The big man breathed visibly, filling his lungs with air. The overhead lights made his massive chest glisten. As often as he had done this he could not avoid feeling self-conscious. There were eleven of them. Six women, five men. They sat along the pool edge, wet like himself, their feet dangling in the water, watching him. Watching his body, the beautiful prison of flesh and bone where his passions lived. His toes curled over the edge of the tile at the pool's shallow end. Suddenly, almost without warning, his lean body crouched and shot up and out over the water. He hit the surface flat, hardly submerging, his arms stroking smoothly, his powerful legs driving with a flawless rhythm. The pool waters moved away from him as he cut through and sloshed back as he stroked ahead. He snorted regularly as his head rolled up for air. The muscled back showed no strain. The handsome face seemed in complete repose as the long body raced effortlessly through the chlorine tinted water. The small poolside audience admired his performance. Tex Mattaway threw back his greying head and laughed aloud: "Come on, Jim, step it up! You're dogging it!"
"C'mon, Mister Rawls," Liz Rainer joined in, shouting through her cupped hands. "Show him!" The young woman stood up and paced along the pool edge, shouting encouragements to the swimmer. Her black hair was cropped as close as a helmet and its wetness did not show. Her tight tank suit emphasized her youthful body and the sculptured thrust of her unsupported breasts.
Jim Rawls kicked up his speed. His body shot forward faster. His chest rose with the increased speed and rested, almost like a surfboard, on top of the water which he pulled under him with his powerful arms.
Liz Rainer put her hands on her hips and smiled. "Atta boy, coach!" she said and posed there with her legs spread and the pool lights outlining her womanliness, throwing a long shadow down. The bosom of her shadow was gigantic on the white tile and emphasized the ampleness of Liz Rainer's natural equipment.
Other voices joined in the encouragement. The poolsiders clapped their hands in unison, picking up the rhythm. Rawls responded. His body hurtled through the water now at a dazzling speed. He lapped the pool six times at a brutal pace then suddenly stopped and clung breathlessly to the pool edge. His lungs were bursting. His throat burned. He shut his eyes to drive the black spots away. Why in hell did he do that? Was he showing them what a great swimmer he was? What a wonderful specimen of a man he was? As his breath returned and his heart pumped down to an idling beat, Rawls pulled himself from the pool.
"What I was trying to demonstrate," Rawls said slowly, his baritone voice echoing across the pool, "was that sometimes a lifeguard must go like hell to get to a person who is in trouble and then have the stamina to help."
"Look here, Jim," Louise Mattaway interrupted, "you really don't expect that kind of performance from us, do you?"
"No, Mrs. Mattaway," Jim said, laughing. "That's exactly the point. I overdid it. I couldn't save anybody after a swim like that. So each of you mark it as a rule: know your endurance limit! To rescue a drowning person or a person in trouble-swim only as fast as your strength allows. Getting to the victim is only half the job. You've got to fight the person you're saving sometimes; and you have to have the strength to win that battle; and, then, swim the victim in for first aid. OK? Now take ten so I can catch my breath; then we'll get into the instruction of the day."
Jim's chest still heaved as he watched his Senior Lifeguard students talk among themselves. He remained on the far side of the pool, keeping the distance between himself and his class. This aloofness was something they permitted him without any bitterness. "It's been that way since Alice left him," they said in Clarksdale. "Since that time, five years ago, Jim just is not the same man he used to be. Used to be outgoing, full of fun-now, well, he's a brooder, a loner. Too bad, handsome man like that; he should marry again." That was how the village of Clarksdale reasoned and understood the withdrawal of Jim Rawls from laughter and loving. Jim was satisfied with that; no, he was grateful for it. The truth of what Alice's desertion meant to him was just too ugly to be shared-with anyone. The secret was his.
Even as he thought of it his flesh crawled. The old, worn newsreel of memory played again in his mind. He was to referee a basketball game in Lewistown, forty miles to the west. Alice knew that he would get home after midnight. The game that night, however, was not to be played. The Lewistown High team came down with the measles, an epidemic, and Jim, delighted with the sudden outbreak of plague, drove home. He remembered stopping on the road for a bouquet of roses to add to the surprise of his return. But the surprise was to be something else.
How tawdry it was! It was so ordinary! As humorless as the joke about the travelling salesman who ... was sitting in your living room with your wife, wearing your robe to cover his nakedness while your wife wore nothing at all but her shoes and a pair of black net stockings you had never seen before. Newsreel continuing: You look at your naked wife who takes a long drink. Wha'happen to th' baska' ball game, Jimmy? Wife does a little dance step. Her pink nippled beautiful breasts bounce in tempo. Travelling salesman, stone cold sober, cowers where he sits. Your face shows you want to kill him. How could this happen to Jim Rawls-the Adonis, Clarksdale's All American boy? Suddenly, you want to know if Ginny is alright? You go to her bedroom down the hall. You open the door. She's fast asleep.
More Newsreel: Sure she's fast asleep, Jimmy. I'm a very considerate mother; I put a sleeping pill in her milk, ha, ha, ha! You raise your big hand. You're about to smash the too pretty blond face which you had loved so desperately until ten minutes ago. Ha, ha, ha, hit me! Go ahead-bust me up husband!
Newsreel continuing: Look here, mister! I know I'm in the wrong being here with y our wife this way but I was invited in. You may as well know it-your wife is a....
SHUT UP! GET OUT BEFORE I BREAK YOUR BACK!
The man scurries. Gathers up clothes. Struggles into a sock. Puts on a sharp, small brimmed hat. Tries to get into his pants. Disappears through the backdoor. You try to remember his face. It had a mustache. That's all you can remember. Now you are alone with your wife. You are alone facing Alice. Newsreel continuing: Silently Jim Rawls waits for blond naked Alice to say something, to offer an excuse. She laughs.
Now look, Jimmy Rawls, you spoiled everything. You rained all over my parade, darling, so you'll have to get undressed, honey, and finish what we....
GET OUT; GET OUT!
You're shouting, Jim. You'll wake the baby. Shhh! We're out of booze; now I'm just going to go out and get some and when I come back I'm going to talk to you....
Newsreel concluding: Blond, drunk wife puts on a sweater and slacks and goes out the door into nowhere.
Six months later Jim Rawls received a letter from an attorney. His client Alice Rawls was suing for divorce. Jim turned the matter over to Tex Mattaway who handled the entire proceeding. The one thing Jim had insisted on was Ginny; he would never surrender the child to Alice. It turned out to be an unnecessary posture: Alice didn't want Ginny.
Rawls would have liked to see Alice once again-just one time. Time enough to ask some questions. As it was he would never know what had happened. Why? Was something wrong with her? Or-was there something wrong with him? Five years had passed and in Clarksdale some people had begun to say: Oh, came on now; Jim Rawls is a red blooded man and he must be getting something somewhere. Why he'd bust wide open if he didn't.
But Jim Rawls wasn't getting anything and he didn't bust. Five years had passed slowly and heavily and he ached in the corners of his flesh, ached so hard that he could barely remember Alice, the face with the mustache, or guilt or shame. He stared at the glass smooth surface of the water and wondered how much faster he would have to swim to stay ahead of the mounting desires which now pursued him relentlessly. How much faster he would have to swim and how much bourbon he would have to drink.
These were the best swimmers, these eleven, Jim Rawls thought. He was sure that they would all make Seniors. The group had begun with thirty aspirants but nineteen had to drop out. The course had been too rugged for them. Ted Mattaway surprised him by making it this far. The grey haired attorney was well into his fifties. His body was small, not muscular. Yet, he had endured all of the obstacles. Jim reasoned that it was to please his wife, Louise, who was twenty-five years younger than Tex. Jim had the feeling that Louise was amused by Tex's accomplishment rather than proud of it. Her eyes, cool grey and penetrating, were always busy examining the bodies of the young men in the group. Her look was so open and smoldering that Jim praised the wisdom of the long separation between the ladies and men's locker rooms. Aside from the fact that Louise made him feel uneasy in a man-woman sense, Jim was quite fond of her and Tex.
The others in the group, except for Liz Rainer who was a friend of his daughter, Ginny, he hardly knew. They were kids; only two of them over sixteen. The boys among them were all crew cut. This amused him. He thought that, perhaps, without a few long haired young men taking up the profession that the image of the Life Guard would become hopelessly tarnished. The girls would have to find their heroes behind electric guitars. Tarzan had long hair, Jim recalled, but no one had imitated him. What obviously had been needed was the guitar and some pimples rather than the jungle and apes.
He looked up when he heard Ginny's voice calling from the other side of the pool. "Daddy, let's go. It's more than ten minutes!"
"Right!" he yelled. Her body astounded and frightened him. Somehow nature had taken his own frame and had refined it with the features of her mother and had turned out a masterpiece.
