She hadn't been able to do without sex in her teens, and it was useless to think of doing without it now.
From that night with Danny Martin-he in his early forties, she seventeen-Beth's eternal flame had been lit.
Danny had been gentle and considerate at first ... but there was nothing they left undone that night. Beth was coy, then wanton, then wildly aroused; Danny was flattered, greedy, and at last desperate to keep up with her spasms....
And now she was married to a proper Bostonian. But his love-making was as regular and unexciting as suburban commuter trains.
Beth was restless. Her husband loved her often but not expertly enough. There had to be more ... and Beth was determined to find it
CHAPTER ONE
BETH HUBBARD didn't like it one bit, she thought.
Her husband Charlie was at it again, behind her in the bed, and although she knew she would enjoy it up to a point, the end result would be sheer frustration. Charlie was too mechanical, too fast and too casual. This was not, the honey blonde thought, how sex should be.
Besides, she was angry with him. There was that unresolved financial worry she had that Charlie had once again refused to discuss.
Nevertheless, in spite of herself, Beth was stimulated. Flesh against flesh, that kind of thing. She wasn't made of stone. On the contrary, she had big breasts, big nipples and a pair of hips that could thrash and scissor in the best erotic tradition, and she could feel herself starting to scissor.
After all, the touch of any man's fingers-although she had been faithful to Charlie since the start of their marriage-was catnip to her glands. Charlie was pushing in her nipples, nuzzling her flanks and, at last, flipping up her shortie nightgown.
Maybe, she thought desperately, it would be different this time.
Maybe she could speed herself up and reach the high country.
And Beth tried.
She lifted and she tightened, even though again she was repelled by the stubble on her husband's face and the stale odor of tobacco on his breath.
She tried very hard and, as usual, began to enjoy herself.
There was, after all, nothing like the special capabilities of a man.
For a few moments, then, Beth felt loose and languorous.
And for the next few seconds, she felt potentially explosive.
And it was then that Charlie was unable to govern himself. It was always the same, Beth knew. Charlie, for all of his years, was a mere adolescent when it came to sex.
She begged him. She whispered to him to control himself.
But Charlie, as always, ignored her.
In another minute or two the fact was finished, and Beth felt a mixture of frustration and relief. Charlie glanced at the clock on his bed table and decided he could sleep for another ten minutes. Beth rolled over, wearily hauled herself off to the bathroom for a quick shower and wondered for the thousandth time whether something was wrong with her, or whether Charlie was at fault or whether their marriage had settled down into such a dull routine that it was a waste to hope she would ever find real satisfaction in sex again.
Her sour mood persisted, and forty-five minutes later she controlled a desire to scream.
At the very least, Beth wanted to throw off her absurdly frilly, clinging negligee and dance naked on the dinette table. It was too early in the morning to do the Twist-she simply did not have the energy until she drank at least three cups of strong coffee. An old-fashioned nineteenth-century can-can straight out of the Second Empire would be even more startling, she thought, but such a dance would lose both point and purpose unless she were wearing a voluminous skirt and a pair of the absurd black bikini panties Charlie had bought for her and had insisted she wear when he was in the mood for fun and games.
The idea of doing a can-can struck Beth as ludicrous, and she giggled, then sighed and finished the last of her orange juice. An exhibition on the table would have no effect whatsoever, she decided. Charlie would undoubtedly complain that she was interrupting his reading of the morning newspaper.
A middle-aged male face, freshly shaven, appeared from behind the pages of the financial section. "What's so funny?" Charlie demanded.
Beth shoved a lock of hair into place. "Nothing," she said flatly.
He retreated behind his newspaper but was annoyed. "I can't read the market reports when you start yacking."
"Finish on the train into town," she replied mechanically, knowing every word of the limp dialogue they repeated every day of their lives.
"How can I? You insist that I leave the paper here, although I'm damned if I know why. All you ever read is the fashion news and the gossip columns."
She had disputed the point when they had first been married, but after three years she had learned it was wiser not to encourage an argument that could turn into a forty-eight-hour blood vendetta. "You could buy another paper at the station," she said.
"Impossible. I've got a half-dozen clients' reports to check before I pull into South Station."
The ritual completed, they lapsed into the usual leaden silence. Beth reached for the coffee pot, and was glad she had made a particularly strong brew today. Sandra and Bob Winterton served unusually potent highballs, and Beth wondered idly if Sandra, the cool goddess who never showed pain, pleasure or any other really human feelings, was suffering this morning, too.
"More toast or eggs?" she asked at last. A man's capacity for large quantities of food before eight o'clock in the morning invariably made her gag.
Charlie glanced at his watch. "No time," he muttered.
Beth took a deep breath, braced herself and faced him.
"You've got to make time for something that can't wait."
"My train won't wait."
"Neither will this. I need money."
"I keep telling you to stay within your household budget. That's why I give you an allowance."
"This has nothing to do with the household. I'm trying to protect my five-thousand-dollar investment." She placed her hands under the table as she clenched her fists, unwilling that he see how very tense and nervous she had become.
Charlie scowled darkly and rubbed his balding head. "When your father died, I told you to let me invest the money he left you. I just happen to be in the investment business, and I'm also your husband. But not you. Oh, no. You had to throw every last penny into some screwball venture-"
"It is not screwball. Phil Bates is my first cousin, and we grew up together. How could I turn him down when he asked for the five thousand to put into that new plant he bought? He knew I had just inherited the money-"
"Then tell him to start showing you a return, dollar for dollar, instead of whining for more."
Beth's sense of frenzy grew worse. "You saw his letter. The plant has been suffering growing pains. He even enclosed photostats of the reports from his lawyer and his auditor saying that his basic situation is sound. You understand these things and I don't, darling. You admitted yourself that he really doesn't have anything to worry about, provided he can raise more money. If we can just send him an additional five thousand in the next six months-"
"No!" Charlie pounded the table. "He'll make out fine, what with that and the other money he can raise himself. He doesn't even need it in a lump sum. We could even send it to him a hundred to two hundred at a time."
"I don't earn a fortune," Charlie said scathingly, "and I don't have a millionaire's portfolio, either. I'm damned if I'll see my own investment program all smashed to hell because Phil Bates is short on cash."
"You'd prefer to see me lose my inheritance," Beth replied sulkily.
He adopted the stern, paternal approach that she despised. "You acted on your own initiative, against my advice and without my consent. It was your money, you told me. Remember? Well, if you lose it, don't blame me."
There was a certain justice in his position, Beth was willing to admit. But he did have fourteen to seventeen thousand invested in stocks and bonds and, according to her concept of marriage, husbands and wives stood together in a time of crisis. Deliberately turning the full power of her enormous blue-green eyes on him, she formed her full lips in a provocative pout. "Please, darling," she murmured, "help me."
Charlie glanced at his watch again and gulped the last of his coffee. Relenting a trifle, he temporized. "We'll talk about it tonight," he said, offering her no more than the faintest ray of hope. Rising hurriedly, he stalked to the front hall closet for his hat and coat. Beth followed him listlessly, picked up the handsome calfskin attache case she had bought for twenty-nine, seventy-five at a post-Christmas sale and handed it to him.
Charlie's goodbye kiss was perfunctory, and so was his pat on her bottom to which she was supposed to react with pleasure. But today, of all days, she just could not bother. "Knock them dead in the marts of commerce," she said automatically.
As far as he was concerned, the storm clouds had broken, the sun was appearing and the subject of a further loan to Phil Bates was closed. "You bet," he replied, following their ritual. "Trust Papa, and Papa will trust you. I'll be home on the five-forty-one."
The door closed, and the morning-commuter suburban rite had come to an end. Nine hours and fifty-two minutes would elapse-assuming that the train would be on time, which was dubious-before the lord of the split-level ranch returned to his mortgaged domain from Boston.
Beth stood for some moments, staring at the door. "Charles Walter Hubbard," she said aloud, speaking distinctly, "I hate you. I think you're the stingiest man alive, and the most inconsiderate. You're not even any good in bed with me any more."
The outburst did nothing to relieve her misery. Her worry over the money was still wrapping her in its folds, and her yearning for warmth and understanding, for a rich and exciting and satisfying sex life was so intense that she wanted to break down into hysterics.
Instead, she wandered back into the dinette, cleared the table and stepped into the kitchen. Putting a fresh pot of coffee on the stove, she washed the dishes, a chore she loathed, and then sat down at the family counter, an ugly plastic slab, for coffee and a cigarette. She scanned the society gossip column in the morning paper, but found the doings of the very wealthy annoying. Their mere existence reminded her of her own need for money, and she knew her day would be miserable if she did not think of something else. The fashion pages, which featured the clothes being exhibited at the semiannual Paris showings, offered her no consolation, either, as she wondered how many women there were on earth who could afford to spend five hundred or a thousand dollars for just one dress without feeling the pinch.
Pouring herself still another cup of coffee, Beth felt very sorry for herself. Her life, she thought, was finished at the age of twenty-five. She was married to a penny-pinching miser of forty-eight who treated her like a servant most of the time, used her body when it pleased him and gave no thought or consideration to her own sex needs. She was caged, shackled and domesticated-condemned to spend the rest of her days in a succession of neat, easy-to-manage houses in Owendale, each a little more expensive and ostentatious than the last, status-symbol badges of Charlie's increasing success in the Boston investment house.
She would buy thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of containers of neat; bright, packaged foods at supermarkets with fluorescent lighting. She would cook countless meals on efficient, built-in ranges, supervise the sloppy efforts of surly cleaning women and, as a reward for her efforts, would accompany Charlie to a never-ending stream of identical parties. At each she would stand in someone's playroom, drinking Scotches or martinis, eating cheese dips and listening to the meaningless small talk of other condemned women whose husbands gathered elsewhere in the house to pontificate on American big-league teams.
Nor was that the worst. Eventually, her life would be further complicated by children who would have to be diapered and spoon-fed, then hauled off to scout meetings and to dentists and to schools. Later, there would be teenage parties and meeting with high school guidance counselors. When the children would finally go off to college and lives of their own, Beth would pay still another penalty by living within strict budgets so the children's tuition and dorm bills could be met.
After that, she would be free at last to do as she pleased, but by then she would be too old and tired to care. She and Charlie would retire and resemble the bronzed, elderly couples in the ads. Charlie would fish and play golf. She would survey her gray hair, lined face and ruined figure, and would want to slit her throat. But by then, she guessed, she wouldn't have the energy or the courage.
Hating the negligee that Charlie considered so sexy and she privately thought totally inappropriate for breakfast wear on a rushed weekday morning, she resisted the impulse to rip off the garment and tear it into shreds. She hated Charlie, all the frustrations of her dull life and, above all, herself.
"I wish," she said loudly, "that I had a husband who would really send me when he takes me to bed. I wish I had a husband who cared that much. The slob.
"I wish I had an extra five thousand dollars to send Phil right this minute. I just can't stand having to flatter and cajole and flirt to get the money out of Charlie. It's immoral and demeaning to make a-a tramp out of myself with my own husband for the sake of a few lousy dollars.
"I wish I were dead!" she concluded viciously.
The speech did not help in the least. She was still suffering from a hangover, and her prospects were dismal.
Hastily rinsing out the coffee cup and leaving the pot on the electric range, she mounted the stairs and decided to clear her fuzzy head with a shower. She stood under the stream of water for some minutes, sorry she had not taken a lazy tub bath laced with richly scented bath oil instead, and eventually she pattered around the bedroom aimlessly in bare feet, her body wrapped in a towel.
Catching a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror set in the bathroom door, she moved closer to it, threw aside the towel and examined herself critically. It was a little shocking and very discouraging to discover that, in spite of her misery, she was still exceptionally attractive. She was tall, almost five feet seven, and thanks to a nagging mother, Beth's posture was excellent. Her shoulders sloped at just the right angle, her breasts were as high and firm and full as they had been at eighteen, and her waist was still unusually slender. There was not an ounce of extra fat on her stomach or gently rounded hips, the consequence of the rigorous diet she forced herself to follow; and her smooth thighs and long legs were the equal of any model's.
Her face, which Charlie had called beautiful when he had been courting her, and which still caused men to turn and stare in restaurants and theatres, remained lovely in spite of the three years she had wasted in the suburban void. Her huge blue-green eyes were fringed with long lashes; her nose was pert and straight; her cheekbones were high; and her full, sensual lips invariably gave men ideas at country club dances. Experimenting with a gingerly smile, she saw that she still had a dimple about an inch and a half to the left of her mouth.
What a pity, what a waste, she thought, and wandered to her dressing table. Still completely nude, she made up with meticulous care, although she had nothing planned for the day. First she oiled and cleaned her face, then applied a delicate base that concealed tiny and inconsequential blemishes. Mascara made her lashes seem even longer and fuller, a soft pencil transformed her eyebrows into piquant arches, and the pale, glossy lipstick Sandra had brought her from Paris last summer seemed to turn a spotlight on Beth's mouth. Perhaps it was extravagant to use the lipstick, but she did not care. She was making up for the sake of her own morale, and it was irrelevant whether she saw another human being all day.
Brushing her blond hair vigorously, she patted it into place, then dabbed herself liberally with some of her most expensive perfume. The scent whirled around her, making her giddy for a moment, and she laughed a trifle savagely as she stood and moved again to the full-length mirror. Deliberately striking a seductive pose, she laughed again.
"Beth Hubbard," she said, "you're wasting your substance. Agreed? Agreed. You're ripe for adventure. You're ripe for real love. You're ripe for anything. You're also daydreaming. So if you have any brains in that pinhead, you'll go put on some slacks and get out the vacuum cleaner. Glamor Girl Has Spotless Home. Loves Domesticity. Ugh!"
CHAPTER TWO
SUDDENLY Beth changed her mind and decided that housework could wait until another day. Perhaps she could persuade someone to go shopping in Boston with her, she thought, and donned a pair of her sheerest bikini panties, a wisp of a bra and her newest diamond-patterned black stockings. She hated taking the train, but Lynn was proud of her new sports car and might be persuaded to drive in, provided that Fred had not forbidden her to take it into city traffic. No one could blame him if he had, for Lynn was the world's worst insurance risk after a two or three martini lunch.
The telephone on the bedside table rang as Beth was adjusting her garter belt, and she hurried across the room to lift the instrument from its cradle.
"Hi, sweetie," the voice at the other end of the wire said. "Sandra."
"I was going to call you as soon as the boom lifted," Beth said. "What kind of knockout drops did you put into those drinks last night?"
"I have a husband who likes to fool himself into believing he isn't an alcoholic." Everyone knew Bob Winter-ton drank too much and that his wife was even worse, but Sandra spoke with matter-of-fact calm. "He has a theory that liquor evaporates as soon as a seal is broken, so he tries to empty a bottle as quickly as possible."
"Next time," Beth replied, smoothing her left stocking, "we'll bring our own elderberry wine. Anyway, we had a gorgeous time."
"Really?" Sandra's voice was expressionless, flat. "I thought it stunk."
Her candor was startling, and for a moment Beth did not know what to say. "I hope it wasn't the company," she managed at last.
"Yes and no. I loved having you, of course. You know that. Charlie was his usual, jovial self, quoting Dow-Jones averages-whatever they are-when he wasn't snarling at you."
"We were having a little upset," Beth said apologetically, but did not elaborate. It was no one else's business, she thought, that Charlie refused to advance the money to protect her inheritance.
"And when he wasn't snapping," Sandra continued, "Bob was jumping down my throat. You were a life-saver, really. If I'd had to spend the evening alone with Bob, I'd have committed mayhem. Tell me why I was stupid enough to marry him, will you, sweetie? I double-dare you."
Beth had enough troubles of her own and had no desire to listen to a friend's domestic woes, but there seemed to be no choice. "I'm sure it isn't that bad," she said limply.
"Don't sound so innocent, Pollyanna." There was a sharp edge to Sandra's voice now. "Even if you were wrapped up in your own troubles, you couldn't have missed all the tension between Bob and me. I even thought of cutting it with a knife and serving it for dessert with a brandy sauce."
"Well, it wasn't exactly a chummy atmosphere, I must admit." That was the understatement of the year, Beth thought. She and Charlie had been coldly polite to each other, but the Wintertons had not even bothered to put up a front. Sandra had been white-faced and taut, her usually magnificent poise shaken, and Bob, a husky giant who had once been an intercollegiate boxing champion, had looked as though he had wanted to break her in two with his bare hands, a feat he was probably capable of performing.
"That jackass makes me so mad that four days out of seven I want to leave him. Unfortunately, the other three days I'm too exhausted to bother."
Advice was futile, Beth knew, but she replied with an automatic, "Don't do anything reckless."
Sandra laughed coldly. "If I weren't reckless, life would become unbearable in no time at all. What do you have on your busy little schedule today?"
"Well-"
"How about lunch? I give you my oath as an all-girl girl that I won't weep on your shoulder. In fact, I promise I won't even mention the goon whose name I bear."
Beth was relieved. "I've been thinking of going into Boston. I have a yen for a knitted beige wool dress, if it isn't too expensive. We could have lunch at Ganely's
"I can't face a chopped nut, date and pickle sandwich on cinnamon bread today," Sandra said. "Let Boston wait until another day. We'll go somewhere around here."
Beth shrugged. "All right, but you'll have to pick me up, darling. My prince takes the car to the station with him every morning unless I salaam three times and beg him for the privilege of being allowed to use it for some purpose other than marketing. We are, I think, the only one-vehicle family in Owendale."
"Drawing and quartering is too good for Charlie."
"If only we still lived in the Middle Ages. I dream of exquisite ways to torture him. I honestly do." Unfortunately, Beth reflected, that was the truth.
"I'll come for you at twelve-thirty. Okay?"
"Fine. Where will we go-the Bower?"
"The Bower," Sandra said, "is too damned genteel for me. I lose my appetite when I see old ladies who look like my grandmother eating poached eggs and dry toast. I prefer a little more life. I was thinking of the Stamen Motel."
Beth was surprised. "The new place out on Corolla Boulevard? I didn't know the Stamen had a dining room."
"First-rate food, liquor and trimmings. The place fairly reeks of atmosphere. Terribly posh."
Beth hesitated. "Skirt and blouse, or sweater and slacks?"
"Neither. Climb into your fanciest silks and satins, and dust off the family jewels, sweetie."
"You're kidding."
"Like hell I am. You'll feel out of place if you wear anything that wouldn't be right for cocktails at the club. See you at twelve-thirty."
Beth hung up and turned to her walk-in closet, which was only partly filled with clothes. She quickly riffled through her dresses, not too difficult as she did not own an extensive wardrobe. Finally she decided on her black jersey with the low-scoop neckline. And if she added the black pumps with the skyscraper-spiked heels, she would feel comfortable.
The day was beginning to look up. At least she would be doing something other than worrying and feeling sorry for herself. Buoyed by the thought, she sat down at her dressing table and extravagantly splashed on still more of her most expensive perfume.
People usually used the word statuesque to describe Sandra Winterton. A brunette, at least two or three inches taller than Beth, she was big-boned and generously covered, although not overweight. "A guy takes one look at Sandra's upper story," Charlie Hubbard had once told Beth, "and he feels an irresistible desire to bury his face there and not bother to come up for air.
Sandra was well aware of her assets, and the friends who played bridge with her at the country club on Thursday afternoons accurately but uncharitably asserted that her necklines were the lowest in Owendale, if not in the whole county. Their comments were repeated to Sandra, of course, but she merely laughed and wore clothes still more daring. She was dressed in something radical now, a cream-colored tissue silk that revealed the cleavage between her breasts.
But Beth, climbing into the car beside her, was too busy gaping at Sandra's new fur coat to notice the dress. "Genuine, caught-in-the-wilds-of-northern-Canada mink!" Beth said in admiration.
Sandra fluffed her deep cuffs before backing out of the Hubbard driveway and roaring off down the street. "Not bad, huh? I was just dying to show it off to you."
That, Beth thought, was the reason for the dress-up lunch. "It's perfectly lovely." She made an unsuccessful attempt to conceal her envy.
"I'm a living, walking status symbol," Sandra said with a laugh. "And when somebody my size wears mink-sister, there's a lot of it."
Some day, Beth thought wistfully, Charlie might buy her a new fur coat to replace the shabby beaver that had seen her through the two years of college, a year at a job and three years of marriage.
Beth sighed.
Sandra glanced at her but made no comment. She waited a few moments, then said, "You look good enough to eat today, sweetie."
"Thanks, but you're a liar." Beth smiled ruefully. "Those drinks Bob mixed last night really gave me a frightful hangover. I spent hours wrestling with my conscience this morning after I began thinking of a huge vodka and tomato juice."
"Who won?"
"My conscience, of course. Morning drinking just isn't for me."
Sandra was amused. "What a little Puritan you are."
"Not really," Beth protested. "I-"
"Yes, sweetie, a Puritan. "Your New England upbringing is showing."
"Well, maybe," Beth conceded.
"I don't have your problems, I'm happy to say. Bob woke me up by warming his car in the garage, the slob. I know he was racing the engine deliberately to make certain I couldn't sleep. And I had a large shot of vitamin-destroying hooch before my eyes were half open. I keep a bottle in my bedside table for the purpose." Sandra glanced at the silent girl beside her. "That shocks you, I suppose."
"Hardly, darling. I'm not that naive," Beth said indignantly.
Sandra said nothing more as she sped up Corolla Boulevard.
The Stamen Motel consisted of a main building, done in imitation Scandinavian modern, with ten wings radiating to suggest the shape of a sunflower. Each wing had its own shrub-lined driveway and, near the main entrance, where Sandra found a place to park, there was a huge swimming pool, empty now in the off-season.
The deep-pile carpet in the lobby was luxurious, the oak-paneled walls gleamed and the indirect lighting was hideous. Beth's first impression was that the place was garish, and her feeling was strengthened when Sandra led her into the bar, a pseudo-intime room with chairs, tables and walls of blending dark woods. Seven or eight men were sitting at the bar itself, all of them surprisingly well-dressed in tailor-made suits, custom shirts and expensive neckties. They had what Beth always thought of as the barbered look, as though they had spent the past couple of hours being shaved, manicured and treated to a session under a powerful sunlamp.
About two-thirds of the tables in the room were occupied and, as Sandra had predicted, the women wore highly fashionable clothes, and were young, Beth noted as she shrugged out of her beaver.
Sandra draped her mink over the back of her chair with feigned carelessness, summoned a waiter and ordered two very dry martinis.
"Quite a dump," Beth said, hoping she did not sound too impressed.
"I told you, sweetie. Owendale has moved out of the ice age into the twentieth century in a single leap."
"There's Carolyn Anderson." Beth nodded in the direction of a petite blonde at a far table and started to rise, intending to say a brief word to a fellow member of her Thursday afternoon bridge group.
But Sandra addressed her sharply. "Sit down."
Beth was startled.
"The man with her," Sandra said succinctly, "isn't her husband."
Beth looked again and felt uncomfortable when she saw that Carolyn was not with Jim Anderson, but was completely engrossed in a conversation with a ruddy, middle-aged stranger. "Oops," she said. Then she asked curiously, "Do you know him, Sandra?"
Their drinks arrived, and Sandra waited until the waiter had gone before she replied. "Never saw him before in my life."
"You don't suppose-"
"I make it my business never to suppose. He's probably a long-lost uncle from Kansas City."
Beth accepted the rebuke. It really was unfair to suspect Carolyn on the basis of such flimsy evidence. "This is the biggest drink I've ever seen. If I finish it, I'll be on a merry-go-round until dinner time. And I'm sure I'll burn tonight's chops."
"Burning," Sandra remarked callously, "is too good for Charlie. Gung-ho."
Beth responded to the toast, and for the next few minutes they drank in a companionable silence. Then Beth saw Carolyn and her escort stand and braced herself, as she expected the pair to pass the table en route to the dining room. Instead the duo vanished into the lobby, reappeared beyond the plate glass windows, and a fascinated, horrified Beth watched Caroline and the unidentified man go into one of the motel wings.
"Did you see what I just saw?" she demanded breathlessly.
"No." Sandra was concentrating on her drink. "Carolyn and that man-"
"Carolyn is a big girl, and what she does is her own business," Sandra replied firmly.
They were interrupted by a ruggedly powerful man in his early thirties, dark-haired and suntanned, who was wearing a tailor-made suit of the most expensive tweed Beth had ever seen. He stared at her as he approached the table from the bar, but spoke to Sandra. "I've been wondering all morning what's been missing from my life, and now I know. You."
"Hi, sweetie." Sandra raised her face for a warm kiss. "Beth Hubbard, Bruce Gibson."
"Miss Hubbard," he said, bowing, 'you're all my dreams come true."
His gaze was so intense that Beth felt the color rise in her face. "I hope you don't dream often," she replied primly, grasping the stem of her glass with her left hand so he could see her wedding and engagement rings. "It's Mrs. Hubbard."
Bruce Gibson laughed, not in the least disconcerted. "If I'm not interrupting a conference of earth-shattering importance, I'd like to buy you modern reincarnations of Venus a drink."
One mammoth dry martini was enough for Beth, but Sandra spoke quickly before Beth could refuse.
"You're an angel of mercy."
He laughed, motioned to the waiter and pulled up a chair from an adjacent table. Beth shifted to make room for him and was conscious of his strong masculine charm as he sat close to her.
The next half hour passed swiftly. Beth's head was swimming from her second martini, and several times she imagined that Bruce was devoting all his attention to her, virtually ignoring Sandra, who sat back in her chair, coolly smiling and detached.
Eventually it dawned on Beth that, martinis or no, Bruce was indeed very much drawn to her. He told several amusing stories about experiences he had enjoyed on a recent trip to the Caribbean, spoke with enthusiasm about plans he had made for a skiing weekend and showed, too, that he was familiar with Boston's best restaurants and most recent plays. It seemed obvious that he was a man of means.
His interest acted like a tonic on Beth and, for the moment, at least, she was able to forget her worries about her inheritance and her deep sense of grievance over Charlie's selfishness in his love-making.
She could not help responding to Bruce and told herself that a mild flirtation hurt no one. Twice Sandra winked at her, but Beth pretended to be unaware of her friend's teasing. Beth was having great fun basking in Brace's unconcealed admiration and making out to herself for a little while that she was single again. Conscious of her beauty as she had not been for a long time, she listened avidly to Brace, made very gesture count and gave him her most ravishing smile whenever he lighted a cigarette for her.
As she was finishing a drink, his leg touched hers under the table, and the sensation was so pleasant that she made no attempt to pull away. Then she recovered and, reminding herself that she was a respectable matron, wondered if he were making a discreet pass or if his touch were accidental. She drew back her leg and felt a pang of disappointment when he made no attempt to renew the contact.
"How about another drink?" he asked.
Sandra would have agreed, but this time Beth spoke first. "I have enough gin in me to last for a week, thanks. If I had one more, I'd put on an exhibition."
"You tempt me," he said with a grin, but there was no hint of salaciousness in his attitude. Summoning the waiter, he paid the check, then helped Beth into her coat, leaving Sandra to straggle into her mink alone.
"Goodbye," Beth said, extending her hand, "and thank you."
