this side of hell and not get a bite but that hawk knew his business.

"Larry?"

"Listening."

"I don't care if we go in swimming or not. It's just wonderful being here with you and not having a care in the world. It's like floating on air."

"All roses and cream?"

"Something of the sort."

She had her legs stretched out in front and I looked at them. She had nice legs, the kind of legs you see in stocking ads, and a different kind of hunger began to push through me. We had made love in the back seat of the car lots of times but I had never seen her the way she could be, all naked and alive, her raw flesh there for me to see and admire. More than once, even after being with her, I had wished I could peek in on her but she lived on the third floor of the apartment building and it was impossible. I wanted to see the way she was, the living, swollen contours of her breasts, the sweeping lines of her hips and thighs. Maybe if she could become important enough to me she would wipe out all else, kill the raging torment that I knew when I crept up to a window. "Nuts to swimming," I said.

She came into my arms easily and quickly, her lips ready, her eyes bright. "This is stealing," she murmured. "How come?"

"Because this is for married people and we have almost as much as they have."

"You're wrong. We have more than a hell of a lot of them."

I put my mouth over her lips and her kiss was hot and wet.

"This had to happen," she said. "It's better than swimming."

My right hand went around to her back and I found the bow on her halter. I remembered the day I had measured her over her swim suit. My hand shook as I tugged on the bow and untied it.

"I hope there isn't anybody around here, Larry."

My hand came around to her front

"There isn't."

"How do you know?"

"There would be a car if there were."

I was after her now, worse than ever before, and nothing would have stopped me. I got the halter off and then I kissed her where every woman-likes to be kissed. She pressed in against me, moaning. I tried not to bite her but I couldn't help myself. She arched toward me, lifting her treasures to me, and she let out a cry.

"Hurt me," she whimpered.

I hurt her and she moaned in rising, devouring passion.

"Make this wonderful. Oh, wonderful," she begged.

I gave her her wish. She belonged to me, every delightful inch of her belonged to me as she never had before. It was sex, raw and pure and beautiful, and when it was over she pleaded with me to take her again.

"Don't you ever quit?" I breathed. "I don't want to today."

It was dark before we drove away from the beach.

4

AFTER WORK THE next afternoon I took Nan home, stopped at a diner for a sandwich and then drove to my room on Clifton Road. The woman who owned the house, Mrs. James, was out front watering her flowers.

"They won't live," she said. "Every year I go through the same thing. I plant them, take care of them and then they die. One of these years I'm going to give it up."

She was a small woman with a pleasant face and I judged her to be in her middle fifties. She always treated me decently, with the exception of the week I had the flu and hadn't been able to pay my rent on time. Her complaining about the money had been almost as painful as my illness.

"It's probably the soil," I said. "Or you plant the wrong kind of flowers."

"Most likely. Besides, I don't have the time for them. U Dora would help me around the house I might be able to take better care of things."

Dora was her daughter and she was about twenty. She worked in an office in the center of town, bought expensive clothes and went out with a different man almost every night. She had a room on the second floor next to mine, and more than once I had wished I could cut a hole through the wall and watch her. She had a classic shape, one of those pinched-waist affairs, and just thinking about her made my mouth dry. Once I had met her in the hall as she came from the bathroom, but she had been wearing a big beach towel and I couldn't see anything. She had asked me not to tell her mother that she ran around that way and I never had.

"I guess she's pretty busy," I said.

"Huh! Busy with men, that's what."

I left Mrs. James and walked up the steps to the porch. She was always fighting with her daughter and sometimes I heard them. One night, about a week before, they really went at it and Mrs. James had used some pretty drastic four or five-letter words to describe Dora.

I entered the house and it was cooler inside. My own room was also cool and as I entered it I removed my shirt. The shade on the window was up and I could see the house next door, not more than twenty feet away. The shade on the girl's room was also raised.

I lay down on my bed, flat on my stomach, and stared across the short distance. I didn't think the girl was in her room and I wouldn't have been able to see her if she had been. I had to wait until darkness came and she would turn on her light. More often she left the shade up after she turned on the light but sometimes she did pull it down. And that made me angry. Nights when she cut off my view she would drive me half crazy and I would have to go out and find somebody else to watch.

I began to sweat as I lay there on the bed. I knew this whole thing was wrong, very wrong. I didn't have to peek to see female flesh. There was always Nan and if she didn't suit me I could go to Lily Barton or any of a dozen other girls in town who sold sex for a price. But it wouldn't work and I knew it wouldn't work. I had tried it before, tried everything, and instead of cutting down on my need it made it all the greater. I could be with a girl one hour and the next hour I had to go out and peek. Frequently I didn't have any luck and that would make me furious. You spend hours finding a house, searching for a window with the blinds or the shade still up, and half the time the dame inside is so old you wouldn't give her a second look. Or she's reading a book or a paper. There isn't anything worse than a woman reading. You can't get a charge out of that.

I began to tremble, getting cold and then hot. I had been lucky so far, very lucky, but some night the bottom would fall out of my luck. Either a dog would nail me or I would be caught by a cop. What would they do with me then? Send me away?

I got up from the bed and moved across the room to the dresser and opened the bottom drawer. Under my shirts I had some pictures, dandies, and sometimes they did the trick. I could stare at them, making believe that I was at somebody's window, and if I could make the illusion last long enough I could go to sleep and not prowl.

There were quite a few pictures, maybe fifty of them, and I carried them over to the bed. I sat down and started through them quickly, sensing that tonight they wouldn't help, knowing in my own mind that tonight there had to be more than this.

I put the pictures aside and reached for a cigarette. I couldn't go back to Cleo Gardner's house. She would be careful about her windows now and I knew what would happen if I saw her that way again. I wouldn't be able to stop with her bra or looking at her. I would have to take everything she had, everything. And after I raped her there would only be one thing I could do. One thing. God!

I put the pictures away and chewed on the end of the cigarette, getting some of the tobacco in my mouth. I had to stop. I had to stop!

I lay down on the bed again, smoking the cigarette, and looked across at her room. Where was she? Why did I have to wait? Why wouldn't it get dark? I was living in a hell of my own and there seemed no way out.

I put out the cigarette and closed my eyes, trying to go to sleep. If I could go to sleep, I might sleep until dawn and then the need wouldn't be such a terrible, driving fury. But I couldn't sleep. I had to see her, had to see somebody.

Once more the coldness swept over me and in that second I hated myself. Nan was a nice girl, a fine girl, and marriage to her would be something that almost any man would want. A normal man. But I wasn't normal. Oh, I had a fair job, I did my work well, but beyond that was something that was bigger than all else. Beyond that were the shadows of the night, the lure of the unknown, the violent wish to see a woman during a forbidden moment, the constant lust to live in a world of abnormal sex.

I rolled over on my back and opened my eyes. It was getting darker and I could barely make out the light fixture in the center of the room. Soon the light would go on next door and I would be able to enjoy what I had enjoyed so many times before. My breath came rapidly and my lungs ached.

"You're a good boy," my grandmother had told me. "You'll grow up to be a man I can be proud of."

Proud of? It was a laugh, a silent, haunting laugh that thundered through my brain. Nobody could be proud of me. No one. I was something out of the jungle, an animal that lived for the coming of night.

"Don't worry about me," Nan had said the night before. "I'm not afraid and you shouldn't be."

We had been sitting in the car in front of her apartment, my arm around her.

"But-"

"Just kiss me, Larry. Just hold me tight and kiss me."

I had kissed her, wanting to be somebody, wanting to be a real person, wanting to kill all of the dirt that had been so much a part of my life.

"You can," she had said.

"Not here. Not on the street."

"Everybody does. Nobody cares. And it's dark. No one can see us."

We had each other again and again, had each other until all the strength had been drained from us both.

I thought of Nan and how good she was. She wanted a child, wanted me to give her one, and there was a very excellent chance that I had done just that. But she was really only reaching for a dream and I could never help her find it.

I thought of Janet Lambert and where she lived on the Old Mine Road. The house was about a mile out of town, a one-story affair that was so modern it seemed a shame to live in it. A couple of times I had started out there, wanting to peek in on her, but I had always turned back or found something else to capture my interest. Yet I still thought she would be worth the effort. She had quite a bundle of curves and it would be nice to watch her.

I rolled over on the bed in the darkness and saw that the light was on next door. The girl was moving around the room, putting stuff in her closet, but after she finished with this she stopped by the bed and began to unfasten her blouse.

My head began to throb and I wet my lips with my tongue. Maybe she wasn't any raving beauty, but she was a girl and she was doing what I had to have just then.

The blouse came off and I sucked in my breath. I shut my eyes for a second, feeling the tears, promising myself I wouldn't look at her, that I wouldn't peek.

I broke my promise.

She was still by the bed, her head slightly back, her body arched. She brought up her hands, touching herself, and then she reached for her skirt, sliding the zipper downward. The sweat poured off my forehead as I followed her actions.

The skirt came off. I strained forward, my heart pounding. One of these days I would have to buy a pair of field glasses. With a pair of glasses I would be able to see every inch of her.

She unhooked her stockings and sat on the bed, facing me, rolling the stockings first down one leg and then the other. After she had the stockings off she held up a leg and examined it. It wasn't a bad leg. There was a nice calf and a full thigh and it was quite long.

She stood up.

I was panting now, the sounds of my breathing filling the room. Where was this going to stop, all of this wildness that was so much a part of me?

Would it never end?

I clung to the bed, my guts on fire. She had her hands behind her, fooling with the bra, but she wasn't in any hurry. Perhaps she was looking at herself in the mirror. I didn't know.

Take it slow, I thought; take it slow. Let me look at you the way you are. Let me glory in it. Let me lose myself in what you have to offer.

I began to laugh, a crazy laugh that was almost a sob, the laugh of a man on the verge of destruction.

I had to look. I was powerless to prevent what I knew would happen, what had to happen. It had happened so many time before, I had lost count and it was bound to happen again and again and again. No one could help me. I couldn't help myself.

I thought of the pictures in the dresser drawer and they didn't mean anything. They were just pictures and anybody could buy them. Not everybody could see this girl, see her the way I saw her. Not many men had seen so many lovelies in the supposedly secret safety of their bedrooms. Those who wanted to look went to a burly show or a carney but what I had went beyond that. The girls who undressed for money didn't interest me. I wanted to see those who were decent, those who wouldn't show more than a little cleavage in an evening dress. I wanted to see them when they didn't know I was there, when every movement they made was natural and not forced. I wanted to think of being with them and taking them.

For the second time I closed my eyes, trying to make myself behave. A great shaking seized my body. What I needed was a doctor or somebody who could help me, somebody who would listen to what I had to say and who would understand. But I knew, even as I felt a surge of hope, that I was beyond help. I was a slave to the mystery of the night, to a raging torment of the flesh.

I opened my eyes and she was getting out of her bra, putting it aside and standing there only partly concealed. My fingers dug deeper into the mattress as though I were touching her, holding her.

I rolled on the bed, tossing and turning but not once did I look away from her.

Then she stretched. She was lovely, lovely, and if I could only be there with her I would show her how to live.

For God's sake, somebody help me! This can't go on! The whole world was spinning, reeling. In that second she was my world, all of my world. Friends meant nothing. Nan meant nothing. My job meant nothing. The only things important were these frantic moments when I could look at her, at some woman's full and free body.

She turned, showing me the outline of her body, and I knew the luxury of wanting, the despair of need. She was sex, the ultimate of loveliness, and my mouth came open as I gasped for air.

Just this one time and I wouldn't do it again. Just this once. When this night was finished I would stop my peeking forever. I would go to a doctor, get some medicine and live like a man. There would be no more stories in the paper about the peeper.

But now she was completely undressed.

"Ohl"

In that instant I wasn't seeing the girl across the way. I was seeing Cleo Gardner, seeing her as she had been in her bedroom. I would go back there again and the next time I would get what she had to give. I would watch her first, gloating as I did so, and when I took her, it would be in the dark. It would be fun to cover the story for the paper. No one would suspect me. Why should anyone? She had gotten one look at my face and the stocking had fooled her. I had nothing to worry about. Nothing. All I had to do was go out and take what I wanted, rip from her or some other woman all that a male had to have.

The girl was standing there now, just standing, and she was beautiful, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had turned around and was facing me, and everything she had was there for me to see. Everything. Nan, Nan, Nan...

She had given me her body, her heart, her soul. What more did I want? What more did I have to have? I knew.

I had to have this.

5

I HAD BREAKFAST in the diner where Lily Barton worked. Her eyes were red and she spilled some of my coffee when she put the cup before me.

"A rough night," she explained.

"You look it."

She smiled. "These salesmen with expense accounts-they drink as though they were being paid for it."

"Maybe they are."

"This one must have been. He said he could even arrange to be paid back for the other thing."

A few customers drifted in and she waited on them. I wondered for a moment what kind of life her children led. She probably left them alone or hired some kid to watch them. I didn't know their ages and it wasn't important. From what I could remember, they had been born close together and it was my guess that she would be lucky if she didn't have another one in less than a year. Unlike a lot of girls who sold themselves, she was careless about how she operated.

I finished my breakfast, paid my check, left a quarter tip and walked outside. It was early and the air was fresh and clear and I wished that I didn't have to go to the office. I didn't feel much like working. The night before had been a wild one, as wild as any I had ever known. The girl next door had stayed up late, running around the room without anything on, and I had been so excited and frantic that I honestly thought I would lose my mind. About twelve o'clock a man had come in. Still undressed, she had answered the door and kissed the man as he entered the room. They started making love but in a few minutes he had pulled the shade down. That had made me furious but at that hour it was too late to go out, and I had gone to sleep with the pictures scattered all over the bed.

I got in the Ford, started it, and drove toward the office. Why was I all twisted up inside? Why couldn't I settle down to a normal life? I could marry Nan, start a family, and somehow we would get along. The car was paid for and I had some money in the bank, plus an insurance policy that my grandmother had taken out for me. We could start off with a small inexpensive apartment; later on, I could look for a job that paid more money.

It was early when I arrived at the office and I was surprised to find Georgia Conley already at work. There was nobody else in the place.

"This damned typewriter," she said bitterly. 'It ought to be in the junk pile."

I had used the typewriter myself several times. It was all right; she just couldn't type.

I removed my coat and hung it on the rack near the door.

Tell Mrs. Lambert," I said. "I have."

She pushed her chair away from the desk and reached for a cigarette. She was wearing a white sweater and a white skirt, both very thin, and the sweater held her breasts in tight embrace. She had more in this department than the girl who lived next door or Nan. I could imagine how she would look without anything on; she reminded me of one of those pictures, the one of the girl cupping her breasts in her hands, a hungry look on her face and in her eyes. That picture usually sent the flames of desire screaming through my blood in spite of the number of times I had seen it.

"Nice morning to walk," I said.

"I didn't walk."

"Cab?"

"Cab."

I sat down at my desk. I didn't know where she lived and suddenly I wanted to know. I wanted to sneak up to her window and watch her during her private moments. Somehow I had to forget about that Cleo Gardner. I was thinking about her too much and my thoughts led in only one direction. It frightened me.

"Where do you live?" I asked.

She didn't seem surprised at my asking her.

"On Willow Road."

"Oh."

"At the Fletcher place."

"Those are cabins."

"That's right."

Arch Fletcher had the only cabin setup in Mountain-dale proper. Usually he rented to construction workers or couples without children. A couple of years before he had been arrested for renting them out to joy girls and had to pay a heavy fine.

"Not a bad spot," I said.

"It'll do. There's automatic heat in the winter and a big fan in the summer. And he doesn't charge much." She laughed. "I couldn't pay much on what I make."

I knew that Janet Lambert gave her extra money from time to time but I didn't say anything about it

"Hardly."

"But cab fares come to quite a bit at the end of the month."

"I could pick you up mornings. I pass near there." She smiled. "What would Nan say to that."

"Nothing."

She laughed again. "Don't kid me. Nan is the possessive type, whether you know it or not."

"I don't think so."

"All women are."

I settled down at the typewriter to write an editorial about ways of increasing summer trade in the area, but it was tough getting into the swing of the work. I was already thinking of that night and what I was going to do. It was only a short walk from where I lived to the Fletcher cabins. I suddenly realized I didn't know which one she occupied.

"Which one is it?" I asked. "I'll stop by in the morning."

"Don't blame me if Nan screams her head off." I wont.

"It's the one in front, next to Fletcher's old garage."

That was even better than I had hoped for. The garage would cast shadows and I would be well hidden.

"Then it's a date," I said, going back to work "Save your cab fare."

"I appreciate it, Larry."

"You're welcome."

"Say about quarter to eight?"

"About quarter to eight"

I was reading the editorial over when Nan and Janet Lambert came in. They had stopped in the diner down the block and Nan had brought me a container of coffee.

"On me," she said.

"Thanks."

"Where's Sid?" Janet asked. "He isn't in yet."

"And he wasn't in all yesterday afternoon. He called and said he was trying to get something on the new highway. I wonder if he did."

"You've got me."

"I hope so," she said. "A lot of people want to know about it."

It was nearly three-thirty before Sid reported for work. No, he hadn't gotten anything on the highway. Nobody he had spoken to knew enough about it to fill a paragraph, not even the mayor.

"The guys measuring for the state don't even know what they're measuring for," he complained.

I had an idea that he hadn't left that bar but it was none of my business. He was probably right about the lack of information on the highway. The month before I had tried to get a story on it and I had failed. All that anyone knew was that the state was planning a by-pass for Mountaindale, routing traffic to the north of the city and away from the congested business section.

We all worked hard that morning, getting copy ready for the compositors. None of us, including Sid, took time off for lunch and it was almost one before we finished.

"Nan and Larry can hold the fort," Janet said. "The rest of us can go to the beach or the nearest bar."

I'll vote on the bar," Sid decided.

"You would."

"I could use a drink," Georgia said. "And then a swim. Boy, but I'm hot!"

Somebody had to stay in the office and I let Nan go to lunch first. While she was gone and I was alone I looked through Georgia's desk. There wasn't much of interest, just an old lipstick and a wallet without anything in it, but if you're built the way I am those things sort of get you. The lipstick had touched her lips and the wallet had probably been in her bedroom. I closed my eyes briefly and tried to imagine her in a bedroom. I broke out in a cold sweat as I stood there. I wouldn't be able to rest easily until I had seen her.

I returned the wallet and the lipstick to her desk and sat down. I was shaking and breathing heavily. Would this never stop? Would it always be this way? Would I go on and on until I reached the only ending possible for me?

A man from one of the furniture stores came in and placed a new ad, a full-page spread.

"Things are bad," he said. "I've got to move stock."

I knew what his trouble was. He was married to a young dame who drove a big Caddy and they lived in the most exclusive section of town. I had been up there one night. The wife had been in the room, all right, but the man with her had not been her husband. The owner of a drug store on North Street was the man watching her as she danced and did a slow strip. But dammit, when she got down to her underwear they had gone upstairs together. The entire performance had left me shaken and unsatisfied and I had spent a miserable night, hating that slut and that man and hating myself.

"You still owe us from last month," I told the man.

"I'll send a check."

"We would appreciate it if you would. A newspaper has expenses, too."

He nodded. "It's better to owe it to you than send you a check that might bounce."

"True."

"I'm getting a bank loan and you'll hear from me next week And the sale ought to help. I'm offering some real bargains."

"Sure."

He left and I looked at the ad copy. I didn't care about the copy. His wife had cheated me and some day I would go back. It would be better than prowling along lovers' lane. That wasn't much fun. In the spring and summer the windows of the cars were down and once in a while, when the moon was out bright, you could glance inside the cars. But most often, you could only hear what they were saying. The conversations usually went like this.

"Don't."

"Why not?"

"I never have."

"Don't give me that"

"Well, I haven't."

"Haven't you ever wanted to?"

"Oh, sure. I want to now, but I'm afraid. What if-"

"You won't."

"I'm still afraid."

"You're stupid. A guy brings a girl out here and he wants one thing. You can't blame me for that."

"I don't blame you. It's-natural."