Often, he found himself silently praying that nothing in Ginny's character resembled Alice. He forced his eyes away from the black tank suit which cut high up, away from her thighs, reaching almost to the hip, revealing half the lush cheek of her buttock. Her long waist, like a pedestal, reached up to support her marvellous breasts whose nipples tattooed the wet material of her suit. Above that was the face of innocence. Had he not taught her that one should be proud of one's body? And that one should develop it actively? A healthy mind in a healthy body; Ginny had both. But the world was a pretty lousy place to have a healthy mind in and pretty dangerous, Rawls thought, when you put that mind into the kind of body his daughter was wearing.
Rawls took his place at the pool's edge and clapped his hands. "OK; let's go!" The eleven prospective lifeguards lined up opposite their teacher. Briefly and pointedly, Rawls reviewed the work of the course. "Today we will work on recovery techniques. You will pair off. You will take turns at playing victim and rescuer. You will practise with your partners at pool-side for fifteen minutes. Then I will play drowning man for each of you and determine how you are progressing. OK? Go!" The pool filled with activity and the air with cries of "Help!" Arms descended wanly into pools of drowning. Rescuers dived down. Great struggles occurred. Rescuers emerged towing victims; cross-chest grips and under-chin grips. Jim Rawls smiled at the adeptness of the pupils, especially the roving hands of the young men.
"They look pretty good, Dad," Ginny said seating herself next to her father.-
"Yes, they do, Gin. You're lucky, you know. The course is tougher now than when you became a lifeguard."
"Hah! I could pass right now! I've always had a great teacher."
Jim smiled at her and then looked back at the students noting the flaws in technique or the errors which invited danger. They were a good group alright. Still, they had to tackle him as victim; that would be a real test, a rough one.
The first five swimmers who "rescued" Jim Rawls did well. He was especially pleased with Tex Mattaway. The man had more strength and agility than one would think. Or, as Tex said after Jim had congratulated him, "Young man, you should have known that I'm the best underwater attorney to be found in two counties."
The sixth swimmer was one of the crew cut boys, an ambitious fourteen year old, Steve Angelis. The boy was better equipped and more skillful than the ones previously tested. Yet, Jim reasoned that fourteen might be too young for the boy to win his papers. Especially since he was very much inclined to horseplay and practical joking. Under water, as Stevie came for him, Jim decided to make it just a little bit tougher for him. Steve fought his huge adversary until he was arm weary and his lungs were bursting for air. Nothing seemed to work right for him. When Steve retreated from his savage "victim," he had become aware that Jim had deliberately stopped him. Jim noted the hurt expression on the boy's face. He swam to him. "Look Stevie," he said softly, "You're the best in the group. I'm washing you out because I'd be afraid to give you a strip of beach to patrol. Do you know why?" The boy nodded. "You take the course next year and you'll make it-if you want to." Jim pushed out into the center of the pool and waved the next swimmer to the rescue. Steve Angelis pulled himself out of the pool and silently cursed Jim Rawls.
Liz Rainer dived and sprinted toward the drowning man whose six foot six frame dropped slowly toward the bottom of the pool. She dived after him and quickly maneuvered behind him hooking her fingers under his jaw. He allowed her to bring him up a little, then, feigning panic, he swung around and grabbed her about the waist. His nose rested against the flesh between her breasts. Instead of sinking down with him or trying to push him away with her feet, maneuvers which Liz knew and had practiced, the girl twisted in his arms, rocking from side to side, so that her breasts rubbed across his face. Jim wondered if others could see from above. It had happened so quickly that there was little chance that her action could have been observed but Jim pushed away from his rescuer. She really had found a new way to break a hold, Jim thought. When she came at him again, Jim allowed her to hook under his chin and tow him across the pool length.
"Was that deliberate, Liz?" Jim asked quietly as they stood side by side in the shallow water.
"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Rawls," she said suppressing a smile. He watched her breasts rise and fall on her deep breathing chest. "I tried my best to do what I had to do down there. Really, Mr. Rawls, I thought I handled you pretty well." Her breasts rose and fell in the white tank suit and the smile stayed fixed. Liz lowered her eyes and stared at Jim's trunks. "But if I fail to make it this time-I'll certainly try again next year."
Over my dead body, Rawls thought. "You did very well, Liz. I'm sure you'll pass this season."
"Really, Mr. Rawls?"
"Really, Miss Rainer." The look in her eyes was now openly teasing. Jim plunged below the water and moved out to the center of the pool. He motioned to the next swimmer. He went through the role of victim almost absent mindedly.
There was something in Liz Rainer which made him turn on the buried newsreels of Alice. The image of the naked blond dancing drunkenly, filled Jim's mind and tore at deep wounds inside his body. Behind his growing anger the feeling of sexuality pressed. His flesh responded to the throbbing of buried pulses. He saw Alice's great pink breasts floating on the green waters of the pool. Her laughter sounded in the echoes of the tile and glass enclosure. Suddenly, Jim Rawls filled with desire for the woman who had betrayed him. He was about to scream out when his "rescuer" pulled him down deep into the water.
It was Louise Mattaway who maneuvered his drowning body. Her small, firm hands pushed at his shoulders, gripped his hair, and brought him up to the surface. Her legs, kicking, entwined with his. Her hands moved up and down his body quickly, deftly touching his massive chest (lingering a moment too long?), pushing at his muscle hard stomach. Her breasts were on a level with his eyes. He wanted to reach over and tear her bathing suit away. He wanted at this very instant, as they rose up to the surface, to devour Louise Mattaway's breasts. His eyes, open under the water, looked hotly into hers. She smiled approvingly as they split the water surface together.
Her hand under his chin, Louise Mattaway side-stroked toward the end of the pool.
CHAPTER TWO
Jim Rawls sat in his office. The one he called his poolside administrative center. Actually, it had been designed for pool equipment storage. Jim had converted it into a combination office and sitting room. Since he had constructed it himself, on his own time, the Board of Trustees had no objections.
His hand trembled slightly as he poured some bourbon into a water tumbler; a little too much, as Ginny would say. He smiled at the glass as he toasted the air and threw the drink down his throat. He sighed. His body relaxed a little. He poured another drink and placed the glass on the shelf above the sink in the corner. Rawls reached for a towel and began rubbing his dark blond hair. The muscles of his biceps rippled with easy grace and with the power which surged through his arms. He was about to strip his shorts off when Ginny knocked and called at the door.
"Minute, Gin," Rawls said, slipping into his pale blue cotton robe. He opened the door. A smile slowly brightened his face. He had never seen his daughter looking so lovely. Her blond hair held her head in a loose caress. Her large eyes which lifted at the corners without actually slanting, cast their color into the space between them. The color was blue; he knew that. But in this moment her eyes seemed to be two great exploding stars in a universe too small to hold them. Her nose, Grecian; her mouth sensuous and womanly and extraordinarily provocative because of her complete innocence. These features in a bronze skin which seemed burnished. This was his daughter, his baby.
Jim's eyes fleeted downward for less than a second and touched her body which seemed to him to be too apparent in her very proper tailored suit. She was almost eighteen, yet it seemed to Jim that this body didn't, shouldn't, belong to her. Why she had been a baby only yesterday; how did this happen? He embraced his daughter and drove the question of her womanliness back into the deep pits of his mind; to take its place among other thoughts Rawls did not like to face.
"What's special, Ginny?" Jim asked as the girl walked into the room.
"You're having me on, Dad; you couldn't forget!"
"Bill Larkin!" Rawls said, slapping his forehead and grimacing in mock pain. "How could I forget that-home on furlough! And I have the car garaged for a complete overhaul!"
"Oh, no, Dad; I have to meet Billy at the airport! I promised!"
"You could send him a wire. Tell him to take a cab.
Besides, I have some correspondence you can get out for me. After that...."
The balled up towel hit him square in the mouth. Ginny's face had worked itself into a thunderous mask when Jim laughed suddenly in sheer delight.
"You shouldn't do that. Not about Billy, please. You can tease about anything else in the whole world. But not Billy."
"That bad?" he asked looking at her earnest face. Her eyes filled. "OK, I'm sorry." He held her in his arms, rocking her. "I didn't forget, of course. I'll give you the car keys, and you'll see a package in the glove compartment. It's for Billy."
"Oh, Daddy!"
"Shhh! The boy deserves something for making second lieutenant. I never did."
The keys were on his desk. He threw them to Ginny who snatched them one handed from the air. She ran through the door and popped back quickly to throw a kiss, then vanished.
The warmth of her presence faded in seconds. Soon he would have to give her up. To Bill or to some other man. God only knew if the man who won her would treat her the way she deserved. The images of what a manly, virile male would do with his daughter, what his daughter would do in bed with a man crowded his mind. He shuddered and fought the images back. He took the bourbon from the shelf and drank it quickly. Rawls, he said to himself, you've got to stop seeing dirty pictures. Hairy demons keep raping your daughter and your drunken slut of an ex-wife never puts clothes on. Rawls poured another drink; a little too much, as Ginny would say.