He held her hand far longer than convention required, and his grip was firm. "We'll meet again, soon," he told her, staring hard at her.
She felt a slow, delicious tingling sensation move up her spine.
"I guarantee it," he said, bowed and made his way back to the bar.
Sandra shepherded a flushed Beth toward the dining room. "Touchdown, sweetie," she said cheerfully. "You've really made a conquest."
CHAPTER THREE
THERE was a difference between being miserable and feeling like death warmed over. Beth stretched out on the white, tufted living room divan and, unable to concentrate on either a book or a magazine, stared into space. Her existence was a living death, she told herself, and she would welcome the real thing. Dinner had been a ghastly failure, thanks to Charlie's vicious temper, and she had contributed nothing to marital bliss by flaring up at him, too.
But who could blame her? Not only had he refused, flatly and unequivocally, to advance her the money she needed to protect her investment, but he had actually forbidden her to mention the subject again. And, to compound her sense of frustration and indignation, there was the sight of Charlie sound asleep now in his overstuffed chair, at peace with himself and the world. It would be easy, she thought, to pick up the heavy poker from the side of the fireplace and bring it down on his bald head.
Perhaps, Beth told herself, she shouldn't have married a man old enough to be her father. Yet she knew, in all fairness, that the difference in their ages was irrelevant to their problem. Other girls had found happiness in marriages to older men, and it was Charlie's personality rather than his age that had become so much of an irritant. She supposed he was a fair enough lover. Certainly he was as virile as he had ever been, and it was neither his fault nor hers that they didn't really make beautiful music together. In fact, Charlie wanted sex far more often than she did, so it was her inabihty to respond to him that caused the trouble.
But no, that wasn't quite true, either, she reflected. His attitude on money alone was poisoning their relationship. He was a penny-pinching miser who would rather see her lose her inheritance than help her and, as she looked at his round face, soft now in repose, she hated him. The next time he started to make love to her, she would make it clear that she wanted nothing more to do with him. There would a storm that would make tonight's unpleasantness seem as calm as a ladies' aid picnic, but she didn't care. No marriage could succeed unless both partners gave everything in their power, all of the time.
The telephone rang, and Beth deliberately sauntered out to the kitchen, prolonging the ringing in the petty hope that Charlie would be jarred out of his sleep. He did not even stir.
"Busy?" Sandra asked.
"Listen carefully," Beth replied, "and the next sound you hear will be the resonant snores of my lord and master."
"You're lucky, sweetie. The baboon who hangs his hat in this house just slammed out of here after ripping me to shreds."
"Bob didn't hit you, Sandra?" Beth was horrified.
"I was speaking figuratively. If he ever actually slugged me, I'd walk out. As it is, that's precisely what he's done. For the five thousandth, two hundred and sixteenth time. To get stoned somewhere with the boys." Sandra paused, sighed and then brightened. "But I haven't called you to exchange tales of woe. What's on your docket for tomorrow?"
"Ha! There isn't even anything on the schedule for tonight. I'm thinking of tucking myself into beddie-bye with a cozy sleeping pill or two."
"Do that. Then you'll be chipper as-whatever it is that's chipper-tomorrow. And we'll take ourselves to the Stamen for lunch."
"Oh, no!" Beth's reaction was as emphatic as it was quick.
"Why on earth not?" Sandra sounded lazily amused.
"I-I don't know, exactly." That was a he, Beth reflected. She might meet Bruce Gibson again, and the very idea terrified her.
"You seemed to like it today."
"I guess it was okay." Beth hoped she sounded indifferent but knew it was the prospect of seeing Bruce that caused her heart to pound and the blood to sing in her ears.
"Name a place in the area that has better food," Sandra challenged.
"I can't." Beth's instinct told her that Bruce represented potential complications in her life that she was unwilling to face.
"Or booze."
"My mind is a blank." On the other hand, Beth told herself, she wanted very much to meet Bruce again.
"Could it be the people who hang out there?" Sandra said.
Beth was silent.
Sandra laughed. "Scared of Bruce Gibson, maybe?"
"No comment." Beth tried to respond lightly but heard the tremor in her own voice.
"If a man that yummy looked at me the way he did at you," Sandra declared, "I'd hire me some bloodhounds and track him down."
Beth glanced in the direction of the living room and took the precaution of lowering her voice so that Charlie, if he awakened, would not hear her. "You forget," she said primly, "that I'm a married woman."
"Hash that out with Bruce, sweetie, not with me."
"By now he doesn't remember my name or anything about me. Why, I'll never see him again."
"Want to bet?" Sandra demanded.
"Yes," Beth said angrily, falling into the trap.
"That's a deal. The loser buys the first round of those enormous Stamen drinks."
Beth did not know whether to protest that she wanted to go anywhere but the Stamen or to give in gracefully. The attractiveness of the possibility of seeing Bruce was stronger than her fear of meeting him, so Beth accepted, hung up and returned to the living room.
Charlie was still sleeping, his mouth slightly open, his head sagging.
Beth stared at him in disgust. That, she reflected, is my husband. The thought crossed her mind that she would prefer a life with someone like Bruce, but she checked herself, shook her head and tried to regain her perspective.
The fact that I'm annoyed at Charlie, and with excellent reason, does not mean that I'm prepared to divorce him for a handsome stranger with whom I've exchanged a few impersonal words, she told herself sternly. So, once and for all, stop behaving like a moonstruck schoolgirl!
"I insist we have another drink," Sandra said with a laugh. "After all, sweetie, there's no sign of Bruce anywhere."
Beth couldn't resist glancing around the bar of the Stamen where the same chic women and handsomely dressed men were drinking and chatting. "Honestly, Sandra, I don't have that much capacity for liquor. Especially in the daytime."
Ignoring the protests, Sandra signaled to their waiter.
"I mean it. You might not believe this, but I'm not accustomed to so much booze at noon."
"Not even you could be as naive as you sound. And you're right, sweetie. I don't believe you." Sandra smoothed her glossy, black hair. "In fact, I've never seen anyone look more sophisticated."
Under the other girl's scrutiny, Beth flushed. She had dressed with great care for the occasion in her snug-fitting sheath of gold silk and, daringly, was wearing no bra beneath it. She realized that Sandra was looking hard at her breasts, but Beth could not explain, either to Sandra or anyone else, that she had deliberately tried to achieve a stunning effect in the hope of creating an impression on Bruce.
Her disappointment at his failure to appear was stronger than a vague sense of relief, and when the fresh martinis arrived, she took a large, anaesthetizing swallow.
"That," Sandra said approvingly, "is the way to drink."
They chatted for another quarter of an hour, talking about inconsequentials, and Beth began to feel uncomfortably warm. Pushing her old beaver coat farther onto the back of her chair, she stirred restlessly, unaware that the gin was responsible. But, when she tried to light a cigarette and found it difficult to focus on the match, it finally occurred to her that she might be giddy.
"Here, let me do that for you." A silver lighter snapped, and Bruce Gibson materialized at Beth's side.
Her pulse quickened, but her feminine instinct protected her, and her smile of welcome was slightly formal. "Well, hello," she said.
Sandra grinned at Bruce. "You owe me a drink, sweetie."
"This next one," Bruce said, "is on me." Not waiting for an invitation, he drew up a chair and summoned the waiter.
"Excuse me, will you?" Sandra rose swiftly to her feet and drew her mink around her. "I've got to make a phone call." She was gone before either of the others could reply.
"Talk about people in a hurry," Beth said, surprised by Sandra's sudden rudeness, wondering whether her friend's alleged telephone call was nothing more than a flabby excuse to leave Beth alone with a man making no secret of his admiration for her.
"I'm not offended." Bruce grinned broadly, then sobered and spoke solemnly. "You know, I was wondering last night whether I had imagined you. I couldn't believe anyone could be so lovely. But you're real."
Beth felt the color rising in her face and, as Bruce gazed at her, she was sorry she had given in to the impulse that had led her to discard her bra. By flaunting conventions, she had actually been defying Charlie, but Bruce was a real person, too, and she did not want him to think her cheap. She made an attempt to maintain her dignity. "I hope," she said, "that you also remembered I'm married."
"Of course." His offhand tone and expression indicated that, although he realized she had a husband, the fact was of no significance.
A chill moved slowly up Beth's spine, and she warned herself to be careful. But, at the same time, she was fired by a perverse recklessness that confused her.
"I was afraid you might not be here today," Bruce said, "and I didn't know where to get in touch with you." Bruce's knee touched hers beneath the table.
That was simply an opening move, Beth thought-he could have called Sandra to ascertain the information. Beth told herself she should withdraw at once, but she made no move and instead pretended to be unaware of the little intimacy. "I don't give my phone number to men," she said reprovingly.
Bruce refused to accept the rebuke. "Not men. Man. This man."
The waiter arrived with their order, and Beth laughed helplessly as she looked at her brimming glass. "If I drink it," she said, "I guarantee you I'll fall flat on my face."
"You'll do no such thing," Bruce assured her. "It's far too pretty a face, so I'll catch you before you hit the ground." He raised his own glass in a silent toast.
She hesitated, overcome by nameless, shapeless fears. Then, as if in defense, she recalled Charlie's high-handed refusal to discuss the subject of the money she needed so desperately. A surge of resentment welled up inside of her and, before she quite realized what she was doing, she grasped her glass by the stem, lifted it and drank. "Don't forget I warned you," she said and giggled.
Bruce laughed and, in an attempt to help her relax, told her in detail about an evening in Paris when he had consumed far too much wine. The moral of the story, apparently, was that he had suffered no real after-effects the following day.
The pressure of his knee increased as they drank and chatted, and finally Bruce reached out to take Beth's hand. Strangely, she wanted him to hold it, yet she could not lose sight of the fact that they were in a public place. "Do you want everyone in Owendale to start gossiping about me?" she asked.
"Certainly not." He released her immediately. "But you're irresistible."
She could see in his eyes that he meant what he said and was not merely handing her a line. It had been a long time since anyone had paid her court, and the knowledge that a man with Brace's magnetism should like her so much gave her a warm, glowing feeling.
"Why don't we get out of here?" He beckoned the waiter and paid their check. "I have an urge to kiss you, and if we don't leave, I'll disgrace both of us."
Beth panicked and looked around wildly for Sandra but could not find her friend anywhere. Compliments were flattering, but the promise of a kiss, and the hint of more than that, gave Beth cause to take stock of the situation. But the martinis had gone to her head, the room was spinning and she found it impossible to think clearly.
Brace held her chair for her as she stood, draped her coat over her shoulders and, taking her firmly by the elbow, guided her out of the bar. She assumed he was taking her to his car, then realized belatedly that he was heading in the direction of the motel's bedrooms. The memory of Carolyn Anderson doing precisely the same thing the day before loomed large in Beth's mind, and she tried to slow her steps.
"Where are we going?" she asked faintly.
"Leave everything to me." Bruce exchanged a few words with a man who appeared to be one of the personnel.
Beth saw money being slipped into the motel man's hand and knew beyond all doubt that Brace was seriously intending to make love to her. Her sense of panic increased, but she lacked the strength to break away, march into the lobby and telephone for a taxi. Never, she told herself fiercely, would she forgive Sandra for leaving her in such an embarrassing position.
They walked down a corridor, and Bruce opened a door.
Beth's fog thickened, and she stepped into the cheerful, impersonally furnished bedroom on legs that felt like rubber. She heard the door being closed and bolted behind her, and then Bruce lifted the weight of her coat from her shoulders. Suddenly, while still standing behind her, he slid his hands under her arms and caught hold of her breasts.
She gasped and told herself that her failure to wear a bra had been the most catastrophic mistake she had ever made.
Brace's caresses were firm and knowing, yet surprisingly gentle, and Beth found herself responding in spite of her urgent desire to flee.
Then he turned her around, his lips sought hers and when he kissed her, she could no longer think of infidelity and her reputation. It no longer mattered that a stranger was making love to her nor that she was cheapening herself. Brace's lips and tongue expressed the intensity of his yearning, and Beth clung to him, her own desire flooding her.
She felt his hand at the nape of her neck, fumbling for her zipper and, the next thing she knew, he had expertly removed her dress. Stifling the instinct to cover her bare breasts, she stood before him proudly, glorying in his admiration. He lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bed, where he deposited her as easily as though she had been a small child. The incongruous thought occurred to her that Charlie probably lacked the physical strength to lift her off her feet, much less carry her anywhere.
Then Beth braced herself for a violent male assault. But Brace surprised her, and when he joined her on the bed his tact and consideration astonished her. His touch was delicate, his embrace light, and after a few moments, she closed her eyes, relaxed and let him do as he pleased.
Bruce proved to be magnificent.
One of the great things about him, she had noticed, was his control, and there was no decrease in it for as long as he was with her. He was fantastic.
And Bruce was able to tease and play endlessly, which only stirred her the more. Beth knew this was the way sex should be. And in her heart she knew this was the way love, too, should be.
They nipped at each other, and they glided, flesh across flesh.
Bruce encircled her, and the honey blonde encircled him in turn.
Her nipples were feverish, and he momentarily cooled them, only to heat them again into throbbing congestion, and Beth realized once more that this was how a whole relationship should be.
Because, as she rocked beneath him, she suddenly and marvelously found herself exploding in sweet release....
Beth had no memory of the next few hours. Dusk was beginning to fall when she awoke, and for an instant she thought she was in her own bed. Then, all at once, the events of the day came back to her, and she sat bolt upright, snapping on the bedside light.
She was alone. The drapes had been drawn and she found herself beneath the covers. Smiling at the thought of the consideration Bruce had shown, she swung her long legs to the floor. His kindness was typical of him and, still joyously relaxed after the first truly satisfactory sexual experience of her life, she stood, yawned and stretched, marveling at the fact that she had no hangover.
Suddenly she caught sight of the electric clock that stood on the table top. It was five o'clock, and Charlie would be home in less than an hour. Snatching her handbag, she hastily repaired her make-up. She dabbed on lipstick and powder, wiped away a few tiny smudges of mascara, and ran a comb through her hair. She dressed with frantic speed, then looked around the room to make certain she had left nothing.
An unopened pack of a brand of cigarettes other than her own was lying on the dresser and, when she picked it up to put into her handbag, she caught sight of something beneath the pack on the hardwood.
Beth could scarcely believe her eyes as she stared at a neatly folded one hundred dollar bill.
For a moment she could not touch it. Then she reached for it and felt as though it seared her fingers.
But there was no time now to linger, to reflect, and she shrugged into her coat, dashed out to the main entrance of the Stamen and hailed a taxicab from the stand nearby. Then she tried to make sense out of the puzzling gift as the taxi took her home.
Why had Bruce left the money for her?
The possibility that he considered her a prostitute chilled and disgusted her, so she put the very idea out of her mind. He had been too gentle and loving, too sincere in his love-making. Perhaps he had intended the gift as a gesture, but it was a strange one.
It was obvious, she told herself, that she knew virtually nothing about Bruce, so it was imperative that she find out more. She did not even know where he lived or worked, how to reach him by telephone or whether she would ever see him again. Certainly Sandra should have some knowledge of the man.
Right now, however, something far more urgent lay ahead. In a few minutes Beth would have to face Charlie, to whom she had been unfaithful.
CHAPTER FOUR
A DREARY dinner with Charlie and the equally limp evening that followed were almost too much for Beth to bear. She could not look her husband in the face and for once was glad he was preoccupied and had brought work home with him in his attache case. That night, long after he had fallen asleep, she roamed through the house. At one point she felt hungry and made herself a sandwich but lost her appetite and could not eat it. Then she went to the playroom bar and poured herself a stiff shot of brandy but choked on the first swallow and threw the rest away. Not until dawn did she stop prowling and return to bed where, miraculously, she fell asleep at once and did not stir until the ringing of the alarm awakened her.
The morning routines were an even worse agony than the preceding evening had been. Beth felt nothing but loathing for Charlie as she prepared his breakfast and sat with him at the table while he ate it. Her mind was still whirling too rapidly for her even to indulge in token conversation, but she finally decided as he was finishing coffee to make one last attempt to persuade him to advance her the money she needed to protect her inheritance.
"Charlie," she said, "I can't put off writing to Phil Bates any longer. I've got to send him a letter today."
"Tell him to go to hell," said the disembodied voice behind the morning newspaper.
"If my five thousand dollars were yours," she said, a dull anger taking hold of her, "you'd be hopping up and down. For the last time, will you help me out?"
The newspaper crumpled, and Charlie glared at her in a towering rage. "I've told you not to mention that money or your idiot cousin to me again. It will serve you right for not listening to me if you lose every damn cent you put into that crazy business. And I sure as hell don't intend to throw good money after bad. So, for the last time, shut up. Stop your damned bellyaching. If I hear another word, I'll start cutting down your allowance." His chair toppled over backward as he rose to his feet, and the newspaper scattered all over the floor.
Beth sat unmoving, saying nothing and making no attempt to observe the amenities as he left. For a long time she continued to sit motionless, then reached for the coffee pot, but she made a wry face at the first, tasteless sip. Charlie's threat to cut down her household allowance, to treat her like a wayward child who needed to be punished, was the last straw. He had stirred her contempt for him into active, livid hatred, but she felt thankful for one thing, at least-his conduct relieved her own sense of guilt over her infidelity with Bruce.
She picked up the chair and the newspaper, washed the dishes and then mounted the stairs to dress for the morning. In spite of her lack of sleep, she felt no fatigue, and only when she thought of Charlie's absurd threat and consistently stubborn attitude did she give in to despair.
There was a hint of snow in the sky, so she donned stretch pants, a white, cable-knit pullover sweater and a pair of calf-high boots. Then she sat down at her little desk, scribbled a quick note to Cousin Phil and, after addressing the envelope, re-read the letter. "I don't know how much I'll be able to send you," she had written, "but you know I'll scrape up as much as I can, for your sake as well as my own. Anyway, here is one hundred dollars in cash as a sign of my good intentions."
She put Brace's one hundred dollar bill inside the note, donned her short leather auto coat and stepped outside to mail the letter. She walked briskly to the nearest mailbox, waving to Bob Winterton who honked his horn as he sped toward the station. From the box at the corner she could see a light burning in the Winterton kitchen and, knowing Sandra must be awake, gave in to an impulse and decided to make a morning visit. A face-to-face chat would be far more satisfactory than a phone call, Beth thought, although even so Sandra could be infuriatingly evasive when she chose.
Skirting several mounds of snow, Beth went to the kitchen door and rang.
Sandra appeared, surprisingly glamorous in a fluffy peignoir and high-heeled mules. She did an exaggerated, comic double-take. "You're up with the milkman, sweetie. Or have you been out for the night with the milkman? Come in and have a healing brandy."
"Coffee will be just fine, thanks." Beth removed her gloves and rubbed her hands together. "It's nippy out there today."
"Serves you right for being up so early. That's a darling coat. New?"
"Ha!"
"I'H say no more." Sandra pointed toward her own half-finished drink on the counter. "Sure you won't have one of these?"
"Positive."
"Everybody to her own poison. Me, I can't even open my eyes without a couple."
Beth threw her coat over a kitchen chair, accepted a cup of coffee and sat down with it at a high stool in front of the counter. Sandra was apparently telling the truth about the liquor she consumed early in the day, but she seemed completely sober and was probably one of those fortunate people who could drink whenever they pleased without ill effect.
"I'll make like a hostess," Sandra said. "Cream? Sugar?"
"I prefer it straight. Mmm, this is good."
"Oh, I'm a jim-dandy cook. That's last night's coffee, in case you're interested. I can't be bothered to measure heaping spoons when I'm up with the birds, especially that vulture who sometimes shares my room."
Beth was reluctant to open the conversation that had brought her to the Winterton house so early in the day but knew she had to begin somewhere. "I want to pick a bone with you."
"Oh, dear," Sandra replied in pretended dismay, "what have I done?"
"I'm not sure. Why did you make a flimsy excuse to leave me alone with Bruce Gibson yesterday?"
Sandra laughed as she opened a cupboard, took out a bottle of vodka and splashed more liquor into her drink. "You aren't sorry, are you?" she countered.
"Yes-and no," Beth replied honestly. "Now, where was the fire?"
Again Sandra laughed. "In your eyes-and Bruce's. As if you didn't know."
Beth made a self-conscious, deprecating gesture.
"You looked so cozy and contented together that I didn't have the heart to hang around with you. I'm not one for old adages and Bless Our Home on samplers, but there really are times when two's company and three's a crowd."
Her flippant attitude annoyed Beth. "What if someone I know saw me there with him?" she demanded. The question had been bothering her, far more than she had cared to admit to herself, for the better part of the night.
"All right, let's suppose." Sandra drifted to the counter and leaned on it as she sipped her drink, carelessly allowing the upper part of her peignoir to slip open.
"Maybe you don't care about your reputation," Beth said hotly, "but mine means something to me."
"I can't imagine anyone losing her good name because she happens to sit in a public place with a man. A drink doesn't mean you've been debauched, and neither does a low-calorie lunch. So, come off it, sweetie. You're a modern, bright and shining American girl. And even Charlie lives in the twentieth century. I think."
Beth could not bring herself to say what was uppermost in her mind, that someone may have seen her going with Bruce to a motel bedroom.
"Besides," Sandra continued, "you had a good time with him, didn't you?"
Beth averted her eyes and felt her cheeks burning.
"Aha," Sandra said. "Or maybe I ought to say-oho."
"Just what do you know about what happened yesterday?" Beth raised her head and challenged her friend.
"Is there something for me to know?" Sandra grinned slyly, her eyes knowing.
Beth was horrified by the realization that Sandra was aware of the seduction. "Did Bruce tell you-"
"If you want to know whether he and I saw each other later in the day or spoke on the phone, the answer is a loud no."
Beth looked as bewildered as she felt.
"He didn't have to tell me a thing," Sandra continued. "Some facts in this life are self-evident, to coin a phrase. For instance, I'm spoiled rotten. So are you. So are thousands like us. We live in split-level traps, bounded on one side by picture windows, and on the other by views of other people's picture windows from our built-in kitchen ranges. We're surrounded by household appliances, we're caught in a rat-race of suburban trains, suburban husbands and suburban neighbors. We're like puppies who chase our own tails because we have nothing better to do, and half the time we don't even know we're chasing."
Beth felt like an adolescent fool, being chucked under the chin. "What has all this to do with Bruce and me?" she said.
"Listen, my child, and you shall hear." Sandra drained her drink, went to the refrigerator for more ice and mixed herself another.
"You'd better go easy with that stuff," Beth warned.
"I know what I'm doing. I always know." Sandra shook some Worcestershire sauce into her drink and stirred it with a spoon. "What I'm saying to you, fundamentally, is that we're bored. You. Me. Every other girl up and down the street. Every other woman in Owendale. Right?"
"I think you're being a little drastic," Beth said and was prepared to elaborate.
"Nuts. You're bored. Yes or no?"
"Well-"
"You do nothing useful. Nothing gainful. Nothing to occup your mind. You keep the body beautiful in trim running up and down stairs all day, but for what? Your husband doesn't appreciate your beauty, and the best you can hope for is a leer-and maybe a quick pat on the fanny-from a lecherous old goat who lives down the block. It isn't just you, remember. It's Carolyn Anderson. And Patsy What's her-name. And that dizzy redhead with the little waist and oversized breasts who just moved into the Miller house. And me."
Never had Beth seen Sandra so intense. Still concerned only about her own problem, however, she wanted to interrupt but was given no opportunity.
"Boredom is only half the story," Sandra resumed. "The other half is money. We're starved for it. We get wall-to-wall carpeting, because that's a status symbol to show off when the lord and master's boss comes to dinner. We get washers and clothes dryers, and we spend fortunes on trees and grass and loam and a million other things we can do without. But hard cash, to spend as we please? Never!"
Beth was certainly in no position to argue the point but felt a tiny, almost smug sense of satisfaction when she thought of the one hundred dollars she had just mailed to Cousin Phil.
"The suburban husband," Sandra continued, moving toward the counter and perching on a stool, "may not be a born tight-fisted son-of-a-bitch. But after a few years of living this way, he can't help himself. He's caught in his own rat-race, making like a big wheel executive until he finally becomes one. I don't pretend to understand his worries. All I know is that Bob never gives me even a fraction of the money I need. And I don't see you glowing from Charlie's Midas touch."
"Charlie," Beth said succinctly, "is a penny-pinching, fat-headed slob."
"Sure. Exactly what I'm saying." Sandra patted the other girl's knee. "So we do something about it. We kill two birds with one stone, sweetie. We relieve our boredom, and at the same time we get ourselves some folding money to spend as we want, with no questions asked or answered, no budgets to meet, no scrimping and no saving on the week's meat bills."
Beth stirred uneasily. "What are you trying to say to me?"
Sandra put her glass on the counter. "For the better part of a year," she said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, "I've been meeting men in the daytime. And going to bed with them. For money. Since the Stamen opened, it's been my headquarters. Before that, it was a motel down in Worcester County."
Beth suddenly felt violently ill and gripped the edge of the counter with both hands.
"I'm not the only one," Sandra went on. "Carolyn and Patsy have been doing it, too. And so have most of the others in our crowd. Now there's a new addition. You. Welcome to the club."
Only by exerting all of her will power was Beth able to prevent herself from bursting into tears. Turning away to hide her emotions, she fished in her handbag for a cigarette and lighted it with a hand that trembled.
"Technically, I suppose, we're whores," Sandra said in the same tone. "Or high-class, part-time call girls. If there's a difference. Personally, I don't care what anybody else may call me. I'm having a ball, and I'm doing fine. I have my mink to prove it. Satisfied?"
After a struggle, Beth found her voice. "Do many men go to the Stamen-for pickups?"
"Pickups are comparatively rare," Sandra replied. "The John with a fat bankroll and the yen to spend it on a matinee with a girl usually makes a date ahead of time by telephone. Besides, pickups can be dangerous. You never know when the police might get wind of the arrangement and send somebody in plain clothes to check. It hasn't happened in Owendale, but girls in other towns have found themselves in jail because they didn't take the simple precaution of making certain the men they were meeting weren't detectives."
"Please, I'd like some more coffee." Beth waited until Sandra's back was turned before asking, "Have you known Bruce Gibson-for very long?"
Sandra nodded, pleased with herself. "He's a real sweetie, isn't he? And how he fell for you the minute he saw you. I knew he would."
Beth's worst fears were being confirmed. "You made the arrangements-for him to meet me?"
"There you go, being naive again. If you stopped to think about it, you'd know it couldn't have been an accident."
"Then he thinks I'm a whore," Beth said in a dead voice.
"Hardly, and don't be so melodramatic, sweetie. He's a big boy, and he knows precisely what you are. An exceptionally attractive suburban housewife who doesn't object to a roll in the hay with a handsome hunk of man. For cash. He's in no position to call names or throw stones. And he isn't."
Beth gagged on her coffee.
Sandra was watching her shrewdly. "Want to lie down for a few minutes?"
"No, thanks. I-I guess I need a little air. I'll go home, if you don't mind." Beth dragged herself to her feet and struggled into her coat.