You listen to a couple like that and it sets you burning. Nine times out of ten the guy wins, either by sheer strength or because the girl has been teasing him. You make believe you're the one loving the girl and it isn't too bad. It's better than the pictures ox not being able to find a window. But it's dangerous and that's why I've always tried to stay away from it

I crossed the office, kicking one of the chairs, and stood looking out the window. All of this had to stop. I had to control myself. I didn't know just how I was going to do it but it was something that had to be done.

I saw Nan cross the street her thin summer dress snug against her body. Maybe if I married her and could watch her undress I would cure myself. Oh, she had been undressed in the car the day before but that wasn't the same. I wanted to see her walk around a bedroom, watch all the intimate details of her female glory. No matter what, I couldn't be worse off than I was.

Nan came into the office, looking fresh in spite of the heat

"I envy them at the beach," she said. "So do I."

She walked over to me so I could kiss her. She came in close, pressing everything she had against me, her head back and her mouth open.

"Yesterday was good," she murmured.

"Very."

I kissed her hard on the mouth.

"It could be that way forever," she said.

"I was thinking of that."

"Were you?"

"Just now."

She moved away from me and fixed the top of her dress.

"You had me almost bare."

"I wanted you that way."

"Not in the office."

"The office or anyplace else."

I didn't go out for lunch and there wasn't much work to do. There was a big fight going on in town about the construction of a new store in a restricted zone but it was such a warm day I didn't feel like going out to get the story. It would be a good yarn for Sid and he could do a better job on it than I could. He had the knack for injecting the personal touch into a news story and I didn't; either all of the facts were in front of me or I was lost. Sometimes I didn't think I was much of a newspaper man.

"My mother isn't going to be home tonight," Nan said.

"Isn't she?"

"No. She must be really sick this time. She didn't want to be alone, not even during the day, and she went out into the country to spend a few days with her sister."

"She thinks too much about herself."

"I know and I keep telling her that All she does is sit and feel sorry that she's a widow. I can't help that. No one can. She has to break out of her shell."

The country might do her some good. I was happy when I was in the country." I remembered the lake and Lily Barton and the day I had become a man long before my time. "You get things in the country that you don't get in the city."

She finished writing the personals for the next day and she put a cover over her typewriter.

"You didn't react the way I thought you would to my bit of information," Nan said.

I had walked to the window and was looking down into the street. A girl on the opposite side, wearing shorts and halter, was leading a dog. She had a nice shape and I wondered who she might be. It was getting so I couldn't look at a girl and not wonder.

"Larry," Nan called.

"Yeah?"

"Did you hear what I said?"

The dog got caught in its leash and the girl bent over to free the animal. She was full where she was supposed to be full, and I decided that she would be a good subject for a night of peeping. I turned away from the window, feeling the tension building up inside me.

"I heard you."

Nan crossed her legs, not caring if I saw her knee. She had a nice knee, with a dimple in the center of it, and the sheer stocking made it look even better. She excited me when she was like that, just showing a little bit. I knew how she was above, had seen how she was above, but sometimes imagination is more powerful than the real thing.

"I could fix you dinner," she said. "In your apartment?"

"At the apartment. We could have some beer and cold stuff-whatever you like." I lit a cigarette. It was the sensible thing to do but I didn't want to do it. I had made my plans for the night and wanted nothing to stop me.

"What if your mother found out?"

"I'm of age."

"That isn't the point."

She got up and smoothed the dress over her hips. It was a habit of hers, as though she wanted to be sure the dress was still covering her.

"Nobody in the apartment building cares what anybody else does," she said, coming over to me. "Bell's Hollow doesn't have many morals, Larry. There's a man on the second floor who lives with a fifteen-year-old girl."

"How does he get away with it?"

"He just does. She came along, I don't know where from, and she didn't have anything. He must be forty, maybe more, and the girl looks my age. She cooks and keeps house for him."

"And does other things?"

"Why would he keep her if she didn't?"

"How do you know she's only fifteen?"

"She told me. She came up one Saturday to borrow some flour and I was alone. She didn't have anybody to talk to and I felt so damned sorry for her. She's three months gone and she's been writing to some boy in the service. She asked me how she should tell him what she was doing what she was."

"Tough."

"And the man won't marry her. He says he's away working during the day and it must have been somebody else."

I regretted the fact that the girl lived on the second floor. In all of my peeking I had never seen a pregnant woman and I wanted to see one. I wanted to see how big they really got.

"I'd like to take you up on it," I said, "but I can't.

There's a special common council meeting at six and somebody has to cover it."

"What about Sid?"

"Sid won't be there. Sid will be drunk in some bar. By six o'clock he won't know whether he's covering a common council meeting or a brush fire in some back lot."

Her face lost some of its glow.

"I suppose you're right."

"Maybe tomorrow night."

Part of the glow returned to her face.

"Do you like steak?"

"Love it."

"That might be better. But you will have to light the broiler for me. I never have any luck with that thing."

"We'll fix the things together."

I knew she would come into my arms then and she did.

"Just like being married?" she said.

"Almost."

I kissed her, holding her tight. Why wasn't this enough? Why couldn't she be enough? She was a decent girl and she would make a fine wife. If I gave her a chance, maybe she could help me.

"Not here," she said.

I hadn't realized what I was doing to her. Her mouth moved against my lips as she talked.

"It's bad enough in the car, Larry. I want you so, need you so, and yet I feel cheap."

"You shouldn't."

"Like a ass." She kissed me again. "But tomorrow night can be different. Tomorrow night you can stay, if you want."

"You know I wouldn't refuse."

"I have only a single bed in my room but that's all we would need. Or we could use the one in my mother's room. That's a double."

I thought of the common council meeting, of how she would look as she undressed, and I also thought of Georgia Conley and Cleo Gardner. My mind groped in the agony of confusion. It always started this way, like a brick wall building up that I had to slam my way through.

"We can close up," I said.

Her arms came from around me.

"It's fun this way, Larry. I hope Janet keeps up the schedule. We're here by ourselves and afternoons we're off. We couldn't have it any better if we had planned it ourselves."

We locked the office and walked to the car. I put the top down and drove her to Bell's Hollow. I kept toying with the idea of going up to the apartment with her but rejected it. This would be my last night of going out, the very last. After tonight I would stop. I would find some way to kill the urge.

I stopped the car in front of the apartment building.

"Coming up, Larry?"

"I hadn't better. The council meeting is at six."

"That's early."

"Yes, it is."

"I'll be here all evening if you want me."

"All right."

I kissed her and she got out of the car. I sat there while she went up the steps. She had a swinging motion to her hips and her legs had plenty of shape to them. Suddenly I wondered how it would be to look in on her, to see her when she didn't know I was there. It was a crazy thought. What did she do in the bedroom when she was alone?

"See you," she called.

"So long."

I pulled away from the curb and drove slowly down the street. Some kids were playing in the gutter and a girl of about sixteen was walking toward the park with a boy. They were holding hands and I saw the boy kiss her. I knew they would do more than that in the park. There were a lot of out of the way places in the park and a lot of couples from the Hollow went there, even in daylight. At one time I had covered a story on a baby found in the park. They had put the baby in the hospital and the cops had never found the mother.

At the corner I turned right and headed back toward the center of town. There was just time to have something to eat and get to the common council rooms. After that I would wait for the night

The darkness of the night was what I lived for.

6

A COUPLE OF aldermen got into a fight about which street in town should be resurfaced first but other than that the meeting was dull. It was only a little after seven when I walked to the newspaper office and let myself in. I could have let the story go until morning but I didn't have anything to do anyway.

I was finished before eight and I left the office. The buildings cast a few shadows on the street when I went to pick up my car. The top was still down and I put it up. I would leave my car at the rooming house and walk to the Fletcher cabins. It is safer walking than it is riding. A man on foot can always run.

I stopped at a bar on the way and had a few drinks. I had been in there several times before and I knew the bartender. He was a short man with a crooked nose and he was a Dodger fan, although he claimed the Dodgers should have stayed in Brooklyn.

"How's the paper business?" he asked.

"Not bad."

"Saw you had an article in about the peeper."

"Just one of many." He drew himself a beer.

"Makes you wonder why people do those things," he said. "What kind of a kick do they get out of it."

"I don't know."

"He must be a nut."

"Probably."

"What will they do with him if he's caught?"

"Send him away, most likely."

"They ought to lock the bastard up."

I was drinking rye and ginger ale and I had two more. I wasn't drunk but I was feeling the liquor and my mind was working frantically. The thing for me to do was to go down to Bell's Hollow and spend the night with Nan. She could show me everything I wanted to see. Yet it wasn't the same. I thought of Georgia and how she had looked that morning in the office and I wanted to see more of her. I wanted to see her getting ready for bed, taking off her things, see what she did when she was alone.

I left the bar and walked out to the car. It was almost dark and when I swung away from the curb, I almost hit a truck that was running without fights.

Mrs. James was on the porch when I arrived.

"Early," she said. She was rocking in a chair that squeaked.

Some.

I entered the house and climbed the stairs. As I started down the hall Dora James was just coming out of her room.

"Hi," she said.

Everything she had on was tight and her body flowed like the current of a lazy mountain stream. "Hi, yourself."

"She down on the porch."

"She is."

"Snooping. Hell, you wouldn't think I was twenty. She wants to meet every fellow I go out with."

"Is that wrong?"

She stood there by me and her perfume was strong. "Be in by twelve, she says. Isn't that a joke."

"I don't know."

"So I stay as long as I want and she hollers. If she would only mind her own business we'd both be a lot better off."

I said something about not wanting to get mixed up in it and opened the door to my room. I didn't turn on my light, hoping that the girl in the next building would be home. She wasn't. Her room was dark. I closed the door and flipped on my own light.

It was too early to go out but I had to do something with my time. I looked at the pictures, at one in particular. It was of the girl cupping her breasts with her hands. My head began to pound. If Georgia would only do that she would please me, please me so much that I would be drained of all desire.

I stayed in the room until ten before going out. Mrs. James wasn't on the porch but Dora was sitting on the top step.

"He stood me up," she said.

"Nice thing."

"But I guess that's what you get from a married man."

"You shouldn't be dating a married man."

"Oh, don't be a prude."

I had an idea that anybody could date her, anybody at all. She was bedroom stuff and more than once I had been inclined to ask her to go out. But I had all the bed I needed with Nan and didn't require anybody else.

"Nice night for a walk," I said.

She tilted her head.

"Going alone?"

"I like to walk alone. It gives me a chance to think."

"What is there to think about? There isn't much in life to waste time on."

I knew where she would go. There was a bar a couple of blocks away and pretty soon she would drift over there. One night when I stopped there she had been fairly well gassed. I bought her a drink and she suggested a drive but I got out of that and walked home with her. She showed me her room and brought out a bottle hidden in a dresser drawer. She offered me a drink but I refused, saying that I had to get up early. Back in my room I imagined her preparing for bed and it had almost driven me frantic.

"Good night," I said.

Her voice followed me as I descended the steps.

"Good night. Or it might not be. I might not be here when you get back."

I walked fast and turned at the corner in the direction of Willow Road. I had forgotten the stocking but it was too late to go back for that. Generally I wore a stocking but not always. That made me sweat and it was uncomfortable. Of course, it was a measure of safety, although getting caught wearing it could be inescapable proof.

I made another turn and a dog barked. My steps slowed. I hated dogs. I had never been bitten by one but one night it had been close. That had happened in the other end of town, near a small cottage, and I had run for blocks, the dog at my heels. I hadn't seen a thing that night, not a thing, and I had wanted to kill the dog. When I was no longer able to run, I had turned and kicked it. The dog had slunk away into the shadows, as scared as I had been.

Willow Road leads from near the middle of town up to the hills. The people who live along it are in moderate-income brackets. The land is inclined to be wet and all the foundations of the houses are highwhich, I don't have to point out, makes it bad for peeking. To look inside of a house you have to get to a porch and you can be caught on a porch. I had only prowled there once, watching a party through a cellar window. Those at the party were high school kids, one of them a paper boy for the Dispatch, and it was obvious that there weren't any adults at home. The kids had whiskey and beer and I lay there on the ground and had a ball. I must have been there about two hours before the party got rough and wild. One of the girls took off her blouse and I heard her shrill voice challenging the other girls to do the same thing. Some did and some didn't. One was built like a chorus girl; she let her dress hang down over her hips. Then she lifted her dress to show that she didn't have anything on underneath and one of the boys, a big boy, went for her. They made love with the others gathered around them and after that she let two more boys do the same thing. I left there fully satisfied and the next day covered the story for the paper. Some of the neighbors had complained and the cops had gone into the house and rounded up the kids. In the end they were turned over to their parents and their names had never been made public. "A disgrace," Janet said the next morning. "Lust," I agreed.

"Isn't there anything in life but sex."

"Not for some people there isn't."

"I thank somebody that I'm not one of them." I crossed the intersection and continued along Willow Road. Some night I would go out to the Old Mine Road and take a look at Janet. I had seen her on the beach in a bathing suit and she promised to have what it took. That was the year before, right after the death of her husband, during the annual picnic for the paper employees. One of the men from the composing room brought his wife, I remembered, and she wore a suit three sizes too small for her. Every time she came out of the water she was nearly nude. She had disgusted me, although I didn't know why. Seeing what I had through dozens of windows was vastly different. What she had shown and the way she had acted was rude and vulgar; the sex I was used to was much cleaner, to my way of thinking.

There weren't any street lights around the Fletcher place but all of the cabins were occupied and cars were parked beside the buildings. I was glad Georgia's cabin wasn't near the rear but out toward the sidewalk at the front. It was a fairly safe place for me. People come and go from cabins all night long and if anyone saw me he wouldn't pay much attention.

The cabin, I assumed, was the three-room affair; since there were lights in every room I didn't know which one she was in. I tried the one in back.

"Hell."

It was the kitchen and there were quite a few dirty dishes in the sink. She probably wouldn't do any washing until she ran out of plates.

Stretching across the room was a rope, one of those inside drying contraptions. A pair of blue panties was draped over the rope, plus several pairs of stockings and a couple of bras. The bras were scanty things and both of them were pink. I closed my eyes, wanting to see them on her, wanting to discover for myself if she filled them the way I thought she would.

There was no sense to staying at the kitchen window so I moved to the next one. This was the bedroom. The blinds were down but they weren't closed and I could see fine. The bed was unmade and there was a splash of white powder on the floor. She wasn't in there, either. It was obvious she had been, however, since the skirt and sweater lay on a chair. Her shoes were by the chair.

I took a deep breath and sought out the last room.

The blinds here were down, too, but they were also somewhat open and I could see clearly. There she was!

Lying on the davenport, all spread out and wearing a slip, she was reading what looked like a copy of the Dispatch. I wondered why she would be interested in that.

I wet my lips as she threw the paper aside and stretched. Those breasts of hers rose up in tight peaks and when she put her hands down she pulled the slip almost up to her thighs, probably in an effort to get cooler.

I wasn't cool. I was sweating, the wet burning my eyes and pouring down my arms and back. I glanced nervously toward the street. Passersby could see me if they looked toward the building. Why didn't she go into the bedroom so I could get out of sight?

I don't know how long I waited. It may have been half an hour or an hour. She lay there, obviously asleep, and I watched her breathing. Maybe she would stay there all night. That began to bother me. The situation was perfect-except for her falling asleep. And then she moved, sitting up. She yawned and her teeth were white, her lips the red of a ripe cherry. She rubbed her eyes with her hands, yawned again and got to her feet.

I didn't waste any time getting to the window of her bedroom. I was there when she came in. I noticed, from the reflection on the ground, that she hadn't bothered turning out the light in the living room.

She got out of the slip first, putting it with the skirt and the sweater on the chair. Now all she wore was a garter belt, less the stockings, a pair of panties and a bra. I made a bet with myself which she would take off next. I won. It was the garter belt and this she threw on top of the slip.

She walked across the room, got a cigarette from the top of the dresser and lit it. While she was doing this I glanced out at the street again. I was better concealed now but I could still be seen. That frightened me, just as it always did, and I felt an urge to run. But as usual the other urge was greater.

When I looked back at her she had her hands behind her. The cigarette was burning in an ash tray and she made a little face as she struggled with the snap. Then she was getting out of her bra.

I closed my eyes briefly, clinging to the window sill with one hand. She was perfect, beautiful. I opened my eyes and stared again at her. This was wonderful, wonderful, better than pictures or anything that a girl's body next to mine could offer. This was one of the moments that I existed for, the moments that controlled my whole existence. I thought of my aunt and she had been nothing compared to this girl. Then I thought of Cleo Gardner. The sweat got worse when I thought of Cleo. With Cleo, it had to go beyond this, far beyond it.

She rocked her hips as she finished undressing and the familiar pound began to drum in my skull. I didn't blink my eyes, not wanting to miss a thing, not one detail. This was better than I had hoped it would be, almost as good as any night I had known.

"Oh!"

I couldn't help myself, couldn't keep my emotions locked up inside. This was beyond me now, beyond anything. I bit down on my lower lip to keep from screaming. No man had ever known greater pleasure. Nothing could equal this. She was there, for all of me to see-those breasts, those hips, those legs, those thighs, that nearly flat stomach. Every inch of her was woman, all woman, a beautiful woman with all that a man could ask for.

I clung to the window sill, half gasping, half sobbing. This was torture-and it was glorious. Oh, man, it was gloriousl I couldn't think of Nan or Cleo Gardner or anybody. All I could think of was this beauty displayed before me, of what I was doing, of what I had to do.

I almost fell to the ground when it hit me, driving fire into my guts. She was still standing there, looking at something on the other side of the room, frowning some. Then, without bothering about the cigarette she turned and walked to the door and turned off the light.

I was shaken and depressed when I left there. This wasn't unusual. It generally affected me that way. The depression was one of guilt, of self-hate. I would never do it again. Never. I would marry Nan and settle down to the good life. I would give her a child and become interested in a family. It was the only way. This night had been one of the rottenest of all. If I wanted Georgia Conley I could have her by taking her out. That was the sane way of doing it.

"She's available," Sid Malone had said. "Point to the ground and shell fall on it."

"How do you know?"

"Because I scored the first night with her. A divorcee or a widow is always easy to make. They've been used to a man and they have to have one. And they know how to take care of themselves. A guy doesn't want a string of kids chasing him around."

I had only gone a short distance along the block when I met a policeman. His name was Evers. He had shot a man a few months before, a man caught breaking into a store, and I had been sent on the story.

"Well, Larry Cole," he said, stopping. "Digging up news on foot."

"Just out for a walk."

He swung his club and I got cold all over. A few minutes earlier and he might have caught me.

"Thanks for the editorial about that shooting," he said.

"You're welcome but it was Mrs. Lambert who put it m.

"No matter. That guy had the window broken and when I told him to stop he didn't. I had to stop him. Now he's suing the city for a quarter of a million."

"How can he do that?"

"He says he didn't break the window."

"But a jury found him guilty."

"He still says he didn't break it. So he's suing for injuries to his leg. I should have put the bullet in his head."

"The city must have insurance to cover such a thing."

"But they don't."

"Might make for another editorial."

"Go ahead and do it."

He moved on, still swinging his club, and I continued walking.

That had been close, very close. Ever since Fletcher had been fined because of the girls the cops had watched him carefully. I should have thought of that. But it's easy to make mistakes. The trouble with peeping is that if you make one mistake you're finished. They don't only lock you up; people call you insane.

I had decided to stop at the bar near the house but I took my time about getting there. There was no hurry. I was done for the night and I had to think. But how many hours before had I thought? It never did me any good. When the need was gone, the satisfaction attained, sanity returned to me. I could see myself as I was, a thing that crawled through the night. And I didn't need to do it, really. I was good-looking-girls had told me that-and I knew how to talk. I could have almost any woman I wanted-if I wanted.

Dora James was in the bar, sitting at the far end. The one vacant stool was next to her.

"You have your walk?" she asked.

"A good one."

I asked her if she would have a drink. She said she would. She had been drinking beer but she switched to rye and I had one, too.

"Luck," she said, lifting her glass.

"Same to you."

"Most of us need it."

"That's for sure."

"I know I do. My mother screamed her head off when I came down here."

"It isn't much of a place for you."