The bourbon level in the bottle had gone down six fingers; six of Rawls' fingers. He had drowned his devils in alcohol. The question now was how the hell was he going to get dressed. In a hazy way he reasoned that he could sleep it off in the office. His head dropped to his chest. "Billy!" he said, "I'd better be on hand to welcome the boy. Second lieutenant. Son-in-law."
Rawls pulled himself up from the chair, reeled, crashed into the door frame and cursed. Holding on to the door knob the big man tried to dress himself. He struggled with his swimming trunks which were almost dry now. He broke out in a sweat before he was free of them. His breath came hard. He straightened his back against the wall and held tight. The room reeled around his nakedness. "Alice!" he shouted, "Alice!" The newsreel of his tortured memory unwound. She danced nakedly toward him. Her breasts bounced wildly. The pink nipples erected to amazing points. His pulses throbbed; the drums of his loins pounded. She was reaching for his arm. Spittle ran down the corner of her mouth. She was saying his name: Jim, Jim, Jim lover!
Rawls broke into a cold sweat. Inside his lean abdomen his guts knotted. He pulled himself through the door and up the short stairway to the pool. He zigzagged the endless white tile distance to the pool edge and splashed into the cold water like a felled tree.
He had no sense of shock in hitting the water. He floated on his back breathing easily, his eyes closed, letting the water cradle him. It was good. The water was a thing of a thousand fingers. It caressed his face, his chest, his long hard thighs, without pausing, without hurrying, the fingers sought out every area of his hungry body. Rawls gloried in the embrace of the water. His frustrations, his guilt, his memories, his long abstinence seemed to wash away. The water lapped against the pool side and against his body. He dozed under the influence of the tempo of the water sounds. The splash startled him. His eyes opened quickly. There was nothing. No one. Yet the splash: it had the sound of a diver hitting the water. He rolled over on his stomach to swim. Below him with easy strokes another nude body glided. It was a woman. He stared down through the distorting surface of the water and watched the naked swimmer.
It was a pleasing body. Not perfect perhaps, but nothing to shame its owner. The shoulders seen from the back and above appeared to be a trifle too wide. The arms were graceful. The legs, long and well formed. The thighs not too thick. The buttocks and the hips firm and curved enough to be real woman.
In the seconds which passed as he watched the lovely naked form swimming under the water, Jim became aware of the fact that the bourbon had drained from his head. He was alive and tingling. Aware suddenly of his own nakedness and knowing that there was no place to hide. His heart pounded. His body tightened and swelled with the excitement he no longer could control. He had stayed away from women since Alice had betrayed him, wishing never to know another one, wishing never to be involved again. Was it all going to start again? This way? With an anonymous Eve invading his watery Garden of Eden?
He was petrified. He wanted to swim to the pool's edge and get out running but he could not command his body to move. Was the naked body fate? Who was she? The seconds moved by with agonizing slowness.
The underwater nude drew her legs up beneath her body. Jim knew that she was going to turn. He would be able to see her face. What if the face was Alice? He shuddered.
The swimmer turned and exposed her fullness. The face belonged to Louise Mattaway.
As he looked down through the water at his own nakedness he knew how much he wanted her. The dams of reserve were breaking. He was afraid he could not hold back-even for minutes. The long nights of repression, hunger and dreams were about to explode into a reality he had so much wanted to avoid.
He thought of Tex Mattaway. His friend. This was his wife; the young wife of whom Tex was so proud. Louise, for whom he tortured his aging body into top physical shape. Louise whom Tex adored. Jim Rawls would not want to touch Louise, Tex's Louise. The thoughts of prohibition ran through his mind like prayers, yet he did not move from the swimming pool. Above her sun tanned breasts with their brick red nipples, Louise Mattaway was smiling at him. Now she stroked toward him where he treaded water, his long body hanging down. With a startling suddenness she rose up, her body touching his as she surfaced, exploding into the air, her body lifting half way out of the water and coming down again.
"How are you, Jim?" she asked coolly.
"What the hell are you doing, Lou?" Rawls managed in a voice which had become suddenly husky. "Get out of here!"
"Why? I want to get in some extra practise. I am simply determined to become a lifeguard this year, Jim." She swam away from him. In mid-pool she turned on her back. "I have some trouble with my form in backstroke, Jim. Would you keep an eye on me; see what I'm doing wrong, OK?"
Louise Mattaway backstroked. Rawls watched, unable to move. Her breasts, amazingly firm, did not joggle under the rapid and strong motion of her strokes. Her breasts rode her chest as securely as the smoke stacks of a ship. Her kick was perfect. The thighs were held close together. Her knees were locked and the kicking power emanated from the strong pumping thighs. Her feet churned up a bubbling foam. The kick was a fast eight to the stroke. "Anything wrong with it, Jim?" she shouted as she passed him.
"No," he said meekly. "Please, Lou, get out of here before it's too late."
"Too late for what, Jim?" Louise rolled over now and crawled across the pool toward him. She placed her arms around his neck and allowed her body to float close against him. His mouth opened to protest but her mouth rose up and covered his. Her tongue moved slowly out and burned his lips with a cold fire. Like a sea animal in a cave her tongue darted into his mouth and retreated suddenly; then came in again. Her tongue butted against his, lifted it, moved it from side to side. He did not respond.
She tightened her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts hard against him. Her tongue moved out again, and this time his tongue met hers, driving it back; his mouth closing on hers. Her mouth pulled away from his. Her tongue darted into his ear. The exquisite sensuousness was almost more than he could take. He wanted to yell out, to seize her, to take her.
Before his arms could move, Louise was swimming away from him.
His long body shot into motion. He sprinted after her, the pool water roiling up behind his kick. He closed the distance between them rapidly. She dived below the surface. He followed her down. He caught her near the bottom of the pool. She was out of breath now and wanted to surface. Rawls let her rise but held her ankle, preventing her from making the surface. He pulled her down. He hooked his hand into her thick hair and drew her face toward his. He crushed her mouth with his. Her feet thrashed the water. She needed air. He released her. She shot upwards like a cork. He followed slowly.
In the shallow water, Louise Mattaway drew long drafts of air into her lungs. Her rib cage moved rapidly up and down; her breasts riding like two passengers. Her breath became more regular and with that her tan brick-nippled breasts slowed to an even undulation. Now the sight of her was completely unbearable. His entire, magnificent body throbbed like a jungle filled with tomtoms. Pulses and vibrations deep inside him sounded and echoed. If he had wanted to escape from this woman-from all women-only moments before, he no longer wanted that opportunity. Jim Rawls knew it would take a mounted and loaded machine gun to keep him from crossing the pool.
Louise Mattaway smiled as Rawls glided slowly towards her. He reached her side, his great, hard body length towering above her. She reached out and touched his chest. Her hand moved across his glistening wetness, stroking his flesh. Gliding downward caressing his flanks, dropping under the clear water to define his thighs, rising up again to explore his back and chest. Louise Mattaway examined Jim Rawls as sensitively as a blind woman would a statue. Her exploring touches were exquisite to the point of pain. Jim closed his eyes.
"So you are enjoying yourself!" she said, "I had half a feeling that there wasn't any manhood left in you, Jim. But when I was busy rescuing you I knew I was wrong or I thought I knew. I just had to find out."
She reached up and pulled his face into her breasts. Rawls lifted her from the water, held her dangling in his arms and kissed her wet mouth.
"I've wanted you for years, Jimmy. I've dreamed about you. How marvellous you were in those dreams-the things we did! Oh, Jim, but I never dreamed of making you in a swimming pool! But when I saw you nude in the water-I knew this was the place and this was the time."
"Yes," Jim mumbled, not looking at her face, staring at her breasts which had swelled. The chill of the pool water was gone and her tan breasts were dotted with droplets of water which looked like small jewels. Her nipples had opened up like hard buds in the sun-reaching, yearning. Jim Rawls kissed them gently. Louise lifted each of them into his mouth. "This alone is worth it."
Jim leaped out of the pool. Naked he stood above her, towering above her on the pool edge. Louise gasped as she absorbed the perfection of the manly, athletic body. He reached down, caught her hand and pulled her from the water. He swung her up and cradled her in his arms. Their mouths met. He clutched her hair and drove her tongue hard and dancing into his mouth.
Jim, holding her, turned and began to walk quickly. "Where are you taking me, darling?"
"The office. There's a couch."
"No, no," she protested, "Here. It's so clean, so white."
She said this in a hot whisper, filling his ear with the words, following the words with her sweet devouring tongue. He put her down on the white tile. For a long moment he looked at her. She smiled and fondled her breasts, offering them up to this giant of a man. Her hips and thighs writhed on the white tile. A sob broke from Jim's throat.