Sandra waited until she had almost reached the door before saying casually, "I'll stop off for you at twelve-thirty."
Beth halted, one hand on the doorknob, feeling and looking as though she had been hit between the eyes.
"I'm sure," Sandra added quietly, "that Bruce will be there, expecting you."
Beth fled into the cold winter air. She stood for a few moments, trying to catch her breath. Then, controlling an insane desire to run, she walked home, not bothering to look up when someone tooted a horn and called a greeting to her.
Physically numb, yet so anguished that it was actually painful to think, she buried her face in the pillows of the living room divan and sprawled motionless for what felt like a very long time. Then, scarcely knowing what she was doing, she dragged herself upstairs, quickly stripped off her clothes and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
I'm a whore, she thought. A call girl. A tramp paid one hundred dollars per throw.
She wished she could cry but instead laughed hysterically. Then she raced into the bathroom and took a shower, adjusting the head so that the fine spray stung her body. The cold water that she turned on at the last shocked her, and at last her mind began to function more rationally.
Under no circumstances, she told herself as she dried herself vigorously with an oversized towel, would she go to the Stamen again. Sandra's conduct was disgraceful, but-now that she thought of it-not really surprising. Carolyn Anderson, who was so quiet and demure, was something else again. And so was Patsy Blair, who always made such a great show of affection toward her husband. It was dreadful to think of them as prostitutes, and Beth's sense of values whirled and turned upside down.
Was she herself any better? She forced herself to face the issure squarely. She was compelled to admit that she had enjoyed Bruce's love-making immensely. Never had sex meant more to her, and her erotic memories of the previous day were precious. In fact, she regretted she hadn't been sober enough to fix each detail in mind.
And the money had been useful, too. Phil Bates would use it to good advantage, and she resisted the mental image of sending him a steady stream of one hundred dollar bills. Charles Hubbard, she thought suddenly, can go to hell, go to hell, go to hell.
The immediate question that troubled her was whether to go to the motel again, today, with Sandra. It was now eleven forty-five, and Beth had to make up her mind quickly. She was sure of one thing: she didn't intend to go to bed with any man other than her husband again, and that included Bruce. However, she felt an urgent desire to clear her record with Bruce. It was unbearable that he should think of her as a cheap tramp, an unfaithful wife who regarded love so casually that she was willing to let a total stranger make love to her.
She stood before the mirror, practising a speech she would make to Bruce. No, it was too elaborate. A simple statement of a few words would be best. She tried again.
Aware, abruptly, of time pressing, Beth snatched underclothes from a drawer and began to dress frantically. When Sandra dropped by on the dot of twelve-thirty, Beth was in the living room, waiting.
CHAPTER FIVE
"YOU'RE like a drug," Bruce said, smiling across the table. "You're habit-forming. And even more beautiful than you were yesterday, if that's possible."
Beth accepted the compliment with a slight nod but avoided meeting his eyes. It was excruciatingly embarrassing to sit with him in the Stamen bar, with Carolyn Anderson and a man only two tables away. Beth wished she had stayed at home. She should have known it would be impossible for her to make small talk.
Bruce drained his drink and looked up to summon the waiter for another.
"No more for me, please," Beth said firmly.
He glanced across the table and saw that the better part of her martini was still in her glass. "Want to switch to something else?" he said.
"One is more than enough. I want to know what I'm doing today. And what I'm saying." She was annoyed when she felt herself turning red.
Bruce was amused. "Any way you want it is fine with me. Ready to go?"
She wanted him to be under no false illusions. "I'm anxious to talk to you," she said.
"Sure." He looked briefly at an elderly couple occupying the adjoining table. "I suggest a private conference, though, if that's okay with you."
She hesitated, then shrugged. When she finished telling him what was on her mind, she thought, he wouldn't try to make love to her again. Which angered her-there was nothing she wanted more than another hour in bed with Bruce Gibson, and she cursed herself for feeling so weak.
He paid the check, then helped her into her shabby old beaver. As they threaded their way toward the entrance, Beth inadvertently caught Carolyn Anderson's eye. And Carolyn solemnly winked.
My God, I'm really a member of the sorority, Beth told herself, and wanted to crawl under the deep pile of the luxurious carpet.
Alert today to what was happening around her, she saw the assistant manager look up from the desk in the lobby, then saunter toward them. Bruce handed him some money, very quickly, and the man murmured, "Room Seventeen."
So that was how it was done. Simply, efficiently and without mystery.
Beth preceded Bruce into the room. He locked the door and turned to her expectantly.
Her expression stopped him. "What's wrong?" he asked. He seemed genuinely concerned.
"I want us to understand each other." She could not remember a single word of the statement she had prepared with such care.
"Fire away." He kept his distance.
"I don't know what you think of me-"
"I can prove it to our mutual satisfaction in about sixty seconds."
"Please don't. I'm not the sort of person you think I am."
"How do you know what I think of you?" he demanded, smiling broadly. "I'll gladly sign a notarized statement swearing that you're the most terrific girl I've ever encountered, anywhere, in all my life. Is that good enough?"
Beth shook her head. "That isn't what I mean. And this-isn't easy for me." She forced herself to meet his steady gaze. "I'm not-like Sandra."
Bruce nodded gravely.
She studied him and suddenly realized that he had gone through similar, perhaps identical, experiences. Every girl in her position-and undoubtedly Bruce would be familiar with the feeling-would be anxious to convince a man that she wasn't a professional prostitute.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she brushed them away angrily.
Bruce took a single step toward her.
Beth cringed and moved to the far side of the television set.
He stood very still until she grew a trifle calmer. Then he deliberately lighted two cigarettes, gave her one at arm's length and motioned her to a cushioned maple chair.
As Beth sat down, the thought flashed through her mind that the chair was a poor imitation of a New England antique. The incongruity was so absurd that she laughed but sobered again instantly.
Bruce moved to the far side of the room, carefully avoiding sitting on the bed. "Honey," he said, "you needn't be afraid of me. I give you my word I don't go around raping unwilling women. If you want to leave, there's the door. Just go, and I won't try to stop you. I'm just sorry you find me repulsive."
"But I don't," Beth cried.
"Pardon the vernacular, but I don't dig."
"Neither do I." She took a long, hard drag on the cigarette, and smoke burned her throat.
"You knew, or at least you had a pretty fair idea, that I'd be here today," he said quietly. "When you and Sandra walked into the bar, you saw me sitting there and you walked straight to me. We took a table together, and you neither screamed nor threw a glass at my head. You accompanied me of your own free will. You're here in this room, right this instant, of your own free will."
She was so miserable and confused that she could not reply.
"You knew," Brace continued, "that I wasn't planning to play chess, parchesi, scrabble or backgammon with you. I'm fairly positive you haven't felt an urge to play any of those games, either." He stubbed out his cigarette and, still maintaining at least a facade of calm, asked quietly, "May I know why in hell you are here?"
Beth took a deep breath. "I thought I knew before I left home. But now-I'm not sure," she said painfully.
"Do you or don't you want me to make love to you?"
"I don't know," she replied.
He stood and held out a hand. "There's a sure way of finding out," he told her and grinned.
Beth rose and felt so shaky she wanted to sit again.
"Try an experiment in the interests of science. Pure science," Brace said.
He was making it plain that he had no intention of going to her. So Beth dropped her coat to the chair and walked toward him slowly.
He made no move until she came close to him. Then, suddenly, he took her into his arms and kissed her.
Beth's resolves melted away at his first touch, her lips parted for his kiss and she clung to him fiercely. He was even gender than she had remembered, yet she was conscious of his masculine strength, and desire shot through her.
Brace's grip tightened before he released her. "Which shall it be?" he asked, motioning first toward the door, then toward the bed.
Beth stood erect, her head high, and made a small but positive gesture toward the bed.
Brace threw aside all restraints as he kissed her again, this time with such vehemence that she found it difficult to breathe.
When she gasped for air, he muttered, "Too many clothes."
Beth laughed now and felt a great surge of pleasure as she undressed for him, reveling in his admiration as she slowly removed her skirt, then her sweater.
He threw off his own clothes, too, and they met, nude, on the bed.
The session she and Brace had now was violent and prolonged.
They mated like two rampant animals, savagely.
At one point, the honey-blonde pulled away and, with glazed eye, descended on Bruce and tried to render him senseless with longing. She told herself that no couple had ever known such passion together.
Bruce laughed and twisted away and then pinioned her so that in a moment she was beating with her fists on the sheets in untrammeled lust, her big breasts quivering, her whole being swollen intolerably with desire.
"Oh, Bruce," she whispered.
"Beth, darling."
"Please don't wait now, please."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, yes, yes."
And as they merged again and again, a hurricane of convulsion assailed them both. Bruce bellowed. Beth shrieked, and ecstasy flooded them....
In a little while he apologized that he was due back in the office, and he quit the room to take a shower.
Beth half-dozed, daydreaming and pretending to herself that she was married to Bruce, that it was early morning and that she was remaining in bed while he prepared to leave for a day's work. A sudden, ugly notion occurred to her and, unable to rid herself of it, she shivered. For all she knew, he might already have a wife.
She wanted to ask him outright and to learn as many other things about him as she could, too. But girls in her position were not supposed to be inquisitive.
Bruce reappeared but Beth kept her eyes shut, feigning sleep. If she started talking now, she would say too much and spoil everything. It was enough to be grateful for as much of his time and love as he cared to give her, at least for the present. Her mood improving, she reflected that their relationship would grow, and in time, with luck, he might come to her honorably and respectably. She clung to the thought.
Fully dressed now, Bruce approached the bed, and Beth stirred. He bent down for a final kiss. "I'm going to be jammed all day tomorrow in meetings," he said. "But I can get away the day after. Will you meet me in the bar, usual time?"
"I'd love to," she replied promptly.
The door opened and closed, and he was gone.
Beth continued to stretch out lazily in the bed for some minutes before rising and dressing in a leisurely manner. She heard herself humming, broke off and smiled. Never had she felt so much at peace within herself, so fulfilled as a woman. It was wrong to feel ashamed, to believe for as much as a single second that her liaison with Bruce was cheapening her. The end justified the means. He gave her total sexual satisfaction, something as wonderful as it was unique in her experience.
She patched her make-up carefully, then spent a quarter of an hour fussing with her long, straight bob. For a long time she had wanted to lighten her blond hair several shades, but had been afraid of Charlie's reaction. Now, she told herself, she no longer cared what he thought. She knew she'd be far more attractive with light, bright hair, and if Charlie didn't like it, that would be just too bad.
At last she was ready to leave, and picked up her handbag. Beneath it was a carefully folded one hundred dollar bill.
Very briefly, she felt as she had the previous day, and a wave of repugnance swept through her. But this time the disgust passed quickly. After all, she had known Bruce intended to pay her for the hour they had spent together.
Cousin Phil would appreciate the money, she thought, and she would put it into the mail this afternoon, in time for the last pickup. She tucked the money into her handbag and, humming again, strolled at an unhurried pace to the motel entrance. Her conscience no longer bothered her, and she was content with an arrangement that, a scant day and a half earlier, would have horrified her.
"Take a tip from Mama," Sandra Winterton said one day. "Don't fall in love with Bruce. Or with any other John. Grab all the fun and cash you can, but stop right there, and don't become emotionally involved. Romance and motel matinees just don't mix."
Beth smoothed her newly-tinted platinum hair. "Look," she said scornfully, "I'm having an affair with just one man-Bruce. Preach to Patsy and Carolyn and the others if you like, but don't include me. I know perfectly well what I'm doing."
Sandra raised an eyebrow and dropped the subject.
At a weekend party a few days later, Carolyn brought up the subject, too. She drew Beth to one corner of the rumpus room where a group of neighbors had gathered and, lowering her voice, said, "I hope you won't mind if I butt into your business."
Beth smiled and waited.
"Don't think I'm prying, but every time I see you at the Stamen, you're with the same fellow," Carolyn said.
"What's wrong with that?" Beth wanted to know.
"Start setting up dates with others. I can help you, and so can Jane. And Sandra."
"Why should I bother?" Beth caught a glimpse of Charlie, deep in conversation with two other men at the opposite side of the room and glanced away. Charlie, she thought, made her sick. Not more than an hour ago he had delivered another of his little sermons on the subject of her hair, and she already knew every word by heart. Natural colors were better than artificial, which made a woman look harder. Charlie was a boob, and she was sorry she had ever been young enough and stupid enough to marry him.
"You aren't listening," Carolyn said.
"Sorry," Beth said.
"Look at it this way," Carolyn declared earnestly, dropping the baby lisp she usually affected. "Suppose something happens to the John. Suppose he's run over or has a heart attack or something. Or suppose he tires of a diet of just one girl. It's been known to happen. Then you'll be out in the cold, and it may take you a week or two to build up a clientele. You'll be out a lot of money. After all, you aren't in this game for love."
"Thanks for the warning," Beth said, refusing to argue. It was nobody else's business what she and Bruce thought of each other. She could see the stars in his eyes every time they met and knew she felt as he did. Their sex was perfect. And if she were falling in love with him, well-he was falling for her, too. Not that he had ever said as much in so many words, but she could tell. Any girl could.
So she wasn't a part-time prostitute like Carolyn and Sandra and all the others. Her relationship with Bruce was different, something to be cherished.
Beth continued to meet no man but Bruce, and neither Sandra nor Carolyn mentioned the subject again.
At the end of some five weeks, Beth took stock of her situation. She was happier than ever before in her life and had learned at last that sexual fulfillment was the key to contentment. She slept like a log every night, her figure had never been better, and some days she felt and appeared so radiant that she wondered why the whole world hadn't guessed her secret.
Certainly Charlie knew nothing of what was going on. He still harped about her lighter hair, but she shut her ears to his complaints. Being Charlie, he would always have to beef about something, Beth thought. Anyway, he was the one disturbing factor in her new way of life. He still insisted on sex with her on an average of twice each week, and Beth's flesh crawled whenever he touched her.
She had been tempted to make some excuse in the hope of avoiding relations with him but had finally decided the risk was too great. Much as she loathed Charlie, he was no fool and might become suspicious if she refused him his prerogatives as a husband. So she closed her mind every time he started to paw her and let him do what he pleased. Unfortunately, that was not enough, and one night he protested.
"What's wrong with you?" he demanded irritably.
Beth, resting on the bed, contemplated him blandly. "As far as I know, nothing," she said.
"You've been acting lately as though there's lead in your action whenever we get together." He stared at her accusingly.
"You must be wrong," she replied quickly. "I've enjoyed it every bit as much as you have."
"You sure don't act like it."
Thereafter she was more careful and began to pretend involvement. It was easier than she had imagined, for Charlie was incredibly gullible. All she had to do was thrash around a Utile and breathe hard. That was enough to satisfy him. Once or twice she tried to think he was Bruce but discovered immediately that it was impossible. There was only one Bruce in all the world.
Her financial picture was infinitely brighter, too. In the five weeks that had passed since her first meeting with Bruce, they had spent a total of fifteen afternoons together, and on each occasion he had discreetly left one hundred dollars beneath her handbag. She had sent her cousin twelve hundred dollars, a staggering sum that, she knew, he could use to good advantage. And there would be more to come.
She had kept three hundred dollars to spend as she pleased and was not in the least sorry. Meeting Bruce so often, she needed a much larger wardrobe, and by spending hours at stores advertising sales, she had been able to purchase eight new outfits. All were on the flashy side, it was true, but Bruce liked her in clothes with a flair. Occasionally, catching sight of herself in figure-revealing dresses, with her near-platinum hair, she wondered briefly if she had begun to look like a tramp, but the notion was ridiculous, and she pushed it out of her mind. She was still a lady; the only basic difference in her life was that she was Brace's girl, and fortunately as well he was helping her meet a pressing financial obligation.
Luckily, clothes meant nothing to Charlie. Once or twice he looked vaguely at one of her new outfits but apparently did not realize she had bought so many new things. He had not commented, and she had gratefully kept her own mouth shut.
Most important of all, she felt virtually certain now that she loved Bruce. There was no other explanation for the tenderness she felt toward him when they were apart, the explosive excitement that gripped her when they were together. Spring was on the way, and Beth was convinced it would mark a wonderful, major turning point in her life.
CHAPTER SIX
BETH and Sandra went their separate ways after they stepped into the bar of the Stamen Motel, and no one would have guessed the two women had arrived together. They had achieved a routine as efficient as it was quiet, and Beth neither knew nor cared to know the identity of the man Sandra was meeting. It was enough for Beth that she would see Bruce again, and even though they had had their last encounter only forty-eight hours earlier, she felt breathless, a trifle giddy and as eager as a bride. Perhaps, she told herself, she was going a little too far to think in terms of being a bride. A wife who was meeting a man other than her husband, and who was being paid for the companionship, could not exactly consider herself virginal.
Nevertheless, she belonged to Bruce and no one else, she insisted to herself. She could scarcely wait to see his expression when catching sight of her in her new, figure-hugging suit of raw silk that was barely a shade darker than her hair. She was wearing new, matching pumps with skyscraper heels, she carried a handbag covered with the same material, and the jade links that swung from her ears swayed gently as she made her way across the crowded room. She was positively dazzling and, equally important, knew it.
Bruce was waiting for her at their usual table and smiled warmly as he rose to his feet. His admiration was as intense and obvious as she had hoped it would be, and her heart seemed to skip a beat when their eyes met.
"You've already ordered me a drink," she said, pleased, and then stopped short. Another man was sitting at the table, frankly studying her from head to toe.
Ruddy and powerfully built, he looked as though he might be in his early forties. The fabric of his suit was expensive, the suit itself was extremely well cut, and both his shirt and necktie were custom-made. He was freshly barbered and, Beth suspected, had spent time under a sunlamp. His air was that of quiet authority. He was the type of high-pressure executive she instinctively disliked.
"Hello, honey," Bruce said genially. "Beth, meet Dave."
Conscious of the fact that no last names had been mentioned, Beth nevertheless carried off the encounter gracefully, as a lady should. "How do you do?" She extended a doeskin-gloved hand.
Dave's grip was powerful. He enveloped her hand with his and held on to her far longer than was polite.
Bruce helped her into her chair, and both men complimented her on her appearance.
Beth's sense of pleasure had evaporated, and she tried to tell herself she was foolish to feel disappointed. There were a dozen reasons why the stranger might be sitting with Bruce, the most probable being that they were acquaintances who had met in the bar by chance.
In the next quarter of an hour, however, a few casual remarks exchanged by the men indicated that they were business associates. Dave, then, had come to the Stamen with Bruce.
Beth assumed that Dave was also meeting a girl and hoped she would appear soon so she could go off with Bruce. Their time together was so precious that she hated to waste even a minute of it.
To her surprise, Bruce ordered a second round of drinks, not bothering to inquire whether she wanted another. She shook her head to indicate that, as usual, one was her limit.
Brace's smile was a trifle forced. "This is a special occasion."
"Oh?" She couldn't imagine why she felt uneasy and waited politely for an explanation.
He turned to the older man. "It isn't very often that Dave and his desk can be separated," Bruce said.
Dave chuckled but made no reply as he puffed on his cigar.
"He's the hardest working guy I've ever known," Bruce continued. "A living dynamo."
Beth wondered why he was going to such pains to keep on Dave's good side, and she observed them more carefully. When Dave's cigar went out, Brace's lighter was ready, and when the drinks came, Brace made certain that Dave's was cold enough. It finally occurred to her that Dave was, in all probability, Brace's employer. She had seen so many men behaving in that same alert, attentive way when with their business superiors.
She did not want the second martini, but time dragged, the glass sat in front of her on the table and, with nothing better to do, she sipped it. She could feel the liquor taking hold and was a trifle annoyed. Her sexual pleasure might be dulled somewhat, and she wished Brace would show the courage to pay their bill, stand and take her off.
To her astonishment, he suddenly glanced at his watch and jumped to his feet. "The office should have heard from Los Angeles by now," he said. "I'd better check." He smiled fleetingly at Beth as he hurried from the room.
The ugly suspicion crossed her mind that he was deliberately leaving her alone with his boss, but she knew him too well for that.
Dave lost no time. His free hand darted under the table, and his strong fingers closed over Beth's knee. She tried to withdraw but was unable to free herself from his grip without making a scene, and she wished, fervently, that she were not wearing such a short skirt.
"Must you?" she asked coldly as his hand slid a little higher on her thigh.
"You bet. When I see a luscious peach, I eat it. When I'm with a girl like you, I do what comes natural to me." Dave chuckled, knocked the ash off his cigar with his free hand and then pointed the glowing end at he glass. "Drink up, baby."
He was so coarse that Beth decided to take refuge in liquor and obediendy drained her drink.
Dave immediately ordered them another round.
She noted that he did not tell the waiter to bring another for Brace, however, and her misgivings increased.
"This is quite a place," Dave said, still stroking her thigh as he looked around.
Beth's patience was exhausted. "May I remind you that it's a bar, not a Swedish massage parlor?" she asked frigidly.
He thought her remark vastly amusing, but she was relieved when he took away his hand and placed his elbow on the table.
"Is that better?" he wanted to know.
"Much." He might be Brace's superior, Beth thought, but she had no desire to be even civil to someone so gross.
Their fresh drinks arrived, and Dave immediately raised his glass in a toast. "Here's to it." He polished off half of the drink in a single gulp.
Beth decided to stall until Brace reappeared and took only a tiny sip.
"That's no way to drink," Dave protested.
"Thanks all the same, but I know my capacity."
"A big girl like you? Maybe I'd better teach you how to drink." He spoke so loudly that Patsy Blair, who was sitting a short distance away with a man, glanced over and raised an eyebrow.
Beth was embarrassed, and in her confusion took too large a swallow.
"That's more like it, baby." Dave beamed.
The liquor was definitely taking hold now, and Beth's sense of frustration increased. She began to think it un-likely that Brace would return, and was so crashed by the unexpected development that her mind became as numb as her body. Dave spoke to her several times but she replied in monosyllables. There was, however, a pressing problem: she had to find some way to be rid of Dave without creating an uproar.
He gave her no opportunity. Taking a roll of money from his pocket, he threw a bill on to the table. "Let's go, baby," he said.
Before Beth could protest, he had pulled back her chair, taken a firm grip on her arm and led her toward the lobby.
She made a last, desperate attempt to think of an evasion, an excuse, but her mind seemed paralyzed.
A minute or so later she was alone with Dave behind the closed and locked door of a bedroom.
His cigar clenched in his teeth, he looked her up and down greedily. "I believe in business before pleasure. The fee is one hundred. Right?"
Beth lost her temper but would not give him the satisfaction of knowing it. "The fee," she said icily, "happens to be whatever I feel like charging."
"Independent, huh?" Her attitude struck him as funny.
"I'm in a position to be independent." Beth made an attempt to grope through her martini-inspired fog. If she named a charge sufficiently outrageous, he might walk out on her. On the other hand, in the event he did accept, she could use the money to remit to her cousin Phil who had a few hours ago contacted her about a sudden necessity for approximately two hundred dollars. She had thought, originally, that the satisfaction of her cousin's need could be delayed a few days, but here was an opportunity for rapid action she knew Phil would be terribly grateful for. If she had to corrupt herself, it might as well be for a good cause. "For you," she said, "two-fifty."
Dave's eyes narrowed. "For that kind of dough, I want a sample."
Beth felt like a character in a play, an actress on a stage portraying a prostitute. "Sorry, Buster. No tickee, no washee."
His hard eyes seemed to bore through her. He took his time inspecting her and, as he carefully surveyed her, she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was mentally undressing her. "You've got a deal," he said at last. "But, baby, you'd better be worth it." Taking his bankroll from his pocket, he counted out two hundred and fifty dollars in tens and twenties.
Here I am with a slob, Beth thought, and all that matters to me is the money. But the money, after all, is for Phil.
"Away we go," Dave said. "Peel, baby, and let's see what you've really got."
The forty-five minutes that followed proved to be less agonizing than Beth had anticipated. She paraded for Dave in the nude at his command, sat on his lap and allowed him to paw her, then permitted him to make love to her on the bed. She pretended to enjoy his caresses, simulated passion when he reached a climax and, in all, convincingly acted the role of an abandoned woman.
At last he left her, promising to see her again in the near future. Beth spent a long time scrubbing herself in the shower.
The reason I felt nothing, she thought, was because I had three drinks. The gin numbed me.
She was just fooling herself and knew it. Sex with Dave meant no more and no less to her than did sex with Charlie. Both men had left her completely cold, and it did not matter whether she had no liquor at all or drank to excess. Men simply lacked the ability to stir her. With one exception.
Bruce. With him she could soar into the most distant realms of outer space.
She dressed slowly, feeling scant joy in her lovely new outfit, herself or the world. She had only one satisfaction, which was that she could send the money to her cousin Phil immediately.
At last she was ready and surveyed herself in the mirror. My hair is too light, she thought. I'm wearing too much eye make-up, and my lipstick is too glossy. My heels are too high, and the way my skirt fits me is a disgrace. I don't just look like a whore. I am a whore.
A sudden longing for Bruce overwhelmed her, and in almost the same breath she hated him with a savage intensity that made her tremble.
Unable to leave the motel while she was in such a shaken state, she sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to put her feelings and thoughts in order. One part of her being insisted that Bruce had betrayed her but, in all justice to him, she had to admit that she was being unfair to him. He had never said he loved her or wanted to marry her, nor had he even asked her to reserve herself exclusively for him. He had accepted her at face value for what she was, an attractive young housewife who prostituted herself, part-time, for cash on the barrelhead.
Was Bruce really drawn to her? Obviously, enough to have paid her the better part of two thousand dollars. So he found sex with her eminently satisfying. Or had, until today. But she had no way of knowing whether he felt any spark other than the physical. Refusing to blind herself to reality any longer, she thought it un-likely that Bruce considered her in any terms other than bodily ones. A man didn't turn a woman over to someone else if he felt even a vestige of real affection or respect for her.
Beth laughed harshly. Why should Bruce respect her? She had cheated on her husband and broken her marriage vows every time she had met Bruce. Having willingly accepted his money, she couldn't claim that she herself had been motivated solely by love.
Yet, she felt certain, she had been in love with Bruce, until this afternoon. Staring at the closed Venetian blinds and watching the spring breeze fluttering the muslin curtains, she wondered if what she had felt had actually been true love, as she had believed. Harshly, angrily, she forced herself to take inventory.
Her sex with Bruce had been perfect. No sophistry or rationalization would ever convince her otherwise.
He had intrigued her, to be sure. Yet she still knew virtually nothing about his life, his work, his background, any more than he knew about hers. Was he silent or talkative the first thing in the morning? How did he react when he faced a vocational crisis? When he loved a woman, was he jealous of her? Obviously, he didn't mind sharing a call girl with a colleague. Was he free with his money, or stingy? Did he play golf? What were his reading tastes?
She didn't know and would never find out, she thought.
Shattered and demoralized, Beth reached into her handbag for a handkerchief, dabbed at her cheeks to wipe away the tears that would not come, then twisted the material in her fingers. One thing was certain: she had been living in a delusive dream-world long enough. The time had come to face facts squarely and rearrange her life accordingly. She pressed the wad of bills Dave had given her, counted the money and, smiling sourly, stuffed it into her inner purse.