Most of those at the bar and the tables were men and the few girls were pick-ups. Some of the girls drifted up from Bell's Hollow and if a man had the price of a drink he had the price of some fun, too. The man who bought the girl the last drink was the man who took her home. Most of them were looking for husbands. They tried to get themselves in a family way and settle for money or a marriage ring. Few of the girls in the neighborhood came to the bar. They went to Pete's, a couple of blocks distant, and they usually sat together.

"Must be fun working on a paper," Dora said.

"Sometimes."

"I read everything you write."

"Thanks."

The bartender set up another round, saying that it was with the compliments of some guy who represented a brewing company. I mixed our drinks and offered her a cigarette.

"That's another thing mother doesn't approve of," she said as I held the light for her. "She says if you were meant to smoke you'd have a chimney sticking out of the top of your head."

"She might be right."

"But what the hell else do you have? What does she have? She has a leg that gives her trouble and she has no happiness. If I had to go through life that way I'd rather be dead." Amen.

"Don't you agree?"

I drank part of my drink. We were sitting close together and her knee was against mine. She kept moving her leg up and down and I was conscious of her nearness.

"I agree," I said.

We finished the drinks the salesman had bought us and I paid for another round. "I don't get you," she said, putting out her cigarette. "Don't get mer

"No. You're always by yourself."

"With your mother running the rooming house who else would I be with."

"Don't you have a girl."

"Yes, I have a girl."

She laughed. "Maybe I'm getting too personal."

"That's all right."

"But a newspaperman shouldn't mind that. You stick your nose into everything."

"Just about."

We had a few more drinks and her knee was still there. When she glanced at the clock on the wall I looked down at her. The dress she wore was of thin material and it dipped down between her legs. She had good legs, strong legs that could almost crush a man.

"I have to go," she said.

"Why?"

"The old lady is asleep by now and tomorrow is another working day. If I don't show up at the office I'll get hell from them and hell from her." She turned to me and laughed. "Though I don't think the boss would say anything. He's the one who stood me up. The bastard."

"You might be lucky that he did."

She thought that over.

"You're all right," she said. "You'll do."

"I didn't mean that."

"What did you mean?"

"That he's a married man. A married man goes out with a girl for one thing and we both know it. You weren't born yesterday. You could get yourself in a real jam."

We had another drink, one to finish off the evening. She drank hers fast and I had all I could do to keep up with her. When I picked up my change from the bar and put it in my pocket I touched her leg. She didn't move it, but reached down with her fingers and touched me.

"What does a single man go with a girl for?"

"The same thing sometimes. And sometimes it's love."

"You make me laugh."

"Why?"

"Because there isn't such a thing as love, not love the way the books tell about it."

"Have it your way."

I could see she wanted another drink and I ordered one. I didn't have any myself. If I have too much liquor I usually have a headache the next morning and it makes sitting at a typewriter rough business. I only drank to kill the longing inside of me but it never did any good. More often than not it made the desire worse.

"Well, there may be love," she said, stirring her drink. "There's a boy in our office and he's very nice. I've been out with him a few times."

"You should stick to him."

"Hell, I don't have much to say about it. His father is president of the company and he's just working at every job that comes along for experience. They're loaded with dough and they think he should go with someone in his own class."

I didn't know why I was talking to her, wasting my time, except that it wasn't very late and I wasn't tired. And she did have a certain something to offer, a strange something that you don't find in every girl. She called the shots where they landed and let it go at that. I had found, with the exception of Nan, that most girls were dreamy and unable or unwilling to be realistic. They thought of marriage as the answer to all problems, the cure for all ills.

"Others have had the same problems face them," I said. If a guy-likes a girl he won't care what his parents say.

"Tell that to Freddie."

"I don't know Freddie."

She finished her drink and we left the bar. Outside the night was still hot, the bugs thick around the lights.

We walked up the block and she took my arm. She brought it to her body and my elbow rubbed against her breast.

"We're two of a kind," she said.

"I don't figure that."

"You're lonely and so am I."

"I'm not lonely."

"You act it. I've watched you."

"Well, I'm not."

She was right but I didn't want to admit it. I was lonely, the loneliest man in town. And when I thought of my peeking I felt more lonely than ever.

"I like to walk at night," she said.

"So do I."

"I know you do. I've seen you go out at night lots of times. Where do you go?"

"Just around."

"Any place."

"Any place."

We were a short distance from the rooming house when she told me I could put my arm around her. I didn't.

"I like you," she said. "Thanks."

"And it isn't what I drank. I liked you before. You mind your own business and you're pretty handsome."

"Thanks again."

When we got to the house we walked up the steps. She was still holding my arm. "We could sit on the porch," she said. "We'd better not."

"There's no reason why not. Mom is asleep and she's on the third floor. I used to be on the third floor, too, but I said it was too hot. I have a lot more freedom with the room I have now."

"Good night," I said.

She followed me inside the house.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?"

"No."

"Most men would want to. Am I that bad?"

We were standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"No, you aren't that bad. But when I kiss a girl it has to mean something." Who was I trying to kid? "And I don't know you very well"

"You've seen me enough."

"It isn't the same."

"One day when I was on the porch in shorts and halter I saw how you looked at me-like you wanted to undress me."

I remembered the day. I had had a bad night the night before-saw nothing of interest at more than half a dozen places-and that morning I had been extremely tense. She had been standing on the porch when I came down and I guess I had given her more than a passing glance.

"You have a nice shape," I said.

"Freddie said the same thing. He said I could model if I wanted but I don't want to. There's just one thing

I want out of this life-to have a home and settle down. Going from one man to the other isn't any good."

"No."

"Not when you're looking for just one thing." We were talking in low tones and I could barely hear her. "I keep thinking of Freddie all the time."

"Then do something about it."

"I can't. What can I do? We had a few dates and his parents stepped in. I'm just lucky I don't lose my job. Why are fathers and mothers like that?"

"I don't know."

Her face was flushed and there was a wild glare in her eyes. She was breathing very heavily. "I could get him," she said with conviction. "Then go ahead and do it"

"If I were pregnant there wouldn't be a thing any of them could do about it." It you were.

"That's the way I want to get."

"You will if you keep running around."

She leaned against the wall, her head back, her eyes on my face. I hadn't paid much attention to her mouth until then but I could see that it was made for kissing. The lips were red and full and slightly wet.

"I wouldn't stop you," she said. "You ought to realize that by now."

"Cut it out."

She laughed at me.

"Afraid?"

"Not that."

"I don't know whether I am or not but with you it would be a pleasure. Freddie would have to marry me and all of us would be happy."

"Including Freddie?"

"He wouldn't know. He wouldn't be able to guess. And it could be his. It really could."

I thought about it. All I had to do was take her to bed and satisfy myself. She would be good; there was hardly any doubt about that. And I would be able to see her as I had wanted to see her. Still, it didn't hold the lure of looking in through her window, of seeing her during unguarded moments, I would have gone for that, gone for it in a moment.

"You're crazy," I said.

"Crazy to want to get out of here? What life do I have?"

"You won't have much of any if you keep this up."

"I don't want to work. I hate work. How much fun is there to sitting in an office all day? You're bored from the time you start until your day is done. And I come home to a mother who thinks I'm the biggest slut on the block. That isn't for me, not a bit of it. I want money and the things that money can buy."

"We all do."

"That's easy for you to say. Who the hell are you? What have you got? You can work for twenty years on that paper and wind up with a gold watch. It's a crock, I tell you, a damned crock. It's-"

"Not so loud."

"I don't care if she hears. I don't care if the whole world hears. I've made my own way since I was seventeen and nobody has given me a cent. Do you think my old lady does? Half my pay goes into this house and the rest goes on my back. I don't want that for the rest of my life. I don't!"

She was making a lot of racket and there was only one way to quiet her. I did what she wanted me to do. I kissed her on the mouth, very hard. A little sob escaped her and her lips moved against mine.

"You want me," she said softly.

"I don't know."

"A fellow always wants a girl. And a girl, if she's a real girl, wants a fellow. She wants to feel him hurting her, feel all that he can give her."

We went up the stairs together. This was the wrong thing for me to be doing. Dora was a tramp and I always tried to stay away from tramps. But I had had those drinks and she was soft under my touch. At the top of the stairs we kissed for a long time.

"Don't keep me waiting," she said.

We used my room. She thought her mother might wake up and check on her and we didn't want to be caught.

"Not that I give a damn for myself," she said as I closed the door behind us. "But I don't want any trouble for you."

I glanced out of the window and saw the girl in the next house. She was fully dressed and removing something from around her neck. I wanted to he down on the bed and watch her. But it was too late for that. I had gone too far with Dora.

"That slut," Dora said walking to the window. "She never pulls her shade down."

"Doesn't she?"

Dora pulled my shade down.

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed?"

"I haven't."

"She puts on a strip tease every night. If you want a free look sometime just watch her."

"I wouldn't think of doing such a thing."

She unzipped her dress and pulled it over her head. She wore as little as possible underneath and I could see that the lines of her body were excellent.

"You aren't going to bed with your clothes on," she said.

"Hardly."

I sat on the edge of the bed and began to undress. For all it mattered to her I could have been in a room ten blocks away. She stood to the right of the light in the shadow created by the shade, but she was all shape and flesh.

"You'll think I'm a whore," she said, rubbing herself where the bra strap had cut into her body. "These things happen," I said. "I guess they do."

"Sex is the greatest force in the world. People kill for it and die for it. Why shouldn't they love for it?"

By this time I wanted her. Once it was dark in the room and we were together I lost myself in the fury of her lips. She had a kiss of fire, a kiss that made the liquor rip through my blood.

"You know what I want," she said.

"It isn't always that easy."

Her head lowered and she kissed me on the chest "I can't miss if I try every night, honey."

"Others have."

"But I can't! It has to be this month or not at all."

I felt the need, the need that was decent and clean, and I went for her. She was everything I had thought she would be. She wasn't the sex of Nan, tender sex, or the sex of others I had known; she was the sex of fury. She kept telling me what to do, begging me, and I did whatever I was told.

"Don't stop," she cried. And I didn't.

The devil sure had his money's worth that night

7

SHE WAS STILL with me when the alarm went off the next morning. She lay beside me, nude and wide awake.

"You shouldn't have stayed here," I said, sitting up. I looked at her but I was drained of every male emotion. "What if your mother looked in your room?"

She swung her legs over the side of the bed.

"The hell with her. She wouldn't know where I was. She'll only say I shacked up with some guy downtown. What do I care?"

I found a cigarette on the night stand and lit it. My head ached slightly, the result of the booze from the night before, and I regretted that I had to go to work. Then I remembered that I would only have to work in the morning and I began to feel better.

"I wouldn't have believed it of you," she was saying.

I hadn't been paying any attention to her but I looked at her then. She was standing by the dresser and she had the bottom drawer open. I realized what she was talking about and it made me feel a little sick.

"After you went to sleep I looked for a bottle," she said. "I thought you might have one. But all I found were these pictures. The pictures and the two little books underneath them."

I hadn't read the books in several weeks. Before that I had read them many times on nights when I had been trying to keep myself from going out. The books had pictures in them and they were very dirty. They had cost me three dollars each.

"Well, there wasn't any bottle," I said.

She closed the drawer.

"Why do you have such things, Larry?"

"They belong to a friend."

"What friend?"

I didn't answer her. She wouldn't have believed me and I felt like a trapped animal.

"I'm not much," she said, starting to dress. "But I wouldn't pose for those kinds of pictures and I wouldn't own them. They're nothing but filth."

"All right."

"A person doesn't have to go that low, Larry."

"Are you an example?"

"You know I'm not any example. I'm a nobody."

"But you want to be an example."

"Don't we all?"

She dressed carefully, paying particular attention to her face in the mirror over the dresser.

"I won't say anything about the pictures," she said, using fresh lipstick.

"I told you they belong to a friend."

"And I don't believe you. You could get in trouble if the right people knew you had such things, couldn't you?"

"I suppose I could. I'll get rid of them." She came away from the mirror and she looked as innocent as a high school girl at a prom "Thanks for last night, Larry."

"I could say the same thing."

The girl who gets you won't be lonely. She won't be lonely at all. In that department you're quite a man."

She walked out of the room. I finished dressing and left.

There was a woman in the hall, a woman who worked in the library, and she said good morning. I said the same thing and went down the stairs.

"You slut," Mrs. James was saying from the direction of the living room. "Where were you all night?"

"None of your business," Dora replied.

"It is my business. You're my daughter, though I can't say I'm proud of it. What do you take me for? A fool?"

"Skip the sermon."

"Someday you'll be sorry. Someday you'll see. Someday you'll get yourself caught and you won't know who did it."

I'll know."

"How can you blame one man and not the others."

"Oh, shut up."

I walked out to the porch and hit the early morning air. It was cool, slightly damp from early dew, and my headache was almost gone.

I backed the car out of the driveway and drove toward Willow Road. I couldn't figure that Dora for sour apples. Most girls were afraid of getting pregnant but she couldn't wait. I felt sorry for Freddie, whoever he was. She would nail him to the wall before she finished with him. Even if she didn't get pregnant she could always tell him that she was.

"I just want to marry him," she had said the night before. "Or his money?"

"Or his money. If he didn't have any money I'd look for somebody else. None of this starving to death for me.

"But what if he won't marry you?"

"Then he will have to pay me."

"Anything for the dollar?"

"Just about. But if I have to earn it this way it's going to be a lot of fun."

We had gone at it again after that and I guess I had fallen asleep with her in my arms. The last time had been near dawn and she had been violently demanding.

There wasn't much traffic and it only too me a few minutes to reach the Fletcher cabins. Georgia was waiting for me outside, sitting on the tiny porch, and when she came toward the car I remembered how she had been the night before, standing there in the bedroom with all of her nakedness revealed. I had hoped that she would make me forget Cleo Gardner, but I wasn't forgetting Cleo. Of all of the girls I had seen she had been the best.

"Going to be hot," Georgia said, getting into the car.

"Nice day for the beach."

I drove down Willow Road and made a sharp left turn.

"That where you went?"

"With Janet and Sid. Only Sid had a bottle and he got drunk. He fell asleep on the sand."

"That's Sid for you."

"Janet was angry with him and we left him there."

All of the others were at the office when we arrived. Sid was bitching about being stranded on the beach and Janet didn't say anything; she just continued going through the write-up I had done on the common council. She was dissatisfied with it and I had to do it over again, stretching it out and adding some human interest.

"That's better," she said when the thing was completed.

"I have an idea for an editorial."

"Such as?"

"Why doesn't the city have liability insurance to cover policemen in the performance of their duties?"

"It's a good point."

"Want me to do it?"

"I'd appreciate it if you would."

"Hit them hard," Sid suggested. "This mayor we have is a jerk."

We talked about it some and Nan pointed out that the mayor only got twenty-four hundred a year. This was correct. He worked in a factory during the day and took care of the city affairs at night. Ted Lambert, when he was alive, had tried to promote the hiring of a city manager but the plan hadn't gotten off the ground.

It didn't take me long to do the editorial and I gave Nan a hand with the page we ran once a week for women. There were cooking hints from a local doctor's wife, some syndicated material that we used to fill up space and three or four pictures.

"I wonder if people read it?" Nan asked.

"Probably a few."

She was wearing a pink skirt and a white starched blouse. The blouse had a wide V in it and I could see down inside. I don't know why it excited me but it did. I could have her that afternoon and that night but it didn't hold the same meaning. I was stealing when I peeked and that was the driving force behind my emotions. The sweat ran down my forehead and I suddenly could see her nakedness in a bath tub. What did she do when she took a bath? How did she do it? I had a terrible urge to know, to be on the outside of her window looking in.

The others went for lunch shortly after twelve and we waited for them to come back.

"We can go to the beach,' she said.

"Yes."

"And tonight we'll cook dinner together. Won't it be fun."

"The best."

She had a little typing to do and while she was doing that I walked to the window. A woman was parking a big convertible near the curb, the top down, and she had her dress up high on her legs. She must have been in her forties but I didn't pay any attention to her face.

"Read this over for me, Larry?"

"Sure."

It was about a new Boy Scout troop that was being organized. She had done a good job with it and I told her so.

"You'd say it anyway," she said. "No, I wouldn't."

She covered the typewriter and stood up. "Kiss me, you big lug."

I kissed her and she thrust her hips forward, moved them from side to side.

"I go for you. Know that."

"You'd better."

We had just parted when Janet returned. She had a bottie of coke and some potato chips.

"Miserable diner," she said. "People who can eat their sandwiches must have a stomach of iron."

We met Georgia and Sid in the hall and they were arguing about something.

"The hell it is," Sid said.

"The hell it isn't."

We passed outside and I wondered if Sid would stick it out for the afternoon. There was a good chance he would think of an excuse to get away from the office. I had thought of the same thing lots of times but I didn't have his capacity for being a good liar.

"She must know," Nan said when we were on the street.

"Who must know?"

"Janet."

"About what?"

"Sid making a play for Georgia. Don't tell me you hadn't noticed."

"I thought it was the other way around, that he was strong for Janet."

"Sid is strong for any girl who will say yes."

"And you think Georgia would?"

"I think she might. She's a divorcee and they say a divorced girl is an easy mark. It even struck me that you might be interested in her-for the same reason."

"Not me."

We entered the parking lot and walked to the car. I had left it with the windows and the top down and the seats were hot.

"I have to go home first," Nan said. "My suit is there."

"Okay."

I paid the attendant on the way out and drove down Spring Street. The wind caught her skirt and lifted it. "I'm glad to get out of that office," she said. "So am I."

We rode a short distance in silence.

"Why does Janet do it, Larry? I mean, keep the paper? Her people are rich and she doesn't need the money. I also heard that Ted left her quite a bit of insurance."

"I've wondered about it myself. She must have a reason, one that we don't know about. And then, some people just like to keep busy."

As we approached Bell's Hollow I could smell the river. I liked that smell. It reminded me of the lake and Lily Barton, though the odor at the lake had been cleaner. And the lake reminded me of somebody else. My aunt. Strange how she had gone off the way she had.

We passed a high cement wall, slowing the car for the intersection, and I could see the dirty words that had been written on the wall in chalk.

"I hate this section," Nan said.

We got across the intersection.

"It's home for you," I pointed out.

"Well, it is that. When I was a kid I used to dream about living somewhere else. I don't know. It may not be so bad. The people can't help it if the landlords won't keep the buildings in shape."

"Not very well."

She leaned back against the seat.

"But I feel relaxed. I feel good. Janet has been nice to us in a lot of ways. How many other people get an afternoon off every other day?"

I parked in front of the apartment building and shut off the engine. She continued leaning back with her eyes closed.

"Want to come up?" she asked.

"I don't care."

She sat up and reached for the door handle. "Where are we going swimming."

"What about the Grove?"

The Grove, which was owned by a man with one leg, was just outside of town, along the river. There was plenty of sand and willow trees and almost everybody went there. I liked to sit on the sand and watch the girls. I could think about them, imagine that I was peeking at them, and it was fine. Once in a while, if you were on your toes, you got a real view.

"The Grove is all right with me," she said, getting out of the car. "I'll put on my suit upstairs."

"They have lockers."

"Then I'll put on shorts and halter. I can't wear what I have on very well."

I crossed the sidewalk with her and we went up the steps. Somebody was shouting from next door, a high female voice calling somebody else a bastard, and a man laughed. It was a beer laugh and the woman, louder this time, repeated her statement.

"They do it every day," Nan said. "He's on a pension or something and he drinks all the time. She doesn't see much of the pension."

It was hot inside the house and there was plaster on the floor. The wooden steps creaked as we walked up them. The steps were bare and in sad need of paint.

A baby cried on the second floor and on the third floor I could hear a man snoring.

"He drives me nuts," Nan said, unlocking the door.

The apartment was shabby but clean and the furniture was old. It was hotter in there than it had been downstairs. The heat seemed to cling to my skin, burning in and driving the sweat to the surface.

"We could eat out tonight," I said, knowing that it would get worse as the sun went down.

She unbuttoned part of her blouse. She had on a white bra, one of those without shoulder straps.

"Let's spend tonight together," she said. "It's never been truly real for us. Why pass up the opportunity?"