In a blinding instant like vines of flesh they entwined with each other. The two tan bodies framed by the wet white tile became one living pulsating creature. Dimly, Jim was aware of Louise talking, shouting endearments, moaning, but he was lost in a deep red mist of heat and breaking ecstasy. His hands caressed and pulled at her body while her hands, one digging into his back and the other pulling down at his hair, enjoyed the strength of his body. "Oh, Jim, Jim-now!" All the blood suddenly drained out of his body and then rushed like thunder back into his head. He heard himself cry out. Then, still entwined, they rolled over and splashed down into the pool. When they surfaced a moment later they were once more separate people. They stared at each other.
"Wow!" Louise said.
Nude still, Louise Mattaway and Jim Rawls sat in his poolside office. They sipped coffee which Jim had brewed from the hot water tap and with some instant powder.
"Pretty lousy," Louise said, wrinkling her nose in a grimace.
"It's the best we can do here," Jim smiled, "I mean on short notice."
"Keeping in mind how good some of the other services are. I can forgive the coffee."
"Why thank you."
They both seemed totally relaxed in spite of their nudity. He looked at Louise now, saw the same body, the same hips, thighs, breasts and felt nothing stimulating. He wondered if she felt the same way about him. The entire incident-a sexual volcano-seemed to have happened a hundred years ago; and to somebody else, not to him. In a certain way, Rawls felt sad. Sad because it was Louise. She detected the change in mood.
"Regrets, Jim?"
"No. Thinking about Tex, that's all."
"Please don't; he knows all about it."
The coffee cup almost fell from Jim's hand. "What? Tex knows? Why how could he? You ... I...."
"Not about us, Jim. Tex knows that I play around. One of the reasons that he married me was that I was so much younger than him. He had the crazy idea that being young, I could somehow keep him young forever. It worked for awhile but you know how those things are, Jim...."
Jim poured himself a bourbon; a short one.
"I tried to kill my own drives, Jim; because I have a great respect for my husband."
"It's not easy to kill drives," Jim said softly.
"You know a little bit about that yourself, I suppose." Jim nodded. Louise continued. "Tex knows that my shopping trips to New York are occasions for my having a ball. The city is far enough away to require staying overnight. We could meet there sometime."
"No, Louise; I don't intend to rendezvous in New York."
"It's a little dangerous for us to have an affair in Clarksdale, I would think."
"Hold off, Louise. I don't see us having anything anywhere."
"Come on, now, lover! Didn't you enjoy it?"
"You know that. But we'll have to chalk it up as just one of those things. I just can't have a thing like this going with the wife of my friend...."
"But Jim I told you-Tex knows."
"You mean he surmises. He doesn't actually know."
"Of course, he's never seen me in bed with anybody."
"And he doesn't know the faces or the names of the men you find, right? That's a hell of a difference for a man, Lou. It's bad enough for him that he's fighting to keep his youth alive. He doesn't have to have his nose rubbed into it. I can't take a chance."
"You haven't much to lose," she said with more than a trace of anger, "You haven't got a wife."
"I have a daughter."
"Cut it, Jim. You've played Mr. Clean long enough to know that it can't work. You just think of how beautiful we were out there and you won't say no. You'll dream of us. Every time you dive into that pool, the water is going to feel like me making love to you."
"Maybe. The answer still must be no, Lou." She rose from the couch and came to him. Her hands went around his waist. She pressed her breasts against him. "You wouldn't give up this kind of sweetness, Jim, would you?"
"I've seen sweet things go sour, Lou. Until you dived into that pool I never once thought of having you. I needed what you gave me and I thank you for it. But no more. I won't have any part of it."
Louise stepped back suddenly, quickly. Her fingers clawed out and scratched down Rawls' chest. He winced.
"You bastard!" she shouted, "You're not going to turn me off just like that. I'll let you think about what we did and I expect that you'll see things my way."
"And what's that-matinees in the pool after Tex goes home?"
She slapped him hard across the face and ran naked from the room. He walked slowly after her. He watched her pick up her pink cotton dress and her sandals from the bleacher benches where she had left them. No brassiere, no panties, no stockings-just the sandals and the dress. She slid the sandals on and pulled the dress over her head. She was gone without a backward look.
Jim Rawls dressed slowly. It was a kind of a threat, wasn't it. What did it mean? He poured himself another drink. He swallowed it and his big frame shuddered.
CHAPTER THREE
Ginny gasped at the speedometer. It was up to eighty. The expressway limit was sixty and although every one legally cheated at seventy, Ginny slowed down to the sixty mark. "Not today," she thought to herself in solemn tones, "I'm going to make sure I get to the airport and pick Billy up. And I'm going to be in one piece, too."
There was lots of time. The drive was little more than an hour. The plane was due to arrive in an hour and forty-five minutes. There was lots and lots of time. Ginny Rawls snapped on the radio. The beat, the big beat, strong and loud filled the car. Her body moved to it even as she drove. This music, rock, was the one thing about which she disagreed with her father-violently. Ordinarily, he was very calm about matters-even physical hygiene which, as he pointed out often enough, included sex. He was quite willing to discuss a subject at great length without ever losing patience, let alone becoming angry. But rock 'n roll turned her handsome father into an editorializing, moralizing, prohibiting nut. How silly it was-a little music doing all that to a grown man. Ginny went frugging along at sixty miles an hour and smiling to herself as she recalled her father's lectures.
"I have great respect for the human body, Ginny, and you know that. I am not a prude and I'm not ashamed of sex or sexuality. But that damned music-excuse the language-was composed by the devil and orchestrated in hell."
He would go on and on like that and, Ginny thought, until it became positively embarrassing. Especially before friends. It was impossible for her to understand it at all why he didn't dig rock. There was the beat, driving, insistent, going right inside your bones and blood. And there were the words which were so true; songs mainly about young people how they lived and how they felt. Sometimes she wondered how older people (Daddy really wasn't old at all, she didn't mean that) could listen to silly songs like Tea for Two Two for Tea or listen to that old tired fellow sing with a cocktail in his hand and his eyes looking like a castrated beagle. Different generations she thought just dig different things. She relaxed and let the music soak into her skin. Her hips twisted in the seat. The car, comfortably air-conditioned, raced on to the airport and to Billy Larkin! Billy Larkin, my Billy! Ginny held the rock beat steady and found herself singing:
Where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy
Where have you been charming Billy?
I've been to take a wife
She's the darling of my life.
She's a young thing and can not leave her mother.
But she can leave her father, Ginny thought, smiling. Then she frowned wondering how her dad would ever get along without her or she without him. That was one sad thing about marriage. It broke up families, it really did.
At any rate she had to get married and very soon, too, Ginny thought, emphasizing all the proper words. It had gotten to the point where it was too much for both Billy and herself to be alone together. They drove each other out of their minds. Where have you been, Billy Boy? That worried Ginny too.
Before he had been accepted in Officers' Candidate School, Billy had been stationed in West Germany for almost eight months. Those frauleins, Ginny had been told, did more than just twist. Naturally, Billy was not going to tell her about what he did and with whom, but Liz Rainer seemed to know things. At least she implied that she did. She knew a boy stationed in Germany who, Liz said, knew Billy quite well. The letters between Liz and Wally Canton were very candid (if that was the proper word). Liz had given a stack of Wally's mail to Ginny. "Read it and get a liberal education, Ginny, honey bunny," Liz had said. Ginny read two of Wally's letters. Even now, thinking about them, she turned beet red: the endless physical details of what he did and what she did and how they felt. When Ginny had told Liz that she absolutely didn't believe the letters had any basis in fact, that it was just a dirty game played by Wally and Liz, Liz let out a loud guffaw.
"Listen to me, Jim Rawls' pure virgin daughter, I'm trying to help you see real life, the cool, good life, baby. I don't mind being told that I'm playing dirty games with Wally because I am and I love it. I do mind being told I'm a liar!"
Liz said this so calmly that Ginny shuddered slightly knowing it was true. Still, Liz offered to prove her point. "Here," Liz said and took some photos from a buried compartment of her purse. "Look them over." Ginny looked at the first one. The naked sexual images screamed into her eyes and she passed the photos back to Liz. "No thanks. I've seen enough."
"You believe me now, Ginny honey bunny?"
"Yes, yes; and never show me any more of that stuff again!" Ginny had shouted angrily. Liz had laughed and laughed and laughed.
Provoked by the memory of Liz's pornographic pictures, Ginny pressed hard on the gas pedal. The needle shot up to ninety before she brought the car speed down. Without thought she listened to the music again until the rock beat reached her and made her feel calm and good. Memories of Billy returned.