It was just as well she had earned so much today, for herself and for her cousin Phil, because this day was her last as a prostitute. Never again would she degrade herself by leasing her body to a coarse stranger. She had sugar-coated a pill by allowing herself to believe that Bruce really cared for her, but now she knew better. His opinion of her was no higher than Dave's or that of any other man she might meet and entertain under similar circumstances.
The only positive result of the filthy experience had been financial. Thanks to her ability to conjure up a romance with Bruce out of whole cloth, she had been able to send Phil Bates almost half of the money he needed to protect her investment. But her inheritance simply wasn't worth any longer the anguish she was being forced to endure.
Cousin or no cousin, inheritance or no inheritance, she couldn't live the life of a tramp any more. Sexual satisfaction or no sexual satisfaction, she couldn't let her mind dwell on Bruce again. It didn't matter whether he had really betrayed her or whether, because of her lively imagination, she had created a situation where none had actually existed.
The Sandras and Patsys and Carolyns, girls with no morals, no consciences and no standards, could spend the rest of their lives at the Stamen, if that was what they wanted. Maybe cheap affairs relieved their boredom, but she preferred to find her kicks in other ways. Or, if necessary, to live a life devoid of kicks. Excitement wasn't everything, money wasn't everything, and together they could add up to a big zero. Decency was more than an abstract term, and self-respect was something tangible.
Beth stood at last, smoothed her skirt and, after taking a last look at herself in the mirror, stepped out into the corridor, her hips swaying as she minced on her absurdly high heels.
A man left a room down the corridor, glanced at her and halted. "Hi, doll," he said as Beth drew nearer. "Let's go into orbit together."
She swept past him, ignoring his existence as she made her way to the taxi stand.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SANDRA'S car screeched to a halt in the Hubbard driveway and, after waiting a few moments, she tooted impatiently. There was no response, so she honked again, waited another minute or two and finally jumped out of the car, leaving the engine running. She started toward the house, elegant in a svelte spring dress and a new scarf of marten skins, but halted when she saw someone crouched at the flowerbeds on the side of the house.
Beth, devoid of make-up and wearing old blue jeans, a faded shirt and dirty sneakers, continued to dig with a trowel as she smiled up at her friend. "Meet the gal with the green thumb," she said.
Sandra was annoyed. "It's twelve-thirty, sweetie. Climb out of those rags and into some clothes-in a hurry."
"You'll have to go without me," Beth replied calmly.
Startled, Sandra hesitated.
"I've neglected my garden long enough. I've been weeding like mad, and I've got to plant nasturtiums. I think they'll look pretty next to the tulips, don't you?"
"Exquisite," Sandra replied dryly. "What's the gag?"
"It's no gag." Beth's eyes were tranquil. "I've always loved flowers, and I haven't spent one day working in my garden all spring."
"If you've got to play with mud pies in flowerbeds, do it in the mornings," Sandra said brusquely. "A different kind of bed is waiting for you."
"Not for me."
"I don't know what's gotten into you, sweetie, but there isn't time to argue. We're due right now at the Stamen."
Beth stood, dropped the trowel to the ground and hauled off her workgloves. "I'm not going with you today or any other day. I've quit the racket."
"You aren't serious."
Beth shrugged.
Sandra tugged impatiently at her scarf. "For God's sake, why?"
It was useless to explain her feeling that Bruce had betrayed her, Beth knew, particularly to someone who had warned her not to let herself become emotionally involved. "I've had enough, that's all," she said and shrugged.
"I happen to know that the fellow who was with you yesterday is wild about you. He wants more."
"He'll have to get it somewhere else."
"You're crazy. How many men pay that kind of money?"
Sandra certainly kept herself well informed, Beth thought. "To hell with Dave, and to hell with his money."
"I insist you go with me, right now." There was a new, strident note in Sandra's voice.
For a moment Beth thought her friend intended to strike her and instinctively took a single step backward.
Sandra was scarcely able to control her fury. "For the last time-"
"No dice. From now on, I'm a home girl. And that's final." Beth refrained from telling the other girl to mind her own business.
"There isn't time to argue now." Sandra glanced at her ruby and gold wristwatch, then stalked off to her car.
"Have fun," Beth called and turned back to her gardening, not looking up as the car roared out of the driveway.
It was strange, she thought, going to work with the trowel again, that some people weren't content to do as they themselves pleased, but felt compelled to meddle in the lives of others, too. Picking up a handful of loose dirt, she let it sift through the fingers of her glove to the ground. People like Sandra, she decided, were so mud-spattered they wanted others to be dirty, too.
At three forty-five in the afternoon Sandra returned. Beth had showered and, dressed in a sleeveless turtleneck sweater, wide belt and slim skirt with a kick pleat, greeted Sandra at the door as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "Howdy, stranger," she said cheerfully. "It's so warm this afternoon I was just making myself some iced tea. Have some?"
Sandra followed her into the living room, then into the kitchen. "It's going to be plenty warmer," she replied grimly. "And as I've been drinking whiskey, I'll have some more of the same."
Humoring her, Beth went to the cupboard for the bottle of bourbon that Charlie kept there for his nightly whiskey-on-the-rocks. Taking some ice out of a refrigerator tray, she put it into a glass, and measured a small quantity of bourbon.
"I want a drink, not a sample." Sandra snatched the bottle and poured at least three more ounces into the glass.
Beth was distressed by her rudeness but had made up her mind not to quarrel and smiled sweetly.
Sandra added a small amount of water, then raised her glass in salute. "Here," she said, "is to your return to the oldest profession."
Beth stirred her iced tea. "Shall we go into the living room? It's much cooler there." She was determined to be a gracious hostess, no matter how unpleasant her guest's mood.
Sandra refused a chair and, standing before the empty fireplace, took a long swallow of her drink. "Dave was waiting for you," she said.
"Tough." Beth could feel neither pity nor any other sentiment for the Daves of the world.
"He was damned angry, I'll have you know."
Beth's good resolves vanished and she saw no reason to remain meekly on the defensive. "I made no date with him for today. So he had no valid reason to object."
"It so happens he did." Sandra paused, and her hooded eyes momentarily resembled a snake's. "He telephoned me late in the afternoon yesterday. I assured him you'd be there."
"Why would he call you?" Beth looked at her friend coolly. "And what right did you have to make a date for me? Particularly without asking me and without even telling me about it."
"I thought for a long time that you just put on that blank, naive act. But it's real." Sandra took another swallow of her drink, but refused a cigarette. "I've arranged every date you've ever had at the Stamen. Do you suppose it was accidental that Bruce happened to show up when you were there?"
"He made his arrangements direct with me," Beth replied indignantly, wishing that Bruce weren't being brought into the conversation.
"Maybe so. But he double-checked with me. To make it official." Sandra's voice was harsh, and her face was like a mask.
Beth stared at her in wonder for a moment, and then a light broke. "What do you think you are, a madam or something?" The idea struck her as ludicrous, and she laughed.
Sandra was not amused. "I'm not a madam, as you put it. But I do arrange the encounters and I charge each John a certain percentage for the arrangement. I got you into the game, just as I recruited all the others in our crowd. When a man wants a girl, he calls me. The Johns don't know any phone numbers except mine. I've made rules, and they've obeyed them. They know that if they cheat, if they start calling any of you direct, they're off my list."
Beth was stunned and suddenly knew why Bruce had never asked for either her address or telephone number.
He had invariably been content after casually suggesting a date to her.
"Now you know," Sandra said.
Beth wished she were drinking something stronger than iced tea but realized this was a moment when she needed to keep her head. "What's been in it for you?"
"I told you, a healthy percentage. But my financial arrangements are my own business. You've been paid plenty, and you have no beef. I haven't made you pay me a percentage-if I had, that would make me a madam. I take my cut from the other end."
"Do Carolyn and the others know all this?" Beth was wide-eyed.
"Of course," Sandra said contemptuously.
Trying to absorb what she had just learned, Beth felt cheaper than ever. All the time she had tried to hide behind the unjustified belief that Bruce had felt more than a physical desire for her, he had been calmly making business arrangements behind her back, buying her.
"I've been giving you a careful build-up," Sandra continued. "You made a big hit with Bruce, and he shelled out plenty for you. But there are men who can afford to pay more than a hundred a throw. Dave is one of them, as you discovered all on your own yesterday. There are others in his league, Johns who have so much money they have no better way of spending it than to shower it on some cutie. You've just now hit the bigtime, sweetie, and you'd better realize it fast. Word gets around, you know. Men like to boast. One tells another."
That, Beth thought miserably, was how Dave had learned about her. Bruce had bragged about the sensational housewife-whore he was meeting. She shuddered and buried her face in her hands.
"In this day and age," Sandra said harshly, "nobody swoons. Not even delicate little flowers like you. If you play this thing right, you can pick up a neat five hundred dollars for just two quick matinees a week."
Beth regretted the day she had met Bruce and had allowed Sandra to lure her into a hopelessly compromised position.
"Dave is whacky over you," Sandra continued. "And he's the kind who blabs all over New York. I know him, and I know his friends. You're all set for the greatest joyride of your life, sweetie. Just listen to me, and you'll have your own mink coat in no time." Sandra crossed the room and patted the stricken girl on the shoulder.
Beth shrank from her touch. "Get away from me," she said wildly.
"Really." Deeply offended, Sandra drained her drink, and her glass landed on a tabletop with such force that it cracked. "You think you're too good for me now, is that it?"
"I'd rather not talk about it," Beth sobbed.
"I'll do the talking. You'll do the listening. I'm stopping here for you at twelve-thirty tomorrow. You'll be ready, and you'll be wearing the slickest, sexiest outfit you own. You'll give Dave a great time. You'll make him think he's the most virile lover who ever climbed into the hay with a broad. You'll damned well see him."
The very idea of indiscriminate love-making with total strangers revolted Beth. Her memory of the previous day's experience with Dave sickened her, and the prospect of more such meetings was more than she could bear.
"You're moving up into a class that I couldn't reach," Sandra resumed, "except occasionally. And neither could the others. You're going to be the big star in my stable." Sandra became enthusiastic. "With your face and figure, you should be good for a run of two or three years. You'll be independently wealthy by the time you retire."
Beth was now weeping helplessly.
"I suggest that you cry all the way to the bank," Sandra told her coldly.
The tears came more rapidly.
"Stop it." Sandra reached out and slapped Beth, hard, across the face.
Blind anger replaced hysteria, and Beth leaped to her feet. "If you do that again," she cried, "I'll kill you."
"That's better." Sandra sounded pleased with herself. "A healthy desire to commit murder is better than tears.
Save those for the men. They're always impressed by the poor-little-me approach. Now, as I was saying-"
"Skip it." Beth faced her, feet planted apart and fists clenched. "I have no intention of meeting another man, ever. Not even Bruce." His name slipped out before she could stop herself.
"Oh, dear. You have a real yen for him. What a shame." Sandra shook her head and raised a hand to tuck a stray wisp of her glossy, sleek black hair into place.
"I refuse to see him again." Beth shouted.
"There's no need to scream at me, sweetie. I know very well you won't see him again, not for a long, long time."
Beth stopped short and stared at her. "Why won't I?" she demanded, half-belligerently, half-fearfully.
"Because you're too expensive for him now," Sandra said curtly. "I don't intend to waste a girl who can get two hundred to three hundred for a session on a man whose top price is one hundred. Simple, practical economics."
Beth knew it was perverse to feel faintly relieved. "But he still wants to see me!"
Sandra shrugged. "Hell, sweetie, he's a businessman. He knows better than to try to buy a Rolls Royce when all he can afford is a Cadillac."
Beth felt she was gaining the upper hand. "Suppose I call him and make my own dates with him? Just how do you think you're going to stop me?" She was posing the threat merely tb annoy Sandra, she realized. Certainly Beth would not call Bruce after what he had done to her.
Sandra became curt. "You won't be able to call him. You don't know his number. I've seen to that."
"Telephone books haven't been burned at the stake." Beth was almost enjoying the nasty exchange. "I can always look him up. In Boston. In every suburb. Wherever."
"You could." Sandra's smile was vicious. "But you're assuming you know his name. In case you haven't heard, Johns either keep their last names to themselves or else they give a girl a phony. Usually they try to protect themselves against blackmail." She laughed shrilly. "It's unusual, to say the least, for a John to go into hiding because some empty-headed little tootsie thinks she's in love with him."
"I'm not in love with anybody." Beth had no idea that she had raised her voice again.
"That's more like it," Sandra told her approvingly. "Keep your head, shut your mouth and let your body do your talking for you. You'll wind up with a fancy wardrobe and a portfolio of gilt-edged stocks."
"Everybody to her own way of life." All at once Beth felt unutterably weary and sank back into her chair. "You'll have to use Carolyn, or somebody else, to get the big money, Sandra. Maybe that snooty redhead who has been smart enough to keep her distance from all of us."
"I don't know how to get this across to you," Sandra replied grimly. "But you've been elected. Not by me. By Dave. And, after him, his pals."
"No. I'm through. Finished." Beth made a broad, emphatic gesture, then let her hands fall limply.
"Do you expect me to accept such idiocy meekly?"
"Frankly, I don't care what you do. I hope we can still be friends. I'm in no position to hold it against you because you want to stay in the game. But this sort of thing just isn't for me. I've learned my lesson, and I'm backing out."
"Like hell you are." Sandra walked to the chair, cupped Beth's chin in strong hands and jerked her face upward. "I don't intend to lose the best gold mine I've ever found. You'll go along. Or else."
Beth stared into the dark, angry eyes and felt a sudden spasm of fear. "You can't threaten me," she said, struggling unsuccessfully to free herself from the other girl's hold. "There's nothing you can do to me."
"Can't I?" Still maintaining her grip, Sandra viciously shook Beth's head. "Charlie is a very conventional man. With old-fashioned moral standards. He'd have a fit if he knew you've been unfaithful to him. And for money, at that."
"You wouldn't dare."
Sandra released her so suddenly that Beth fell back against the upholstery. "There's more than one way to skin a reluctant whore," Sandra said with relish. "You mentioned to me one day that you were sending money to some relative to protect an investment. I don't know the details, but I'm sure Charlie will. I don't even have to see him myself, or become involved personally in any way. A neat little anonymous letter will do the trick. All I'll need to do is ask him where you obtained the cash for your new clothes, where you found the money to send your relative. He'll ferret out the rest all by himself. He's a first-class ferret, Charlie. A rat from way back."
The room began to rock, and Beth thought she would faint.
"He'll divorce you so fast you won't know what hit you. He'll not only cut you off without a damned cent to your name, but he'll ruin your reputation for life. A respectable man doesn't like it when he finds out his wife is a prostitute. He gets mean. He wants lots and lots of revenge. And if I know Charlie, he'll put you through a real wringer."
There was no doubt in Beth's mind that he would do just that, and worse, if he could.
"I'll write the letter immediately, as soon as I get home," Sandra continued. "It will be all set to go. Then, tomorrow, I'll be here at twelve-thirty. If you aren't ready for a wrestling match with Dave, the letter will be delivered to Charlie at his office tomorrow afternoon by messenger. He'll take it from there. And by tomorrow night your security will be blasted. You'll be out of here sitting in the middle of the road on your cute little tail. Think it over, sweetie. You have until twelve-thirty tomorrow." Sandra turned swiftly and left the house.
Beth listened to the door open and shut, then heard Sandra's car drive off. The future appeared to be completely hopeless, and she knew of nothing she could do to save herself. The only alternative to a life she loathed was exposure, followed by permanent ruin. She was caught in a sex trap, and there was no escape.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BETH spent a tortured, sleepless night and was so morose at the breakfast table that even Charlie became conscious of the fact that something was amiss.
"Are you sick?" he asked, peering at her over the top of his newspaper.
She shook her head.
"You've never been a cheerful little sunbeam in the mornings, but you're acting as though you've lost your best friend. Not your husband. I think you'd celebrate for a solid month if I conveniently dropped dead and made you a widow."
Beth ignored his sarcasm. "I'm worried about money," she said at last.
"You haven't overspent your household allowance, I hope."
"No."
He was relieved. "That's good. It must be that knucklehead, Phil Bates. You haven't been bleating about him lately, so I assumed he had gone bankrupt, which is what he deserves."
"I don't intend to argue with you about the merits of Phil's business," Beth said with a trace of dignity. "I'm not burdening you with my troubles. So just leave me alone."
"With pleasure." Charlie retreated behind his newspaper again, and the conversation came to an abrupt end.
The morning that followed seemed endless, and Beth felt a dread she could not dissipate. She tried to put off making a decision but realized at the back of her mind that Sandra had already made it for her. Finally, after her bath, Beth forced herself to face the issue squarely.
"If I've got to be a whore," she said aloud, "I might as well be a good one."
Going to her dressing table, she opened a new bottle of polish, a wild yellow she had bought one day on a sudden whim, and applied several coats to her fingers and toenails. Then she chose the most extreme outfit in her wardrobe. Deliberately abstaining from wearing a bra, she slipped into her most wicked panties of translucent lace and then pulled on a pair of black stockings with a diamond pattern.
For a dress she chose a bright yellow cotton knit sheath a size too small for her. The frock revealed far more than it concealed of her figure, and she smiled at her reflection with savage irony before slipping into a pair of open-sided pumps with heels so high that she found it difficult to walk. Then she made up, exaggerating each step. She used too much shadow, made her eye line too thick and added some false lashes to complete the extravagant effect. She applied several layers of her glossiest lipstick, then brushed her near-platinum hair forward over one side of her face. A pair of dangling yellow earrings and a mammoth, matching costume ring, almost the size of a half-dollar, added the final, bizarre touches.
A few minutes before Sandra was due, Beth made a last inspection, and her smile of irony broadened. Now I look like a stage version of a whore, she thought. I might as well be wearing a neon sign telling people to gape at a practitioner of the world's oldest and grubbiest profession.
Sandra made no attempt to conceal her pleasure when Beth emerged from the house. "Now you're being sensible, sweetie," Sandra said. "You won't regret it."
"You like?" Beth asked.
"A trifle too gaudy for my personal taste," Sandra replied, starting off down the street, "but I'm sure you'll have Dave dancing around a maypole, and that's what matters."
"Sure," Beth said bitterly. "That's all that matters."
"A word of advice," Sandra said. "Take a corner table, sweetie. And when you walk through the bar, don't linger. We've been very lucky that nobody has caught on to the way we use the Stamen. But it just could be that if the law happens to drop in for an off-duty beer, he'd get ideas after taking one look at you."
Beth laughed harshly.
They did not speak again on the ride, and Beth knew that their friendship was ended. Sandra's insistence that Beth stay in the game, combined with the threat of exposure, had made it impossible for them to have anything but a business relationship in the future.
They reached the motel in a few minutes, and when Beth stood framed in the barroom entrance, she created a sensation. Women as well as men ogled her as she walked to a small table in the far corner. The same perverse streak that had caused her to overdress compelled her to play her part now with the zest of an amateur actress.
Dave loomed over her, beaming. "You look like a million today, baby," he said as he took a seat beside her on the banquette that lined the wall.
Beth forced herself to smile at him. "I'm glad you approve," she said, inwardly condemning him for his lack of taste. "I did it for you." To that extent, at least, she was being truthful.
She could almost see him swell with pride. "I've had you on my mind ever since yesterday afternoon," he told her.
"I've been thinking a great deal about you, too." Beth took what crumbs of consolation she could from her double-talk. She had been thinking of Dave, all right, but he would be anything but flattered if he could read her mind.
His eyes bulged when he saw how high her skirt was riding and, as soon as he gave the waiter the order, Dave dropped a pudgy hand onto her thigh.
Beth steeled herself and neither asked him to remove his hand nor indicated her disgust. But she could scarcely wait until their drinks arrived, and she gulped her martini rapidly.
"I thought you told me you can't drink." Dave was perspiring, and the palm of his hand was moist on her thigh.
Beth felt like screaming but continued to smile steadily at him. "You know women," she said, trying to take a light approach. "All of us are inconsistent."
He watched her as she raised her glass again. "You look to me," he observed shrewdly, "like somebody who wants to get herself plastered in a hurry. How come?"
For a moment she was at a loss for words, then suddenly thought of an excuse. "I feel more like letting myself go when I've oiled the machinery." Again she cringed inside herself, thinking that now even her small talk was that of the professional prostitute.
"Then we'll have to buy you an oil well, huh?" He chuckled and squeezed her thigh.
"I'll take that offer." All at once the conversation became unbearable. "People are looking at us," she warned, the words popping out before she could halt them.
"They can't see under the table. So let them look."
Beth's only recourse was anesthetization, and she quickly accepted the suggestion that they have another drink. But her tension continued to increase, and she finally reached the conclusion that it was silly to drink herself into a semi-stupor. No matter how much liquor she consumed, she could not avoid Dave forever.
His hand was becoming more active. "Yesterday," he said, "I had the idea you didn't think much of me."
"That was yesterday." Squirming slightly, she realized he had become so bold that she could not remove his hand now. By allowing him to take and keep the initiative, she had lost her own ability to keep the situation under control.
"It shows you how wrong a fellow can be." He puffed hard on his cigar as Beth seemed to respond to his caresses. "What made you change your mind?"
There was only one possible answer. "You, of course." She tried to smile at him as though he were the only man in the world. As though he were Bruce. At the very thought of Bruce she became so confused and unhappy that she could not tolerate spending another minute in the bar with this gross boor. "I want to go with you-right now."
Dave was reluctant to depart so quickly. "You mean I've got what it takes?" He chuckled, highly pleased with himself.
Beth squirmed harder, principally because of embarrassment. "You've got too much," she said and meant it.
"Then I guess we'll have to do something about it."
To Beth's infinite relief, he withdrew his hand.
Dave put a five dollar bill on the table and pushed his chair back.
"Wait a second," Beth said. She struggled to haul down her skirt and, silently cursing him, wondered if the disgustingly lecherous look in his eyes was as apparent to everyone else in the room as it was to her. Although Beth tried now to assume greater dignity than she had shown on her arrival, her binding skirt and towering heels forced her to walk with a distinct wiggle. She noted out of the corner of her eye that several men at the bar were peering at her, and when she saw Dave exchange a wave with one of them, her heart sank. Goodie, she thought, there's another of the fancy money boys. I'll have him breathing down my neck in the next day or two, and I think I'll throw up. Mentally writhing, she hated Charlie for being so stingy and Phil Bates for assuming that she would find some way to meet his requests for cash. She loathed Sandra for having inveigled her into the racket and Bruce for having secuded her under false pretenses.
No, that wasn't fair, she told herself. Not once had Bruce said he loved her, not once had he indicated that he considered her anything other than a prostitute with whom he could spend a pleasant hour. But even that was finished now. He had grown tired of her and, since he had turned her over to his superior, she would be wise to forget Bruce, to put him out of her mind and keep him out.
Most of all, she despised herself. She had been stupid to dress so provocatively, flaunting her allure in an infantile gesture because of her inability to escape from the trap. If she weren't such a coward, she would tell Sandra to do her damndest. Counter-threats could be effective, and she could make it clear that she could send Bob Winterton an anonymous letter just as easily as Sandra could send one to Charlie. Unfortunately, Beth was afraid that if she tipped off Bob, Sandra wouldn't hesitate to obtain vengeance by destroying her, too.
"I wondered yesterday whether you were playing me for a sucker," Dave said as they went into the bedroom. "But you're worth a hefty fee." He ran his hands up and down her body.
Beth stood still, tolerating his caresses and trying to think of something else-anything at all, in fact, until her ordeal ended.
Suddenly Dave reached into his pocket, counted out two hundred and fifty dollars and handed it to her without comment.By accepting the money and putting it away in her handbag, Beth signified her willingness to do whatever he wanted. It would be so simple, she thought, to tell him to go to hell and walk out. But she lacked the courage.
Dave made her earn the money. He toyed with her high, heavy breasts, then insisted that he be allowed to undress her. He turned on the radio and, at his request, she danced for him in the nude until she was weary. Then he hauled her on his lap and pawed her for another quarter of an hour before taking her to the bed.
Beth was sufficiently sober to be acutely conscious of every move he made and was not surprised when his love-making left her completely cold. She felt no reaction when he achieved union with her, and had to simulate passion in order to prevent him from guessing the truth, She felt only infinite relief when he finally rose from the bed. Then a numbing weariness took possesion of her, and she was too tired to move.
Apparently she was a better actress than she had thought, and it was fortunate that Dave misinterpreted her exhaustion.
"I wore you out, huh?" he asked.
"I've never felt so drained," she replied honestly.
"You were terrific, baby."
"I've never known anyone quite like you, either," Beth said and turned away so he could not see the contempt that, she knew, was stamped on her face.
At last he was gone, and she bathed and dressed slowly. A reluctance filled her at the idea of returning to the house she shared with Charlie, and on sudden impulse she took a taxi to the Owendale shopping and business district. There the perverse streak that had caused Beth to dress so flamboyantly reasserted itself, and she went first into a shoe store, then into a dress and accessory shop. Phil needed the money she had earned today, she knew, but she recklessly spent every cent of it on clothes that she did not actually require. She made purchases extravagantly, recklessly, and felt only a slight twinge when she spent ninety dollars on a simple cotton dress with a bolero jacket that was, at the most, worth half of what she paid.
The money shrank rapidly, and she realized the clerks, aware of her bizarre appearance, were watching her curiously. So Beth fled, found another taxi and at last returned home. By the time she paid the driver, she had less than two dollars left in her purse.
Taking her new things upstairs, she spread them out on her bed but found no pleasure in them and hastily put them away in closets and drawers. I must be cracking up, she thought. I earned the money for Phil, but I deliberately spent it. Now I have more clothes than I need. I have so many that I'll have to be careful wearing the clothes or even Charlie will begin to suspect that something unusual is happening.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and her sense of disgust, compounded with horror, became greater. I've been punishing myself all day, she thought. First I made myself dress like a whore. Then I threw away the money I needed.
She tore off the false eyelashes, then quickly changed into a pair of shorts and a loose T-shirt. For a few moments she stared at the too-tight dress she had worn, hating it as a symbol of the degrading day she had spent. Unable to stand the sight of it for another minute, she dashed into the bathroom for Charlie's razor and then slashed the dress to ribbons. She ran down to the garbage with the rags and raced back into the house as though pursued by demons.
Panting for breath, she wiped a film of perspiration from her forehead and upper lip. Her panic was worse, even though the offending dress was gone, and she slumped into a chair until the feeling subsided. Her restlessness still pervaded her, however, so she went down to the playroom, fished through the bottles of liquor in the bar and finally found what she was seeking, an unopened quart of one hundred-proof bourbon.
Breaking the seal with fingers that trembled, Beth poured herself a stiff shot she drank in a single gulp. She gasped, tears came to her eyes and the liquor burned fiercely as it slid down, but she refused to allow herself even a swallow of water as a chaser. I'm still punishing myself, she told herself, but felt no relief. Too confused and upset to think coherently, she poured herself a second shot, then a third and a fourth.