"Okay."

She paused in a doorway which I assumed led into her bedroom. "I won't be long. Watch television if you want."

"Fair enough."

I didn't bother with the television set. It was an old thing and I didn't know how to work it. I sat down on the davenport, feeling the springs beneath me, and lit a cigarette. She was in that bedroom, in there all by herself. What was she doing? I stared at the wall and wished that I could see her. It made me angry that I couldn't, that I had to sit and wait. To me, there's nothing more interesting than a naked woman alone in her own private world, a world in which she shares her personal secrets with just one person-herself. At one time I had covered a women's club meeting. One woman in particular, a blonde with a shape to go with her beautiful face, had interested me. I had interviewed her, discovered that she was single and learned her address. I had gone out there later. There had only been about an inch of space below the bottom of the shade but she had put on a real show for me. She had needed a man as much as I had needed a woman.

"All set," Nan said, coming out of the bedroom

She was in red, red halter and red shorts and they looked good on her. She had a bathing suit in one hand and a towel in the other.

I got up from the davenport and put out the cigarette in an ash tray. Right then I didn't want to go swimming. There was only one thing that I wanted to do. But I got interrupted. Just as I was going to take her in my arms somebody knocked on the door.

"Damn!" she said. She was as annoyed as I was. "It's probably the girl from downstairs."

It was.

She was a tired-looking little thing and she had the bluest eyes I had ever seen. She wore a cheap cotton dress and the toes of one foot stuck out of her shoe.

"I wouldn't bother you," she said to Nan. "I wouldn't bother you but I don't know what else to do."

"Don't worry about it."

The girl came into the room and she hardly noticed me.

"He's gone," she said. She was twisting her hands together. "He hasn't been home for three days."

"Who's gone?"

"Charlie. You know Charlie. I've been living with him."

"I know, but I've only seen him a few times."

"I think it's because of the baby," the girl said. "He was mad about the baby. But I couldn't help it. It just happened. Now I guess he's left me and I don't know where to turn. The rent is due-it was due last week-and I don't have any food. I thought you might be able to tell me what I can do."

Nan glanced at me.

"What do you think, Larry?"

"She could try the welfare department. They'll find this Charlie and make him do what's right."

"I don't want to cause him no trouble," the girl said. She had tiny breasts and they rose and fell under the dress. "He was good to me while I was with him."

"But he isn't being good to you now," Nan pointed out. "And you have to think of the baby. Larry is right. The welfare department would be the place to go. Or back home."

"I couldn't do that, not go home. I ran away from home to get away from my father. He would kill me if he knew about me and the way I am now. He goes to church every Sunday and he takes up the collection."

"They sound like decent people," Nan said.

"Oh, they're decent all right-too decent. I left the night he caught me with a boy on the glider on the porch. I had never done such a thing before and I didn't know what I was doing. He called me all sorts of names and I had to get out of there. Then I met Charlie and he took me in. I told him I was eighteen at first. Now look what I've got. Nothing."

There wasn't much I could do for the girl except give her some money. It wasn't a lot, twenty dollars, but it would last for a few days.

"You didn't have to do that," she said, taking the two bills. "And I don't think I can ever pay you back."

"I don't want to be paid back."

We followed the girl out of the apartment and down the stairs. She was crying and she didn't say anything as she left us at the door to her rooms.

"Tough break," I said to Nan as we got into the car. "It was nice of you to give her that money."

"Money and sympathy mean nothing in a situation like that."

"Only a husband."

"And she's just fifteen. It's pretty terrible."

I drove cross-town and we didn't talk about the girl again. What was there to say? She would end up in a home for wayward girls and her life would be ruined.

It was only a couple of miles to the Grove and it didn't take us long to get there. A lot of cars cluttered up the parking space, some of them parked at the wrong angles, and a big crowd of people was on the beach. I got my trunks from the rear of the car and we walked toward the dressing rooms.

No one was in the dressing room that I used and it didn't take me long to change. Outside I stood in the sun and waited for Nan. Why did it take a girl so much longer to get out of her things? But I knew. I had seen them in their bedrooms and most of them just fooled around, folding their stuff and making a neat pile out of it. A man slapped his clothes on a hook and let it go at that.

She came around the corner of the building and toward me. The suit fit her well and she had a fine body. I knew what it would be like after she got the suit wet. It would creep up over her thighs, cut into her flesh, and every time she came out of the water she would have to adjust the straps. Most girls had to do that and it was fun to watch them.

We walked down to the beach and I held her arm.

"I can't get over that poor girl," Nan said as we approached the water. "That Charlie whoever he is ought to be made to pay."

"Kind of scares you."

"Of course it does. A man can make a girl pregnant and walk out on her."

"Do you think that about me?"

"If I did I wouldn't give myself to you."

The water was warm and we were both good swimmers. We swam downstream to a raft that was vacant. I was the first on the raft and I helped her up. The top of her suit did as I expected it to do and I could see more than a third of her breasts. Suddenly I was sorry we had come to the Grove. We should have stayed in the apartment or gone to that other beach.

"I'm going to get another suit," she said as we sat down. She fooled with the straps, pulling them into place.

"Why?"

"You know why. You can see."

"Do you mind if I see?"

"Not you. But others. Some men just sit around the beach and look for things like that. And some girls don't mind showing what they have. I do."

It was hot in the sun and we stretched out on the raft. I could smell the cleanness of her beside me and I closed my eyes. Lazily, I drifted off to sleep. I was no longer at the beach. I was on Garfield Avenue at the window of Cleo Gardner and this time she didn't see me. She was taking off her clothes and I could see the full lines of her body, ripe lines that made my mouth dry and my head pound. She was reaching behind her for the snap on her bra and I was so delighted I couldn't breathe. She had it all, everything that a girl should have, and I knew what I had to do with her.

"Larry!"

I opened my eyes. "Huh?"

"It must be after five."

"Is it?"

The sun hurt my eyes.

"You've been sleeping and talking. But I couldn't understand what you said."

"Must be the heat."

"Probably."

We slid off the raft into the water and swam to the shore. A lot of people had already left the beach but I noticed one girl in particular who was wearing a red suit and playing with a beach ball. She had a shape almost as full as Cleo's and she didn't seem to care if she displayed some of her charms.

"I couldn't do that," Nan said as we walked toward the dressing rooms.

"Do what?"

"Let the top of my suit down the way that girl does. If she stays here until dark shell get everything that she deserves."

"Maybe it's what she wants."

"Would you be interested?"

"Hell, no."

I changed in the dressing room, thinking. That dream had shaken me. Why couldn't I forget about Cleo Gardner? She was just another dame.

But I knew that wasn't true. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen and some night I would have to go back there. I shuddered at the thought of what might happen if I did. I had never gone that far before, never. Looking in through a window was one thing but rape was quite another.

As I waited in the car for Nan I made up my mind. I would marry her and quit this business forever.

I would never peek again.

PART TWO

8

ON THE WAY back to Bell's Hollow I stopped at a store and got a steak big enough for three people. There was a liquor store in the same block and I picked up a full quart of rye, plus three bottles of ginger ale.

"Guess we celebrate," Nan said when I returned to the car.

"All the way."

She patted my hand on the steering wheel.

"You don't need liquor to get me in the mood, Larry."

"What's a night without a few drinks?"

We hit some traffic and driving was slow. At one intersection a big truck was stalled and it took us a while to get around that. The driver stood in front of the truck, looking helpless. As we went past he kicked at one of the fenders.

"You see a mess like that," I said, "and the newspaper business isn't so bad."

"I like it. And so do you."

When we parked in front of the apartment I saw the fifteen-year-old girl talking to a man in a natty suit. "Is that Charlie?"

"No. I don't know his name but he picks up girls down here in the Hollow. His business is flesh and a lot of girls go for his line."

"It follows. She's down as far as she can go. She's an easy mark."

"God help her, the poor thing."

We entered the apartment building and climbed the stairs to the apartment. All of the windows were open but the heat was terrific.

"Take off your shirt," she said after I put the things on the kitchen table. "You might as well be comfortable."

I took off both the shirt and the T-shirt, placed them on the back of a chair near one wall. The kitchen was a long cry from being modern. The only thing new in it was the gas stove, with a broiler on one side and an oven on the other. The table was old, covered with a checked oilcloth, and the sink didn't have a drain board.

"It's clean," she said as though she had read my thoughts.

"I see that."

"Mother is probably the cleanest woman in the Hollow. She goes through the apartment every day, whether it needs it or not."

I unwrapped the steak.

"I'm glad she took off for the country," I said. "So am I."

"But we don't have to stay here. We could go to a hotel or a motel."

"Why waste the money? You already threw twenty dollars away today. Isn't that enough?"

The steak was thick and there was only a small bone in it.

"I guess it is," I said. "She'll be able to earn that much from one man."

"Couldn't the paper do something about it."

"About what."

"These girls."

"Not much. You have to have proof."

"But you write about the peeper."

"That's different. You have something to go on there."

She got out the salt and pepper.

"I don't see how a man can do such a thing."

"Nor do I."

"Aren't there any girl peepers?" I seasoned the steak.

"I've never heard of any but I guess there might be. It seems to be a failing only of the male."

"But it isn't necessary. He could get married and have a family or go to a house. There are girls who will undress for any man-for a price."

"Don't ask me," I said. "You're going too deep for this old brain to come up with an answer."

She had been right about the broiler. It was hard to light but I finally got it lit. She said there was a store down the street that sold potato salad and we decided on that.

"No more than a pound," she said as I put on my T-shirt. "Okay."

When I got down to the front of the apartment building I saw that the girl was still talking to the man. She was nodding her head and the man was smiling at her.

"I could start tonight," she said as I went by.

"Good."

"I wouldn't do it. I need the money, though. "Most girls do."

I saw the store down the street and walked toward it. The girls who sold themselves made a lot of money during the summer from the tourists but in the fall and winter they either starved to death or went south to some larger city. Mountaindale was a family town and there was enough free stuff around to provide severe competition for the professionals.

The store was a dingy place and I didn't like the looks of the potato salad but I bought it anyway.

"German style," the man told me. "You'll like it."

When I returned to the apartment building the girl was gone and so was the man. They had made their deal and she would go further down the road to disgrace. Give her a few years and she would be another Lily Barton, supporting kids and sleeping with any man who came along.

I entered the living room and found Nan in something blue and thin.

"Do you mind, Larry? I was so hot."

"I don't mind. It looks good on you."

She swung around and the negligee whirled up to reveal her naked thighs.

"Just like being married," she said.

I took the potato salad into the kitchen, got some ice cubes from the refrigerator and fixed two drinks. I made them strong and big, putting a double shot in each one.

I carried the drinks out to the living room and she was sitting on the davenport, leaning back.

"Tastes good," she said as we drank.

"Hits the spot."

"How's the steak?"

"It'll take a while."

"You like yours rare or medium?"

"Rare."

"So do I."

"Rare meat is the best in the world."

"Fresh!"

"You've got your mind in the gutter."

"Where's yours?"

It happened as I had known it would happen. One moment we were sitting there drinking and the next moment I was kissing her.

"Let me put my drink down, Larry."

We both put our drinks down.

"You're lovely," I said, going for her mouth again. "What did you expect me to do to you in that thing?"

There was a little bow at the top of the negligee; I untied it and pushed the material aside. My left hand went from one breast to the other, caressing them. They were full and swollen. I could imagine myself at some window, looking in at a girl and wanting to do this to her. Nan must have felt it, too, because she lifted toward me, her mouth coming all the way open.

"I love you," I said.

"Say it again!"

"I love you."

Her lips moved against my mouth. "We don't have to stay out here."

"No."

I locked the apartment door before we went into the bedroom. I didn't know if anybody would come in or not, such as the girl from downstairs, but I didn't want to take any chances on it. The negligee was open and I could see a lot of her body. I had seen it before but not this way. The ache which I experienced at the back of my neck when I was peeking was there, crowding forward to my eyes.

"What about the steak?" she asked.

"The hell with the steak."

I carried her into the bedroom and she kissed me on the way.

The bed was old fashioned and wide, with a pink spread on it. I didn't put her on the bed but set her down on her feet.

"I want to see you," I said, my head throbbing.

"You have seen me."

"But not like this."

"Is this different?"

"A lot different."

I sat on the bed and she took off the negligee, letting it fall to the floor. The sunlight crept in through the two windows and splashed all around her. She had a nearly perfect body and my throat became dry, the throb in my head worse.

"Move around," I managed to say.

She moved around, showing herself.

"Do you like me?"

I could only nod. Who wouldn't like her?

She came to the bed and then I was kissing her slightly above her stomach, driving my head into her flesh. I felt her hands in my hair, twisting, driving pain into my scalp.

"I want you," she cried.

I pulled her down with me, not caring about the spread on the bed, not caring about anything. I had to have her, had to know her, had to possess her totally.

I hurt her. I know I did. She whimpered and clung to me. But she told me, still whimpering, not to stop, that I should never stop.

Heat filled the room, but I didn't feel it. I gave her my love, gave her all that I had to give, and she was demanding, crying for all of love, the ultimate of love. I didn't refuse her.

Later, as we lay on the bed, she asked me about the steak.

"I don't know. I'm not hungry anyway."

"Neither am I."

"They say when you are in love you don't want to eat."

"I guess they're right."

I was going to go all the way with her now. I had to. There was no other solution. I would love her and have her and somehow I would cure myself of the peeking curse. I would be able to live with myself and society. What I had done would be like a series of bad dreams.

"Let's get married," I said.

She crept into my arms and she was silent for so long I thought she hadn't heard me. "Are you sure, Larry."

"Very."

I had to be sure. She would give me all of the sex I needed and she would free me. I would lose myself in her and I would build a sensible future.

"You know about my mother," she said.

"We could manage."

"I'd keep my job on the paper."

"Okay."

"And we'd live on your salary." She stirred in my arms. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Not at all. She's your mother and you can't let her down."

She kissed me warmly on the mouth. Her eyes were serious. "What if I'm pregnant."

"I doubt if you are."

"But what if I was? I wouldn't be able to work more than six or seven months and she'd still need help."

"Janet might pay me more. I could ask her."

"She pays Sid more than she does you. I saw his check one day."

"Well, he has more experience."

We kissed and now that I had asked her I felt better. There was nothing for me to worry about. The driving urge to peek would disappear into the dust of the past and so would another desire that was even more terrible. Rape.

"Let's do it right away," I said. "When?"

"It takes three days in this state. We could start working at it tomorrow." Her lips lingered at my mouth. "You've made me very happy, Larry."

"You've made me happy, too."

"Let's not take any more chances, shall we? Not for now. Not until we're settled and we know where we're going."

"That's smart."

"If you have children you want to do right by them. And we'll have to buy furniture."

"I have some money in the bank. Enough, I think. Enough for that and a honeymoon."

"I have some, too. I've tried to put a little away each week since I started working."

"We'll try not to touch that."

"No, but it's nice to know that it's there."

We talked about an apartment and where we might find one. There were some advertised in the paper and we would look into these first. It didn't have to be large, just a bedroom and a living room and a kitchen. The smaller the apartment the less we would have to buy. If we found one that was furnished so much the better. But we wanted to be in a decent section with decent people.

"I couldn't bear living in the Hollow," she said.

We kissed and made love again. I wanted to love her all the way but I knew she was right about being careful. In a year we would be able to build a savings account and then it would be all right.

"I have a week coming for vacation," I said afterward. "And so do you. We can get the same time off together."

"Do you think Janet will let us?"

"I can ask her."

"In the morning?"

Now that I was in it I didn't want to put it off. "What's the matter with finding out tonight."

"You could phone her."

"She doesn't have a phone. Don't ask me why but after Ted died she had it taken out. I guess people were calling her up and she didn't like it. Not that I blame her. You spell a name wrong in the paper and somebody blows their cork." She thought about it.

"Maybe it would be better than asking her in front of everybody. Sid would have to do your work and Georgia would have to do mine. They might not like it."

"My thought exactly."

By the time we eventually got out to the kitchen the steak was burnt so badly that it couldn't be eaten. We both had a little of the potato salad and threw the rest of it away.

"Ride out with me," I said.

"I'd rather stay here and take a bath."

"Suit yourself."

"Do you mind?" Her tone was anxious.

"No, I don't mind. One of us is enough. I won't be gone long and then I'll be back. I just hope your mother doesn't decide to return home."

"She won't. And while you're gone I can phone her and tell her about us."

"She might not approve."

"She won't stand in my way. She's often said that she knew I would get married someday. And when I tell her we'll help her out here it will be all right."

"Luck."

"Kiss me before you go."

I kissed her and then put on my shirt. I didn't want to leave her. I wanted her in that bedroom, naked and alive, her body pulsing as I took her.

She was washing the few dishes as I left the apartment. When I got to the second floor I met the fifteen-year-old girl. She had on a blue dress that was too tight for her and a pair of high heeled shoes.

"Hi," she said, smiling.

"Hello."

"You were nice to me this afternoon. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

She followed me down the stairs.

"Are you going uptown?"

"I'm going through it."

"Could I ride up with you?"

"Why, sure."

When she sat in the car she put her back up against the door and her left knee up on the seat "Thanks," she said. "Glad to help."

I drove down to the corner and moved out into the steady flow of traffic. 'You heard me talking to that man, didn't you."

"I'm afraid I did."

The dress had pulled up higher on her leg and her whole knee was visible.

"Maybe I'm bad," she said. "I don't know. My mother and father said I was bad and they could have been right. But what is a girl to do? You get in the fix I'm in and you do anything you can to help yourself."

"I suppose so."

She brushed the dress down over her thighs but she didn't cover her knee. "Is Nan Edwards your girl."

"We're going to be married." I stopped for a light and she leaned toward me. "I could be nice to you," she said. "Skip it"

"It wouldn't be the way it has to be with the others. I wouldn't charge you. I don't know your name but you treated me fine. Once in a while a man needs a change."

"Don't be silly."

"That was what Charlie used to say and that's why he took me in. He said I was terribly good."

"You'd be better off going to the welfare department."

"And have them take the kid away from me? No, not that. It's my kid as much as his and I'll keep it. This way I'll be able to buy things for it that I never could buy on a factory job."

I didn't say anything to her after that. What was the use? She was going to make a tramp out of herself and nothing I could say would stop her. She was like a lot of other kids who go wrong in refusing to listen and ignoring advice.

I let her off near the Century Hotel and continued on my way. I had heard that a lot of girls worked out of the Century. At one time, when I was very young, it had been a popular stopping place, but the outlying motels had taken much of the business away from it.

The Old Mine Road is a pretty fashionable section of town. The people who live there either have money or they're able to borrow up to the hilt on the strength of their incomes. The further out you get the smaller the houses become until, finally, you run into nothing but undeveloped fields. Ted Lambert-I understood he had gotten the money from Janet's parents had built about half way out, probably a hundred feet back from the road.

I don't know why I drove by the house but I did. I was thinking of Janet and her red hair, her compact body which filled out everything she wore very well. And I was thinking that I had wanted to come out here and look in on her, observe her as I was unable to observe her in the office.

A hundred feet up the road I parked the Ford under some trees. I was sweating and I couldn't taste the cigarette I had in my mouth. If I went back there and crept up to her windows it would be the last time I would ever do such a thing. I wasn't married yet and my life was my own. Marriage, when it happened, would change me. The day I was married I would bury this longing, this impossible desire that seized me in a grip of iron. I had wanted to see her for weeks, for months, and it wouldn't do any harm. I could ask her about the vacation in the morning or if she was in the living room, doing something, all I had to do was go up to the front door and knock.

I got out of the car, grinding the heel of one shoe on the cigarette. It was dark but early for peeking and I didn't expect to have any luck. I walked back along the road, knowing that I shouldn't be doing this but unable to help myself. The memory of Nan in the bedroom returned but it was faint and it wasn't enough. Maybe I should have gone with that girl. She was fifteen and pregnant but it would have been better than this.

I crossed the lawn, staying in the darkness, and it reminded me of the lawn at the Gardner place. It was wide and soft and my feet didn't make a sound. Lights were on in the living room and a couple of others but I tried the living room first.