What a wonderful party that had been! Billy's married sister Sharon had given it in Billy's honor. The whole gang was there, all the kids who buddied up in Clarksdale. Sharon lived in a big rambling, house on the hill overlooking the bay. The setting was perfectly romantic. Sharon had turned the tennis court into a dance floor by renting hard wood floors which covered the court surface nicely. Colored lights and lantern were strung everywhere. A bonfire had been lit on the beach; you could see it from the house. You could wander down the hill if you liked and when you got to the fire you found chests of chilled soda pop and beer; weenies and marshmallows for roasting. And the music was so good, Ginny remembered, so good.
She adored dancing with Billy. They did a mean go-go together. They danced well enough to attract attention on any dance floor. Billy was as graceful a six-footer as you could find and Ginny, herself, at five-seven and built like heaven made her body talk across ball room lengths. But, Ginny felt that the frugs, watusis, monkeys and swims were more athletic than sexy. A floor full of frug may have had the look of an orgy but really had more of the feeling of a girls' gymnasium invaded by the boys for fun and games. When Billy took her in his arms and danced one of the older dances her temperature would begin to climb. It was a relief to get back to the frug to cool off.
A truck passed her and the driver yelled down; "Damn it, lady, will you drive that car on one side of this road or the other. I'm trucking tomatoes not tombstones." The furious face and the long trailer roared by. She giggled to herself. She had better, she thought, not relive her good times with Billy Larkin.
Yet the memories came of their own accord:
"Let's walk out through the trees in back, Billy," she whispered into his ear as they danced. "Alright," he had said.
He had held her hand as they pushed through the hedges which surrounded the back lawn. He threaded his way through trees and shrubs pulling Ginny along behind him. "Hey, where are we going?"
"There's an old oak I used to climb when I was a kid. I want you to see it. I used to sit high among the leaves and dream."
"About what?"
"About you, silly. About you and conquering the world."
"What did you see when you dreamed about me?"
"Unfair to virile, panting males."
"Please, tell me, Billy."
"Someday. Not now."
Ginny stopped in her tracks and jerked Billy's arm. "Kiss me, Billy. Kiss me right now."
He pulled her into his arms. She felt her breasts, hard and pointed inside her bra, crush into his chest. His mouth came down on hers softly, painting her full, passionate lips with a delicate flame which raced down into her stomach and turned her knees to jelly. "Billy, Billy," she said into his mouth, "I love you so much." She let her tongue come out, a pink tendril, which traced his lips and reaching deeper touched his tongue.
"Ginny, you must stop ... I'll go out of my mind."
"Don't you want to?" she asked, her body flowing into his.
"Of course, right here; with Indian war whoops."
"Then do it, Billy, before I die!"
"Darling, darling, I can't, not with you; you're not a fraulein in the back room of a kraut beergarden. You're my girl. You're going to be my wife."
"I know, lover, and you want to marry a virgin."
"That's right, Gin. It's kooky, maybe, but it's important to me. I want to start our life together with no regrets, no questions and no doubts."
Ginny kissed him then, hard and passionately, her tongue leaping out and his, unleashing hot, sudden fury, meeting it. They clung desperately to each other. He pushed Ginny from him. "Your control is too good, Mr. Larkin, sir," Ginny pouted and brushed her hair back into innocence.
They reached Billy's oak. It was a huge rambling affair-almost a house. Stairs had been built into it. Now they were worn and as grey as the gnarled joints of the old tree. "I made those stairs," Billy said, "Come on, let's walk up and see the stars."
He led Ginny up the stairs whose turns, lengths and heights he knew well. "Watch the next one-it's a big step up. Here, give me your elbow."
In another moment they were standing on a sturdy platform high up in the branches. Once it had been a tree house. Now there remained a platform and a single weathered beam which served as a railing. The view was awesome. Great silver stars hung down to the top of the oak and the red moon seemed so close that its light pulsed.
"Is it here that you dreamed of me?"
"Yes. As purely as the stars are pure or the moon. Do you think, Gin, I could be up here and make believe I was having real hot sex with you?"
"Oh, no. No, it would be impossible. I couldn't," she kissed him gently. "Thank you for all those dreams and for not raping me once."
He kissed the top of her head, "Now don't you forget that I only had those dreams in this tree. Other places, other dreams." He put his arms around her slim waist. Together they stood quietly and looked out across the skies where the big stars sat still in the night.
A long time went flying by for Ginny who now felt closer to Billy than ever before. Perhaps they would have remained in each others arms all night except for the voices.
"Damn it," Billy whispered, "Somebody is coming this way. Don't they know this is private territory; Billy Larkin country?"
"Doesn't that sound like Liz Rainer?"
"Shhh. I don't want them to find this tree. She's with Hank Forte and Gus Berne. They're almost below us."
Ginny could make out their silhouettes in the half-dark and occasional illuminations of their faces and figures when the red moonlight touched them. Ginny caught her breath and gasped audibly. Below them in the moonlight the image of Liz Rainer was sharp and clear. Her blouse and brassiere were in her hand. Her breasts were absolutely naked.
"You're drunk," Hank said, "Get dressed before some one finds us out here."
"Hah! You didn't mind my being undressed a few days ago." Liz snorted, "Neither did you Gus Berne. Matter of fact, you put the booze in my soda pop."
"I didn't think you'd go crazy."
"What's crazy about it? Latest style topless evening gown. Designed for modern women-read all about it ina Sunday Times. Trouble is, you boys see some bare boobs and you get evil minded, positively evil minded. How would you like to take me inna bushes and untwist my garter belt, hahaha."
Liz swayed into a burlesque promenade and worked her awkward dance to the point where she was bumping, grinding and singing at the top of her drunken voice. Gus mopped his head with a limp handkerchief.
Hank kept looking back toward the house from which the sound of music and a multicolored glow of light rose up.
"I don't know about you," Gus said in a loud whisper, "But I'm going to cut out and leave this kook here."
"We'd better not," Hank said keeping his eyes glued to the grinding pelvis of the dancing girl, "She just might get herself killed by falling down a well or over a cliff or some damned thing."
"Take me in the bushes or do it right here in the moonlight. One at a time or two at a time, baby."
"You talk a lot, Liz. But if you keep it up...."
She sashayed close to Hank, grinding, bumping, her breasts bouncing, "And you'll do what, Hank?"
High up in the dark shelter of the great oak, Ginny dug her nails into Billy's arm. How strange her reactions were! On the one hand, she despised Liz for her wantonness, her shameless display, and her craving for sexual encounter right there like an animal of the fields. On the other hand, and this horrified Ginny Rawls, she imagined that she herself was Liz Rainer, that she herself was down there with Hank and Gus, her own breasts bare, her hips grinding. She felt her deep sexual pulses throb in response to Liz's display. Even more strangely: she admired the boys for not raping her, for thinking of her welfare; and at the same time she hated them both, felt contempt for their timorousness in not taking her right there in the moonlight. The final horror for Ginny in this fleeting night-made fantasy was that she did not even imagine that Billy was one of the men who would make love to the harlot Liz-Ginny image. Just Gus and Hank. It was almost as if she did not want Billy at all! Her nails dug deeply into Billy's muscled arm. Tears of anger and confusion filled her eyes and came down her cheeks.
She glanced at Billy. He gently hugged her without looking at her. His jaw was set and his eyes riveted to the strange scene below the oak tree. He reached into his pocket and took out a brushed steel windproof cig-aret lighter. He tossed it into the air, caught it, and smiled. He threw the lighter in a high arch over the heads of the trio in the moonlight. It flashed through the night and crashed like a small hand grenade into the thick shrubbery.
The effect was startling. The boys turned about quickly to face the intruding sound. Liz stopped almost in the middle of one of her torrid grinds and froze like a half draped statue.
"Who's there?" Hank yelled. "Damn it!" he added in a whisper, "Somebody's spying on us. Let's get the hell out of here."
Liz very rapidly slipped her bra over her perspiring breasts and pulled her blouse over her head. She hooked arms with her escorts and the three of them half ran across the grass, through the thickets, back toward Sharon's house. Gus' voice trailed behind them like a scarf of sound, " ... Why you weren't even drunk ... you were faking ... Liz, you're just a...." And there was the sound of Liz's laughter trailing back and falling through the leaves of Billy Larkin's oak tree where he and Ginny stood.
Even before the airport entrance markers came into sight, Ginny knew she was quite near: low flying planes were angling down or climbing into the sky above her head. She turned off the radio. Her heart leaped. Why did the last part of waiting always take so long? It had been such a long time since Billy had been home. Ten weeks! That's as close to forever as you can get when you are in love, hopelessly in love. The airport markers snapped into view and Ginny made her turn to the right.
She had a coke which was quite dull and did not pass too much time. If his plane was on schedule-and that was a big if-it would still be a half hour before touchdown.
Ginny walked through the long interconnecting embarking and debarking waiting areas of all the airlines in the world. She watched aimlessly thousands of pieces of luggage move along belts and spew out onto metal slides. She was about to go back to the refreshment counter for another coke when the public address system interrupted its music to say: "Flight 108 from Kansas City now arriving at Gate Two." Ginny began to run.