Not until she had consumed the better part of a pint did she replace the stopper, put away the bottle and stagger upstairs again. Her head was spinning, she was unable to focus her eyes and realized she was intoxicated. "Whores," she muttered aloud, "drink themselves to death. It serves them right."
A wave of nausea alarmed her, and she reached the bathroom just in time. She was violently sick, but eventually she was able to make her way into the bedroom, stumbling over furniture as she groped her way toward the bed. She threw herself onto it, and all at once burst into tears. Her pillow was soaked before her hysteria subsided, and even in her liquor-fogged, miserable state, she knew that she had found no relief.
"I wish to God I were dead," she said, addressing the four walls.
That was the last she remembered, and when Charlie returned home after his day in Boston, he found her stretched out unconscious on the bed.
CHAPTER NINE
A SHARP, pungent odor assailed Beth's nostrils, and she tried in vain to break away. The stinging sensation became more intense, and she gasped, then opened her eyes.
Dr. Henry Michaelson, one of Owendale's more prominent physicians, was bending over her, a vial of smelling salts in his hand, and she saw Charlie, dour and glum, standing nearby.
"There we are," the doctor said in his smoothest professional voice. "We won't need an ambulance after all, Mr. Hubbard."
"What's wrong with her?" Charlie sounded irritated, now that Beth was conscious.
Lying weakly on the bed, Beth realized she was dressed in shorts and T-shirt, and all at once remembered drinking huge quantities of bourbon. Charlie would give her no peace when he discovered she had drunk herself into a stupor, and she moaned.
Dr. Michaelson took a watch from his pocket, took hold of her limp wrist and was silent for a minute. "Let me have a few minutes alone with her, Mr. Hubbard," he said.
Charlie bridled. "Surely it's my right-"
"I prefer to examine patients in private. If you don't mind," the physician replied firmly.
Charlie left the room, muttering to himself. . Dr. Michaelson smiled down at Beth, then sat on the edge of the bed. "In my professional opinion," he said, "you're a healthy young woman. Your symptoms, combined with an unmistakable scent on your breath, lead me to believe you consumed liquor to excess and passed out."
Beth's head ached dully.
He studied the cosmetics-stained pillowcase with interest. "You were crying?" She nodded.
"I gather you aren't ordinarily much of a drinker, Mrs. Hubbard."
It was difficult for Beth to speak, but she made the effort. "I've been doing a lot-lately," she said in a hoarse voice. There was no reason to confess to a stranger, but a doctor represented authority, and she could not he.
The physician seemed to understand. "Anything specific, or life in general?" She hesitated. "Both."
"I diagnose a severe case of suburbia," he said and smiled.
Beth thought his sense of humor warped.
"We won't tell your husband, naturally. I'm afraid the condition might become aggravated." He took a container from his bag, shook out two pills and gave them to her with a glass of water. "This will relieve you in about twenty minutes."
"Thank you." Beth had not realized she was so parched.
"Want to talk about it?"
"No, doctor." She became alarmed at the possibility that he might try to pry her secret from her.
Dr. Michaelson patted her hand. "You'd be surprised if you knew how many woman in Owendale are going through the same sort of thing. Some of them," he added firmly, "are well on the road to alcoholism. I hope you have better sense than that."
"I won't become an alcoholic. I don't like liquor. I've had too much-just a few times. Before today. Then, this afternoon, I wanted to-drown myself."
He seemed to understand. "Have you ever given any thought to psychotherapy?"
Beth made the effort to prop herself on one elbow. "It wouldn't do any good."
"Don't be too sure of that. Many women have been helped. Life in suburbia isn't easy for you young girls who are bored, who are living your days in communities where there are no men ail day-"
Beth interrupted him with a wild laugh. "How I wish there were no men in Owendale, ever."
Dr. Michaelson raised an eyebrow. "Don't bother to reply to what I'm going to say now, Mrs. Hubbard. But even affairs aren't uncommon in these parts. If you're involved with a man, psychotherapy might help you to hack your way out of the jungle."
"It isn't a man." That was true, Beth told herself. Her problem was in the plural. Men. Total strangers who paid for her body and, for an hour or two at a time, owned her outright. Men who compelled her to do whatever struck their fancy. Men whose money enslaved her. Men who degraded her and made life a torment.
The physician sighed and stood. "If you find that you need professional help badly enough, you'll seek it. I'll gladly recommend several qualified psychiatrists. And if I can be of help to you, don't hesitate to call me or to make an appointment through my nurse."
"Thank you." Beth looked up at him. "Please, could you give me something to help me sleep tonight?"
"Ah, insomnia. Another byproduct of suburban fever." He took two yellow capsules from a container in his bag and handed them to her. "Don't make a habit of these." He started toward the door, then paused. "I'll tell your husband you're not to be disturbed this evening. Will that help?"
"Oh, yes."
"I thought as much," he said, smiling wryly as he left the room.
Beth took the two sleeping pills at once, then changed into a nightgown and climbed back into bed.
The door opened, and she feigned sleep as she heard Charlie creeping into the room. She could feel him staring down at her, but she made no move and he did not speak. He hovered nearby for a long time, but finally left the room, and Beth relaxed at last.
Memories of her experience with Dave swirled through her mind, and she resolutely put them aside, only to be filled with a sense of longing for Bruce. Her life was a mess, she thought, and she began to weep again, very quietly. Then the pills took effect, and she drifted off into a deep slumber.
The ringing of the telephone awakened Beth, and she opened her eyes to find herself alone in her bedroom. Bright sunlight was slanting in through the blinds, and when she looked at the clock, she was surprised to see it was now eleven in the morning. Her first, happy thought was that Charlie had gone off to the city hours earlier.
The telephone continued to shrill, and she lifted the instrument from its cradle. "Hello?"
"Well, sweetie," Sandra said at the other end of the wire, "I was beginning to wonder if you were still in this world. Good news for you. A new friend-someone who is a friend of yesterday's friend, if I make myself clear without becoming too graphic on the phone-is anxious to meet you. Usual place, usual time. I'll be along for you at the regular time."
"I can't," Beth replied promptly. "I'm sick. The reason I didn't answer just now is because I was still sleeping."
"Is your back door unlocked?"
"I-I guess so, but-"
"I'll be over." Sandra hung up abruptly.
Beth sighed and wondered if she should hurry downstairs to lock the back door. The effort was too much to contemplate, however. She discovered then that she was ravenously hungry but decided it would be better to wait until Sandra had gone before eating. If she were going to play the role of an invalid, there could be no slips. There seemed to be no reason she should not smoke, however, so she took a package of cigarettes and a lighter from her bedside table, then smiled as she stretched out in the bed.
Her mistake, she told herself, had been to think too much about her long-range future. It was wiser to take each day as it came, and today would be pleasant because she wouldn't have to meet some friend of Dave's at the motel. She laughed aloud, took a deep drag on her cigarette and watched the smoke drifting lazily toward the ceiling. Perhaps she was being neurotic to take refuge in a pretended illness, but she didn't care. In fact, if that made her a neurotic, she was proud to wear the label.
A quarter of an hour later there was a tap at the door, and Sandra, already dressed for her own date at the Stamen, came into the bedroom.
"What a lazy little pig you are," she said, her attitude indicating instantly that she did not believe a word of Beth's alleged illness. "What did you do, go back to bed after you gave Charlie his breakfast?"
"I haven't seen Charlie today. I have no idea whether he ate here or after he got into town." Beth was gratified to hear that her own voice still sounded convincingly hoarse.
"Well. I've never yet known a time when you didn't have to feed the monster his breakfast." Sandra seemed grudgingly impressed as she stared at the younger girl. "I must say, though, that you look disgustingly healthy, even if you still have yesterday's make-up smeared all over your face."
Beth raised a hand to her cheek. She had been in such a daze last night that she had completely forgotten about washing her face.
"Really, sweetie. You look so good that I envy you. So try to come, will you? A fellow Dave knows-by the name of Harold-saw you all tricked up yesterday and flipped for you. He sounded so disappointed just now when I told him you weren't well."
Beth remembered the man at the bar, and an unpleasant chill crept up her spine. "He'll just have to be disappointed, I'm afraid."
"I think you're shamming." Sandra's voice became cold. "Maybe you can fool Charlie but not me. I'm going to haul you out of that bed and stuff you into some clothes."
"Then you'll have to take full responsiblity with Dr. Michaelson." Beth enjoyed watching Sandra's expression change.
"Have you spoken to him?"
"At length. He was here last night."
"Mmm. What's wrong with you?"
"I don't know, exactly," Beth replied vaguely. "He gave me some medicine and told me to stay in bed."
"For how long?" Sandra demanded.
"Several days. I'm supposed to report to him every afternoon." Perhaps the pretended illness could be prolonged indefinitely.
"Harold is a heavy spender, and I don't like to put him off for too long," Sandra said. "Can't you make the effort to meet him tomorrow?"
Beth curbed her desire to smile. "Impossible."
"Be reasonable, sweetie. He's terribly thin-skinned, and if he thinks he's being snubbed, we'll lose him."
"It can't be helped." Beth sounded smug.
Sandra looked at her bleakly. "I wish I could prove that you're faking." She stood for a moment, tapping the toe of a pump on the floor. "I suppose you won't be able to go with Charlie to that dinner in town tomorrow night."
Beth had completely forgotten that all senior and junior executives of Charlie's investment firm were gathering the following night with their wives for an annual banquet that was, in effect, a command performance. "I won't be allowed to miss it," she said candidly, "even if they have to carry me in on a stretcher."
"In that case, you'll be well enough for me to set up a date tomorrow. You'll meet Harold in the Stamen bar at twelve forty-five."
"I'll do no such thing, and I refuse to be bullied." Beth sat up, glaring.
Sandra had to admit temporary defeat. "When you go back to work, I'll double your schedule to make up for lost time. Johns like Harold don't grow on trees."
"If Harold is anything like Dave, I suspect he climbs them." Beth smiled blandly, enjoying her feeling of holding the whip hand. "And you can forget about doubling schedules. I'll need time to regain my strength."
Sandra made a last, futile attempt to assert her authority. "Be ready by Monday. Or else." She stormed out of the room.
Beth waited until she heard the kitchen door slam. Then, clad only in her nightgown, she went downstairs and bolted the door. This was Thursday, so she had a minimum of four days' freedom, and she relished the prospect as she ate a large breakfast of eggs, bacon and buttered toast, washed down with several cups of coffee.
The afternoon was the most pleasant she had known in months. She worked for an hour in the garden, and then, afraid Sandra might see her en route home from the motel, stepped indoors again for her bath. She leafed through several magazines, did a little dusting and made her bed. Charlie had slept in the den but had carefully folded the sheets and blanket he had used, and she giggled as she put them away in the linen closet. Getting drunk was no fun, but it had almost been worth it to be rid of Charlie for the night.
In mid-afternoon Beth lazily decided to take a sunbath on the patio at the rear of the house, and changing into a bikini for the purpose, donned her sunglasses and went outdoors. Stretching out on a foam rubber mat, she luxuriated in the hot sun, wondering why she had ever considered her life dull in the days before Sandra had roped her into being a part-time prostitute.
She would never make the mistake of thinking her existence boring again, once she found a way out of her dilemma. Never had she appreciated peace and simplicity so much. Content to do nothing, to be free of unwanted entanglements, she drifted off to sleep.
The sound of footsteps penetrated Beth's consciousness, and she opened her eyes as someone came on to the patio from the house.
"Here you are," Charlie said. "I called, but you didn't answer."
She sat up on the mat. "Are you home early?"
"No, it's six o'clock." He looked at her appreciatively.
Tanned after her long exposure to the sun, she realized she had napped for at least three hours. "Oh, dear. I haven't done a thing about dinner."
"We can open some canned corned beef hash or something." Charlie opened the screen door and stood aside to let her precede him into the house. "I spoke to Dr. Michaelson this afternoon, and he said you'd be perfectly fine today."
Too late it occurred to her that, had she thought quickly enough, she might have pretended to Charlie that she was still ill. With luck, she could have had another night alone.
"You sure don't look like somebody who was sick." Again he eyed her.
Beth became conscious of her bareness. "I'll go upstairs and change."
"Don't bother." He caught hold of her hand and led her to the playroom. "We'll celebrate your recovery with some martinis."
She winced, thinking that, as long as she lived, martinis would always remind her of her illicit meetings at the motel.
Charlie was aware of her expression. "Rather have bourbon?"
After all the bourbon she had consumed the previous night, the very idea made her ill. "No, a martini will be fine," she said hastily, her high-heeled mules clacking on the tiles of the playroom floor.
He continued to study her as he mixed a pitcher of martinis.
His expression, Beth thought, was exactly like that of the men she met at the motel. "I wish you'd let me go upstairs to change. I feel so-naked."
"What's wrong with that?" Charlie asked and laughed.
Beth completely understood his mood now, and her insides turned over. She no more wanted sex with him than she did with the Johns at the Stamen. In fact, complete abstinence would be heaven on earth, and she tugged vainly at the bra, then at the panties of her bikini, in a vain effort to make the skimpy garments cover more of her body.
Charlie's expression indicated he thought her gesture provocative.
She accepted a drink from him, and short of risking another upheaval by mentioning her cousin's need for money, wondered how she could distract him. Perhaps a touch of domesticity would do the trick. "I'm sorry you didn't wake me up this morning."
"I'm not that much of a heel, after you were sick."
"You're not a heel at all," Beth said and meant it. He was narrow, rigid and a petty tyrant but, except on the subject of money, rarely displayed malice. '"Did you eat here and then do the dishes?"
"No, I had breakfast in town." He moved to a place beside her on the playroom couch.
Beth realized she had committed a tactical error by sitting on the couch in the first place and tried to think of a logical excuse to move.
Charlie reached for her and kissed her.
She had to return his embrace, and it crossed her mind that a husband was even more difficult to handle than a John. He knew her far better and could see through her subterfuges more easily. What was more, he was even more inclined to become offended if she evaded him. Nevertheless, she tried. "I'll spill my drink," she said.
"Either finish it or put down your glass," Charlie directed, a hint of asperity in his voice.
Beth drained her glass, then slipped into the mules she had kicked off when she had sat down. "I think I'll get another," she said, intending to cross the room to the bar.
"The martinis can wait." Charlie pulled her back to the couch.
She submitted to his love-making and did not protest when he removed her bikini. Her eyes closed, she responded to him mechanically, and told herself there was no difference between him and the men at the Stamen. Charlie supported her while the others gave her cash, but it all amounted to the same thing: in one way or another, a man provided for a woman and in return assumed that he was entitled to do as he pleased with her.
The little victory she had won over Sandra that morning seemed far distant, and Beth tried to reconcile herself to a life of meaningless sex. Bruce, she thought, had spoiled her for all other men.
Obviously, because Charlie was really trying this time.
He attempted to excite his wife in every possible way.
Beth mentally shrugged but dutifully cooperated in the act.
"Tell me, Beth-"
"What?"
"Tell me how you like it."
"Any way you enjoy it, Charlie."
"How's this?"
"Oh, that's very good, Charlie."
"You're not putting me on, are you?"
"No, Charlie."
"Maybe it's better for you-I mean-at this angle."
"It couldn't be better."
"You're one gorgeous female, Beth. That warm welcome down there always did drive me crazy."
"All for you, Charlie. Oh, that's great, great. You never put on such a drive. Faster-faster-"
"WHEN I think of the small fortune your goldbricking has cost us," Sandra said as she and Beth drove to the motel, "I could scream."
"I refuse to put on sackcloth and wash my face in ashes," Beth replied, out of sorts, too. "I'm meeting this character, Harold, right now, so what are you complaining about?"
"It's a double date. He's bringing someone for me."
"Oh?"
The car pulled to a halt for a traffic light. "We'll go our separate ways after we've had a drink together." Sandra took a pocket mirror from her handbag and looked at herself quickly before starting off again when the light turned green. "Don't mind me, Beth. I honestly don't mean to be so bitchy, but Harold's pal wouldn't meet me alone on a single date, and Harold refused to have anybody but you. I could have used the money last week, when you were sick, so I got nastier than usual."
Sandra so rarely apologized that Beth softened and actually felt somewhat sorry for her. "You'll make up the difference in a few days."
"Oh, sure. It's just that I'd have saved myself some horrible scenes with Bob."
Beth could not understand how the two subjects were related.
"I bought myself a lot of things on credit, and I was supposed to pay fifty percent last week. When I didn't, the store called Bob at his office. So he put me through an inquisition over the weekend. He wanted to know if I were robbing a bank. You know, all the usual."
"What did you tell him?" I was fortunate, Beth thought, that Charlie didn't like Bob Winterton. If the two men ever met to compare notes, Beth might have her hands full, too.
"I double-talked him like fury, sweetie. And when that didn't work, I retreated behind the iron curtain of an outraged wife." Sandra laughed unhappily. "I have no idea what the goon believes, and I don't care. He can go to hell." She swung into the Stamen's parking lot and switched off the engine.
Both girls applied fresh lipstick and powdered their noses before going inside. Beth's attempt to cheer herself by wearing her expensive new dress with the bolero jacket had failed miserably, and her heart felt like lead. The better part of a week had passed since she had climaxed her date with Dave by going on a shopping spree and getting drunk on Charlie's one hundred proof bourbon, but now she was back in the racket again and felt inconsolable.
Within the next hour she would be mauled and manhandled by someone named Harold, whom she had never met, and would then give herself to him in bed. The prospect was sickening.
But she forced herself to smile brightly and walk with a dainty tread as she and Sandra stepped into the barroom and took a table for four. Business was booming after the Johns had been forced to spend the weekend with their wives, she thought sardonically. Carolyn was sitting with someone across the room, Patsy was nearby and the redhead was engaged in an intimate conversation with a man. Apparently Sandra had found a way to recruit the redhead, but it was typical of her to have said nothing.
This was neither the time nor the place to mention the matter, however, so Beth kept quiet as they sat down. She lighted a cigarette, Sandra did the same and they settled back in their chairs. They did not have long to wait. Almost immediately two middle-aged men, both well groomed and expensively dressed, approached the table, beaming. One was tall and heavy-set, the other much shorter and bespectacled. It afforded Beth a glimmer of ironic amusement to discover that the man with the glasses was Harold.
He did most of the talking, and his friend, George, who was noticeably shy, added almost nothing to the conversation. Sandra did her best to put him at ease, but was only partly successful, and after everyone finished the first drinks, she abruptly suggested that they leave.
"You two have another," she told Beth and Harold. "We don't want to make things too obvious by going into the other wing at the same time."
Harold beckoned the waiter as soon as the other couple had gone, then turned to Beth. "You've toned down quite a bit since I saw you here the other day," he said.
"Yes, I went overboard that day." The memory made her uncomfortable.
"I liked the way you looked," he said and grinned at her intimately.
Suddenly she saw a familiar, burly figure in the entrance and gasped. Bob Winterton was looking straight at her.
He approached the table directly, and there was no escape.
Harold realized that Beth was frightened but had no idea what was wrong.
"Where's Sandra?" Bob demanded as he approached.
"I don't know," Beth answered in a small voice.
Bob glared at her, glancing only briefly at her companion. "That's a lie." Bob loomed over her menacingly.
Harold felt he should protect Beth but did not know what to say or do.
"Why would I lie?" Beth asked weakly.
"I don't know, but I intend to find out." Bob was white around the mouth. "I was following you two in my car. I lost you in traffic, but I finally figured from the way you were headed that you were coming here. Now-where is Sandra?"
"I tell you, I don't know," Beth replied breathlessly. "She was here a little while ago. And then," she added lamely, "she left."
Bob glowered at her again, briefly, then turned on his heel and stalked out.
Beth lost no time gathering her handbag and gloves. "That," she told the bewildered Harold, "is Sandra's husband. I'm going home."
The color drained from his face and he made no attempt to halt her as she hurried out to the taxi stand. He was anxious to leave, too, and frantically summoned the waiter for the bill.
Beth, afraid she would faint, noted that Carolyn and Patsy had seen Bob, but did not pause to find out their reactions. As she climbed into the taxi, she caught a glimpse of Bob through the plate glass windows of the motel. He was headed toward the wing where the bedrooms were located, followed by an anguished assistant manager. She closed her eyes and, as the taxi pulled away, began to think of an alibi that might satisfy Charlie.
Meanwhile, Bob walked rapidly down the carpeted corridor. "You can't convince me you don't know her or remember what she looked like," he said in a deceptively calm, tight voice. "She's a tall girl in a bright pink dress and long gold earrings. She stops traffic, mister, and when you say you haven't seen her, you're a two-bit liar." He swung around, caught the man by his lapels and held a fist close to his face. "If you don't want your teeth pushed down the back of your throat, start talking."
The assistant manager tried to bluster. "You can't come in here making wild accusations and upsetting the decorum of a respectable place, sir. I'll call the police."
Bob's laugh sounded more like a snarl. "Don't bother. "I've already called them, and a squad car ought to be here any second. So-start talking"
The man wilted and told Bob the-room number. Bob released the assistant manager so suddenly that the man fell back against the wall. Then the furious husband raced to the room in question and tapped at the door. "This is the manager," he called, disguising his voice. "Sorry to disturb you, but I'm afraid I've got to move you to another room."
There was a pause and then the door opened and a man peered out.
Bob stuck his foot in the opening, then pushed vigorously. The door flew open and the man, fully dressed, stood rubbing his arm.
Sandra, who had removed her pink dress, stood on the far side of the room in her bra and panties. For an instant she seemed paralyzed when she saw her husband. Then she screamed.
Bob glanced briefly at her companion. "Get out."
The man needed no urging and ran from the room.
Bob slammed the door.
"Sweetie, I know it looks bad, but I want you to listen to me," Sandra said, talking rapidly.
"Shut up." Bob crossed the room to her, measured her and slapped her hard across the face.
She screamed again, more loudly.
"That won't do you any good. Nothing will." He slapped her with still greater force across the other cheek.
Sandra knew she was cornered and, trying to protect herself, retreated and picked up an ash tray.
Bob caught hold of her wrist before she could throw it at him. He squeezed hard, and she dropped the ash tray.
"You lousy, goddamned whore."
In her terror Sandra found the courage to laugh at him. "Do you know why I did it? Because you're no good in bed."
He lost his temper completely and, lashing out at her with his fist, caught her full in the mouth.
A trickle of blood streamed down her chin, but Sandra refused to humble herself. "That's right," she said. "Hit a woman."
He came toward her once more, fists flailing, and beat her with a swift succession of lefts and rights.
Sandra clawed and kicked and scratched but to no avail. Her long hair fell loose and, as it tumbled down her back, several strands swept across her face, momentarily blinding her.
In the distance the siren of a police car wailed.
Bob was unaware of anything but the presence of the woman who had cuckolded and disgraced him. He continued to punch her, fists drubbing with the steady rhythm of a trained boxer until Sandra, unable to tolerate any more, slumped to the floor at his feet and lost consciousness.
She was still there when two policemen burst into the room and found Bob standing over her, fists still clenched, weeping silently.
The lightning of a photographer's flashbulb restored him to his senses. "I'm Bob Winterton, the guy who called Captain O'Brien," he said to the policeman who gripped his shoulder and arm. "I'll go to headquarters with you, so don't worry about me. There are plenty of other cheating broads in this place. Go round them up."
Eyewitnesses later declared they had never seen anything like the frantic scenes that took place in the next quarter of an hour. Another squad car arrived and police officers combed the entire motel, methodically knocking on every door. Three girls were placed under arrest, and their escorts held as material witnesses. An ambulance pulled up at the entrance, its siren howling and, as two policemen started to carry the unconscious Sandra to it on a stretcher, someone had the sense to throw a blanket over her half-nude body. Bob Winterton seemed more like the director of the operation than a man under arrest and conferred quietly with the police sergeant who stood in the lobby.
A crowd of curious people gathered behind a hastily erected barrier, and a fresh sensation was provided when the assistant manager, loudly protesting his innocence, appeared handcuffed to a policeman. Bob stepped up to him, asked that the handcuffs be removed and then, not saying another word, felled the man with a single blow. Not one of the half-dozen police officers in the motel lobby interfered.
"It was like a movie, but better," an elderly Owendale matron was quoted as saying by one of the newspapers.
It was deathly quiet in the Hubbard house, and one small light burned in a living room lamp. Beth huddled in a chair, listening to the clock on the mande chime twelve, and for the thousandth time wondered where Charlie had gone after receiving a phone call that had interrupted them at dinner. He had left the better part of his meal uneaten and had dashed out to his car, saying only that he didn't know when he would return.
The evening, like the afternoon that had preceded it, had been an endless horror.
The worst was knowing that a great deal had happened and that still more was happening. Denied all detailed information, Beth had spent hours in a void, her ignorance increasing her already aroused fears and exciting her imagination. After arriving home from the motel and recovering from her own immediate sense of shock, Beth had made repeated and futile attempts to call her friends. No one had answered the phone at the Winterton house. Carolyn and Jim Anderson's house had been deserted, too. A baby-sitter at the Blair's had said that Patsy had not returned from a luncheon engagement but had been unable to give her any further information.
Shortly before Charlie had arrived home for dinner, a brief announcement on a radio news program had provided Beth with the first definite clue that all hell had broken loose at the Stamen. "A prostitution ring," the commentator had said, "has been broken up in fashionable Owendale. A number of arrests have been made, and the authorities are confident that the ring has been smashed. For the present, no names are being made public.
What had happened to Sandra? Beth wondered. Were Carolyn and Patsy safe? And what about the redhead?
Beth simply did not know, and the phone calls she had tried to make since Charlie's departure had been fruitless.
She was chiefly concerned for her own safety and future, of course. Bob Winterton could cause Beth plenty of trouble by revealing that he had found her sitting with a strange man in the motel taproom, but his testimony would not be conclusive evidence that Beth was a prostitute. She was prepared to deny the charge vehemently, and there was at least an outside chance that she could make her story stick.
Provided that Sandra did not talk, Beth thought. Or Patsy. Or Carolyn. If they implicated Beth, her denials would be meaningless. It was possible, too, that the authorities, whoever they were, might obtain a list of Johns. Bruce, if questioned, might admit having had relations with Beth. Certainly Dave couldn't be trusted and would tell everything he knew if the heat were applied. Harold, to be sure, could only say he had met Beth for an assignation but that circumstances had made it impossible for him to carry out his intention. Even that, however, would be enough to condemn her.
Beth switched on the radio for the late news roundup, and her feelings of frustration and terror increased when she heard nothing more than virtually a repeat of the original bulletin.
She had no idea where to reach Charlie. She was tempted to call the local police station but was afraid of becoming involved beyond her ability to extricate herself if an inquisitive policeman started asking the reasons for her interest. It was urgent that she protect herself, yet she was being deprived of even the basic grounds of self-defense. The situation was intolerable, but she was completely helpless.