I drew a blank. There was nobody there. My blood began to pound. She might be in the next room, might be changing her clothes.

She wasn't-it was a bedroom but it was empty. I cursed silently.

I moved on, getting caught in a hedge with thorns on it and cutting my legs in half a dozen places. I made a note where the hedge was in case I had to run. One night I had run from a back yard and slammed into a clothesline that had just about torn my head off. I had been lucky that night. The dog had been tied and he could only bark at me. I hadn't gone out after that for three nights.

The next window yielded something that I hadn't expected to see. If she had been in there naked with Sid I wouldn't have been surprised. But it wasn't Sid. It was Georgia and the window was up so I could hear what they were saying. They were sitting on the edge of the bed, facing me. I could see all of them. All.

"I missed you last night," Georgia said.

"I missed you, too."

"I had a dream about you."

"What kind of a dream?"

"Can't you guess?"

They kissed and I don't have to tell you what they did with their hands. My head pounded worse than it ever had. All the months I had been working in the office I hadn't suspected what was going on. It only shows you that things aren't always as they appear.

"My father is coming north," Janet said. "He insists that I sell the paper."

"What would happen to us then?"

"I don't know. We're the only reason I kept it. We can be ourselves this way."

"Why can't I move in with you?"

"I've told you. People have filthy minds."

"There would be no reason for them to suspect us. Lots of girls live together."

"I don't want to risk it."

A short laugh came from Georgia but she wasn't smiling. "Or is it because of Sid."

"Sid?"

"I know Sid comes out here. Don't fie to me. Nights when you say you're busy I know you're seeing him. Don't we mean enough to each other?"

"A woman needs a man," Janet said. "You know that and so do I. I lived without a man for a year after Ted died. I don't want to go on living without one."

"What about us?"

Janet lay back on the bed.

"This isn't the same," she said. "This is something that we shouldn't do but something that we have to do.

When it first happened with us I was shocked. I'm not any longer. I need you-and I need a man, too."

Georgia looked unhappy.

"You're bi-sexual," she said.

"Perhaps. I don't know. I've thought about it but I don't know. When I have Sid I want Sid, and when I have you I want you. I don't know the explanation. I haven't looked for one. We are what we are and a few of us can change."

Her legs were better than Nan's legs, her body just as inviting. I wanted to be in there with her, to show her what love really meant. I wanted to crawl over her, find her, send into her the fruit of my love.

"You won't want any man after tonight," Georgia promised her. "When I was married I used to hate my husband, hate what he did to me. A man dirties a woman, leaves her feeling unclean. No man can truly satisfy a woman. Only a woman can do that, can make another woman live."

I watched them for a moment, watched what Georgia did with Janet, and then I turned away from the window. I didn't want to see it, didn't want to hear the secret things which they said to each other. There was something about two Lesbians which left me cold.

I reached the road and walked toward the car. More than once I had thought of trying to make some time with Janet Lambert but I was no longer interested. Sid could have her. Sid could have what was left. And that wasn't much. She was a homosexual and no man would ever be able to truly please her.

Once inside of the car I started it, turned around, and drove back toward town. I felt cheated that my last peeking effort had discovered so much shame. I thought of Georgia, of how I had seen her the night before, and she no longer seemed pretty. She was a girl with a fair shape and she was throwing it away. I couldn't make any more of it than that.

Bell's Hollow was deserted-not many of the people had cars-and I parked in front of the apartment building. I put up the top, closed the windows and locked both doors. Further uptown you couldn't park on the street all night but down here it didn't matter. For the most part the police left BeU's Hollow alone, left it to its sex and violence.

I started up the steps and heard a couple talking under the porch. I paused, listening.

"Not here," the girl said.

"Why not here?"

"Because I don't want to. We could walk down to the river."

"My old lady doesn't know I'm out. I haven't got much time."

"My mother doesn't know either."

"You want us to get into trouble then."

"They won't care. They're all drinking and they won't care."

I heard some sounds from under the porch, possibly the sounds of a dress tearing. "I've waited a long while for this," the boy said. "Have you?"

"For months and months, ever since you moved here."

"I've been waiting a little bit myself," the girl admitted. "It's safe here."

"You've been here before."

"With another girl, but she wasn't as nice as you. There were six of us and she didn't turn one of us down."

"I can't imagine that. I know I couldn't do that." I lit a cigarette and waited.

"What are you doing?" the boy asked, his voice heavy with emotion.

The girl laughed.

"Don't you want me to do it?"

"Sure, it's fine, only-"

"Let's not talk. We can talk later. We can always talk. I'm only sixteen but I know what I'm doing."

"You must have had some practice."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen, a couple of months more than that."

"We're almost old enough to get married."

"With both of us going to school?" "You could quit and so could I. We could get jobs. The factories hire all the time."

"Yeah, for forty a week."

"Two times forty is eighty."

There was silence for a moment and I could hear a baby next door crying. The baby sounded sick, as though it had a cold.

"For somebody who didn't want to talk you're doing an awful lot of it," the boy said.

"I'll stop talking when you kiss me."

He must have kissed her because she didn't say anything more. I walked up the steps and I knew that I had interrupted them. They would be down there under the porch, clinging together, not knowing what to do. I grinned. They knew what to do and they would do it, all right. It was a shame I couldn't watch them. Next to a girl alone, I like to watch a boy and a girl together. Sometimes a girl cries afterward and she's scared. I never feel sorry for them. They have their bodies and they get what they want. What do they expect?

Nan was in the living room of the apartment and she had on that blue negligee. I noticed that she had a fresh drink and I went out to the kitchen to get one for myself. She followed me.

"What did Janet say?"

I put in a triple shot.

"I didn't see her. I got to thinking it over and it's better to wait until morning."

"Maybe you're right."

She came into my arms and I spilled some of my drink. "I've thought it over," she said. "Let's not cheat each other. Let's get all we can out of life."

"Do you think we should?"

"I'm not worried. There's always a way. If there's love, there has to be a way."

I never did finish my drink that night. The bedroom was too close and she was too much of a woman. I prayed, with the desperation of someone dying, that she would be woman enough

9

IT WAS EASY for us to get the week off and we were married late Monday afternoon. Everybody from the office came and Nan's mother was present.

"I wanted a big wedding for her," Mrs. Edwards said to me when the ceremony was over. "But I don't have the money-doesn't the bride's family pay?-and I doubt if you have either. It's probably just as well this way."

"I think so."

"She's a good girl and I hope you're good to her." Mrs. Edwards was a short woman with gray hair and eyes that never left my face. "As soon as I feel like myself again I'll try to get a job and take part of the load off you."

"Take your time."

That pleased her.

"You are sweet, Larry."

I got away from her and walked over to the door. Nan was talking to Janet, who had not only given us our pay in advance but an extra hundred dollars as a wedding present.

"Congratulations," Sid said to me. "Thanks."

Sid was half drunk. He had been out of the office almost all morning and nobody had to guess that he had been in some bar.

"No need to tell you to have fun," Sid said, grinning. "You've no doubt had a lot of that already."

"I wouldn't try to change your mind."

"That was the trouble with me and my wife. She was as pure as a rose and on our wedding night I almost killed myself. After I taught her what it was all about, she got herself a kid by somebody else."

"So you said before."

"Some salesman selling pictures. I knew and the neighbors knew. He came back every day while I was working. But the judge said I was married to her and it's my kid and I have to support it. It isn't fair, is it?"

I was glad when Nan came over to me. She looked fresh in a red dress and she had had her hair done.

"You didn't kiss the bride," she said.

I kissed her and her fingers dug into' my shoulders. Georgia made a remark about how wonderful true love was and somebody laughed.

We went out and everyone followed us. They stood on the sidewalk, wishing us good luck, as I started the car. They were still standing there when we drove away.

"Now to figure out where we're going," Nan said.

We had talked about this but hadn't decided anything. We had finally figured we would start driving and just let the road take us anywhere it went.

"My grandmother used to tell me about Old Orchard Beach in Maine," I said. "She was up there once and said it was wonderful."

"Wherever you want to go."

"And it isn't too far. We could drive part of the distance today and stay at a motel tonight."

"Sounds great to me."

"Say, you're easy to get along with."

"It must be because I'm in love with my husband."

I stopped for a red light and took the opportunity to kiss her. I meant that kiss. I had stayed with her every night-her mother had remained in the country-and I hadn't gone out peeking once. Oh, I had felt the desire all right but I had fought it down, getting my sex the way a man is supposed to receive sex.

"Rena got some new clothes," she said as we drove on.

"Who is Rena?"

"The girl downstairs."

Nan hadn't worked that morning at the office but I had. I had packed the night before and when I had been up to the rooming house I hadn't seen Dora James. I hadn't wanted to see her. She had nothing that I wanted.

"She'll blow all of her dough away," I said. "You just see if she doesn't."

"Maybe. But she had a hundred and fifty dollars. She gave me the twenty which she owed you. I forgot to tell you about that."

"You keep it."

"I tried to talk some sense to her but it didn't do any good. She's found the easy money and she won't stop."

"She'll stop-when the roof falls in on her."

We got out of town and picked up the main highway. The top was down, the sun all around us, and it was a beautiful day. I had looked at a map when I thought of driving up to Maine. Troy wasn't quite the halfway point but it was about a four-hour ride and it would be a good place to stop. The next day we would be going into Vermont and I wanted to see Vermont in the daylight. I had read about the state but I had never been there.

It was about seventy miles to the New York Thruway. The road had plenty of curves in it and was rough in spots. I had one tire in back that was smooth and wished that I had put on a new one. The spare was only fair; it had a cut in it and there was a liner inside.

"I wish I could change," Nan said.

"Why?"

To get into something more comfortable."

"Why not the next gas station?" That would do."

The next gasoline station was an Esso station and I told the attendant to fill up the tank and check the oil. Nan took shorts and halter from a suitcase in back and left for the ladies' room. I felt for my cigarettes, saw that I needed some and went inside the station.

There was a girl in there, standing in back of the counter, and she wore a bathing suit. I could only see the top part of her but what I could see was great. She had a firm, high bust and blonde hair and gray eyes.

"Can I help you?"

She also had a nice smile.

"I need a couple of packs of Winston," I said, putting a bill on the counter.

The cigarettes were on the top shelf under the glass and she had to bend down to get them. Her suit hung open and I could see down inside. I began to sweat. She would be something to watch. Then I remembered that I had just gotten married and I hated myself. She was a girl I would never see again and I shouldn't be interested in her that way.

The attendant came in and I paid for the gas and a quart of oil. I picked up my change and left the station without looking at the girl again.

But she would have been nice.

Nice...

"All set," Nan said as I got into the car. "Some woman walked in on me when I was changing, not a thing on, and she must have thought I was nuts." We rolled down the highway and I glanced at her beautiful legs. Why was I looking for something different? I had all that I needed right here, enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life. I had someone to work for, someone to live for. I had never known that before. Now everything was changed. I had Nan beside me and with her help I could conquer everything.

"Mrs. Cole," she said. "It sounds good."

"Doesn't it?"

She reached across me and found a cigarette.

"I hoped for this day. From the very first I hoped for it And yet, I didn't know. I had heard that a girl can lose a man by giving herself to him."

"Not always."

"But I was determined to take that chance. I had to take the chance. I used to go with other boys but they never made me feel the way you did. From the beginning I wanted to belong to you, wanted to be yours."

"I guess it was that way with me, too."

"Was it?"

"There were some other girls for me, but we never really hit it off. One even had quite a bit of money."

"Money doesn't make love."

"Money doesn't make a lot of things."

We arrived at the Thruway and I paid the toll. Most of the cars were hitting it up but I kept the Ford at fifty. I'm not a fast driver and there's no use destroying a motor for the sake of getting somewhere quicker. Besides, we had the whole week. The whole week to make love and take our time.

"Mother said we could use the apartment until we find rooms, Larry."

"Did she?"

"Just before we were married. She's going to stay on with my aunt."

"That's thoughtful of her."

"Yes, but I wish we could have found something."

On Saturday we had looked at a lot of apartments but some of the rents were very high and a lot of the places hadn't been very good. There was one on Walnut Street-completely furnished, heat and lights thrown in-but the tab had been a hundred a month. I didn't feel that I could pay more than I made in a week. Most of Nan's pay would be going to her mother and if she came up pregnant that would complicate matters even more.

"We'll look again when we get back," I said.

"Janet said she would watch the ads for us. If she finds what we want shell put a deposit down on it."

"Good idea. I hadn't thought of that."

We ran into a lot of road construction after leaving the Thruway at Albany and this slowed us down. We passed through Troy and it was getting close to eight before we found a motel with a restaurant and bar attached. There was a small lake in front with some ducks swimming around and the place looked clean. It was twelve dollars for the night and I paid in the bar.

The room was a nice room, with pay television and a bathroom attached. It was done in red and pink and the bed was soft and wide. I carried the luggage in from the car and put it down in one corner.

"I could eat," I said.

"Me, too. I'm starved."

I fixed the car for the night, putting up the top and the windows, and then we walked over to the restaurant. There were only a few people there and the service was prompt. We both ordered highballs and steak.

"To make up for the steak we burned," I said.

"That was something, wasn't it?"

"Well, you can only have one thing on your mind at a time."

The highballs came first and we had three more before the steaks arrived. They were tender, rare enough to please us and we ate everything. When we were finished I paid the check and we moved out to the bar.

I don't know how long we were in the bar but it must have been quite a while. We were drinking, talking about nothing in particular, and when we weren't talking we listened to the other people at the bar. Most of them were travelers, going one place or another. A man and a woman got into an argument but it didn't last long. The man was old, the woman a lot younger, and after she kissed him on the cheek they were quiet.

"I feel these drinks," Nan said.

"Do you?"

"I could he right down and go to sleep."

"You better not on your wedding night." She laughed at me. "I suppose you would wake me up."

"You're damned right I would."

I ordered another drink but we didn't touch it. I was as sober as I had been when I started out and I didn't want her drunk. There's nothing worse than making love to a drunken woman. I had done it one night and it had been a complete failure. She hadn't even known what was going on.

We walked through the night to our room. I noticed lights in the other rooms, some with the shades up. She leaned against me and a couple of times she let out with a silly laugh.

"I'm sorry, Larry," she said. "It isn't only the liquor that's got me-it's the excite men."

"You get married only once."

"That's all you're supposed to get married, anyhow."

"That's all either of us is going to get married." She stopped and came in against me. "You can kiss me for that. I want it to last, too." I kissed her, running my hands up and down her back Her skin was smooth and soft.

"Wait until we're inside," she said, moving the hand that had gone to her breast.

I didn't want to wait. I wanted to take her deeper into the shadows and have her there.

It was hotter in the room when we entered and somebody had come in and turned down the bed. Nan moved from window to window, pulling the shades all the way to the bottom.

"No use giving a free show," she said.

"Nobody would bother us."

She untied her halter.

"No? We have a peeper at home and there might be one here."

We both undressed and I watched her but it wasn't the same as looking in through a window. I made an attempt to convince myself that it was the same and for a moment lost the inner pain and conflict.

She came to me, meeting me in the middle of the room near the side of the bed.

"I'm yours," she whispered. "All yours. I'm yours forever and forever."

"And I'm yours-for as long as time lasts for either of us."

We didn't turn out the light. We were anxious, wanting each other, needing each other with a fury that knew no bounds. We went down to the bed, our bodies and lips locked together.

"This is right for us now," she said.

"Very."

"But it was before. Love has to be right."

I thought of the girl in the gasoline station, of Cleo Gardner, of countless other girls, and I had to conquer the turmoil that raged within me. She had almost stopped kissing me and was almost asleep but she gasped as I went to her, driving the breath from her lungs.

"Make me live, Larry."

I made her live, giving her love, giving her all that there was to give. She responded to me, returning her love; at last, when it was over, I knew I had made her happy.

She went to sleep almost immediately and I lay beside her, staring up at the ceiling. I wasn't tired and my mind was jammed up like a one-way railroad with trains running in both directions. She was my wife, a beautiful wife, and I wasn't justified in seeking more. But I wanted more, much more. If she had been a stranger it might have been different but now I knew every personal secret that she had. I could awaken her and make love to her again but somehow I didn't want that. The darkness of the night was a thing that called out to me, offering promises of even greater satisfaction.

I got up and stood by the side of the bed. She would sleep until morning and she would never know that I had left her. Silently I walked to my clothes and started dressing. If she did wake up I could always say I had gone over to the bar for a drink There was no reason for her not to believe me.

I did go to the bar. Once outside I walked through the darkness, refusing to turn around and examine the windows of the motel. I would have a few drinks and the demands of my body would pass, become lost behind a screen of liquor.

I drank the rye double, wanting to get drunk, wanting to get so helpless that I couldn't do anything. Drunk and sick. Nan might get angry at me if I got that way but I didn't care. Nothing could be worse than this frantic desire.

"Just stopping for the night?" the bartender asked. "Yeah."

"You were in here earlier tonight, weren't you."

"I was."

He polished a glass.

"A man has to get off by himself sometimes. I tell my wife that but she doesn't believe me. She thinks I'm chasing around."

A man and a woman left the bar and I was the only one left. If I could hang on until everybody in the motel went to bed I would be safe. You can't see anything in a dark room.

I was on my fourth drink when the girl came in. She was big, big in every way, tall and heavy, and she looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She said she was alone and she took the last room available, paying for it out of a twenty dollar bill. She also ordered a drink, a whiskey sour.

I tried not to look at her. She wasn't pretty. She wasn't anything much. But she was a girl and the gathering numbness of the liquor was swept aside with my desire to see all of her. What was the harm? Nan wouldn't know. Nobody would know. It would take time for my marriage to get me out of the unhealthy rut in which I had been living. I was a sick man, sick, and the cure wouldn't come overnight. I had to be patient.

The girl ordered another whiskey sour. She told the bartender that she was very tired, that she had driven almost four hundred miles.

"Canada," she said. "You can have it. I wasted my time."

She was wearing a black dress and she really filled it out. But the dress was high and even when she turned toward me, I couldn't see anything much except her face. It was a calm face, neither homely nor attractive, and her eyebrows were carefully arched. She gave me a faint smile and I returned it. Then she went back to her drink, drinking fast as though it wasn't anything new to her.

She said good night to the bartender and walked outside. I lingered only a couple of seconds more, explaining that I had had enough to drink. I pushed the half-filled glass away from me and got down from the stool.

"See you," I said.

"Right enough."

It was easy to follow her. I watched where she parked her car and noted the door she entered. Keeping in the darkness I moved around to the back of the motel. Almost all the other lights were out. The ground was higher behind the motel, the grass tall, and I was able to he in the grass and get a perfect view of her room. If she was as tired as she claimed to be she might forget about the shade. Four out of ten people do. That's why a peeper has luck.

She had opened a suitcase on the luggage rack at the foot of the bed and got out a nightgown big enough for a horse. It was a pink nightgown with lots of frills on it and she put it on the bed. That was a good sign. She probably wasn't a bathroom changer. The window for the bathroom was too high for me to look in.

She locked the door, started for the window, stopped and made a face as she struggled with the zipper at the back of her dress. I pressed myself deeper into the grass and rested my chin in the palms of my hands.

It took her a while but she finally got out of the dress. She was wearing a slip.

The slip came off next and I opened my mouth breathing hard.

Man!

She had a bra, a black bra, as big as a mountain with two mounds in it as large as two hills in the country. She was also wearing a girdle.

I like girls with girdles. They have a hell of a time getting them off and go through motions that they would never do otherwise.

What a session this girl had! She walked around the room, shoving down and I could imagine that she was swearing. But when she got past her thighs her troubles ceased. She lifted one leg and then the other and left the girdle lying on the floor.

She was a big number, as I said before, but her bigness had a rich quality to it. Her hips were solid and full and I couldn't see any outward jutting of her stomach. I could imagine how it would feel to be trapped in that mass of human flesh. It would take a real man to satisfy her but if I had the chance I was sure that I could. Some of the big ones require less than the little girls, in fact.

The last thing she did was unfasten her bra and throw it on the bed. I clamped my jaws together, wanting to scream. She didn't need a bra. I had never seen anything like her before.