The big silver plane taxied to a stop. The portable passenger walkway was pushed against the plane door. The people began to come off. Ginny held her breath waiting for Billy to emerge. How long! How long! Her legs and thighs were tense, ready to run, ready to spring into his arms. Billy appeared. Ginny froze at what she saw.
A woman was with him. She was holding his arm. They were laughing. The woman was-and even in her cold state of shock, Ginny could see that-absolutely beautiful. Ginny fought to compose herself. There had to be an explanation. Billy knew she would be waiting. And Billy wouldn't do anything that crude, anything that would possibly hurt her. Or maybe he....Ginny became angry with herself for even doubting Billy Larkin. Why, he had never denied it when he had been out with another woman. And she knew that she, Ginny Rawls, was the only one who mattered to Billy Larkin. This beauty on his arm, Billy could explain her; she was sure he could. Ginny smiled suddenly and she rushed forward to embrace Billy and to find out who lady bountiful in beautiful skin tight beige was. Billy's embrace was sincere and warm. Ginny relaxed. A man couldn't pretend with his kiss; not Billy anyway, not with her. They kissed again unmindful of the hurrying crowds. Their bodies were tight together.
"I hate to interrupt this," said the beautiful lady in beige in a low smooth voice which purred with French overtones. "But you are in danger of becoming a display. Besides we haven't been properly introduced."
"I'm very sorry," Billy Larkin said as Ginny patted at the lipstick marks on his chin. "Wilma Fareon this is Ginny Rawls, my fiance."
"I am delighted, Miss Rawls," the lady said taking her hand in her soft glove, "We did nothing on the flight here but speak about you. I do believe this young officer intends to marry you, my dear."
"Well, I hope he hasn't changed his mind after meeting you," Ginny said warmly.
"I would be very flattered, of course," Wilma Fareon replied looking at Billy Larkin who promptly demonstrated his ability to blush.
"Oh, come off of it-both of you!" Billy said, "You'll get me courtmartialed; I'll lose my commission! Besides, Ginny, Miss Fareon, Wilma I mean, is a friend of your Dad. She's come here to see him. The last time they saw each other was in Paris when your father was a corporal and that was a very long time ago...."
CHAPTER FOUR
For Ginny the ride to Billy Larkin's house was utter bliss! And the company of Wilma Fareon was more than welcome. It was difficult for Ginny to guess what Wilma's age might be, but she reasoned that she would like to look as young when she was that "old." Then she wondered if she was secretly being catty. Of course not! Ginny concluded. She liked this woman, this fabulous friend her father had never once in his whole life ever mentioned. And a Parisian! The music rolled out into the laughter filled automobile with a special joy. When Wilma turned to Ginny and said: "I like this song but this group does a second rate job with it. This number belongs to the Beatles; others just spoil it," Ginny almost did not believe it! She dug rock! Out of this cotton pickin' little universe! And since Billy was at the wheel, Ginny was free to frug to her heart's content.
By the time they had covered half the distance to Billy's house, Ginny felt that Wilma was an old and dear friend. Without shyness, without thought, she asked: "Tell me all about you and Daddy-where did you meet him?"
"It was in Paris. Twenty years ago," Wilma said and seeing the look of utter dismay on Ginny's face added, "Don't be so startled; that doesn't make me an old lady! Besides I was only ten years old."
"Gee, now I'm really confused, Wilma. Billy said you were an old friend of Dad's! That didn't come outright, did it?"
Wilma laughed and turned the music down. "But I am an old friend, my dear; and an old sweetheart besides."
"No! Daddy would never...."
"Yes, he would!" Wilma said laughing again with a warmth which both she and Billy had already fallen in love. "Please, we will both make it very confused, no? Unless you give me a chance to explain."
"Mais, certainment," Ginny said trying out her school book French.
"Dig her!" said Billy looking quickly at Ginny, "Brigitte Bardot!"
"But she said it perfectly! Like a Parisian born."
"Flattery will get you everywhere, friends!" Ginny said not hiding her pleasure at the compliments, "But I want to hear this story. Please, Wilma, I want the inside scoop on Mr. James T. Rawls, my big daddy. I want the truth, the whole truth, and almost nothing but the truth."
"And you shall have it!" Wilma said smiling and squeezing her hand, "I will spare no one, not your father and not myself."
Billy slowed down and pulled into a roadside restaurant. "I'm not going to listen to a word of this scuttlebutt until we demolish some franks. Don't protest ladies. The lieutenant will pay the bills!" The ladies issued a duet of laughter.
When they were on the road again, the music turned completely, off, Wilma Fareon told the truth, the whole truth and almost nothing but the truth.
"How can I ever forget Corporal Jimmy Rawls! I am a little girl but, mon dieu, when I first set eyes on him, I fell madly, shamelessly in love. He came through the door of our apartment on the Rue Moscou like a god, a blond-no-a golden god. I wanted to rush right into his arms and embrace him but I was too shy, Ginny. Can you imagine that? I was shy to the very point of pain, my dear.
"So I had to watch some one else run into arms. It was my cousin, Yvonne. So lucky! She was nineteen! I had to watch when Corporal Jim kissed her. It made me so angry I wanted to find a stick and beat her and him, too! But I ran from the room, down into the street and cried my eyes out. So, I knew your father less than five minutes and I was in love with him; and I was betrayed by him! That brute!"
"He certainly was!" Ginny agreed in mock anger. "I'll give him a piece of my mind when I see him."
"No you mustn't," Wilma said, "He never knew he was breaking a little girl's heart. Besides, cousin Yvonne was something very special; you know what I mean?"
"Yes, I'm sure I do," Ginny said, thinking of Liz Rainer, "But please go on, Wilma; this is so exciting for me."
"It's very exciting for me to tell it. You know-I have never told this to any one and here I am telling it to his daughter. I like that."
"I do, too, but please go on."
"Yes, of course." Wilma turned away from Ginny and looked outward to the road as she spoke, "I was, as I told you, too much in love. And very much hurt because the man I loved, he was in love with another. And to make matters worse it was Yvonne, my awful cousin, who had men by the dozen."
"Jim probably didn't love her," Billy interjected, "It was just one of the soldier things."
"Billy Larkin!"
"Ah, but Billy is completely correct, Ginny. It was just a soldier thing but how could I understand that? I was ten years old, no?"
"It seems just horrible to me."
"Not at all. I learned something very good from it. That there were different kinds of love. Yvonne's kind. My kind. And through my love, the blond golden god corporal and I became friends." Saying this Wilma Fareon smiled to herself and stopped speaking as if she was remembering something privately.
"Wilma, Wilma!" Ginny said snapping her fingers, "You have just left our planet. Come back please and talk to us."
"Oh! Isn't that foolish! I was day dreaming. What was I saying?"
"You became friends...."
"Yes. We became friends. Yvonne worked in a laundry; the Blanchisserie Grenelle, it was called. Jim came to the house sometimes a little early, before Yvonne came home. So we talked. I think he sensed something of how I felt for him. He brought me chocolate. Chewing gum, of course. But most important he told me stories. About life in the Etats Unis...."
"Could Daddy speak French?"
"But perfectly; didn't you know?"
"No. Isn't that crazy? Billy, did you hear that? Daddy speaks French perfectly.?"
"This is kind of kooky, isn't it."
"Please, go on Wilma."
"So there were the stories and, how kind he was, he would come to the apartment hours early to take me for a walk, to take me to the zoo, to the cinema and my aunt, my parents both died in the second world war, was delighted. She thought that Jim's interest in me was to show his love for Yvonne. My aunt, she thought, the rich Americaine he would' marry her daughter for sure, you see. But Jim liked to sleep with Yvonne ... oh, excuse me, I shouldn't...."
"Don't be silly! That's what boy soldiers do; don't they Billy Larkin?"
"Unfair!" Billy shouted without being able to curb his laughter. "I'd never ever!"
"At any rate, Ginny, that's the truth. He liked to sleep with my cousin. And I have no regrets about that at all because if he didn't, if there was no Yvonne, how would we have become friends? There is one day I still remember above all the rest and I remember it vividly. Jim had promised that for my tenth birthday he would spend the whole day with me. Just the two of us from morning until night. He kept his promise, too."
"Of course, he would! That's my Daddy!"
"Yvonne, was very angry. You see, my birthday fell on a Sunday and she had plans for that day. But Jimmy, he said no!" Wilma laughed again and lit a cigaret. "Someday, Ginny, I will tell you all about that most beautiful day. I will tell it to you minute by minute, that is the way I remember it. But for now just imagine this. I am ten. I am spending all of the day with the most handsome man in the world. He takes me to the zoo. He buys me ice and chestnuts. Everywhere he takes me by taxi. He took me to the top of Le Tour Eiffel-it was the first and only time I went up. He took me to the Cafe Deux Maggots for dinner and arranged to have me served like a grand lady. I was so happy, so happy!