Stepping out into the front yard, Beth stood in the balmy night, unaware of the weather or the stars winking in a blue-black sky overhead. Every house in sight was dark, with the exception of the Cape Cod down the block owned by an elderly couple who would know nothing of sensational developments that had been taking place under their noses. Fighting back the hysteria that threatened to engulf her, Beth returned to the house.
She desperately wanted a drink, but forced herself to abstain, knowing that tonight, of all times in her life, she needed to keep her mind and senses alert. Her pack of cigarettes was empty, so she opened another. Eventually, she thought wearily, the night would pass. Eventually she would learn something.
The clock chimed one o'clock, and she heard a car pulling into the driveway. Peering cautiously out of the side window of the living room, she saw first that it was not Charlie's car. Then she made out the silhouette of a woman at the wheel, and hurried outside.
The engine was still running, and Beth recognized the redhead with whom Beth had never really had the opportunity to become friendly.
"Here are the early editions of tomorrow's tabloids," the girl said without preamble, thrusting newspapers at Beth. "They'll tell you everything I can, and faster." White with fatigue, she seemed anxious to leave quickly. "Yeah, they snagged me," the redhead continued. "But to hell with them, to hell with my husband and to hell with this lousy town. I'm out on bail, and I'm going to travel so far from here they'll never find me."
Fear paralyzed Beth. "What-"
"You'll see it all in the newspapers. Just don't worry, kid. Nobody has blabbed about you and the others who weren't caught, and nobody will." The automobile engine protested when the redhead slammed into reverse and drove away.
Beth dashed back into the house, and caught her breath when she saw a front-page photo of a battered Sandra stretched out at the feet of a Bob Winterton.
Beth read rapidly and soon gleaned all the facts.
Bob had caught Sandra with a man, and had given her a bad beating. She was in a room at the Owendale Hospital, where her condition was reported as fair. As she had been identified both as a prostitute and as an arranger of rendezvous, a policeman was stationed outside her room, and she would be taken to the town jail as soon as her condition improved sufficiently for her to be moved.
Bob Winterton was being held in jail on charges of assault and battery. No bail had yet been set for him.
Carolyn Anderson and Patsy Blair had been caught at the motel, as had the redhead, whose name was Vera Calbie. All three had confessed that they met men at the motel regularly. They had been booked as professional prostitutes.
The assistant manager of the Stamen was in jail, too, on charges of having acted as a procurer.
The motel itself had been closed, under a seldom-invoked town ordinance, on the grounds that it had been an establishment used for immoral purposes.
One paragraph in particular caught Beth's eye and, when she recovered her equilibrium sufficiently, she read it again and again: "Captain Charles O'Brien of the Owendale police admits that no progress has been made in attempts to learn the identities of other housewives said to be part of the vice ring. He promises, however, that no efforts will be spared to find these women."
So far, at least, Beth was safe. And she took comfort in the redhead's reassuring words: "Nobody has blabbed, and nobody will."
In spite of her shock, Beth felt a relief greater than she had known since the awful moment when she had seen Bob staring at her across the Stamen bar.
For a few minutes, she sat very still, then read the newspapers again, wincing when she saw the battered Sandra, cringing when she saw photos of Carolyn and Patsy and the redhead.
Finally Beth knew that she should act quickly before Charlie returned and wanted to know who had brought her the newspapers. Folding them carefully, she took them to the fireplace and burned them, then stirred the ashes to make certain that Charlie would not even recognize them as charred newspapers. Then she went upstairs and changed out of her expensive cotton dress into her nightgown. Her best defense would be to feign complete innocence, so she climbed into bed and turned off the light.
Exhausted by the strains of the blackest day she had ever known, she soon drifted off into a light, troubled sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DAWN was breaking by the time Charlie Hubbard drove his car into his garage, slammed the overhead door with a vengeance and stamped up the stairs of his house.
Beth was wide awake by the time he came into the house but kept her eyes closed until he snapped on the overhead light in their bedroom. One look at his gray, unshaven face told her she was in for a stormy session. Never had she seen him look so grim or so coldly furious. Instinct prompted her to take the offensive.
"Where on earth have you been all night?" she demanded, sounding very angry. "You dashed off in the middle of dinner without telling me where you were going, and you didn't even have the courtesy or consideration to phone me. I've been going crazy all night. I don't think I've had even an hour's sleep. And now you show up at daybreak. What sort of man are you?"
"The sort who doesn't want to be married to a tramp," Charlie replied. "Get up. I want to get this over and done with as quickly as possible."
For an instant Beth was afraid he might be carrying a pistol but, on second thought, she realized that Charlie was not the type who would resort to violence. "I can do without your insults, but I could stand some coffee," she replied, still in the same angry tone. Not glancing at him again, she went to her clothes closet for a dressing gown, deliberately choosing the fluffiest and most attractive, and then walked downstairs to the kitchen.
Charlie followed her, still glowering.
"Toast?" Beth asked, mamtaining at least a facade of domesticity.
"I've just had something to eat in an all-night restaurant. With Bob Winterton." He watched her closely to see her reaction.
Beth's heart sank at the mention of Bob's name, but her face remained expressionless. "You won't mind if I have some toast, then. I was so upset last night when you raced out of here that I couldn't finish my dinner." She busied herself at the stove, measuring coffee into the percolator and adding water, then taking bread and butter from the refrigerator.
Charlie displayed unusual patience, waiting until they sat at the kitchen table before speaking again. "It will come as no surprise to you," he said, speaking slowly and carefully, "to learn that this whole town has been knocked inside out since yesterday noon."
"So I gathered from a short newscast I heard before I went to bed." Beth wondered if he would pick her up on that one. She rarely listened to news broadcasts, and Charlie knew it.
If he was aware of her slip, he gave no sign.
"I tried phoning several people, but everybody we know seems to have been off somewhere at a party." She continued to act wide-eyed, and her voice gave no hint of her trepidation.
"Some party," Charlie replied humorlessly. "Your girl friends have been in the clink."
"I don't think that's very funny," Beth said indignantly. "First you insult me, then you insult my friends."
"Don't act so innocent. You know damn well what happened at that new motel yesterday."
"I know something very odd was going on." Beth decided that a show of candor before he started blasting at her might throw him off the scent. "I went there with Sandra for lunch, and we ran into a couple of people she knew.
One of them had to leave, and then Sandra went off to the ladies' room or the phone or somewhere. The next thing I knew, Bob dashed in like a raving maniac. I was so upset I came straight home." She buttered a slice of toast and, although she had no desire to eat anything, forced herself to nibble at it.
"I find it very odd," Charlie said, "that you mentioned nothing about the incident to me at dinner last night."
"I hate washing other people's dirty linen." Beth hoped her weak explanation sounded convincing. "I tried to reach Sandra in the afternoon, but she didn't answer her phone. I don't know what all the shouting was for, but she's my friend, and I wanted to get things straight before I started talking. I still wish I knew."
"As recently as dinner time last night, I would have swallowed that whole story. Hook, line and sinker. Now I won't even bite." Charlie rubbed the stubble on his chin and stared at her. "Come clean. Then we'll end this whole mistake in a civilized fashion."
"I don't know what you're talking about. And I wish you'd stop speaking in riddles." She tried to sound indignant.
Charlie sighed, stirred sugar into his coffee and took a deep breath. "Sandra is in the hospital," he said, "and from there she goes to jail." He proceeded to tell her the whole story of the raid on the Stamen but added nothing she had not already gleaned from the newspaper.
Beth pretended to be stunned. "You're making it all up. I can't believe you."
"Like hell you can't. Sandra." He began ticking off names on his fingers. "Patsy. Carolyn. And that new girl in the neighborhood. Your little playmates."
"See here, Charles Hubbard-"
"I've never in my life hit a woman, but you're tempting me, Beth."
"You wouldn't dare."
"After the night I've had, I'm ripe for just about anything."
Again she tried to take the offensive. "The night you've had? For all I know, you've spent it with some prostitute yourself. And now you come home with a wild story that no woman in her right senses would believe."
He took a copy of a tabloid from his coat pocket and unfolded it. "Read this. And thank God that by some lucky accident your picture isn't in there, too."
Beth went through the motions of reading the article. "This is the most dreadful thing that's ever happened."
"Yeah." Charlie finished his coffee, rubbed his tired eyes and then poured himself another steaming cup. "I raised bail for Bob and then took him over to Henry Waters' house. Henry is as good a lawyer as there is in the business. He'll get Bob off, Pm sure."
"After he beat up poor Sandra so badly that she's in a hospital. Is that fair or right?" Beth continued to play the role of a stupid girl who failed to understand the true situation.
"When a man has found out that his wife has been unfaithful to him," Charlie said darkly, "a court is strongly inclined to favor him. And when a fellow discovers what Bob has learned about his wife, just about any judge in the United States will give him a medal for not killing the damned bitch."
Her sense of fear welled up in her again, and she wondered if Charlie intended to become violent.
"Now you've got the pitch. Are you or aren't you willing to confess?"
"I have nothing to confess, and you know it as well as I do." Beth's hand trembled so hard that she spilled coffee into her saucer. "Now see what you've done." She jumped to her feet and went to get some paper napkins to sop up the mess. She needed time to think and decided she could only play by ear, going one step at a time while steadfastly maintaining her innocence.
Charlie waited calmly until she returned. "Bob told me you were sitting with some old goat at a table, looking very cozy."
"I was sitting across the table from him, and if you call that cozy, you're nuts. What's more, he wasn't an old goat. He couldn't have been more than three or four years older than you." Her aggressive tactics seemed to be effective, so she became more virulent. "I didn't ask to see his birth certificate. In fact, I don't know his name."
"In the business you've been in, I don't think names matter much."
"Isn't it bad enough that Sandra and some of my other friends have been involved in something horrible? Must you tar me with the same brush?"
"You're tarred with it, Beth. The whole thing is very logical, now that I look back at the record of the past few months. You drove me crazy, asking me for money to send your idiot cousin. Then, all of a sudden, you shut up."
"That's because you ordered me not to say anything more."
His lips parted in a caricature of a smile. "I'm going to phone Phil Bates in a few minutes and find out how much money you've sent him. Then you can explain to me where you got it."
"I refuse to let you speak to him," she cried, panic gripping her.
"That's interesting. Why?"
"Because-well, because I won't have you insulting me. The members of my family think highly of me even if you don't." If necessary, she thought, she would take up the extension phone when Charlie called Phil and would ask her cousin to say nothing. The mutual dislike the two men felt for each other would, with luck, take care of the rest. Phil wouldn't understand, she thought, but he would do her bidding.
"Then there's the matter of your clothes. You've been sporting a lot of new things lately."
Tears stung Beth's eyes. "You can be so horrid!" Her acting was so good now that she almost believed what she was saying to him. "I scrimped and saved out of my household allowance to buy myself a few rags for my spring and summer wardrobe. I haunted sales, and I walked my feet off in stores. But all I get from you is nastiness instead of thanks that you have a thrifty wife."
"It just doesn't jell," Charlie insisted. "Every time you bought something new in the past, you insisted on staging a private fashion show for me. I've wondered a couple of times why you've kept quiet about your new clothes. Now I know."
"You think you know so much." There was no reason for Beth to feign anger now, for real fury welled up in her. "You've made such an issue about money that I haven't dared to say anything to you. Maybe you've forgotten that you actually threatened to cut my allowance. But I haven't forgotten it, Charles Hubbard, not for one minute. You're the cheapest, tightest, stingiest human being I've ever known."
"I wish we could settle matters without descending to the level of name-calling," Charlie replied. "You make your story sound very reasonable. It almost hangs together, but not quite. All of your good friends are mixed up in this-this vice ring. And so are you. Every fact points to it."
"You're assuming a lot of things, but you can't prove one of your so-called facts."
"Not at the moment, maybe," Charlie admitted. "The girls won't talk. I've tried with every one of them. And I can't expect your boy friends to come forward to admit their guilt. Maybe I can find out the truth from your cousin about the money-"
"There's no truth to get out of him. But even if he told you I've sent him thousands, it wouldn't prove a thing. How do you know that other relatives of mine haven't let me borrow money, for instance? You yourself wanted nothing to do with helping me protect my inheritance." Beth hoped desperately that her bluff would be effective.
"I don't care to argue with you," Charlie replied, standing and beginning to pace up and down the kitchen. "It's enough for me that you and I are through. I can never live with you again."
"That's good to hear," Beth said sarcastically.
"I want a divorce." He halted in front of her and, hands plunged in his pockets, stared down at her.
She returned his gaze silently. "You mean that?" she said at last.
"Yes, and the sooner the better."
"If you insist, there's no way I can force you to continue living with me," Beth said. If he wanted a divorce, she thought, he could have it, provided he didn't drag her down into the mud with Sandra and the others.
"I'm not like Jim Anderson," Charlie said.
"What does he have to do with all this?"
Charlie's face wrinkled in disgust. "He and Carolyn had a big reconciliation when he came to bail her out. Tears and dramatics all over the jail. How any self-respecting man could live with a woman like that is beyond me."
Beth was secretly delighted for Carolyn's sake. "Perhaps," she said, speaking so quietly that he blinked at her, "Jim Anderson is wise enough to know that it usually takes two to make a marriage go sour. Perhaps he's man enough to realize that Carolyn didn't really enjoy her fling. And generous enough to forgive her. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a wonderful marriage now."
Charlie was shaken but tried to hide his feelings behind a cynical front. "Spare the hearts and flowers," he said.
"By all means." Beth discovered that the news about Carolyn and Jim gave her a greater ability to cope with her own problems. "Let's get back to you and me. You wanted a pretty child bride who would double as a housemaid. Somebody you could show off when it struck your fancy. Somebody to cook and take care of your house. Somebody who would have no feelings or desires or aspirations of her own. Somebody you could take to bed or reject at will, who would obey you in everything, give you peace when you wanted peace and stir up a little genteel excitement when you wanted fun. Then, because you've put together some flimsy, circumstantial evidence, you want to get rid of her."
Jarred, Charlie protested, "You're guilty, but you're trying to put me in the wrong."
"I admit no guilt. Whether I've done all the things you claim or whether I'm innocent is beside the point. The Andersons have learned something. You're too narrow-minded to know there's something you might learn. I agree, Charlie. We're through."
He made an unsuccessful effort to regain his balance. "A very pretty speech, but it doesn't impress me. Let's just call it quits. And if you think you're going to get anything from me, you're wrong. I don't intend to pay you alimony or give you a nickel in a cash settlement."
He was running true to form, she thought. "How do you expect me to live?"
"That isn't my worry. I suppose you'll flop over on your back for some of your paying lovers, as you've been doing."
Beth felt safe enough now to say, "You'll have to dig up a lot of proof before you can make accusations like that in court."
"I don't plan to smear you."
What he really meant, she thought, was that he wanted no ugly publicity for himself. "That's very considerate," she said blandly, and only her eyes indicated how she really felt.
"I'll even let you go out to Nevada or some place to file for the decree."
"Thanks a heap. Because you can't spare the time away from your desk, no doubt. Don't do me any favors, Char-he. You can forget about a divorce until you're willing to offer me reasonable terms." Beth grew increasingly bold. "The deed for this house and land is in both of our names. I want my fair share. I also want enough money to live on."
"You can go to the devil."
"So can you," she replied, increasingly certain he could not find enough solid evidence to charge her with adultery. That is, if she stuck to her guns. It was easy, she was discovering, to meet a weak man's bluster with equally firm bluff, and she wondered what she had ever seen in Charlie that had impelled her to marry him. Knowing what she knew now, she would flee his type. "If you force me to become unpleasant-"
"Look here," Beth said heatedly, interrupting him. "You come waltzing home at dawn making wild accusations you can't prove. You've decided you're tired of me, and you want me to oblige you by giving you a divorce and getting nothing in return. Maybe I'm dumb, but I'm not as stupid as you think. I've listened to the girls at bridge games. And I happen to know that a judge, any judge, will order you to pay me one-third of your income as temporary alimony."
"If you think I intend to shell out that much-"
"I've had no chance to think about any of this. The whole idea is new to me. You don't want a scandal, I don't want a gun pointed at my head. So far we're even. By now you should know that I'm not mercenary. If I were, I couldn't have lived with you all these years. Make me an honorable offer, and you can have your divorce."
He remained silent for a long time. "I'm in no condition to think straight," he said. "I'll pack some of my belongings and move to a hotel in the city."
Beth was secretly elated that he was giving in so readily. She had no desire to stay permanently in the house, but it offered her a temporary shelter while she rearranged her shattered life. "I guess that will be okay," she replied, not wanting him to realize that he was handing her a victory.
"I'll send for the rest of my stuff. And in a few days my lawyer will be in touch with you." He bowed rather pompously and mounted the stairs to the attic for some luggage.
Beth hovered near the foot of the stairs, listening intently and ready to leap for the kitchen telephone extension if he made a call to her cousin. So far, at least, he had no real case against her, she thought. He knew too little about women's clothes to realize how much she had spent on her new wardrobe. And only if he learned that she had been sending substantial sums to her cousin would he really be in a position to put two and two together.
But Charlie's basic intent at the moment was simply to leave the house. And in twenty minutes or so he moved down the stairs, straining to carry two heavy suitcases. He was in such a hurry, in fact, that he had forgotten to shave, and he neither looked at Beth nor spoke to her as he started toward the garage. "Goodbye," she said politely.
The moment he drove off she put through a long distance call to Phil Bates, waking him up.
"Phil," she said, "you may hear from Charlie soon. Please don't tell him or anyone else how much I've sent you. Don't even admit I've sent anything."
Her cousin was bewildered. "Whatever you say," he replied. "But why?"
"I can't explain. Just do as I ask."
"All right. How soon can I expect another payment from you?"
"There won't be any more," Beth told him firmly. "But I need-"
"You'll have to work things out with what I've sent you," she said harshly. "I can't pull any more rabbits out of hats."
She leaned wearily against the kitchen wall after hanging up the phone and reflected that, after all she had suffered, she might lose both her original investment and the good money she had sent after bad. But her reputation was still safe, even if she faced possible starvation in the near future, so she had cause to be thankful. Others, no less guilty than she, had been far less fortunate, and had Bob Winterton arrived at the motel a quarter of an hour later than he had, Beth would have been dragged off to jail, too. She shuddered.
But it accomplished nothing to think of what might have happened. The house was very quiet, now that Charlie was gone, and Beth realized with a start that her marriage had been terminated. She had been so concerned about admonishing Phil Bates to silence that not until this moment did it occur to her she was truly free.
Too tired to care or analyze her feelings, she dragged herself upstairs to bed. All she knew was that, no matter what privations might await her, no power on earth could force her to become a prostitute again. She had salvaged her reputation, if not her marriage, and neither threats nor blandishments could induce her to take further risks.
Beth hibernated for three days, seeing no one and following developments in the newspapers of the sensational scandal. But all she learned of real interest was that the owners of the motel planned to sell the establishment to a national chain that intended to change the name of the place at once. None of the girls involved in the case were available for comment.
The telephone did not ring, and only twice was Beth's solitude disturbed. The day after Charlie's departure, she received a check for one hundred dollars from him in the mail, accompanied by a curt note. "This," he wrote, "will take care of your expenses for the present." She could not help wondering how long he expected her to make the money last.
One afternoon a reporter from a metropolitan newspaper appeared at the front door, hoping that she, as a friend of the girls who had been arrested, would be willing to submit to an interview. Beth slammed the door in his face.
After more than seventy-two hours of hiding from the world, she could endure no more and, feeling a feverish desire to learn what was really happening, decided to pay a visit to Sandra in the hospital. Strangely accustomed to living alone in the house and feeling no sense of loss, she dressed decorously, with a minimum of make-up, and even took the precaution of wearing shoes with low heels. In half an hour she was at the hospital.
The gray-haired woman at the information desk peered hard at Beth when she asked the location of Mrs. Sandra Winterton's room but made no comment. Beth's nervousness increased as she rode to the third floor in the elevator and walked down the hall toward the private rooms. She thought she had made a mistake when she saw no policeman stationed in the corridor, but Sandra's voice, amazingly cheerful, hailed her from the far side of the open door.
"Come on in, sweetie."
Beth noted at once that, aside from a slight puffiness on one side of her face, Sandra appeared to be in good health.
"You're a sight for sore eyes, sweetie, and I do mean sore. They were still black, blue and green last night, but the doctors in this dump have some marvelous ointments. Better than any facial creams, I can tell you." Sandra was propped up in bed, sipping a glass of iced tea.
"I expected to find an invalid, but you're in better shape than I am," Beth said.
"My shape will never be better than yours. Close the door."
Beth obeyed. "I thought a minion of the law was supposed to be guarding you out there."
"He was quietly removed early this morning." Sandra winked blatantly. "Orders from on high. Very high."
"Really?" Beth, still amazed, took a chair beside the bed.
"You're damned right. Too many of the Johns are men with big names. Heads of corporations. Financiers. And two of them were politicians with large followings. I've already been guaranteed that I'll be put on probation. And the others will get suspended sentences. That fink, Davies, may spend six months in the jug, but my heart doesn't exactly bleed for him."
"Davies?"
"The assistant manager of the Stamen. If he hadn't lost his head, there would have been no stink, no trouble, no nothing. That's why my friends didn't put on the heat to help him when they turned it on for everybody else." Sandra made herself more comfortable. "I've got to hand it to you, sweetie. You showed real guts, coming here."
"We've had our differences," Beth said. "But I don't believe in deserting a friend when she's in a jam. Anyway, it's a sheer fluke that I wasn't taken to jail, too."
"The pixies were sitting on your shoulder, that's for sure." Sandra laughed as though the whole terrible crisis were of no significance.
"How can you treat it all so lightly?" Beth asked.
"I can't pretend I'm sorry that my marriage to that vicious bastard is ended. He's already filed suit for divorce, by the way. I was served day before yesterday, on charges of adultery. I'm not even going to bother making an appearance in court. He's had his quart of blood, and he can have his divorce. I'm well rid of him, and that's good enough for me."
Beth was embarrassed, not knowing whether to say she was sorry or pleased.
"Carolyn and Jim are pulling out of it beautifully," Sandra continued. "I'm glad. They've always been crazy about each other, and she got into the racket just to spite him after they'd had some scraps. They've already flown down to the Caribbean for a second honeymoon."
"How in the world do you know so much?"
"Oh, I have my souces of information. Men with right jobs in the right places."
It was typical of Sandra, Beth thought, that she should be kept up to date on developments by men.
"The redhead has disappeared. Nobody knows where she's gone. And I'm afraid Patsy's marriage is smashed up-she's gone back to her family. Out in Pennsylvania or Ohio or somewhere." Sandra looked quizzically at the younger girl. "I hear you've been taking some lumps."
Beth stirred uncomfortably. "Charlie has moved into a hotel in town."
"You haven't broken down and told him all?"
"Certainly not. He knows nothing."
"Good. Keep your mouth shut, and he won't be able to pick up even a shred of evidence against you. I give you my flat guarantee. Nobody is going to squeal. Nobody is going to whisper a word."
Beth wished she could share Sandra's conviction. "What about that fellow, Davies, the assistant manager?"
"He'll take his six months in prison without opening his mouth. I can have him sent away for a really long stretch if he gets gabby, and he knows it. Contributing to the delinquency of a minor, for one thing. Peddling drugs, for another. Unsavory characters like Davies," she added with mock solemnity, "should be imprisoned to protect the public at large."
Beth was not amused and averted her face so Sandra could not see the shock.
"What are your plans, sweetie?" Sandra said. "I haven't really made any, yet. I've thought of getting myself a job-"
"Doing what?"
"I honestly don't know. A liberal arts degree doesn't qualify me for much of anything, and I don't even know how to operate a switchboard. Maybe I can find some-something as a receptionist somewhere."
"Jobs like that pay peanuts. Don't do anything until you've had a talk with a lawyer, a good lawyer who'll tell you how to protect your rights. See Newton Swanson-you'll find him in the city phone book. And you can be frank with him."
Beth hesitated. "Is he someone I know?"
"If you're asking whether he's a John who was familiar with the setup at the Stamen, I refuse to answer," Sandra replied with a laugh. "But he's nobody who ever got together with you, sweetie."
Beth was relieved but wondered if she would ever live down the unsavory period that had scarred her life.
"You aren't grieving for Charlie, I hope?"
"No." Beth saw no reason to add that she felt guilty and directly responsible for the destruction of her marriage. Sandra simply would not understand that kind of remark, so Beth changed the subject. "What are your plans?"
"I'm considering several alternatives." Sandra reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry about me. I'll do fine."
Beth did not doubt it.
"You'll hear from me one of these days, after the dust settles," Sandra said mysteriously. "I appreciate this call, sweetie, more than you know."
Newton Swanson, sitting behind a large desk in an oak-paneled office, wore an expensively tailored suit, heavy gold cufflinks and, in short, resembled the men who had frequented the Stamen. Beth felt uneasy in his presence, and her peace of mind was not improved by his apparent familiarity with her whole situation.
"You have nothing to fear from your husband, Mrs. Hubbard." He smiled at her across a desk Uttered with legal briefs and other documents.
"I should hope not," Beth said defensively. "Why should I?"
"When a marriage is in the process of dissolution," he replied smoothly, "women-particularly women who know little or nothing about the law-frequently believe themselves on the brink of ruin. The truth of the matter is that you're in a very strong position."
Beth tugged at the hem of her skirt when she saw the advocate staring at her legs. "At the moment," she said, "the one thing that worries me is whether I'll be solvent enough to pay your fee."
"There are ways of taking care of these things."
She stiffened instantly.
He saw her expression and read her mind. "It's customary," he explained, temporarily retreating and shifting ground, "for the husband to pay his wife's legal expenses."
"I see." She knew he had been hinting at something else and remained on her guard.
"In fact, I've already taken the liberty of speaking to Mr. Hubbard. I called him after you phoned me yesterday to make this appointment. I thought we ought to know where we stand."
She was surprised but could make no valid objection.
"Mr. Hubbard realizes there can be no divorce without your consent. Although he seems sure you were, ah, unfaithful to him, he admits he has no proof that would stand up in court."
"My husband," she said, maintaining the fiction of innocence, "is a man with a highly developed imagination."
A flicker of disbelief appeared in Swanson's eye, but he preferred to observe the conventions. "Quite so," he murmured, then studied her legs openly, with obvious pleasure.
Beth reflected that once again she had behaved impulsively and rather stupidly. She herself had jumped to the conclusion that Swanson had been a patron of Sandra's girls at the Stamen, and Sandra had virtually corroborated her belief, so Beth should have gone to another attorney, someone who would accept her as chaste and as a lady.
"I made Mr. Hubbard aware of his extreme limitations in this case," the lawyer said. "And I told him outright that a divorce will cost him a great deal of money. When a man wants a divorce, for whatever his reason, he must expect to shell out."
Beth knew, even if she had to keep the facts to herself, that she had not dealt honorably with Charlie, and it seemed unfair to punish him because he suspected the truth.
"I'm not greedy, Mr. Swanson," she said.
The lawyer gestured deprecatingly. "You're accustomed to luxuries, my dear." His smile became frankly suggestive. "If I may say so, you're a rather expensive girl."