I rolled over on the grass, still watching her, lost in a tidal wave of emotion. Time after time my body convulsed and I began to cry, the tears of a lonely man during a lonely and anguished moment, a lonely moment that was pierced with the raging flood of satisfaction.

She didn't lose much time after that but I didn't care. I had achieved what I had come for but I continued to lay there and observe her as she put on the nightgown. Not until she turned out the light in the room did I leave.

Nan was still sleeping and I undressed quietly. I thought of what I had done and I felt sick. I was a new husband and I had betrayed my wife, betrayed all that she thought of me-her love and all the hopes which she had.

I lay down beside her and felt her naked body close to mine. I didn't understand it. Before these things happened it was the only important moment in the world and after it was done I was filled with remorse and regret.

I leaned over and kissed her and she stirred.

It would take time.

If I gave her a chance she would make me a whole man, help me to wipe out this sin in my life. But of course she would never know about it. I wondered what she would think of me if she did know. Perhaps her love was so strong that nothing could shake it. But could a man ask such a thing of any girl? What would be my reaction if she were a common prostitute? She wasn't, naturally, but when I asked myself I didn't know the answer. Looking at it honestly, I was no better than a girl of the gutter. I was scum, slime, and I had to help myself.

10

WE STAYED IN Old Orchard Beach until the following Saturday and I went out peeking twice. One night I told Nan I had to get the car fixed and the other night I left her after she had fallen asleep.

"It's been wonderful," she said when we woke up Saturday morning. "I don't want it to end."

"End? This is only the beginning."

"You know what I mean. Going and coming when you want to, not having to report for work. Making love in the day and at night." She turned her head on the pillow and smiled. "Making love to the man you love-that's what counts."

"And to the girl you love."

I was in love with her, there was no doubt about that. I had fallen in love with her all the way, praying that it would restrain me. But it hadn't. As I lay there I told myself again it would take time. I was doing better-or I thought I was doing better. On my two trips I hadn't had any luck and it didn't disturb me as much as it usually did. I had returned to her arms and to her love, feeling grateful that I had married her. She was a tonic for the void I often felt in my life.

Those stuffed alligators are funny," she said.

They were on the dresser, ugly-looking brown things about two feet long. Everybody, it had seemed, sold stuffed alligators in Old Orchard Beach.

"I don't know why we bought them," I said.

"One we can keep and the other you can give to Sid."

"What would he do with it?"

"Who knows? Buy it a drink, maybe."

Every night it got cool in Maine and we had a sheet and a blanket over us. Underneath the covers we were nude. Nan said that she usually slept that way and that suited me fine. More than one night we had both come awake with the longing for each other and sometimes we slept locked together.

She sat up and the covers slid down from her breasts.

"We didn't spend too much money, did we, Larry?"

"Not nearly as much as I had thought we would. I still have the hundred Janet gave us and quite a bit of my own. Or our own."

We had found food and rooms to be cheap in Maine. Drinks were another story. Even beer was seventy-five cents a bottle in most of the night clubs. Most nights I got cold beer from the grocery across the street and we drank it in the privacy of our room. It was more fun that way, drinking and making love whenever we wanted. I won't say that she was sex-crazy but she was always ready and more than once she had come close to coaxing me.

"Get the car fixed last night?"

"It's okay now."

"What was wrong?"

"Something about a fuse. If I knew the first thing about a car I wouldn't have had to bother anybody." She moved against me. "You know a lot about something better."

"Such as?"

"Me. And what I need."

"That works both ways."

"Does it?"

"You haven't heard me complain."

"Last night when you were out I lay here and wanted you."

"I took care of that when I got back."

"But you seemed upset. I thought it was about the car."

"No, the car is fine."

"All we need is for the car to break down."

"It won't. It's got a lot of good miles left in it."

"I hope so."

"Worrying about money already?"

"You can't help that. I can't, anyway. Almost all my life money has stood in the way of something or other. I don't want it like that for us.

"It won't be."

"It could. I could be pregnant now and that would ruin all we've planned."

"You aren't."

"How do you know?" She had me there. "We'll just have to wait and see."

"I wish I knew!"

She started to cry and I didn't know what to say to her. We had been careless, very careless, and there might be a price for it. But the thought of our having a baby rather pleased me. If anything could pull me into line that should.

"I'm sorry," she said when she had stopped crying. "That's all right."

She pulled my head over and kissed me on the mouth. I moved my right hand over her body.

"I just worry about my mother," she said. "And I shouldn't. We have to think of our marriage and that comes first. There's no reason why she couldn't stay with my aunt. My aunt has some money and she's alone. She's older than my mother and they would be company for each other."

We had planned to leave the hotel at eight but it was already after that now. I wasn't in any particular hurry. I liked Maine-the friendly people, the long, white beaches. And there was the boardwalk with all of its nickel and dime games. For my dough you couldn't beat Maine as a place to have a honeymoon or a vacation. We had promised each other that we would try to come back the next year and stay longer. I had put my name on the mailing list of the hotel-we were fortunate to get the room in the first place-and the woman said we would hear from her during the winter. If I was on a paper here-and I was thinking seriously about trying for another job-we ought to be able to swing it.

"Might as well get up," Nan yawned.

"I guess so."

"I'm glad we packed last night and didn't leave everything for the last minute."

She had packed while I was out with the car. I hadn't been gone very long. It's difficult to peek in a strange community; you don't know the streets or the spots and you can get into trouble fast. I suppose it was for that reason I looked forward to returning to Mountaindale, though I tried to convince myself that I was a little tired of lying around and that I wanted to get back to work.

Nan arose and began dressing. I stayed in the bed, watching her. She didn't put on much, just halter and shorts and a pair of flat-heeled shoes.

"Come on, lazy," she said.

It didn't take me long to get my clothes on-fresh slacks and a T-shirt that she had left out the night before. I had shaved before dinner the previous evening and my beard was all right. We took turns brushing our teeth in the bathroom, put the brushes in the open suitcase and we were ready to go.

When we reached the lobby the woman at the desk said she hoped we had had a nice time. I told her we had and that was the truth. We had made love from one day running into the next. On the first day we had left the room only to eat and we hadn't eaten much. The cold beer from across the street and our bodies had been food enough.

I put our stuff near the door and we ate breakfast in the dining room. The same girl waited on us. She had the face of a college girl and the body of a burlesque queen. I was sorry I hadn't found out where she lived. Peeking in on her would have been fun.

"You're quiet," Nan said when we got to our coffee. "You haven't said a word."

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

"About how we have to settle down," I lied. I was thinking of that waitress. "They say you should live on a budget and maybe we should try it."

"I think so."

I'll have more pay now that I'm married but you'll get the same. And next year they will hit us with a tax. We ought to prepare for it."

We had another cup of coffee and I left the waitress a dollar tip. Nan thought it was too much but I explained that the girl had been nice to us during our stay and that she deserved something extra.

I got the car from the parking lot up the street and drove down to the hotel entrance to load. It didn't take long to get our things put away in the trunk and in a few minutes we were on our way.

We drove back on a different route, following the ocean and coming close to Boston. The day was clear, the breeze cool and it was a good ride. There was a lobster restaurant almost every mile.

"We missed that," I said. "Do you like lobster."

"Not much."

"Neither do I."

We drove until after two and had lunch in a diner. There was no butter on the bread and the tuna was old and dry. It was a waste of money.

After we left the diner Nan drove for about fifty miles but she said the sun bothered her and I took the wheel. She went to sleep almost immediately, her head on my shoulder, as I drove along thinking without really wanting to think.

I was a married man and I had to come down from the clouds. I had to restrain myself, to get my thrills in a manner different than peeking. If I was caught now it would ruin both of our lives and I couldn't afford that. Nan was too sweet a girl to have this thrust upon her. Perhaps I should see a doctor and seek professional help. People who drank too much went to doctors and so did others who were confused. I could talk to a doctor and be honest about my problem. I had never talked to anybody about it but if I did it might clear the whole thing up very easily.

I felt better as I rode along. I had a wonderful wife and we would build a future together. I would lose myself in my work, do an outstanding job for the newspaper and I would find in my job and my personal life all that I had to have.

But I found myself thinking...

That girl in the motel, the one I had seen-where was she now? The man who got to her would have his hands full. I had never been with anybody so big and I wondered what it would be like. All she had to do was take a deep breath and those breasts of hers would throw a guy across the room. But I decided it would be worth it. I knew it would be worth it. She would crush a man with her legs and her body, taking from him all of his love.

"Larry."

"Huh?"

"Mind if I sleep?"

"Not at all."

She stirred against me.

"You're wonderful. I didn't get much sleep at the hotel." She put one hand on my thigh. "Neither did you."

"I'm all right."

We drove on through the afternoon. We had about two hours to go and then we would be home. I didn't know whether we should stay in her mother's apartment or in my room but I did know that we had to find a place of our own as soon as we could. I hoped that Janet had found something for us.

Thinking of Janet Lambert made me remember the night I had seen her with Georgia Conley, both their naked bodies pleading for satisfaction. It was enough to turn my stomach. They both had a lot to offer and they were throwing it away, as far as I was concerned. Of the two Janet was the better. She had admitted that she still sought a man, that she needed a man. I wondered vaguely if Sid were aware that he wasn't the only one in Janet's life. Sid didn't strike me as the kind who would be pleased with such an arrangement. He was the sort who was out after a buck-and a woman.

Don't ask me how the vision of Cleo Gardner happened to appear before me. I don't know. One second my mind was a blank and the next second she was there, her naked loveliness standing there for me to see. I recalled having watched her in her room, somewhat ashamed of what I had done outside her window, and I knew, feeling cold all over, that it had to be the real thing with her. I wanted her on that bed, willing or not, and I wanted to give her what a man aged fifty couldn't possibly have.

"Larry?"

"What?"

"You were off the road just then." "Was I?"

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "You must be getting tired," she said. "It is a long drive, isn't it."

"Long enough."

"We don't have to make it back today."

"Well, it's only another hour and there's no sense spending our money on hotel bills."

"I hadn't thought of that."

We smoked and talked about the first of the week. The first day we had the afternoon off we would really go apartment hunting. If we looked hard enough we would find something.

"We can't do anything about furniture until then," she said.

"No."

"If we could get a place furnished it would be the smart thing to do. Later on, if we can, we'll look for a house."

"I'd like a house."

"We'd need a house if we have children. I was raised in an apartment but I wouldn't want my children to be brought up in one. They need a yard where they can play, not just a street where a car can hit them."

"You're worrying again, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not worrying now. What we have done, if we did anything, is done and we can't change it." She put the cigarette out in the ash tray. "But I do think we should be careful from now on. Other people plan their families and we should, too."

"What about those who have kids a year apart?"

"I don't mean them. They're stupid. Two or three years is about right. You get one walking around and doing things for himself and then you start another one. I read somewhere that it's better for the woman that way, anyhow."

"I should think it would be."

"There's a girl on our block and her children are less than a year apart. She must just get out of the hospital and her husband goes after her again. To me, that isn't living. Everybody needs sex but some use some judgment about it."

"True."

It was still daylight when we reached Mountaindale and I drove down to Bell's Hollow.

"We could stay in my room," I said, parking at the curb.

She thought about that.

"I would hate it," she said finally. "You can't cook in a room and I want to cook for you. It would cost us a lot to eat out. We won't be here very long. I guess we can both stand it for a little while, can't we?"

"You're the boss."

She helped me with the suitcases and we carried them upstairs. At the second-floor landing we met the fifteen-year-old girl. She was wearing a flashy new dress and her face was painted. She looked much older than her years.

"Have a good time?" she wanted to know.

"Fine," Nan replied.

She stood aside for us to pass.

"If Charlie came back," she said, "I'd throw him the hell out. What do I need him for now? He's nothing but a slob."

We left the girl and moved up the stairs. She had some of her wires crossed and only a terrible experience would put her right. Her time as a prostitute was limited and she would have the baby. What would happen to the baby? Undoubtedly it would be put out for adoption and she would go on having them the way Lily Barton had them. At twenty she would be an old woman, disgusted and unhappy with the world.

"Golly, it's hot in here," Nan said after we were in the apartment.

We left the stuff in the living room and went from room to room opening the windows. There was little breeze and the open windows wouldn't do much good.

"I'll have to buy some things for supper," she said.

"While you're doing that I can run over to the rooming house and straighten up on my room. There isn't much sense to paying rent in both places."

I gave her a twenty and she left before I did. The door had no sooner closed behind her than I was after the telephone book. It only took me a few moments to locate the telephone number and I dialed.

"Hello."

"May I speak to Mr. Gardner."

"Speaking."

I hung up, my hands shaking. So he was home. I would just have to keep on trying, calling each day. He had been in New York before and he probably went there on business every once in a while. The first time I found him away I would make my plans carefully. She would be all alone in the house and nothing could stop me, nothing.

My hands were still shaking when I walked out of the apartment. She was a disease with me, a disease worse than any sickness I had ever had.

I drove over to Clifton Road and I couldn't get her off my mind. Where could I buy a magazine with her nude body in it? Possibly that would help. But I knew, with a touch of despair, that it wouldn't help at all. I had to have her in the flesh, had to feel her body against mine, had to know all of the wildness which I was sure was locked within her.

I stopped in front of the rooming house and got out of the car. Dora James was sitting on the top step, her legs crossed, staring at me as I walked toward her.

"Read about your marriage," she said. "Hope it works out for you." .

"Thanks. It will."

It was only then that I noticed the luggage behind her.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I'm waiting for a cab. I'm moving out."

"I see."

"At the old lady's request. She called me a slut and told me to go where all sluts go-to hell."

"Nice way to talk."

Dora shrugged. "Who cares? I've got my job and I can pay a hotel bill. Anyway, it will be better than this. If I want to play house with some man it'll be my business exclusively." Her lips twisted. "And I missed out on the other. In case you're interested, nobody scored."

"You might be lucky."

"I'm unlucky. I could have had marriage or a bundle. Now I have to start looking again."

I left her sitting on the porch and went into the house. She was another one, a girl with the morals of a snake. I almost laughed as I climbed the stairs.

What was I?

There wasn't much in the dresser drawers and it didn't take me long to throw the things in an old suitcase. When I came to the books and the pictures I didn't know what to do with them. I found a paper bag, dropped them into it and reminded myself to throw them in the city dump.

"Mr. Cole?"

"Come in, Mrs. James."

She came in, leaving the door open behind her. "I guess you're leaving me?" That's right."

I dug out the wallet and paid her the rent.

"I'm glad I didn't have to tell you to move," she said. "No matter what a person is I hate to tell him that."

"I don't follow you."

"Didn't you notice the paper in the bottom of the dresser drawers was new."

"No, I didn't."

"I change them every six months. I changed yours just yesterday, thinking that everything would be clean for you when you came back. And I found some dirty pictures that I don't want in my house." Sorry.

"I know that some things go on here that I don't know about but when I do know about them I put my foot down. Even to my own daughter. I opened the door to her bedroom this morning and found a man with her. The slut."

I wasn't thinking about Dora but the fact that Mrs. James had found the books and the pictures. I didn't like that. I didn't like it at all.

"I won't bother you again," I said.

"Your wife will be interested in your collection."

I picked up the suitcase and the paper bag and walked past her into the hall. What difference did it make if Mrs. James knew? She wasn't anybody.

Dora was gone when I reached the porch and I hurried to the car. It was a good thing I hadn't brought Nan up there to stay. That would have been a real mess.

I didn't drive to the dump. I stopped at a trash barrel maintained by the city and dropped the bag into that. As soon as I was away from the barrel and the bag was gone I felt relieved. Someday I could buy more of the magazines and books but right at the moment they were dangerous.

Nan had supper ready and we ate in the kitchen. When we were finished I helped her with the dishes and then we went into her mother's bedroom to unpack.

There isn't much space," she said. "She's got things all over." That's okay."

"You're easy to get along with."

"Well, it's only for a short time."

We had never taken a shower together but we did that night. It was fun. She washed me and I washed her, soaping her breasts and stomach and thighs and legs.

"I hope marriage is always like this," she said as I dried her.

"It will be for us."

"Show me how good it is."

I showed her in the bedroom, showed her twice. We were both clean and our love was clean. In moments like that you get swept away in a torrent of sweet passion, a passion that leaves you weak and happy.

"I bought something for you," she said, getting up.

"Bought something for me?"

She walked to the dresser and brought a small box back to the bed.

"A lighter with 'Old Orchard Beach' on it. I want you to use it."

I didn't care for lighters but I didn't want her to think I wasn't pleased. Thanks," I said. "I can use it."

"You're always running out of matches." That's a fact."

The lighter was pretty, a gold thing with a picture of the ocean on it. I snapped it and it flared into life. "I had it filled," she said. "You think of everything."

There was some rye left in the kitchen and we had a couple of drinks. "Want to go out?" I asked. "Let's stay in."

"Okay."

We sat on the davenport and neither one of us had put on any clothes. The heat was intense in the apartment and we were quite comfortable the way we were.

"This is as nice as the hotel," she said, putting her drink on the floor. "But any place is nice with you, Larry. You've brought some meaning into my life and I can't thank you enough."

"A wife doesn't have to thank a husband."

"I think a wife should. I want this to last and last and never stop and I want you to know that,"

"It won't stop."

She leaned back against the davenport. Her breasts thrust up and out, full and round. "You're going to think I'm a sex machine."

"Not at all."

"But this is the only freedom I've ever had. Before, I used to be afraid you'd get me in trouble and leave me."

"Not a chance."

"I know that now but I didn't then. Some nights I came home and cried. I had been brought up to believe that it was wrong, that we shouldn't do it, but I couldn't stop myself."

"You don't have to worry now."

She smiled. "No, not now. You're mine and I'm yours and that's the way it's going to be."

We finished our drinks and went to bed. Almost immediately she came into my arms, her lips finding my mouth in the darkness, her hands the hands of love.

"Let's not have a care in the world," she whispered fiercely. "Let's just belong to each other."

I lay beside her sleeping body, sweating and tormented. I could still remember Cleo Gardner's phone number. When would her husband go to New York again? When would the time be right?

I fell asleep, knowing that someday I would commit a horrible crime, a crime that would overshadow anything I had ever done before, something that would make my previous actions look like child's play.

Unless...

11

IT WAS A busy week at the office. Many things had gone undone while Nan and I were gone and none of us took any afternoons off, with the exception of Sid who was never at a loss for an excuse so he could get out to a bar and load himself up.

"If he wasn't so clever with a typewriter I would let him go," Janet said one day.

I thought it was an idle threat We may have needed Sid but good newspapermen aren't hard to find. There was more to it than that. Tuesday night after work while I was waiting for Nan he had confided to me that he had been sleeping with Janet.

"I've seen better and I've seen worse," he said. "But never let it be said that Sid Malone doesn't try to please the boss."

I had an idea that Janet was trying to find herself, that she actually wanted to be free of Georgia. I will say, however, that Georgia never showed any affection around the office. She did her work, some of it good and some of it bad, and no one would have suspected there was anything between the two girls.

Since we weren't free any afternoon Nan and I had to look for an apartment at night. Janet hadn't been able to find anything for us but late Tuesday we ran into pay dirt on Green Place. The apartment was three rooms, adequate for us, quite well-furnished and the rent was seventy a month.

"We'll take it," I told the woman, digging seventy bucks out of my wallet.

"When will you move in?"

"Tomorrow."

"I don't go for any loud parties."

"There won't be any."

We moved the next day and locked up the apartment in Bell's Hollow. We didn't have very much and moving didn't take long. The biggest problem was getting the stuff put away because there wasn't much closet space.

I missed the telephone. Every night, in one way or another, I had been able to call the Gardner house. He had always been home but so far that day I hadn't checked.

"I need some cigarettes," I said to Nan. "Anything you want?"

"Not a bottle. We've been hitting it up pretty hard, Larry."

"I guess so."

We were on the first floor toward the rear of the building and there was a nice carpet in the hall, a carpet stretching from wall to wall. I passed a door and heard somebody talking rather loudly. The front door sucked closed behind me as I stepped onto the porch.