"As a parting gift and birthday present he gave me a beautiful golden haired doll. I still have it. I couldn't contain my feelings when my corporal brought me home. I threw my arms around him and I cried out: Je faime, je t'aime, Jim Rawls. I love you, I love you, Jim Rawls.
"He squatted down before me and he said: I love you, too, Wilma Fareon. If you were lots and lots older why I suppose we would get married. But that's how life goes.
"Suddenly, I became desperate. I asked him if he was going to marry Yvonne. He laughed his big, wall-breaking laugh and he promised me that he would never, never marry her. And then he told the sad news. He had to leave Paris, leave France, go back to the Etats Unis! Oh, how I hated the United States then! I cried, I cried, I held onto to his leg. I would never let him go He picked me up and cradled me in his arms. He pushed the door bell but before my aunt came to take me in, he kissed me. It was on the cheek. I still feel it."
"Golly!" Ginny said wiping her eyes and blowing her nose into some tissue. "Well, if I ever forget to love my daddy, Wilma, you just kick me hard."
"You just do that, Wilma," Billy Larkin added, "Now let me tell you about a little girl I know in West Germany...."
"Billy Larkin!" Ginny yelled, "Don't you dare tease!"
They laughed all together. It was Wilma who turned on the rock on the radio. Ginny, delighted with Daddy's old friend, decided that somehow Wilma Fareon had a special meaning in her life.
The road rolled under the wheels. Ginny put her arm around Billy's neck. He kissed her lightly on the cheek.
Billy slowed the car into the driveway of his parents' home. They had deposited Wilma Fareon, at her request, at the London Arms Motel with the understanding that they would be happy to drive her anywhere she cared to go. They'd wait for her call.
Getting out of the car, Billy Larkin cocked his head, "This is strange, Gin. It's so quiet. I thought they'd be out on the porch to welcome me."
"Is kind of funny; maybe they had the plane time wrong."
"Impossible," Billy said pulling at his chin. He shrugged, took his new officer's cap off and slapped it against his thigh. "Oh, well-Let's go inside, Gin. Maybe there's a note."
No sooner than Gin and Billy had entered the room the explosion ripped out. The Animals wailed out of the sound system. A great oil cloth banner unfurled from the ceiling: WELCOME HOME LT. WILLIAM J. LARKIN. Spot-lights jumped on and beamed at lipsticked mirrors: YOU MADE IT, BILLY! BILLY IS OUR LEADER! EYES RIGHT GIRLS! Then, from behind couches, from closets, from other rooms, from the basement, through the windows, friends poured into the room. For he's a jolly good fellow rose up in the Larkin house like a joyous anthem. The boys and girls, singing, circled round Billy and Ginny. The boys slapped Billy's back or pumped his hand; the girls painted his face with lipstick except for Liz Rainer who kissed Billy squarely on his laughing mouth. No one seemed to notice, not even Billy. No one except Ginny Rawls and it hardly pleased her. Only the fact that Liz faded back into the crowd of milling friends prevented an incident.
"Hey," Billy shouted above the din, "Where are my folks?"
"At your sister's house, Bill," a voice shouted. "They'll expect you for dinner there at eight," another voice added. "Quiet please!" Larkin yelled. "Quiet Please!"
"OK, Lieutenant!"
"Quiet down you unenlisted creeps! Lt. Larkin is about to speak!" a growling bass voice shouted. Silence slowly emerged from the laughter and music filled room.
Billy smiled at the people in the room. He climbed up on a chair to be seen. "I'm never going to get a chance to thank each of you for this wonderful surprise. So I'd like to thank all of you. You're just great and this-this is just-ah! it's too much."
"We don't deserve it!" the growling bass voice said. "You just thank the bombshell of Clarksdale for this blowout!"
"That's right!" another voice added, "Liz Rainer!
Three cheers! Now put on that Animal noise and leave us roar!"
"And pour that booze into the punch!"
"Not all of it! Need a little straight stuff in reserve."
Ginny felt numb. Waves of anger had flooded through her. It was so unfair, so terribly unfair. She had planned, as Billy had, to have these first hours quietly to themselves. Now this!
Liz was wheeling out a great big white icing covered cake. Ginny felt like picking the cake up and smashing it down on the smirking head of the bombshell of Clarksdale. But what good would it be; what purpose would it serve except to make her, Ginny Rawls, look like a damned fool. After all, who arranged this great welcome home surprise party? Liz Rainer! Hooray for Liz! Who did all the work and got the records and arranged for the signs and brought the booze (brought the booze, man)? Liz Rainer! Hooray for Liz! Ginny Rawls took a very deep breath and said to herself: Control yourself. This party is for Billy Larkin. It is a very nice, thoughtful, surprise. Even if it came out of the scheming mind of Liz Rainer. Smile, Ginny Rawls and celebrate!
Ginny forced her best and most confident smile across her face. With the Animals urging her on, Ginny joined the dancing. She did not wait for Billy who was hemmed into a corner by friends who had a thousand questions in want of answers. Ginny avoided Billy's attempt to signal his embarrassed helplessness to her. She isolated Hank Forte and began to frug. Her voice and mouth made small talk while her body twisted out the stylized and alienated gestures. She sneered to herself as Hank riveted his eyes on her swinging pelvis: More interesting than Liz Rainer? Well you can't have it! It's for Billy!
But where are you Billy, Ginny wondered, looking quickly in his direction as she danced. She turned back to Hank Forte with fury: Liz was talking with Billy. She had her arm hooked through his. Whatever it was that Liz said, it made Billy laugh out loud. Ginny hoped the music would get louder, the beat stronger, so that she could dance her furies out of her body. Almost in answer to her wish the Animals vanished and the Rolling Stones sang out and then the Beatles. Hank Forte pooped out. Ed Kinger took his place. Ginny danced him down. Sam Welker twisted on and died in the growing blaze Ginny Rawls kindled. Ginny kicked her shoes off and Liz Rainer shouted: Go get 'em, Ginny!
Ginny's arms pumped. Her blond hair whipped about with her snapping head. Her prim skirt leaped up revealing flashes of her thighs.
A circle had formed around Ginny and her changing partners. For a moment she felt foolish but stopping now was not possible. She could see Billy at the perimeter of the circle. He was obviously displeased. Liz Rainer pulled Billy through the circle. "C'mon Lieutenant, Let's show this girl what we learned at officer's school."
"Yeah," Billy said, gulping his drink down, "That's a good idea."
Billy and Liz began to dance. Billy met Liz's sensual thrusts with his own angry drive. It was obvious as Liz twisted and shook that no brassiere held her in. Her breasts bounced wildly. In a moment all eyes were on Liz and Billy; even Peter Arkin stopped dancing with Ginny to watch the display being offered by Liz who found a split instant to look toward Ginny and smile.
The spiked punch bowl ran down as the sound level went up. The party for Billy Larkin was a roaring success. Ginny retreated to the den. She needed desperately to be alone. She had been a perfect fool. Billy had a perfect right to be angry with her. But why did he have to dance with Liz? Why? That was not fair! She opened the den door. A tangle of arms and legs greeted her from the leather couch. She excused herself and went out.
She returned to the party. Liz and Billy had surrendered the dance floor to the others. Ginny searched for him. When she found him Billy was sitting cross legged in the vestibule with Liz. Whatever it was that Liz was saying, Billy was listening with great earnestness. Suddenly she felt completely helpless. Maybe, she thought, what Billy Larkin really wants is a fraulein and a backroom. Maybe girls like Ginny Rawls are always sweet, pure and dull. Maybe girls like Liz Rainer always win. No one noticed-not even Billy-when she walked out the door. Once in the car, she broke into tears.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rawls checked the tape on his wrists before approaching the horizontal bar in the corner of the gymnasium. He reached over his head and chinned up. He dropped off the bar and shook his arms to get some of the last kinks out of his muscles. He approached the bar again. He pressed up easily and worked into the standard gymnast maneuvers ending with great free swinging circles. From the balcony above the gymnasium floor where Wilma Fareon looked down, Jim Rawls looked like a magnificent toy-one which she soon hoped to own.
Jim was oblivious of his secret visitor. His mind was filled with the crazy events of the day before. He had to admit to himself, that Louise Mattaway frightened him. The look in her eyes when she had walked out of the swimming pool was one of murder.
If she really decided to be vengeful, a lousy mess would uncover. He could take that alright but the mud would go flying all over Ginny.