Her sense of discomfort increased, and she felt a desire to fidget when his gaze rose to her bustline and lingered there. It was evident that he was interested in more than the law, and her only recourse was to pretend she did not know what he meant. "I'm certain Charlie will find me reasonable," she said.
He picked up a letter opener and pointed it at her feet. "How much did you pay for those shoes?" he demanded.
The question made no sense to Beth but she was willing to answer it. "About twenty-five dollars." She did not add that she loved linen pumps and had splurged on them.
"Your tastes are not modest," Swanson remarked dryly. "Quite the contrary. Many young women pay no more than five or six dollars for shoes."
She was prepared to spend far less, too, and shrugged. His point seemed meaningless.
"I advise you to get all you can from Mr. Hubbard. And from any other possible source."
The last part of his statement made her flesh crawl, but she remained poker-faced. Her entire investment with her cousin could go down the drain before she would resort to prostitution again.
"The best arrangement I could make with Mr. Hubbard on a temporary basis is a payment of one hundred dollars per week. He'll allow you to stay in the house until we reach a final settlement."
"That's very generous," Beth said, realizing that Swanson had been something of a magician and had undoubtedly applied considerable pressure to obtain such favorable terms.
He shook his head. "Mr. Hubbard is no altruist. He wants you to sign over your interest in the house to him as part of the final agreement."
"Why not? It was his money that bought the place."
The lawyer showed signs of irritation.
"And I don't want permanent alimony, either," Beth declared. "I'd feel-well, kind of cheap-taking money from Charlie for years and years."
"May I ask why you're here?" he demanded caustically.
"I don't want him smearing me with dreadful charges. And I do think I deserve a little help, at least until I can get on my own feet and support myself."
Swanson took a long time filling a pipe, which he then placed on his desk. "You're unusual, my dear. And for someone in your line of endeavor, unique."
Beth flushed. "I-I don't appreciate the innuendo."
"Very tactless of me." He inclined his head in what seemed intended as an apology. "May I suggest that, as you seem to have little talent for business, you permit me to hammer out the arrangement with Mr. Hubbard?"
It was a sensible idea, Beth knew, and although she felt grubby, it seemed wise to accept. With no rent to pay, she could save small amounts of the one hundred per week to send her cousin. No matter how dirty and underhanded the whole transaction might be, it was essential that she think of herself and her little inheritance. No one else, certainly, would look out for her.
"That's settled." Swanson rose and circled the desk.. "You'll have no cause to regret this decision. I realize how painful the recent unpleasantness has been for you."
He couldn't possibly know how she felt, Beth thought indignantly, gathering her handbag and gloves.
There was a subtle change in his manner, and he became more personal. "I make it my practice to become acquainted with my clients, particularly those I like. I hope you'll have dinner with me-shall we say tomorrow night?"
As Beth stood up, she wondered how she could possibly avoid a date with the attorney, who definitely had only one thing on his mind. She wouldn't go to bed with him and couldn't decide whether he would be more annoyed if she rejected him later rather than now. The problem was a delicate one, as her reputation was in his hands.
"I can understand your hesitation," he told her. "But you can trust someone in my profession and with my experience to be discreet." He slipped an arm about her waist and held her firmly.
Beth's first instinct was to break away and slap his face. But if he became her enemy, she would be completely at Charlie's mercy. And, knowing Charlie, she was aware he wouldn't rest until he found evidence to blacken her so he wouldn't have to pay her a cent. Steeling herself, she allowed the lawyer to draw her closer.
His other hand darted out, and he fondled her breasts for a moment, then kissed her.
Beth submitted with the best grace she could muster, her mind racing. She couldn't blame Swanson for making a pass at her. After all, he knew her to be a part-time call girl, so there was no reason he should respect her. However, she told herself, she would rather die than become involved in another flat, meaningless affair for money.
"Tomorrow night, then?" he insisted, releasing her.
Beth shook her head. "Not just yet," she murmured, and was surprised by her ability to dissemble, realizing she looked and sounded regretful. "I don't dare make any dates until the dust has settled and the things that have happened in Owendale have been forgotten. I was lucky I didn't get scorched," she added candidly, "and this is no time for me to risk being burned."
Swanson was forced to agree with her logic but did not want to give up so easily. "I keep a small apartment here in the city for, ah, business purposes. We could meet there, and no one would know it."
Beth's smile was genuine. "You underestimate Charlie. It wouldn't surpise me if he's hired detectives to trail me."
"Mmm." The lawyer frowned. "Perhaps you're right."
She had frightened him and knew she was on the right track. "Later," she continued, "after the divorce comes through, I'll be free to do as I please." Returning his gaze, she flirted with him, striking a provocative stance.
"It won't be easy to wait," he replied, and taking her in his arms, began to fondle her again.
Beth was afraid that at any moment he might suggest she remain with him behind the locked door of his office. Gently disengaging herself, she continued to smile steadily. "Patience is supposed to be a virtue. I wouldn't know about that. But in this case, I'll see to it that it's worth your while." She almost choked on the lie but took several steps toward the door.
Swanson beamed at her. "I'll be looking forward to a good many dates with you," he said and laughed. "In fact, I'll put on steam to arrange for the divorce as quickly as I can."
Beth thanked him and, giving him no chance to maul or kiss her again, opened the door. He subsided, and she managed to escape into the corridor.
Her heels clicking furiously on the stone-tiled floor of the hallway, Beth seethed as she strode to the elevator. All men were alike, she thought, and a woman who had gone too far with too many of them was lost. It didn't matter, apparently, that she had avoided arrest at the motel and had been spared the subsequent disgrace the others had suffered. The word was out-she was one of the crowd, and she wondered if it would ever be possible for her to live down her past. The prospect of spending the rest of her life fending off Swanson and others of his breed sickened her, and she told herself dismally that she might expect to pay for her transgressions until she became too old to care.
Transgressions, Beth thought. That was a funny one. Funny, because the transgressions had all begun with the enjoyment of sex-back in her teens.
She hadn't been able to do without sex in her teens, and it was hard to think of doing without it now, whatever her transgressions.
She supposed, if she wanted, that she could blame the first man who had introduced her to carnal delights, many years ago....
What was his name? Oh, yes, slim Danny Martin-he had been in his early forties, and she seventeen.
Danny hadn't been crude, either. He'd been like Bruce, very gentle and considerate, until Beth had really had the fires lit in her, and from that point on the sky had been the limit.
No limit at all, really. Beth flushed, just to remember. She had become utterly wanton with Danny toward the end. She had presumed, in her sexual arrogance, to tell him what to do.
His eye a-twinkle, the man had acceded. Something else was twinkling, too, that element to which his overall slimness had taken exception, and which had put Beth in his temporary thrall.
"Be careful, though," he had said.
Her temper had flashed-she could not contain herself and must try him at all costs.
"I won't-I won't," she had said, and went on to be crude where Danny had been cautious about her capacities.
He had gasped at Beth's resultant action. She had become as a whirling dervish, her eyes starting from her sockets, while he had turned white from the exertion of holding back from yielding to the extremity of the delirious sensations. And when, at last, they had pitched to the ultimate, they crumpled in exhaustion....
Beth sighed. How, possibly, could she do without sex?
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE SUMMER passed slowly and at such a snail's pace that when Beth climbed out of bed every morning after a sleepless night, she wondered whether she had the strength to face another blank day. On the surface her life was tranquil, but she had never known such loneliness or bleak despair. She was completely alone now, and isolation closed in on her.
Charlie continued to pay her one hundred dollars each week, but the money did not go as far as Beth had hoped. The house needed electrical and plumbing repairs, and Charlie insisted that she pay for them. These bills, combined with her food costs and the other daily expenses of living, ate such large holes in her budget that she found it extremely difficult to send Phil Bates the modest sum of twenty-five dollars every Monday.
Her worry about her investment gnawed at her constantly. Phil sent her an auditor's report that even she could understand. He was doing much better but still risked losing his business unless he could raise a final fifteen hundred dollars. His own sources of capital were exhausted, and he could depend on no one but Beth. If she could produce new miracles, as she done in the past, he wrote, he would become solvent in a short time and in less than a year her total investment would double.
The auditor's facts and figures convinced her that Phil was neither exaggerating nor whistling in the dark.
But the fifteen hundred he needed to make him solvent was unobtainable unless she went back to prostitution, which she refused to consider. In her waking moments she reconciled herself to the financial loss she could ill afford, but late at night, when she was half-asleep, terror chilled her. Decent jobs, she had discovered, were virtually impossible to find when one had no special training or talent, and the world was callously prepared to let her starve.
Charlie was proving far more stubborn in agreeing to a permanent settlement that Swanson had suspected. "My wife," he told the lawyer in countless telephone conversations, "has no right to expect anything from me. I'm letting her stay in the house and paying her now so she'll have a chance to get organized. But I won't play Santa Claus forever. When autumn comes, I intend to take possession of my house and cut off her weekly checks. If she doesn't like it, she can lump it. That's the way things are going to be."
Swanson admitted to Beth that he was making no progress on her behalf. "I've come across tough ones," he told her, "but this guy is like a wall. It's my own feeling that he's being so impossible because he actually wants to get together with you again."
"He wants us to five together?" she asked incredulously.
"That's what I think. But don't depend on it. You may have been right about his hiring detectives to keep watch on you, so stay out of trouble."
The advice was unnecessary, as Beth had no desire to see any man-except Bruce. And he had vanished from her life. As for reconciliation with Charlie, the idea of living as his wife for the rest of her days was repulsive. No woman could be happy with a man so lacking in humanity, in charity and forgiveness.
Once each week she walked to the supermarket for food but went on virtually no other errands, stopping only once at a pharmacy for aspirin and a small supply of cosmetics. She spent her mornings working in her garden until she came to hate the sight of flowers. And every afternoon at the beach she improved her suntan. But neighbors and former friends made it painfully clear that they wanted nothing more to do with her, and she knew that, even though she had not been arrested in the raid, it was common knowledge that she had been one of the Stamen girls.
She saw Carolyn Anderson several times, but only from a distance. Carolyn's nod of greeting was stiff and, having salvaged her own marriage, she did not want to become contaminated again. Several other girls who had been members of the ring and who, like Beth, had been fortunate enough to avoid public exposure, were even more careful. In fact, one of them looked with such disgust at Beth's bikini on the beach one day that Beth put away her skimpy bathing attire in a dresser drawer and thereafter wore costumes more modest.
The evenings were by far the worst, and Beth found it impossible to stifle her longing for Bruce after night fell. I'm a romantic idiot, she told herself angrily. He was never interested in anything but a romp with me, and he certainly doesn't want to associate with a whore. Still, if I could see him, I might be able to explain to him that I tumbled into the racket by accident because I fell in love with him. But he wouldn't believe me, anyway. Why would he? No sane man would accept the word of a prostitute. But her self-lacerations accomplished nothing, and she found herself going over the same ground night after night.
She no longer tried to find work, either. The business and professional men of Owendale, the shop owners and even the tradespeople, were cool to her, letting her know that they, too, suspected her background and would not consider hiring her. On several occasions she went job-hunting in Boston, but her experiences there were equally discouraging. "Sorry," was the constant refrain, "we aren't hiring receptionists."
Beth was surprised to hear her telephone ring one morning late in the summer and was even more startled when she heard a familiar voice at the other end of the wire.
"Hi, sweetie."
"Sandra."
"What did you think happened to me? On second thought, don't answer that question." Sandra sounded lively and vivacious.
Beth could not tell her the truth, which was that she had rarely speculated about the other girl.
"I'd love to see you," Sandra said, "and show off my new apartment to you."
"Where are you, Sandra?"
"In the city. Take this down."
Beth snatched a pencil from the kitchen shelf and scribbled the address of a smart apartment building on Beacon Hill.
"How about coming in for the afternoon-today?"
Beth felt a sudden wave of repugnance but reminded herself that Sandra had demonstrated good intentions by sending her to a lawyer.
"I-I guess I can manage it," Beth said.
"Good. Get here by one and I'll feed you a scrumptious and alcoholic lunch." Sandra hung up abruptly.
For the first time in weeks Beth had a reason to dress and make up carefully. Then she took a train into South Station and, watching her pennies, decided to go uptown by bus rather than taxi.
The building was a new glass-and-brick skyscraper, the self-service elevator was lined with sandalwood and the overall impression was one of great opulence. There was a stand of handsome artificial flowers in the entrance hall outside the apartment itself, and the wallpaper, Beth noted, was an expensive silk damask. Obviously the building was no place for paupers.
Sandra, elegant in a skintight sheath of white shantung, greeted her guest with a hug. "I've missed you, sweetie," she cried.
Beth, who had every good reason to despise the woman, discovered she could not hate someone so genuinely pleased to see her. Sandra proudly took her on a tour of the four-room apartment and, although it was not yet completely furnished, everything already in place had cost a great deal of money and was in excellent taste. An enormous divan and a large abstract painting dominated the living room, and on the far wall stood a bookcase-desk in Swedish modern that matched the breakfront in the dining room. The bedroom, to Beth's surprise, was modest and conservative, and she told herself that Sandra probably entertained no clients here-assuming, of course, that she was still in the racket.
After the tour they sat in the living room, and Sandra poured martinis from a crystal pitcher. "I haven't done too badly, have I?"
"It's gorgeous." Beth peered out at the sweeping view of the city.
"The wages of sin," Sandra said, raising her glass, "can provide a smart girl with a wonderful living."
They sipped their drinks. "I was wondering whether you were still in the game," Beth remarked at last.
Sandra laughed. "I'm better at it than at anything else I know, and the pay is terrific. The hours are good, too. Besides," she added, "I couldn't let the fist I'd been cultivating for years go to waste. The whole time I was in that hospital, I was afraid Bob would find my little book." She opened the drawer of an end table beside her and took out a worn leather notebook. "There isn't a girl in town who has a more solid collection of Johns. Every one of them guaranteed, gilt-edged."
Beth found the description distasteful but laughed politely.
"I've been operating for only six weeks," Sandra said, "but it's the best life I've ever known. I just wish I'd divorced Bob sooner than I did."
The facts, Beth thought, were somewhat mangled. Bob had divorced Sandra, but that did not make nearly as attractive a story.
"Most days," Sandra continued, "I sleep until noon. I spend my afternoons shopping or just puttering around, and then things really come to life at night. I go to the best restaurants and nightclubs, I take in all the new plays and I have more invitations to go away for weekends than I can possibly accept."
"You look great," Beth said, thinking of the puffy face she had seen in the hospital.
Sandra stood and paraded up and down for her inspection. "I've taken off seven pounds, and I think my figure is improved."
Beth had to concede that the other girl looked very sleek and alluring.
Sandra refilled their glasses. "As soon as I'm through furnishing this place, I'll start soaking away money. And I mean real money."
"I'm very pleased for you," Beth said.
"Enough about me. Stand up and let me see how you look."
Beth rose to her feet reluctantly.
"Walk up and down," Sandra said.
Obeying, Beth felt like a contestant in an animal show.
"You've lost some weight, too," Sandra observed.
"I guess so. A few pounds, maybe." Beth had not weighed herself in weeks.
"On you it looks good. The sexiest figure in the hemisphere. The fine forms to the right, boys. Don't crowd, jostle or push. Just be patient, and everybody gets his turn."
Beth was embarrassed and sat down abruptly.
"Still shy after going through the mill, sweetie?" Sandra said. "That's marvelous. Most men love that attitude. It gives them the illusion of real romance. If you handle yourself right, you can make your attitude pay plenty." Sandra emptied the last contents of the pitcher into their glasses.
They stepped into the dining room for crabmeat and avocado pear salads, and Beth felt certain the invitation had been more than a friendly gesture. Sandra was assuming that Beth, too, would resume work as a prostitute.
"How are things in Owendale?"
"I haven't been getting around much lately," Beth replied evasively.
"I get it. They treat you like a typhoid carrier."
"Well, not really. It isn't that bad."
"Like hell it isn't," Sandra said emphatically. "I've kept tabs on you. Not one of the old crowd comes near you any more. And somebody told me on the phone day before yesterday that Carolyn actually had the gall to snub you on the beach last week."
The incident still rankled, but Beth tried to be tolerant. "I can't blame her. In her place I might do the same thing."
"Not you. I'll never forget that you came to see me at the hospital. Even though your own roof was ready to blow off at any minute, you were loyal."
Again the facts were not quite accurate. Beth had gone to the hospital because she had hoped to learn more about her own situation, not because she had wanted to demonstrate loyalty to a friend in trouble. However, she was willing to let Sandra assume whatever she pleased.
"There's nothing tike a good woman, particularly a reformed hustler," Sandra said contemptuously. "Don't be surprised if Carolyn starts an Anti-Vice League and has herself elected president." She laughed harshly, and for a few moments she foreshadowed the woman she would become in time: her face was hard, her features were a trifle too sharp and her eyes were like those of a bird of prey. "But she'll be back in the game."
"Do you really think so?" Beth did not agree but felt she had to say something.
"You're damned right I do. Wait a year or two, until the gloss starts to wear off that halo she's sporting. She'll start having the same old troubles. Boredom. Financial problems with Jim. Lots of time with nothing to do. Looking in her mirror every morning and seeing that she's growing older, not younger." Sandra glanced covertly at Beth. "All the usual. She isn't unique, you know. She's human, tike all the rest of us. Jim won't be able to satisfy her in the hay. She'll start craving variety again. Excitement. The thrill that's unlike any other feeling in the world, the discovery that practically knocks you out when you come across a man who sends you off to the stars.
"Carolyn won't know what's happening to her at first," Sandra continued. "Then she'll start getting restless. And finally, one morning, she'll wake up and tell herself she's had it. But by then she'll be older and drabber. Instead of pulling in the fifty dollar fees she was used to, she'll be lucky if the Johns will pay her twenty-five."
Beth sighed.
"More iced coffee, sweetie?" Sandra's question was casual.
"No, thank you."
Aware of her guest's depression, Sandra led Beth back into the living room. "We'll have our brandy in here."
"Brandy at this time of day? Not for me."
Paying no attention to the protest, Sandra filled two miniature snifters. "This much can't hurt you."
"I suppose not," Beth agreed, trying to be gracious.
Sandra kicked off her high-heeled pumps and tucked a foot beneath her. "Sweetie," she said, "I want to have a serious talk with you."
Here it comes at last, Beth thought.
"Have you given any serious thought to going back into the game?"
"No." Beth's declaration was emphatic.
Sandra shrugged. "You're being short-sighted. I happen to know you're having rough sledding and that things are going to get worse for you, not better."
Swanson, Beth told herself, was talking too much. She should have realized that someone who was a client of Sandra's would not show professional discretion.
"I suppose that sooner or later you'll land a crummy little job at sixty dollars a week. But who can five on that kind of money? It'll be a struggle just to pay your rent in some third-rate rooming house and eat in dingy cafeterias. Except when you can sponge a meal from some man."
The description was exaggerated but close enough to the truth to force a slight smile from Beth.
"You'll be lucky if you can buy yourself two new dresses a year," Sandra persisted, "and in bargain basement sales at that. With your love of nice clothes, you'd go mad."
There were things far more important than clothes in the world, Beth reflected, but kept her opinion to herself as Sandra resumed.
"That sort of existence would be a waste of a gorgeous face and of a body that electrifies every man who sees you. There aren't many in your class, sweetie, or with your sense of dazzle when you really put your mind to it. I'll never forget the day you had Dave spinning like a dervish, while Harold was jumping around the Stamen bar like a grasshopper."
Beth remembered the day all too well, and even now felt considerable shame at the memory. I must have been out of my mind, she thought, to become all tricked up like a street-walker.
"I'm doing beautifully," Sandra went on, "with only fifty percent of your assets."
"You're being too modest."
"I'm being a sensible, hard-boiled business woman. Look at me and then at yourself in the mirror. The difference screams. I swear to you that you can make four figures a week. One thousand dollars. And more, if you want to work a little harder. All of it tax-free, too," she added with a laugh. "Who can afford to turn down that kind of money?"
"I can," Beth said flatly.
"I want to make you an offer," Sandra said patiently. "And please don't turn it down until you've heard everything I have to say. You can move in here with me. There's plenty of room for two of us, and I won't charge you a penny for rent. I won't even ask you to buy a single stick of furniture."
"What would we do," Beth asked sardonically, "take turns entertaining men in the bedroom?"
Sandra pushed a comb deeper into the coil of hair at the nape of her neck. "Still the naive baby. Johns don't come up here, sweetie. They don't even know my address, and I don't intend to be listed in the phone book. The way it's done here in town, a girl goes to a man's place. His apartment, maybe, or a hotel room. You charge so much for a quick fling, so much for the whole night.
Then you come back home, and your private life is your own."
Beth shook her head. "It's not for me," she said. "But there must be many girls who'd be happy to accept your offer."
"I'm interested in you, not many girls. You're a natural, and I can't afford to let you slip away. I'm not being a philanthropist in all this, you understand. I'll take my cut from the Johns, the same as I did out in Owendale. But this time there will be just the two of us instead of a whole stable of girls. There are almost no risks involved, either. No motel managers who lose their heads in an emergency. In fact, no emergencies. We don't accept any new client unless somebody we know well vouches for him. No hoods, no policemen, no cranks who want you to swing from a chandelier by your toes. Just rich gentlemen. Very, very rich gentlemen." Sandra reached for the brandy bottle again.
Beth covered her glass with her hand. "Maybe I'm a damned fool," she said, thinking how easy it would be to send Phil Bates the last of the money he needed, "but I've never-not for one minute-had any kicks in the game. It just isn't for me."
"You haven't been able to get Bruce Gibson out of your system, is that it?" Sandra asked softly.
Beth stiffened. "Please leave him out of this."
"You still have a yen for him."
"I refuse to discuss Bruce with you." Beth jumped to her feet.
Sandra reached out lazily, caught Beth's arm and, showing surprising strength, hauled her back to the divan. "I asked you not to blast off into space until I finished. I still have something to say. About Bruce."
Beth struggled to a sitting position.
"He feels the same way about you, sweetie."
Afraid she was being tricked, Beth stared hard at the other girl, who seemed to be sincere.
"I mean it," Sandra said. "I'll come clean. All the way. I've been intending all along to offer you a partnership, but I wasn't going to say anything until I established my own connections in the city a little more firmly." She shrugged. "Now Bruce has forced my hand." She paused and gazed idly out of the window.
"No tricks," Beth commanded sharply. "If you have something to say, please say it."
"Okay. Bruce misses you. Desperately. Just as much as you miss him."
"You're lying." The news was too good to be true.
"The reason I called you this morning, instead of waiting another couple of weeks, is because Bruce got in touch with me. He told me he hasn't been able to get you out of his system, and he just can't stand being separated from you any longer."
Beth began to tremble. "Do you know-where to reach him?"
Sandra looked at her gold and ruby watch. "He's waiting for my call right now. You can be with him in fifteen minutes." Smiling confidently, she stood and walked to the bookcase-desk. "I met him for a quick drink at a restaurant a few blocks from here this noon, just a little while before you showed up. That's why I'm dressed as I am. Usually I don't bother so early in the day." She opened and closed a desk drawer, then turned with an envelope in her hand. "He asked me to give you this."
Beth's hand shook as she took the envelope. It was plain, without writing of any kind on it, and she saw that it was sealed.
"He asked me to tell you," Sandra said, "that he wants you at any price."
Beth ripped open the envelope and removed some money.
Sandra took it from her and spread it on the coffee table. There were three bills, each of the one hundred dollar denomination. "He's not kidding, sweetie." There was awe in Sandra's voice now. "He can't afford to pay out this kind of cash."
Beth stared in shocked disbelief at the money. Her hopes had soared wildly, only to plummet to a new low. Bruce wanted her-but only as a prostitute. He missed her-physically. His yen for her began and ended in bed.
He could not stand being separated from her, but wanted to join her in the hay-and that was the end of it.
To him Beth was neither more nor less than a whore. An expensive call girl who, he thought, would find the lure of three hundred dollars irresistible.
Ashamed of the love she had wasted on him, Beth snatched the bills from the table and, in a blind fury, ripped them into small pieces.
"That's good money," Sandra cried, trying in vain to stop her.
Beth wrenched free and threw the shredded paper on the floor. "There," she said shrilly, "is my answer to Bruce. And to you." Blindly picking up her handbag from a chair, she ran out of the apartment, neither hearing nor heeding Sandra's calls begging her to return.
Beth's rage remained unabated in the elevator and in the taxi she hailed. Not until she reached South Station did her anger gradually give way to a sense of hysteria, and she sobbed as she stumbled through the station.
Passengers on the suburban train stared curiously at the lovely young woman who wept so freely and made no attempt to hide or even brush away her anguished tears.
The tears acted as a cleansing agent on Beth's mind as well as her emotions and, by the time she reached home, walking from the Owendale station rather than taking a taxi or a bus, she was calmer than she had been in months. Her last illusions were destroyed, and Beth realized at last that she had been clinging to a false hope, wishing that Bruce loved her in spite of the unsavory foundation on which their relationship had been based.
Now she knew she had been dreaming and forced herself to face the future realistically, without sentiment. No matter how much she cared for Bruce, he had no place in her life. A man who regarded a woman as a prostitute, who offered her cash in the hope that she would go to bed with him again, would not and could not be interested in her as a person. To him she was someone with whom he might find an hour's erotic pleasure, nothing more.
Blinded by her yearning for him, she had failed to recognize the path of duty. She was still Mrs. Charles Hubbard, and she had an obligation to Charlie. She had no right to blame him for feeling as he did toward her no self-respecting husband could do less than reject a wife who, as he had ample cause to suspect, had been many times unfaithful to him.
What could she do now to right the wrongs she had perpetrated? It seemed to Beth that there was only one possible answer. She had compounded her error when she had turned away from Charlie and, even though she dk not love him now nor in all probability ever would, she owed him her allegiance.
It was her place, as his wife, to give him the loyalty that every husband deserved. It was her place to help and sustain him, to comfort him when he was bruised and to share in his joys to whatever extent he would allow her to participate. It was her place to give herself to him unstintingly, without reservation.
And, Beth decided, if she refused to make the effort, her failure as a human being would be complete.
Sure that she was right in her reasoning, she picked up the kitchen phone and called Charlie's office in the city.
"Mr. Hubbard's office," a briskly efficient young woman said at the other end of the wire.
Beth did not recognize her voice and wondered if he had a new secretary. "May I speak to Mr. Hubbard, please?" Beth said.
"Who is calling?"
"Mrs. Hubbard." She had not thought of herself as Mrs. Charles Hubbard for far too long a time.
There was a long pause before the secretary replied, "One moment, please."
After another, shorter wait, there was a click, and Charlie came on the phone, sounding brusque and somewhat defensive. "You want to speak to me, Beth?"
"More than that, Charlie. I want to see you."
"Why?"
"I can't explain too well over the phone," Beth said.
"Oh?" He remained unyielding.
She could not blame him. "I think we owe each other a meeting," she said, forcing herself to maintain the difficult initiative. "We parted under unpleasant circumstances, and we haven't seen each other since."