I took the Ford, knowing that I was going to pick up a bottie. Once I had a jug she would drink with me. After a few highballs we would make love and she would go to sleep. Then I would dress and go out. With the exception of the first night I had done that every night since we had returned from Maine. The hunting hadn't been very good and I was desperate to find somebody to look at.

I got cigarettes in a drugstore and made my phone call from the booth beside the candy counter. She answered and my blood pounded as I asked if Mr. Gardner was home. Yes, she said, he was home and would I wait? I hung up and got out of there. She was safe for another night and so was I.

There was a liquor store in the same block and I picked up a bottle of rye. We had taken some ginger ale from Bell's Hollow and I didn't have to bother with that.

Nan was lying on the davenport in a bra and panties when I got back to the apartment. She noticed the bottle and frowned.

"I don't think I want any of that," she said.

"Aw, come on. Let's celebrate our new home."

She sat up and looked around. The living room was big and comfortable, as was the bedroom. Of course the kitchen was small and so was the bathroom, but that didn't matter.

"You make it sound awfully tempting."

"I'll fix you one."

I poured the drinks in the kitchen and I made them strong, just dumping the liquor into the glasses and not even measuring it. To this I added ice cubes and a shot of ginger ale. I didn't know where I was going that night but I knew I was going. I had to find a window that would be interesting.

"You didn't need the cigarettes," she said as we drank. "There were three packs on top of the dresser."

"I forgot about them."

We had four or five drinks and she was ready for bed. She was always ready for bed. The Sunday before she had been ready for bed all day long.

I undressed her that night, undressed myself, and then made love to her. We got plenty of mileage out of our money that time.

It was after midnight when I left the apartment, closing the door softly behind me. It was rather late to go looking but I had to get it out of my system.

I searched for two hours but I couldn't find anything promising. I was almost frantic with need and my guts were on fire. Being married hadn't freed me; being married had locked up my emotions and I was ready to explode.

I stopped at the diner for coffee. Lily Barton was working and I was the only customer in the place.

"Just the guy I was looking for," she said. "You can run me home. I should have been out of here twenty minutes ago."

"All right."

"Read that you were married." She spilled some of the coffee. "Is that true."

"Correct."

"And out this hour of the night."

"Correct again."

She placed her elbows on the counter.

"Let me tie on to a man and he'll never get away from me," she said. "I'll keep him so busy at home that he won't know that more than one bedroom exists in town."

"My wife is pretty handy at that."

"She couldn't be or you wouldn't be here."

I finished my coffee and she told the cook in the back room that she was going. We walked out to the car together.

"I hate the night shift," she said, getting in. "What fun can you have."

"There must be a way."

"Not that I can see. All the guys I know get drunk early and have their women early. By two o'clock they don't know where they are or what they are or what they're doing."

She gave me directions how to get where she lived. It was on the other side of town and wasn't much better than Bell's Hollow, just a short street with old and decaying buildings.

"I'm going to move out of there," she said. She laughed. "If I can find a guy who wants three kids to start off the match."

I intended to take her home, drop her off and be on my way. I wasn't out for that. But it didn't work out as I planned.

"I haven't had a man for a week," she confided, talking about it with the same honesty she would use in talking about a bath.

"You must be off your form."

"With these hours?" she demanded. "You work these hours and you draw a complete blank."

"But you won't be working the same hours right along."

"No, we change off every other week."

I couldn't see the numbers on the building and she guided me to the apartment. It was a four-story affair and it needed paint. I also noticed a fire escape. Fire escapes are made to order for a peeper but you can get trapped on them, too.

"You've got a nice car," she said, making no move to get out.

"It's a sixty-four."

"I would have thought it was a later model."

I don't know whether I kissed her first or she kissed me. Before I was aware of what was going on she was in my arms and my lips were burning down over her mouth.

"You always could kiss," she murmured.

"Could."

"Even that summer at the lake. I was going out with anybody who came along but you could lass better than any of them. You kiss a girl as though you mean it, as though she is important to you. And a girl wants to feel important to a man. She can be a tramp or a queen and it's the same."

I guess we could have gone up to her apartment but we didn't. It was dark along the street and there wasn't anyone around. It probably wouldn't have stopped me if there had been. We went at each other as though we were the only two people in the world and she still had as much sex as she had ever had.

"Your wife should take care of you," she said once.

I didn't hurt her, didn't make her cry out, and it was fine. She knew how to make love, how to make a man last. When the moment arrived I was crazy-wild for her, giving her what I should have been giving to Nan, giving it to her for long, wonderful seconds.

She didn't stay around when it was over. She got out of the car, said good night and I turned the car down the street.

Nan was awake when I returned home. "Where were you, Larry."

"I took a walk."

"At this time of the night? It's after three."

My excursion with Lily Barton had been cheap and I now regretted it. There was no excuse for such a thing.

"I couldn't sleep," I said, undressing. "I was thinking of a million things and I had to clear my head."

"Feel better now?"

"A lot."

"That's all that matters."

The rest of the week went pretty much the same way. We worked hard at the office during the day, had a few drinks together at night and I didn't go out. Every day I called the Gardner house and every day he was home. Cleo answered the phone twice and she said she was becoming annoyed with these prankster telephone calls.

We were paid on Friday and I found an extra ten in my envelope.

"A married man needs a little more," Janet explained. Thanks."

"And you earn it. You do anything I ask you to do."

"Not always very well."

"You're learning. I learned from Ted and now you're learning from me."

"It isn't easy."

"Watch Sid. He can show you."

It was pretty hard to watch Sid. He was out of the office more than he was in but I guess she overlooked it because of their relationship.

On Saturday we all quit at noon and went to the Grove. Nan and I did quite a bit of swimming but the others stayed on the beach. Sid had a bottle in Janet's auto and he kept making trips back and forth to the car. Georgia sat alone on the sand and she looked unhappy. I felt sorry for her. She was mixed up and in love with the wrong sex.

"I don't figure Georgia," Nan said when we were sitting on the raft "Whyr

"With her face and shape she could have a boy friend and she doesn't have one."

"Maybe there's somebody we don't know anything about."

"No. She's lonely and she lives in a little world."

"Her marriage may have had something to do with it."

The sun was bright and hot and half of the town seemed to be at the beach. A lot of the girls were alone and I couldn't help but speculate about them. Some of them would go home alone and some of them would be picked up. A few would remain on the beach until after dark. These were the ones who would make love, a few for the first time and others for as many times as there were men available.

We stayed on the raft for about an hour and then joined the others on the beach. I left Nan talking to Janet and walked up to the phone booth to make my daily call. Most days I made the call from the office but that morning I hadn't had a chance. He was home.

Dammit, didn't he ever go away?

I had a coke at the stand and relief filled me that he had been home. His absence would mean a bridge to cross, a bridge that could lead into eternity.

Back with the others we lay on the sand and talked. I watched a blonde who was taking a sun bath. She had a suit cut so low that you could see the rising swells of her buttocks. If I had been alone I would have gone over and talked to her. You find out who they are, where they five, and you've almost got it made. All you have to do is creep up to a window and stick it out.

"You won't be working long," Sid was saying to Nan.

"Why not?"

"You'll start a family and you'll have to quit. It always works that way."

"Girls with babies work," Janet said. "It isn't anything new." She smiled at Nan. "And you've got a job with me as long as you want it."

"Thanks."

"It's hard to start out a marriage. When Ted and I married my folks gave us everything we needed, but most couples don't have that."

Janet had on a black suit and she filled it perfectly. I didn't think that she was any girl for Sid and I couldn't see what she found with Georgia.

"Marriage is for the birds," Georgia said. "It's all right for the man but it's hell on the woman. You get a house to take care of and kids to bring up. What does the man get? He hangs onto the same freedom he had before he was married."

"You didn't get any kids," Sid pointed out.

"So I was lucky."

Janet sat up and curled her toes into the sand. "I wish I had a baby," she said. "Ted and I both wanted one.

Nan and I stayed until about six and then we left, leaving the others on the beach discussing sex and politics and the newspaper. Janet had invited us out to her house for cocktails but we had declined and she had smiled, saying that we probably had something better to do.

"She's a good person," Nan said as we drove toward the apartment.

"None better."

"Do you think she will ever marry Sid?"

"I don't think he's free of his other wife yet. If he would stop some of his drinking they wouldn't make a bad pair. He knows the paper business and she's got the money."

I had bought a big fan and left it turned on while we were at the beach so it was fairly cool in the apartment. I suggested that we go out to eat but Nan turned the idea down, saying that it was too expensive. So we had grilled cheese sandwiches and a drink to go along with them.

"I feel I've failed you in some way," she said suddenly as I was mixing more drinks. "You haven't."

"Maybe not but I feel it. I keep thinking of that night when you went out for a walk."

"It was nothing."

"And there were other nights, too. I just didn't say anything about them before. I would wake up and you wouldn't be there."

I carried the drinks into the living room and I didn't know what to say. I thought I had played it smart and I had not.

"I like to walk," I said.

She settled herself on the davenport. I was still wearing my trunks and she had on her bathing suit. "Alone? And at night."

"I don't know. I just get restless."

"Is it my fault?"

"No, it isn't your fault. And it's nothing new. I've done it most of my life." She tasted her drink.

"I guess there's no harm," she said. "I thought it might be that you weren't sure about our marriage." I walked over, bent down and kissed her on the mouth. "Of that I am sure," I said.

We retired around eleven and we both fell asleep right away. It was the first night we hadn't been after each other and we slept until almost noon the next day.

I didn't try calling the Gardner residence on Sunday. There was no point in it. If he took a business trip to New York it would be on a business day.

That afternoon we rode out to see her mother in the country. The house wasn't far from where I had lived with my grandmother. We didn't stay very long. Mrs. Edwards was closing the apartment in Bell's Hollow and moving in with her sister.

"I feel better out here," she said. "All that noise in town and all those trucks early in the morning drove me nearly nuts."

We took a long drive afterward and had dinner that evening in a small restaurant along the shore of a lake. For a change we didn't have anything to drink.

"Mother will like it where she is."

"I hope so."

"And I won't have to give her as much money every week. There won't be the rent to think about. I can put it in the bank."

"Good thought."

"Then when I have to stop work well have something aside."

We talked of taking out insurance, especially hospitalization, and the evening wore on. It was nearly dark by the time we left the restaurant and close to eleven when we reached the apartment.

That night we made up for what we hadn't done the night before.

"It's better when you're sober," she said once.

"I hadn't noticed."

"To me it is."

The next day started like any other day at the office. Janet was there when we arrived and Georgia came in a few minutes later. Sid, however, didn't show up until nine. There was very little local news and we had to go to the wire service to build up the front page.

"Nothing ever happens here," Janet said.

I did another editorial on the school bond issue, throwing the support of the paper behind the school board, and Janet said it was a good job.

"Tomorrow well do one on how to bring in new industry," she said. "There are too many needle trades and not enough work for men."

"It's almost the same problem in every community," Sid said. "Nobody ever has enough."

Just before lunch Janet said that Nan and I could have the afternoon off.

"But I'm going to spoil the rest of the day for you," she said. "I'm letting you cover the common council meeting tonight."

The arrangement didn't please me but I couldn't argue with her.

"All right," I said.

"There should be some fireworks," Sid said. "That re-zoning for a new food market is supposed to come up."

Nan and I stayed in the office while the others went to lunch.

"I don't like the night hours that go with this job," Nan said.

"She's paying me for it."

"I know, but I would rather have you with me."

I wasn't hungry and she said she only wanted a sandwich. I told her to go on out and get it.

"Well take a ride," I said. "If you eat now we can get started earlier."

"Where are we going?"

"Remember that beach in the country?"

"I remember."

"We can be by ourselves."

As soon as she was gone I walked to the telephone, picking it up and spinning the dial. "Hello." It was Cleo. "May I speak to Mr. Gardner?" There was a brief pause.

"He isn't here," she said. "He's in New York and he won't be home until late tomorrow. Who is calling?" My throat felt raw.

"Never mind. I'll call him when he gets back."

I replaced the telephone and stood there staring at it. This was what I had waited for, longed for. Tonight was the night that I would know her, know the pleasures of her body, the taste of her lips.

I lit a cigarette with the lighter Nan had given me. I was in a daze. Until this moment I had been a peeper but now I was going far beyond that. I sat down at a desk and held my forehead with one hand. Couldn't anything stop me? Couldn't I find a meaning in life that would make this unnecessary? I groped for the answers and came up with nothing. I closed my eyes and all I could see was her body, all I could feel was the desire that surged through me. I had to have her, had to know her. There just wasn't any other way.

The afternoon was a failure. We rode out into the country, parked under the trees and I made love to Nan. But it wasn't Nan I was kissing. It was Cleo Gardner and the mouth I kissed belonged to Cleo.

"I never saw you quite so desperate," Nan said when it was all over.

"It must be the mountain air."

We had dinner in the apartment but I didn't eat much. I blamed the heat and said I had a headache. I did have a headache. So much was slamming in on me at once that I didn't know which way to turn. More than once I thought of confessing to her and asking her help, but I didn't. I had journeyed past the point of no return and now I was alone. I was alone and I knew what I would do.

On the way to city hall I stopped at a drug store and bought a pair of girls' stockings. It would probably be dark in the room when I raped her but I didn't want to take any chance of being recognized. This had to be perfect.

The common council meeting was dull and it didn't last very long. Nothing came up on the re-zoning issue and most of the matters discussed were routine. The city would put out bids for a new garbage truck and all of the police were in line for a three hundred dollar raise. I made a few notes, kept some of it in my head, and was out of there by nine.

It didn't take me more than half an hour to do the write-up in the office. When I read it over I knew that it wasn't very good. I couldn't think-except about one thing. Cleo Cardner. Cleo Gardner and her golden body, the body I would take for my own.

After I left the office I drove to Twenty-Five Garfield Avenue. I didn't park in front of the house but a little distance down the street. Before getting out I took one of the stockings from the package and stuffed it into my pocket. I checked to see if I had my pen knife and I did. It was the same knife I had used on her screen before.

There was a light in the living room and this was the first place I peeked. She was in there, fully dressed, watching television.

Run, I thought; run, you crazy bastard, run.

But I didn't run. I don't know how long I stayed there looking at her. The programs changed and she kept getting up from where she sat to fuss with the dial. She was wearing a blue robe and her blonde hair fell down over her shoulders. I wanted to get my hands in that hair, to twist it until she screamed with the pain.

There was a cool breeze coming from somewhere but sweat was all over my body, making my clothes stick to my skin. Why the hell didn't she turn off that damned television set and go into the bedroom? After a while she did turn it off. She yawned, thrusting out her breasts and walked from the room.

I knew the bedroom window and I lost no time getting there. She had already taken off her robe and she was nude. The flames of passion spread through me. She was beautiful. She had everything, everything. She was as ripe as a berry on a bush and she was there for me to pick.

I ducked down as she came over and pulled the shade to the bottom. That was a miserable thing for her to do. But I promised myself that she would pay for it. She would pay for it in there on that bed.

Run, I thought again; run, you crazy bastard, run.

I got out the stocking and pulled it down over my head. When I got it in place I cut a slit for my mouth with the knife. I had to kiss her. I would mash her lips and make her teeth ache.

There was another period of waiting. She turned out the light in the living room but the light in the bedroom stayed on for a long time.

I leaned against the building, sucking in my breath, my head throbbing, my hands forming powerful fists. They could kill me or throw me in prison and nothing would make me turn back now. She was in there, just beyond that screen and she was mine. Mine, mine, mine.

The light must have been out for quite a while before I realized it. Now there was another worry. How long would it take her to go to sleep? When could I enter and be safe and be sure that I would get to her?

I let an hour pass. During that time I lived my life over and over again. I remembered my aunt, her reflection in her bedroom mirror, recalled the first day when Lily Barton had shown me what sex was all about. And I thought of my marriage to Nan. I did everything I could to drive myself away from that window and I failed.

I was careful with the pen knife on the window screen, making barely any noise at all. I cut the screen all the way along the bottom edge and up the sides, folded it up and pressed it into place out of the way.

It was easy for me to get past the shade and through the window. Once I was in the room I raised the shade. A little light came from outside and I could make out her form lying on the bed. She appeared naked.

I walked to the bed silently.

She was naked.

My throat was tight and my hands were unsteady as I reached for her. She screamed. "Shut up!"

I put the tiny blade of the knife against her throat. It was a small knife but used properly it could kill. "Who are you."

"Never mind."

"What do you want?" Her voice shook.

I put a little more pressure on the knife.

"You," I said. "I want you."

She seemed to sink deeper into the pillow as if trying to bury her body in the bed. I didn't know what I would do if she screamed again. I didn't want to kill her but I didn't want to get caught either.

"There's money in the dresser," she said. "Two or three hundred dollars. You can have it."

"The hell with the money."

She tried to sit up but I wouldn't let her.

"Think of what you're doing, mister. You can get in a lot of trouble. You can even go to jail. If you leave me alone I won't even tell anybody that you bothered me."

It was a way out. I felt that she would keep her word. I could turn back, turn back and become a decent human being.

But I didn't turn back.

There was only one thing for me to do.

She fought me, fought my mouth, fought what I was trying to do to her body. And she was crying.

"I'll make you happy," I said.

"Damn you!"

She did everything she could to prevent me from violating her but I had too much strength. Twice she bit me and I bit her back. She was all that I had hoped for and when we were joined she gasped with the pain. I gave her more and more pain, gave her more pain than I had ever given any other girl, and it was good, good. I was insane with my need for her, my desire to please her. Sometime during this we fell off the bed but that didn't stop me. The carpet was soft under my knees and time after time I gave her my love, giving her something that her husband probably hadn't given her in months.

When I finally got up she continued to He there on the floor. I could taste the blood in my mouth and I could hear what she was saying.

"You filthy, rotten animal!"

I laughed at her. "You weren't so bad."

"You'll pay for this," she promised. "You see if you don't."

Now that it was over with I was weak and frightened. I was a rapist. A rapist! I had gone from the window to the bed and soon the police would be looking for me.

But they wouldn't And me. I had been too clever. Nobody would suspect me. I held a respectable job and I had never been in trouble.

"Get out of here," she whispered thickly. "Get out of here."

I got out of there. I went through the window and dropped to the ground. As I ran across the lawn to the street I ripped the stocking from my head. In seconds I was in the car and on my way. I had escaped. No one could touch me now.

When I reached an intersection where there was a trash basket I stopped and got rid of both the good stocking and the one I had used. Not until I was on my way again did I start to cry. I had done a horrible thing and I knew it.

I didn't drive straight home. I could always tell Nan I had had trouble with one of the tires and she would believe me. I found a small bar, parked the car and went in for a drink.

"Hello," the girl next to me said.

"Hello."

She was a small girl with big dark eyes and a friendly smile. "Buy me a drink."

"Why not?"

I bought her a drink and she said her name was Ann. I couldn't get interested in her and when she mentioned a price of ten dollars I told her it was out of the question.

Between drinks I found the men's room and examined my face in the mirror. She hadn't scratched me and the places she had bitten me on the mouth had stopped bleeding. To look at me no one could tell what I had done.

When I returned to the bar the girl had already found a sucker and she didn't have anything further to do with me. I dug for a cigarette, put it in my mouth and hunted for the lighter. The lighter was gone; I searched each pocket two or three times.

"Match?" the bartender asked.

"Thanks."

I tried to remember where I had left the lighter but I couldn't. Perhaps it was in the car-Nan and I had had quite a rumpus in the front seat. But hadn't I used it later at the common council meeting? I didn't remember.

"Another one?"

"A double."

The girl had lost her man and she turned toward me again.

"It could be five," she said. "Or ten for anything."

"You're wasting your time."

"Aren't there any men in this town?"

"Yes, but I'm not one of them."

"Married?"

"You guessed it."

"I'm better than any wife who ever lived."

I finished my drink and left, driving directly to the apartment. Nan was waiting up for me.

"Where have you been, Larry?"

"At the office. Then I stopped to have a drink."

"I called the office four times."

Our phone had been put in that day.

"I heard it ring," I said. "But I was busy and I didn't answer it. You know how much trouble I have with those common council things. Human interest, Janet says. Put it in. How do you get anything but a lot of garbage out of a common council meeting?"