"Do you think you're going to get better terms in a personal interview than your lawyer has been able to wangle for you?" Charlie said.
She could practically see his sneer. "This has nothing to do with divorce terms," Beth said.
It was obvious that Charlie thought she was lying. "One of the oldest shyster tricks in the business," he said curtly, "is to turn a wife loose on her husband when the lawyer falls on his face. Nothing you can say or do will persuade me to offer you a better settlement. So let's not waste each other's time."
Beth was surprised by her own ability to remain calm. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Charlie. If you really do. I can only tell you that divorce is the farthest thing from my mind right now."
"That's a switch."
"Not really. Or maybe it is. I honestly don't know. Maybe I deserve no consideration from you, but I can only beg you to see me."
He weighed the idea silently. "When did you have in mind?" he asked, relenting a little.
"Any time that's best for you." The sooner the better, she thought, before her high resolves weakened and were dissipated. "Do you happen to be free this evening?"
"Well-"
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble for you to come out here, I'd love to cook dinner for you."
Charlie was so flabbergasted he did not know what to say. Then he laughed uncomfortably. "I suppose my curiosity is stronger than my judgment. What time?"
"Whenever it's convenient for you." She wished she could feel some uplift, some sense of elation at the partial victory she had won.
"I guess it isn't too bad an idea. There are some books and other things I want to bring into town, things I intend to use between now and the day you vacate the house. Maybe that date is something we can settle while we're at it."
"I'd rather not go into details over the phone, if you don't mind."
Again he was silent. Always meticulous, Charlie carefully prepared every move in advance. "I believe I'll drive rather than take the train out. That way I can pile some cartons into the trunk. Is there still a pile of cardboard cartons in the cellar?"
Beth did not have the vaguest idea but thought it best not to sound indecisive. "I haven't looked lately, but if you left them there, I haven't moved them."
"Okay, then. You can expect me around six-thirty." He hung up without saying goodbye.
Beth glanced at the kitchen clock and realized she had to rush. First she took a package of cleaned shrimp and a sirloin from the freezer, scrubbed two baking potatoes and tossed a salad. Then she made a generous quantity of the cheese salad dressing he loved and, after another glance at the clock, whipped up a shrimp cocktail dressing that had rarely failed to win a compliment from him.
Racing upstairs, she took her second shower of the day, then dressed with great care. She chose a wide-scooped sheath of off-white tissue silk and deliberately refrained from wearing a bra. If she had used sex appeal as a weapon when she had gone to the motel, how much more important it was to utilize her allure now to regain her husband's affection. The night was too warm for stockings, but her tan was so attractive that she preferred to go barelegged. Her high, spike-heeled pumps matched her dress, and she subtly called additional attention to her legs by wearing a small gold anklet.
Her make-up at first glance appeared subdued because she used the palest of lipsticks, but she accented her eyes with mascara and delicately applied liner and shadow.
Deciding to utilize jewelry sparingly, Beth confined herself to a single costume bracelet of gold on her bare right upper arm and a large onyx ring on the little finger of her left hand. She had not worn her wedding and engagement rings all summer and decided it would be premature to let Charlie see them on her hand when he arrived. It would be far better, infinitely more appropriate, to slip on the rings as the climax to the evening.
Letting her shimmering blond hair fall loosely, she returned to the kitchen, donned an apron and made the last preparations for dinner. All at once doubts assailed her, and she wondered if she were giving in to an impulsive gesture she would regret. Again forcing herself to face issues unflinchingly, she realized that she would be sorry many times in the years to come. Whatever tenderness she and Charlie might once have felt for each other had died long ago.
But romantic love wasn't an end in itself, Beth told herself firmly. Most husbands and wives lived without romantic love and, through tolerance, an attempt to understand each other's problems and a constant exercise in restraint, were able mutually to adjust. Adults were wrong to expect too much. That had been her trouble for a long time, and she vowed that she wouldn't repeat the error. Charlie had been far more sensible, and his indifferent attitude that she had resented so strongly had actually been a cushion for him, his best support in moments of domestic stress. She would do her best to cultivate the same virtue.
Above all, she would keep Charlie's good qualities in mind. He was industrious and hard-working, sober and faithful; few wives could boast as much in their mates, and she had good cause to be grateful. If she respected him, it would be easier to overlook his defects. And she could only hope that, in time, he would learn to respect her, too. Beth promised herself that she would work hard, and eventually she would earn his respect, particularly after it dawned on him that she was a woman, not a child to be treated like a toy when he was in a good mood.
As to the rest of the money Phil Bates needed, Beth felt virtually certain Charlie would not lift a finger to help. She simply had to reconcile herself to the inevitability of losing both her original investment and the thousands of additional dollars she had sent her cousin in the past months. Marriage was more important than money and, although she was afraid she would never be able to forgive or forget Charlie's parsimony and his refusal to come to her aid in a time of need, she would try to minimize the whole matter.
She knew in her heart that her determination to make a success of a marriage that had failed was caused by the shattering of her dreams about Bruce. The shambles with Bruce, of course, was no solid basis for a marriage with Charlie. But half a loaf was better than nothing, she thought, and it would be a never-ending source of satisfaction to know that she had won a battle. She could understand Carolyn Anderson's pride now. Carolyn, too, had faced almost insurmountable obstacles but had overcome them.
A car pulled to a halt in the driveway, and Beth whisked off her apron, took a last, reassuring glance at herself in the small pantry mirror and started toward the kitchen door.
Charlie surprised her by ringing the front door bell.
Beth conquered a quick surge of annoyance. His refusal to be informal was not out of malice aforethought, she told herself. Obviously, after the strain of a long and difficult separation, Charlie was insecure, too. Pausing for an instant to recover her equilibrium, Beth made slowly for the door, a set smile on her lips.
"Good evening," Charlie said stiffly and removed his hat. He continued to wait on the threshold, and Beth could not suppress a giggle.
"I wish you'd come in," she said. "This is your house as much as it is mine."
"The house is one of me things I'd like to discuss with you," he replied, accompanying her to the living room. "The best way to handle it is to give you cash for your share."
"That's a new hat," she said, refusing to discuss anything connected with separation or divorce. Taking his hat, she examined it. "Very nice. You've always looked good in summer straws." Not waiting for a reply, she took it to the closet.
When she returned, Charlie was staring down at shrimp artfully arranged on a tray that sat on the coffee table. "What's this?" he demanded. "A party?"
"Not necessarily." She made herself sound casual. "Delicacies are for any festive occasion."
"Is this a celebration?" He was suspicious, on guard against tricks.
"I hope so. Try the sauce. I'll be right back." She went into the kitchen and took a pitcher of martinis and two chilled glasses from the refrigerator. When she returned to the living room, Charlie was still scowling at the shrimp.
A reconciliation, Beth realized, would be even more difficult to achieve than she had supposed. "I do wish you'd sit down." She deliberately gestured in the direction of the divan.
He seated himself at the farthest edge.
Beth placed the pitcher and glasses on the table. "Will you do the honors?"
Charlie stared at her for a moment, his eyes unblinking. "If you wish," he said tonelessly and filled the glasses.
Beth immediately raised hers in a toast. "Here," she said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, "is to you and me."
"An odd toast," he commented, hesitated and then took a gingerly sip.
"Not too much vermouth, I hope. I tried to remember your formula."
"It's okay," he said ungraciously.
Beth speared a shrimp on a toothpick, dipped it into her special sauce and handed it to him, with a paper napkin to catch drips.
Charlie was unable to conceal his pleasure at the taste.
"I've got to hand you one thing," he said grudgingly, spoiling the moment completely. "Even if you were no good at anything else, you always made a good shrimp sauce'."
"I wish you wouldn't speak of me in the past tense, as though I were dead," she flared. Then, sorry for her quick outburst, Beth smiled apologetically. "I'm sure you didn't mean it that way."
He took a long time eating the shrimp and made no reply.
Beth shifted her position on the divan slightly, letting her skirt ride higher above her knees. Not even Charlie could fail to notice that she was endowed with exceptionally attractive legs. It was absurd, of course, that he needed any such reminder, and Beth had to quell a feeling of resentment. "I'm fixing your favorite dinner," she said. "But I'm waiting a Utile while before I put the meat on to broil. I thought we'd want to get acquainted all over again-first." Her smile broadened, and she knew the dimple in her right cheek was showing to good advantage.
"When a woman goes to a lot of bother and fuss for a man," Charlie remarked thoughtfully, "she wants something."
In his present mood, Beth thought, it would be premature to tell Charlie she hoped he would come home to stay. He needed to be softened by her femininity and meUowed by the martinis before she spoke her mind frankly and freely. "I guess everybody in the world wants something," she replied quietly. "And usually it's the same thing. Happiness."
He shrugged but said nothing.
Beth took another swallow of her drink and waited for him to follow her example. When he continued to gaze out straight ahead of him, however, she held her glass in her hand and twirled it. "If I've made a bad martini," she said, "we can throw this whole batch away. And you can make another."
"No. This is okay." Charlie took another sip.
Beth flipped open a cigarette box and offered him one. He refused. She helped herself, then waited for him to light it for her. He seemed unaware of her need, so she finally picked up the table lighter herself.
At last he turned toward her. "You look as though you've been having a good summer."
"It's been quiet."
"You haven't taken a vacation?" he said.
"No. There's been too much on my mind."
Charlie frowned and absently drained his glass.
Beth refilled it instantly.
"How's your sex life?" he asked suddenly.
The brutal candor of the question startled her, but she replied honestly. "I haven't had any."
Charlie's face mirrored his belief that she was lying. "How come?"
"I'm a married woman," she said simply.
"You never let that stand in your way before."
"Please, Charlie. I don't want this to become an argument. Can't we talk decently, without recriminations?"
"Sure. I don't give a damn what you do."
"If I thought you meant that, I wouldn't have asked you to come out here this evening." Beth knew she had his attention now, and squaring her shoulders, sat with her breasts thrusting toward him. Only a blind man-and Charlie was not blind-would fail to become conscious of her charms.
He studied her impersonally. "You've still got a body, all right. And you still know how to use it." Continuing to stare at her, he reached for his glass and drank.
Beth felt the situation was improving, even though he still carried a large chip on his shoulder.
"I've seen hundreds of girls in town," he continued. "I've looked at them in restaurants, on the streets, everywhere. And not many are in your class. Your physical class, that is. In that one way, at least, I showed good sense when I married you. Where I made my mistake was not realizing that you lacked the character to go with your beauty."
She knew she had to swallow the insult, but could not help asking, "Isn't character a matter of opinion?"
"No. People either have it, or they don't. It's like virginity, I think. Either a girl has it, or she hasn't. There's no middle-way."
"Does it really give you so much satisfaction to hurt me?" Beth asked quietly.
"If you don't like the way I talk, I'll go back to the city as fast as I can get there. Coming out here tonight was your idea, not mine. Let's get business out of the way, I'll collect the belongings I want until I take possession of the house, and that will be that. There's no need for us to see each other again, ever." Charlie stood and, in a gesture she remembered well, plunged his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
She knew that, mood or no mood, she would have to act now if she intended to carry out her original purpose. Pretending nonchalance, she crossed her legs and idly swung one. "You admit I'm attractive," she murmured. "That's something."
"I don't think very many men would have the strength or the will power to turn you down."
"If you're one of those men, we can say goodbye to each other for keeps, Charlie. But if you still have a spark for me, I believe we can build from there."
He stood over her, staring hard. "What in hell do you want?"
"Marriage," Beth said flatly.
'I'm sure that as soon as we're divorced, you can persuade some sucker to marry you," he replied coldly.
In spite of her exasperation, Beth made one last attempt. "I want marriage to you. I want to stay married. I'm your wife. I want to spend the rest of my life being your wife." She tried to put deep conviction into her words, but was afraid they sounded as hollow as her feelings for him. If Charlie did not meet her at least part of the way, it was senseless to think of a reconciliation. Even under the best of circumstances she was setting herself an impossible task, and she closed her eyes.
Suddenly he swooped down on her, joining her on the divan and pulling her to him.
Beth instinctively resisted, then forced herself to yield.
Charlie kissed her roughly, forcing his tongue between her lips. Holding her at the small of the back, he began to fondle one of her breasts with his free hand. His touch was crude and far from gentle, and she wanted to shrink from him, but instead she allowed him to lower her to the divan. Perhaps, after all she had been through, she was inclined to the belief that the power of sex was overrated, but she was willing to let Charlie do whatever he pleased with her. It was his right as her husband, and there might be enough magic in his desire for her so that the tide of their marriage might turn in a positive direction.
He caressed her crudely, one hand still at her breast while the other foraged for the tenderest game.
Never in the years of their marriage had Charlie treated her with so little consideration, but Beth supposed he was trying to prove something to himself. Perhaps he imagined that she enjoyed a rough brand of love-making.
Whatever his reason, she completely failed to respond to his touch. Her soul shrinking, she knew that he meant no more to her than the Johns she had entertained at the motel. Keeping her eyes closed and hoping she would not burst into tears, she told herself repeatedly that the man pawing her was her legally wedded husband. Cringing and ashamed, she made no attempt to move his hands away. No part of her was too intimate to be violated.
Suddenly Charlie stopped and jumped to his feet.
Stunned, Beth blinked in astonishment, hauled herself to an upright position and pulled down her skirt.
Charlie laughed, and the vicious, mocking sound filled the room. "That's a surprise, isn't it?" he said.
She was still too bewildered by the unexpected shift to know what to reply.
"You're irresistible, aren't you?" he continued in the same tone. "You think that all you've got to do is flash those long legs, wiggle your bottom and push those plump breasts into a man's face to make him do anything you want. You invite me out here, you put on a cute little show of domesticity-and you throw yourself at me. Oh, cutie, how you threw yourself at me. But it doesn't work."
Beth was too crushed to weep, too angry and humiliated to speak.
"I'm the one guy in all the world who is impervious to your fascinating charms," Charlie persisted, his voice harsh and grating. "I've just proved something to our mutual satisfaction. I can make love to you for a while and then walk away from you without following through. How do you like that, you goddamned whore?"
She realized, staring up at the bigoted, narrow-minded man, that her idea of a reconciliation had been ridiculous from the outset. She had cheated on Charlie because of the very qualities he was displaying now, and the last of the guilt she felt because of her infidelities at the motel vanished for all time. He was as cruel as he was pompous, and she was well rid of him.
"Well?" Charlie demanded. "What have you got to say for yourself?"
Beth stood, smoothing her dress. "Please get out," she told him, and she was surprised at her own dignity and self-control under such trying circumstances.
"I'll leave when I'm good and ready," Charlie replied, enjoying his unaccustomed sense of power. "What will you do-call the police and tell them I tried to rape you? It won't work. I'm still your husband. This is my house."
"I'll vacate it at once, I assure you." Beth had no idea where she would go, but the mere thought of remaining any longer than necessary was more than she could bear. "My lawyer will work out the final settlement terms with you. I don't care to see you again, ever."
He continued to stand, his attitude threatening. "Oh, I'm not leaving yet. First you'll put on a little show for me. Give me some of the sexy stuff that made you the most popular tramp in Owendale. Well? Are you going to start or must I rip off your damned clothes?"
She wondered if he were demented and backed away from him, carefully putting the divan between them.
"A couple of minutes ago you were ready to give me the works," Charlie said. "What made you change your mind?"
"You, Charlie. Your inability to recognize an honest, decent offer. But there's no point in my even trying to explain. A man of your mentality wouldn't understand." If he became violent, she thought, she would make a break for the door and try to escape down the street.
But Beth did not reckon with the speed with which Charlie could act once his mind was made up. It was the suddenness of his maneuver, too, that took Beth unawares-he practically sprinted around the divan before she could race for the door, and he pinned her against the wall, knocking the breath out of her. The wall shook from the violence of the impact, and a small vase fell out of its niche to roll, unbroken, on the carpet.
The color in Beth's face drained away as she recovered her breath.
"All right," Charlie said, "never mind the show."
She tried to wrench away but his heavy body had effectively immobilized her, and shame flooded her as his hands revelled in her body's bounty as if she were some despised captive.
"Please," Beth said.
"I said you don't have to put on a show, but you got me going now, Beth, and you're going to do me one more wifely favor before we call it quits."
And again the swiftness of his action momentarily stunned her. He abruptly let her go and used both hands to tear down the frock from her shoulders-her big, bold breasts jutted. But Beth shook her head in the next instant and with a cry of rage brought up her knee.
Charlie laughed at the same time as he shifted to one side. He had anticipated her and, worse, took immediate advantage by seizing the underside of her knee to wrench up her leg. The result was that the sumptuous blonde lost her balance and fell, her legs in the air as she toppled, and again her husband lost no time in seizing the play-he bent down and pulled off the remnants of her dress and ripped off the remaining undergarment as she began to thrash. She tried to roll to one side, then, but Charlie grunted before she could complete her effort and straddled her, his breathing stertorous now as he surveyed her heaving breasts, their nipples congested.
"One more wifely favor," he said.
"No. You'll have to force me."
"Sure. Why not? It ought to be a switch."
"You're nauseating."
"Sure I am." He grinned.
Then again he was reaching down, an unspeakable action of coulisse as the tears began coursing from her eyes. Blindly she raised her arms with the intent of raking his face with her nails, but he leaned back, half rose and flipped her over on her stomach. Now she could only beat at the floor as his body pressed her down again-he was squatting on her shoulders and facing her flailing legs. He began to bleat with pleasure as he surveyed her. She started to scream and he silenced her with one ruthless piece of brutality.
"You scream, Beth, and it will be worse."
The shriek died in her throat. She moaned.
"Understand?" Charlie said.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Okay, you bitch. You know you deserve it."
She moaned again as Charlie reversed his position.
Now her legs were still.
The room now was quiet except for Charlie's rasping. The prize was nearly his. He had been deprived of Beth for quite a while. He had to relish the spectacle before him. Then, with a strangling sound, he rose on to his knees and, reaching down, lifted her hips.
It was exactly at that moment that a cliilling series took place.
Outside, an automobile screeched to a halt.
Beth, beyond endurance, screamed for help.
There was the sound of footsteps.
There was the sound of a heavy pounding on the door.
There was the sound of the door wrenched open.
And, as an outraged Charlie lurched to his feet and a distracted Beth picked up the remnants of her dress to make a semblance of covering herself, crying, "Oh, thank God, thank God," Bruce Gibson towered before them.
"What the hell do you mean," Charlie bellowed, "and who the hell are you barging into a man's house? I'll have you arrested for breaking and entering-"
"The lady was crying for help, mister," Bruce interrupted, "and I assume now even if I regret later that you're Beth's bastard of a husband," and with a single sweeping backhand, as powerful as it was contemptuous, he cracked Charlie across the mouth and opened his lower Hp, which started to bleed copiously.
Charlie at heart might have been a craven creature, but the ignominy to him of this stranger having cavalierly shouldered his way on to Charlie's property and assaulting him in the bargain was too much even for his cowardliness to endure, and with a yelp of rage, he sprang at Bruce as Beth retreated, horrified and shocked, to the furthest corner of the room.
Bruce shrugged at Charlie's lunge as at the desperation of a fly and flicked him off with a right cross to the jaw that sent the older man spinning against the wall. He did not topple. He merely stayed there, against the wall, crouching, his mouth bleeding. Then he began to curse.
"All right," Charlie said. "I give you a chance to get out while you can, because this is my house and you're not going to stop me right now from going to the phone and calling the police. I see you're obviously one of my wife's customers, come to claim her, no doubt," he added contemptuously. "Well, you'll claim her from a cell, because that's where you're going for adultery, assault and battery, breaking and entry-"
Bruce laughed richly. Beth stared at him in astonishment-where did the man get his aplomb, she wondered. Where did the bastard-and Bruce was as much one as Charlie-get his nerve?
"Look," Bruce said to Charlie, "the newspapers will be acutely interested in a tightwad wife beater who, I learned from a party who should know, regularly used for rainy afternoons a hundred-dollar-a-trick call girl in Boston."
White with suppressed fury, Charlie glared at his tormentor, rearranged his clothing, retrieved his hat and then stiffly announced to Beth, "Be good enough to vacate these premises within forty-eight hours." Without another word, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding mouth, he stalked from the room and into his car. He pulled out of the driveway and roared off down the street, displaying a recklessness completely foreign to him.
Beth was immeasureably relieved to see Charlie go, but in her shaken emotional state she felt she could not cope with another problem. Bruce quietly opened the closet door, riffled through the garments and found a robe.
He smiled gently and handed it to her and she gratefully slipped it on. Then Beth covered her face with her hands and stood silently, swaying.
"May I come in?" he said quaintly.
"Sandra gave you my address," she said in a muffled voice.
"Yes, for what's known as a monetary consideration."
"I wish you had waited another twenty-four hours. Then I would have been gone. Where no one could ever find me."
"If I barged in at an inconvenient time," Bruce said, "I beg your pardon."
"It couldn't have been better timed. I-oh, I don't know what I mean. Anyhow, as you guessed, that was my husband. Not that it's any of your business, but I won't be seeing him again. And I don't want to see you, either."
Bruce calmly sat down on the divan, dipped a shrimp into the dressing and popped it into his mouth. "Delicious," he said and grinned.
Beth wanted to scream again but so much had now happened that she felt too weak.
Making himself completely at home, Bruce leaned back, supporting his weight by propping a cushion under one elbow. "You look even lovelier than I remembered. Memory usually plays tricks the other way, but no imagination can do you justice."
If he tried to make love to her, she thought wildly, she would kill him. Or herself. "I've just had a very upsetting experience," she said, "and I can't take another."
Bruce seemed to read her mind. His smile faded. He stood and, bowing rather formally, he crossed to close the door. "We were letting in the flies and mosquitos." Suddenly his tone changed. "Please don't be so afraid of me. I give you my solemn oath I won't touch you. I've come here because there's something I want to say to you. After that, if you wish, I'll go."
Beth was so confused she could only nod.
"I love you," Bruce said.
She could not believe she had heard him correctly. "I fell in love with you the first time I saw you," he continued.
"Don't mock me," Beth whispered. "I-I just can't stand any more today."
"Look at me," Bruce said, "and you'll know I'm speaking the literal truth."
Beth could not let herself meet his gaze, fearful that she might weaken and permit him to inveigle her into bed.
"I never knew I could care for any girl this much," he declared, his voice rising when she continued to stare down at the rug.
"If this is a line to get me into the hay," she said, her voice trembling, "it won't work."
"What must I say," he shouted, "to convince you I'm serious? What must I do to make you understand I want to marry you?"
The walls began to spin, the floor heaved and Beth was afraid she would lose consciousness.
Bruce saw the last color drain from her face and gently led her to the divan. "Is there something around here other than this gin?"
She pointed toward the liquor cabinet.
He hurried to it and poured a small quantity of whiskey into a glass. "Drink this," he ordered firmly.
Beth obeyed.
"That ought to make you feel a little better."
"I-I guess it does," she replied in a small voice.
"I wanted to marry you from the first," he said, carefully keeping his distance. "But I-well, what the hell. I'll be frank. I mistakenly thought you were a professional prostitute. I didn't think you were capable of giving love to any one man. That's why I finally tried to break the spell you had over me by bringing Dave to see you. I know now I was wrong."
He was saying things that were too good to be true. "What makes you-believe you were wrong?" She could scarcely articulate.
"I sensed it at the time," Bruce said, "and I've been feeling it all along. Then, this afternoon, when Sandra called me in hysterics to tell me you'd torn up the money I gave her for you, I met with her and made her tell me the truth with the aid, as I mentioned before, of considerable untorn money." He braced himself. "If you can, I hope you'll forgive me for insulting you with that three hundred dollars today. It was the desperate gesture of a desperate man-who wasn't thinking straight."
It was incredible that he should be apologizing to her, Beth thought, and she struggled to keep a grip on reality. "Just what did Sandra tell you?"
"That you were an amateur. That she tricked you into getting together with me that first time. That she used blackmail to force you to stay in the racket. That you hated every minute of it, and that you tried again and again to break away from it. That you needed money for some personal reason or other, and were wild enough to try anything in order to get it." Bruce took a deep breath. "She also told me you still need money, but that you wouldn't go back into prostitution, even though she promised you could clean up and make a fortune for yourself. Is that right?"
"I'd rather scrub floors," Beth said fervently.
He knew she meant it, that her repentance for her errors was genuine and complete.
"As a matter-of-fact," she added, "I'll probably be doing exactly that for a living. I refuse to stay in this place any longer, and I won't give my husband the satisfaction of hanging on until he has me thrown out."
Bruce moved a little closer to her, suppressing a smile. "I don't think that will be necessary. Or maybe you haven't heard some of the things I've been saying." He paused, then added softly, "Sandra told me something else, too. That you're in love with me."
Color burned in Beth's face, and her confusion was devastating.
"Will you marry me?" he asked.
At last she faced him, and slowly drew herself to her feet. "Do you really want me-in spite of everything I've been?"
"I want you because you're honorable and good and wonderful. Because I know you'll be true to me, as I'll be to you."
Once in a blue moon, it seemed, dreams came true. "There's nothing I want more," she said, her voice gaining strength and volume, "than to be your wife."
They looked hard at each other but did not touch.
"I make a good living," Bruce said. "And I have enough stashed away for any emergency. How much cash do you need for your personal problem?"
"Fifteen hundred dollars. But," she said, wonder in her voice, "surely you want to know the details?"
Bruce shook his head.
Beth laughed shakily, then insisted on telling him the whole story of her fight to protect her inheritance.
"We'll telegraph your cousin the money tonight," he told her crisply. "Now, how long will it take you to move out of this house?"
She gazed around slowly at the living room of the place that had been her home for so long. "I don't want any of the furnishings. Charlie is welcome to every chair and lamp and carpet in the house. All I want are my clothes and personal things."
"How long will it take to pack them?"
A sense of inner excitement built rapidly in Beth, and at last she really knew that she and Bruce would truly be together. "A couple of hours, at the most."
He grinned at her. "With me to help you, it won't take that long. Let's get going."
Less than an hour later suitcases were piled into the trunk of Brace's car, and Beth's other belongings were heaped in the back seat. Bruce helped her into the car and was concerned when she gasped.
"Oh, dear. I forgot that I'd taken out a steak for tonight. There are half-cooked potatoes in the oven. And a salad in the refrigerator."
"Charlie can eat them tomorrow, when he moves in. We'll grab a hamburger on our way into town." He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. "I'm taking you to a woman's hotel. And you'll stay there until you go out west for your divorce." The car rolled out of the driveway. "We're going to do this thing right."
She did not look back at the house.
"I didn't kiss you," he said, "because I knew you didn't want me to do it under Charlie's roof."
His sensitivity was breathtaking, and she gazed at him with shining eyes.
Brace braked the car near the corner, halting under a huge, spreading maple. "Now," he said, "we're on our own."
Beth melted into his arms, and his kiss was a promise that their future would be secure and bright.
Bruce started the car again, and she slipped her arm through his as they drove toward the highway. There was no need for words now. They were together, and nothing else mattered.