She laughed and stretched out on the davenport. She was wearing a pink negligee that showed off most of her body. I must have been out of my mind to have gone to Garfield Avenue. She was as much or more than I could handle.

"Buy me a drink," she said.

"It's a pleasure."

We sat in the living room and drank for about an hour before going to bed. I didn't make love to her that night. I couldn't. I tried and I couldn't.

"You're just tired," she said.

And I was.

Sick and tired of myself.

12

I GOT THE assignment from Janet the first thing the next morning.

"A rape," she said. "On Garfield Avenue. You've been doing the peeper stories so you take it."

"All right."

"Sid can cover the girls."

"What girls?"

"The girls they picked up all over town last night. One was only fifteen and another, a waitress, has three kids."

"That's life."

"Not life, Larry. Sex. It puts a lot of people on the wrong side of the fence."

Before I left she read over the common council yarn and said it was fine. I couldn't imagine how it could be but if she was satisfied I couldn't ask for more.

I walked over to city hall and I didn't have any trouble getting to see the chief of police.

"You were wrong about your peeper," he said. "He turned into a rapist."

"How do you know it was the peeper?"

"Well, we don't, of course, but it seems to tie in. The screen in the woman's window was cut the same as before."

"Who was the woman?"

"Cleo Gardner."

"Any chance of seeing her?"

"There might be. A doctor treated her at the hospital last night but I think she's at home now."

"What leads do you have?"

"Nothing at the moment. We have a few fingerprints but it will be difficult to run them down."

I had a pad in my hand and almost dropped it. I should have worn gloves but I hadn't thought of that In my favor was the fact that I had never been fingerprinted and nothing was on file.

"What can I tell our readers?"

"Tell them to report any suspicious-appearing man. Mrs. Gardner said she thought he was young but she couldn't be sure. He wore something over his face-she says it was a silk stocking. It's possible she's right. A stocking makes a good mask."

I walked from the city hall to the parking lot. I didn't want to go up to Garfield Avenue but it might look peculiar if I didn't

It was a wasted trip. Her husband had rushed back from the city and he met me at the door.

"No statement" he said when I told him who I was. "I deplore the publicity."

"It might help catch the guy."

"Let the police do that"

"You could be of assistance."

"We're giving our assistance to the police."

It was early when I returned to the parking lot and I stopped off at the nearest bar. Sid Malone was in there, going over some notes.

"Have a drink," he said.

"Thanks, I will."

I ordered a rye with a tall ginger ale.

"Big night for the local cops last night," he said. "First that rape and then picking up all those girls-plus the guy who used them for profit."

"Where are the girls?"

"Some are in jail and some are out on bail. You know how it is. If a girl saves her money in that racket she can bail herself out and if she throws her money away she cools her heels in a cell."

"You see any of them?"

"Those in jail. One, only fifteen years old, was crying her heart out. She's expecting a kid. Can you beat it."

"Tough."

"And another with three kids." He glanced at his notes. "Lily Barton. She doesn't give a damn."

"I know her."

"Maybe you should do the story."

"Not me. I've got the rape."

Sid shook his head. "A rape I don't understand. If a guy needs it that badly he can find plenty of girls who will take care of him."

I bought another drink for us and departed. Sid could wait until almost noon and bang out a real story, drunk or sober. I couldn't. It took me time to put my thoughts down on paper.

I was done at one but Sid, who had come into the office at a quarter of twelve, beat me with his copy. Janet was pleased with both efforts and she ran a big streamer across the front page, combining the stories.

"Excitement," she said. "I hate to run a banner about foreign affairs. If you have a town paper you have a town paper."

Nan and I had lunch in the diner and when we got back to the office the others left for the day.

"It's hard to understand," Nan said when we were alone.

"What is hard to understand."

"That rape."

"Yes, it is." I didn't want to talk about it but there are some things you can't avoid. "Very hard."

"It makes me feel unsafe."

"He might be gone from here by now."

"Do you think so?"

"It is what I think. A man does something like that and he doesn't hang around to get caught."

We talked about it for a little while and then did a little work. At three the phone rang. It was for Nan.

"Mother," she said when she hung up. "She isn't feeling well and she wants me to come out and see her."

I reached for the car keys in my pocket.

"Take the Ford. I can manage by myself and walk home after I close up."

"But she wants me to stay the night and possibly tomorrow."

"That's different."

"They had the doctor and it is her heart. I used to think she was only feeling sorry for herself but I guess I was wrong about that."

We discussed it. I would drive her out after work and she would remain for a day or so. Before this her absence would have bothered me but now it was different. I wanted to be alone so that I could think. And perhaps have a drink. Drink and think. I had to do some of both.

At four I got a phone call from the chief of police. The paper was already on the streets and I wondered what I might have done wrong.

"Tip for you," he said.

"Oh?"

Nan was at the files, putting things away. She couldn't hear what was said.

"It may be the break we've been looking for," the chief went on. 'There was a cigarette lighter in the

Gardner bedroom that didn't belong to either Mr. or Mrs. Gardner. It has Old Orchard Beach written across the front of it."

I was glad Nan couldn't see my face. It must have been deadly white.

"Interesting," I managed.

"Isn't it? The rapist probably dropped it from his pocket. I thought you might work that into your story for tomorrow. Somebody might read the paper and recall someone who has been up there. There's just the chance that we'd get a lead from it."

I stared out of the window, at the brick building across the street. Of all the damned bad luck this was it. Lots of people knew we had been up there on our honeymoon. As I stood there, thinking about it, I broke out in a cold sweat. . "You still there, Cole?"

"Sure. Sure I'm here."

"What do you think of it?"

"Not a bad idea. Thanks for calling."

"Don't mention it. I help you and you might be able to help me."

I said so long and put the phone down. I should never have kept that lighter, never have carried it. It pointed to me like a great big finger out of the sky.

"All done," Nan said.

"Huh?"

"I said I was all done. And it's time to go."

"Okay."

I wasn't much company for her during the drive out to the country. The net was closing in on me and I could feel it. It was closing, closing, closing, and there was nothing I could do about it.

"You're so quiet," she said when we were almost there.

"I'm tired."

She was sitting close to me and she put her hand on my leg.

"I'll miss you tonight," she said. "I'll miss you so much I probably won't sleep."

"Me, too."

"Just don't go out and drink a lot." I wont.

"And explain to Janet in the morning. I think I should stay for one day."

"Okay."

I didn't go into the house with her but kissed her goodbye in the car. The way she kissed me you would have thought she would be gone for a month.

"Leave the other girls alone," she cautioned.

"Now you're kidding."

"No, I'm serious. They say a man needs a woman."

"You're enough woman for me." She kissed me again.

"Just remember it," she said, getting out of the car.

She went up the steps and across the porch. I backed the Ford out to the highway and drove toward town. I drove slowly. How had I dropped the lighter? It must have happened when we fell off the bed. Bitterly I cursed this new turn of events. And yet, looking at it calmly, I might be able to do something about the situation.

Janet, I was sure, would keep me on the story. I would simply leave out the part about the lighter. I could tell the chief, if he should ask, that I had forgotten. It was an honest excuse and he would accept it. People forgot things all the time.

I began to relax. If I played it smart I didn't have anything to worry about. I was wound up over nothing. Even if the lighter was traced to me I could say I had lost it someplace. Who could dispute me, who could say I was lying?

I had a drink at the first bar I found in town. I had no desire to go to the apartment, no desire to be alone. "Nice day," the bartender said. "Beautiful."

Two women were sitting at the bar and they were talking about the rape.

"I wish some man would rape me," one woman said. She had an ugly face. "I'd give him plenty of co-operation."

I didn't stay long in that bar; I drifted from one to another, sometimes drinking the rye straight. The more I drank the easier the whole thing seemed to be.

I'm not sure just when I realized that my peeping days were over with, that I had had enough. Never again would I be able to trust myself. Peeping was one thing but rape was a horrible crime. I tried to build up the urge to go out and peep and I couldn't. Sometime, a long while before, I had gotten off to a bad start and I had not been able to shake it-not until this moment. Now I saw all that I had been and I drank faster. I had been a creature of the night but all that was behind me now. I had a lovely wife and we would have lovely children. There was so much to live for, so much to believe in.

"I love you," she told me every night.

"And I love you."

It was true. I meant it. I did love her. I loved her with every ounce of my body. Until this second it hadn't been enough but now it was enough. The memory of what I had done would haunt me for the rest of my life but I could bear it alone. I would try to bring good into the world rather than tragedy. Some visitor to the paper had told me they needed Cub Scout helpers and that might be a good beginning. I would help people and not hurt them. In some way I would make up for what I had done.

I can't tell you how many bars I visited but it must have been many. I couldn't sit still. There was a challenge ahead of me and I wanted to meet it. The challenge had been there before but I had always surrendered to passion. I thought of the dozens of girls and women I had spied on and it was revolting. I also thought of Cleo Gardner, of her pleas, and I could have cried. How could I have gone so far?

It was in a bar on King Street that I ran into Lily Barton. She was alone, drinking beer, and although her face was unhappy she smiled at me as I came in. I sat down beside her.

"I thought you were in jail," I said.

"I was but I had enough for bail."

"What about your kids?"

"They took them away. I don't know what they did with them."

I ordered a rye and bought her a beer.

"You have a right to know," I said.

Her face became even more unhappy.

"Wherever they are they're better off, Larry. The few hours I was in jail I had a chance to think. What was I doing for them? What was I offering them? A miserable apartment and just about enough food, that's all. And what about the later years? They would find out about me, know what I was, and they would hate me. This way they'll get good homes and a decent life."

"You'll miss them."

"I know. They were my life, believe it or not, but now it has to end. When this is over with I'm going to leave Mountaindale. I'm going to make something of myself. I don't know where it will be or what I'll do but I'll manage. If I can't live straight and earn a living I can always go back to the other."

We had quite a lot to drink. Once she cried and I just sat there, saying nothing. My mind was foggy with the booze I had consumed and I didn't know what to tell her.

"Sorry," she said after a while. "It's all right."

"I guess I'm sore at the whole world."

"That's no way to be."

"No, but why did they let the men go? The men are as much to blame as the girls and they didn't even ask them their names."

"Might make a good editorial for the paper."

"Let the men pay, too. If it weren't for the men a girl like me couldn't exist. The law makes sex a one-way street but it isn't. Take that fifteen-year-old girl who was in there with us. The man who got her in trouble should have to suffer."

"He probably will."

"No, he won't. He gave her a phony name and even the police don't know where to look for him. But what about her? She'll have a kid and it'll go out for adoption. She'll end up like me, thinking that a bed is only for one thing."

More than once I thought of leaving her but I didn't. The worry about the cigarette lighter had just about disappeared and I kept on drinking. I knew I was getting drunk and when I went to the men's room I almost fell over a chair. The bartender was an old man with a sympathetic face and he said I shouldn't drink any more. I told him to go to hell.

"I won't serve you," he said. "The girl, yes, but you've had more than you should have had."

Lily and I left that bar and walked down the street to another one.

"He should have been a preacher, that bartender," I said.

"What about your wife."

"She isn't home."

"Night on the town?"

"Something of the sort."

The next bar was small and crowded, the blue smoke hanging thick under the lights. We managed to get seats at the bar and she switched to scotch. I counted my money while she wasn't looking. I had about a hundred dollars. I laughed. The night was young and nuts to everything.

Lily talked some about her kids and she cried again. She cursed the cop who had arrested her and the man who had gone free.

"Besides," she complained, "I didn't get my money from him."

Most of the people in the bar were factory workers, spending money they couldn't afford to spend. There was a girl drinking alone at one of the tables and I could see that she had a good shape under her green sweater.

"She's one of us," Lily said, following my stare. "Only she rolls the guys for everything they have. I never did that. I made a bargain and I kept it. A guy buys you and you can expect only your pay."

We drank and talked about the country and the years that had slid past us. She said she wished she could start over again, that she could trade the weeks and months for a new life. As she talked I thought the same thing but also thought that now I had learned my lesson. I would have this one drunk to end it all and then the future would be bright. I'd get Nan pregnant and we would buy a little house somewhere and live the way life was meant to be lived.

I don't know when we left the bar. I remember buying a couple of bottles from the bartender-he wasn't supposed to sell them to me but he did-and almost dropping one of them on the way to the car.

"Tonight the bars are down," Lily said.

"You're damned right."

I almost hit a car going cross-town and she told me not to drive so fast. I slowed, poking along, and felt the night air against my face.

"You turn left."

I turned left.

"Now right."

I turned right.

I told her a joke, a dirty joke, and we were both kughing as we walked upstairs to her apartment. It was a fairly nice apartment for an old building, the furniture new and modern, and the walls of the rooms had been recently painted.

"Stinking hot," she said. "I'm going to get comfy while you stir up the drinks."

Comfy to her, I soon discovered, meant down to bra and panties. For having had three children, she still had a good shape; there was no bulge around her belly and her breasts looked firm.

"This time they can't bother me," she said as we drank. "This time it isn't for money. This time it's for free."

We smoked and drank and she told me some stories she had heard in the diner. They were raw, and sexy and we laughed like hell. We finished the one bottle and we were both terribly drunk.

I don't recall having gone to bed with her but I know that I did and that we didn't go to bed to sleep. And I know that I wasn't careful. She didn't want me to be. She said only that another kid wouldn't really matter.

We didn't wake up until five in the afternoon.

"There's another bottle left," she said.

"Let's do something about it."

We did.

I stayed the second night with her, too.

13

JANET WAS PRETTY mad at me when I appeared for work the next morning.

"So much to do and you had to go on a drunk," she said. "I think I'll dock you for it."

"All right"

But she wasn't half as mad as Nan who had had to take a cab in from the country.

"I didn't think you would do it," she said with tears in her eyes. "Yesterday I called and called and I couldn't believe that you weren't here."

I felt as low as a drunk buried under six feet of dirt. I also felt sick. My head pounded-there had been another bottle or two-and I couldn't get enough water to drink.

Sid came in at nine and he stuck the needle into me.

"I hit the booze," he said. "But I always get my work done. Try to remember that."

When Janet had cooled down she told me that Sid had done my work for me the day before.

"We were late getting the paper out" she said. "There was another story on that rape and a big accident out of town."

"What about the rape."

"You can read it."

I didn't read it. What was the sense? It would be the same old thing. The police would be doing this and the police would be doing that.

"What about the editorial for today?"

"Write anything you feel like writing."

I did three or four hundred words on the school bond issue and threw it in the basket. I was still unsteady and it took me longer than it should have.

"No afternoon off today," Janet said to me.

"I didn't expect it."

"And I won't dock you."

"Thanks."

Georgia, Sid and Janet went to lunch at twelve and Nan and I stayed behind. I didn't know what to say to her so I didn't say anything.

"I'm not going to make a speech to you," she said, coming over to my desk. "I guess a man is entitled to stray once in a while."

"That's a broad way of looking at it."

"As long as it wasn't a broad."

"Not a chance," I lied. "Why would I want another girl when I have such an attractive wife?"

"For the reason that most men want a girl."

I felt uncomfortable.

"How's your mother?"

"Better. The doctor gave her some pills and they seem to work."

"That's good."

The others came back at one and Janet said I might go down to city hall and see if there was anything new on the rape. I didn't want to go but I told her I would as soon as I had lunch.

Nan and I ate in the diner and I couldn't finish my sandwich. All the liquor had upset my stomach and there was no room for food.

There was a dress she wanted to buy in one of the stores and I told her to go ahead and get it. She didn't say anything further about me drinking and missing a day and I appreciated that. She was an understanding wife, the kind who would last a man a long time.

We parted outside of the diner and I walked to city hall. The walk helped me and by the time I got there I was almost feeling like myself.

I found the chief of police right away.

"Glad you stopped around," he said. "Now I don't have to go over to the paper."

"Anything new on the rape?"

"It depends." He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke. "Where were you yesterday."

"I took the day off."

He nodded. "Sid Malone came in and I gave him the same dope about the lighter that I had given you. He ran it in yesterday's issue."

I didn't know why but I began to feel nervous. I had to reach all the way down into my throat to find any words.

"Anything develop?"

He reached into his pocket and brought out the lighter, holding it in the palm of his hand.

"Something developed, all right, but you might not like it."

"Why me?" It was an effort to talk. "Know a Mrs. James?" There was no escape from that one. "I used to room there."

He tossed the lighter into the air and caught it.

"Thanks for being honest with me," he said. "When she came down here I thought she was just a crank. Seems as though she has a daughter who has gone off the deep end. And the more she thought about it the more she thought you were one of the men in her life."

"She was of age."

"Oh, I know that. I'm not talking to you about the girl."

I wet my lips with my tongue. "What are you talking to me about."

"You left the rooming house?"

"Well, I got married and we found an apartment. The room wasn't enough for us to live in."

"But Mrs. James would have put you out anyway."

"I don't know."

"She said she would have. She said you had a lot of girlie magazines around and she wouldn't stand for that."

Again there was no escape.

"I bought them for the hell of it," I said. "They didn't mean anything." I see.

"Lots of men buy them. You can find them on almost any magazine rack."

"She said there were a couple of books with filthy pictures in them."

"There might have been."

"What did you do with that stuff?"

"I threw all of it away."

"Because you were recently married?"

That and because I wasn't interested in the junk."

The Chief walked over to an ash tray and stubbed out the cigarette.

"Mrs. James said you went to Maine on your honeymoon. Is that right?"

I knew what was coming and I could see it. How had I been such a fool?

"We went to Maine," I admitted.

"Old Orchard Beach?"

"Yes."

"Did you buy a cigarette lighter while you were there?" I could have told him no but if he held me and then checked with Nan she would only tell him the truth. "My wife bought me one. As a present."

"Do you have it with you."

"I lost it."

"When?"

"I don't know when and I don't where."

"Does this look like your lighter."

"They would all look the same." I thought I had him there but he merely smiled. "With the exception of one thing," he said. "Fingerprints."

Then he gave it to me straight. Mrs. James hadn't yet rented my room or cleaned it and a detective had been sent up to get a sample of my prints. The prints matched those on the cigarette lighter and the ones found on the windowsill of the Gardner house.

"R's rather conclusive," the chief added. "You raped that woman, Cole, and you lost the lighter in the act. Yours were the only prints on that lighter, the only ones on the windowsill. A jury won't take five minutes to know that you are the man."

He had me and there was no doubt about it. I couldn't account for my time that night and I couldn't shatter the proof he had. There was only one thing for me to do and I did it.

"I'm glad it's over with," I said.

"Do you want to call a lawyer?"

"No. There's no need for it."

"Anybody else?"

"My wife."

"Then help yourself to the phone." I was crying as I dialed the number of the newspaper office.

I have been here in prison for a year and I have several more to go but I'm not completely discouraged. I have found that there are some things a man can make himself live for.

"We'll beat this together," Nan tells me each visiting day. "When you get out we'll go somewhere else and make a fresh start."

"You're a real wife."

"It isn't that. I've talked with the doctors. They say there was something wrong with you before but that you're all right now. We have both learned from all of this and it may bring us closer together."

She is still with the paper, holding down my old job. Janet, who is engaged to a trucking firm owner, is paying her as much as I was earning when I left. She has a nice room in a quiet neighborhood and her mother is living with the aunt. I don't know how she has done it but she has saved some money, a few hundred, and it will help us when I get out. Of course, all that I hadthe car and the money in the bank-was sucked away during the trial. I hadn't wanted a lawyer but Nan had insisted and it was the least I could do to let her have her way.

I don't know too much about the others. Dora James was at the trial with a young man who looked as though he had money, but if anything ever came of it I never heard. Lily Barton received a small fine and drifted on. As for Sid, he couldn't control his drinking and Janet let him go. Georgia is no longer with the Dispatch, having met a younger girl and gone somewhere down south with her. They have all made mistakes, all of them, and someday they will have a price to pay, too.

"I love you," Nan always tells me.

"And I love you."

It's good to have her come and terrible to have her leave. But I know she will come back as often as she can.

In the meantime I wait. It's a long wait.

But I bought this trip and I have to see it through.

THE END
The Peeper ....(94k)    by Orrie Hitt




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