It probably was his own idiotic fault, he thought. He had been so determined to raise Ginny in a wholesome way, so unlike her mother, that he had turned both of them into phony symbols of purity. Admired, he was, sure, but by the worst prudes of Clarksdale. Worse than that, Rawls reasoned, maybe he had made it difficult for Ginny to compete with other girls on a man-woman basis. Still, she was Billy's girl; they were practically engaged. And Billy was the prize catch in town. Something was wrong, though. Billy came home yesterday afternoon and Ginny came home crying the same night. For a long minute Jim Rawls held a perfect handstand on the bar. Then he dropped down and swung out to the gym floor. His body glistened with sweat. His bare chest rose and fell on his breathing. As he undid the tapes on his wrists he thought: five years of being careful-down the drain in one afternoon. And who knows, maybe Ginny was being plunged into that great sadness which masqueraded under the mask of maturity.
What did Ginny want of him? Why did she call him and ask him to stay behind at the Community Center? He was relieved when his daughter walked through the door of the gym. The pain of speculation was becoming too much for him.
She rushed to him and clasped her arms about his waist, "Oh, Daddy!"
"Hey, I'm dripping sweat!" Jim said moving her away, "Now, let's get this over with: what's upsetting you? I heard you bawling last night." He lifted her chin with his finger, "Am I your Daddy?"
"Of course, silly!"
"Good. Then talk. What's the problem."
"Billy," Ginny half said, half squeaked, and broke into tears.
Jim half smiled. She really was a baby still. He rocked her in his arms now forgetting his wet and perspiring body: "Alright tell me all about it, baby."
Ginny blurted out the events of the party and punctuated her tear-filled tale with constant angry references to Liz Rainer.
Finally Jim said: "Do you think that Liz will take Billy away from you?" She sobbed and nodded. "And, I suppose, you think that Billy has stopped loving you between yesterday and today." Ginny let go a flood of tears. "Sweetheart, I think that that's kind of impossible. A man who loves you just does not stop because he gets angry at you."
"But, Daddy, you don't understand; Liz can make men do what she wants."
"Oh, she can't compete with you, Gin. You have it all over her in every conceivable way."
"Except one," Ginny said daubing at her eyes. "She goes all the way with men. More, than all the way."
"That's her problem, Ginny." Jim said quietly. "Men don't respect girls who are loose and easy. They think of them as tramps. They won't marry them."
"That's not as true today as it used to be, Daddy." Ginny said her voice sounding hollow in the empty gym. "The kids talk abut it a lot. Most of them feel it's alright to have some experience."
"What about their respect?"
"No one thinks sex has anything to do with respect, Dad. It's just sex-that's all!"
"What are you getting at. Gin?"
"I'd rather have sex with Billy Larkin than let Liz Rainer do it. I'd hate that! If Billy did it with her-I'd hate him, I'd hate him!" She wept again.
Jim hunted for words. He felt as if a bag of sand had been poured down his throat. She needed his advice. She wanted him to say something which would help her and he didn't know how.
Father or not, he was a man and he could not answer his daughter's questions. A woman was needed. She needed a mother; how very much she needed a mother. But what if the mother happened to be Alice? He shuddered. "You're taking it all too seriously, Ginny. Billy loves you. He's not interested in Liz."
"Maybe Dad," Ginny said, now quite controlled, "But maybe I'm being a little bit of a coward. I think if I love Billy, and I do, I'd better fight for him."
"What do you mean, Gin?"
"I'm not sure; except I'm not going to simply let Liz run the show. I'll find ways to keep what I've got, Dad," Gin said. Her tears had completely vanished. A kind of hardness had come into her eyes.
"Now wait a minute," Jim said. "You'd better not do anything that isn't right, Gin. I won't stand for it."
Ginny Rawls was already walking away from her father. "I'm sorry, Daddy. I just have realized that I'm a woman and I'd better act like one."
"Ginny, you come back here this minute! You hear me ... Ginny?"
Rawls' voice hung in the air. He heard the doors closing after Ginny. "Come back," he finally said weakly.
The applause from the balcony startled him.
"You did that very well, Jim Rawls. But your daughter did it a little bit better, no?"
"Who are you?"
"You must never make the mistake of treating a woman like a baby."
"Who are you?" he asked again and tried to peer through the shadows beyond the ceiling lights.
"When I was a baby you once treated me like a woman, Jim. Never have I gotten over that time. I still have the doll you gave me. You know, the one with the blond hair."
"No; Wilma Fareon? Is that Wilma Fareon?"
"Yes, it is."
"I'll be absolutely damned!"
It was difficult for Rawls to drive with Wilma Fareon alongside him. He wanted to turn to her and begin to talk. He wanted to ask a thousand questions going back a million years. But she had refused to talk, as she said, "In a gymnasium with a half naked man." First, again at her insistence, they would have to have dinner. When after the dinner the brandy came, then it would be time to talk. So all he could do was steal glances at Wilma Fareon.
To describe Wilma as beautiful would have been quite simple. It also would have been banal, a cliche of the worst sort. Of course she was beautiful; this was too obvious. It was the quality of that beauty which made Jim's skin tingle. The eyes of Wilma Fareon were so large, so warmly brown, they seemed to have been painted. They were not at all real. They were filled with fires and they pulled at you; Jim had the feeling that if he got too close he would fall in and be forever lost. Her cheek bones were high and prominent and again almost unreal. Her nose was really much too small for her eyes and head but the illusion was that her nose was completely right. Her mouth, full lipped, seemed always to be smiling and that smile revealed a bridge of whiteness and regularity which were, of course, her teeth. But how perfect! How much from another world." No part of that face, no part of that beauty belonged here, Jim thought.
And her body! Jim had looked fleetingly down her bosom and toward her lap and legs. He thought it best to look at the road-if he wanted to live, that is!
"I have never been so surprised," Jim repeated once more. "Little Wilma...."
"That description does not fit any longer Jim."
"No, of course not. If only Ginny had told me you drove in with her and Billy."
"As you have seen she was very much upset. But I assure you it is not so serious. Women in love are like that. I will talk with her."
"I'd appreciate it, Wilma. I certainly can't. Also, please don't keep calling her a woman-she's a baby!"
"Absurd! One of her problems is that she knows you want her to be your little girl. She is a red-blooded woman and if I were a man ... enough of this! I did not come to your Clarksdale just to speak about the problems of Ginny Rawls."
"Sorry."
"I didn't say that to get an apology, Jim. I came here to find something out. Oh there it is, I think." Wilma Fareon said and pointed ahead to winking lights of the Blue Geranium; Steaks, Chops, Lobsters and Cocktail Lounge. Rawls pulled off the road and maneuvered to a parking spot.
By the time the brandy glasses had been emptied, they had built bridges across time. It was all very simple in the end. Wilma had married an American whose name she would not mention. She had lived in Kansas City for almost ten years. It had been a very bad marriage because it was excruciatingly dull. Her husband had been devoted to a small manufacturing enterprise. He was a decent sort but she could not make contact with him. "If he had not decided to leave me. I probably would have left him. Do you know why he left me? Because I talked in my sleep very often and what would I say? Jim Rawls, Jim, my darling, Kiss me, Jim. Through all these years Jim you have been my lover. Isn't this why I married the first American I could find? But there was no substitute."
"Two more brandies, please." Jim ordered and he turned to look at the face of Wilma Fareon.
"Do you see the face of a child or the face of a woman?"
"Face of a woman."
"I'm glad." She reached across the violet table cloth and clasped his hand. It was a spontaneous contact and it was the first. Rawls was aware of his heart moving with a stronger beat. The palms of his hands became wet. "Your marriage, I know, fell apart. Do you want to talk about it? "
"Not tonight. Just that it was hateful, bitter; a man does not like to catch his woman in bed with another man. I'm just about getting over it."
"You heal slowly."
"It's a fault."
"No, no; a virtue. Those who heal slowly love deeply."
Jim squeezed the hand he held in his. What an ass he had been! It was almost as if Wilma Fareon was an answer supplied by fate. At this critical time of Ginny's life-what a perfect mother, sister or even friend, Wilma could make! And if he married her, the other bird would be killed with the same stone, Louise Mattaway would get off his back. If those were not reasons enough for marrying her; her own natural charms would swing the deal. He smiled to himself.
"Something amusing, Jim?"
"Yes. Tell me. What ever became of Yvonne!"
"She married a butcher. She is now very fat. Her bosom comes way out like a boulder and her behind is so big she blocks the sidewalk when she walks."
"That's sad. She used to be-well, you know."
"Ah you men! Always make the same mistake. You mistake a lush body as the great flesh pot of passion. Most of you, since you have never had sex with your true love, the woman of your soul, you have no idea what sex can truly be."
"You have had this kind of love, Wilma?"
"Of course not."
"How can you be so sure that it is the way you say it is?"
"Because I am French; because I am a woman; because I have come to Clarksdale to find out if my man is here," she said this quite softly, looking at his big tan hand which she held in hers. She looked steadily into his eyes. Regardless of the words, the look in Wilma Fareon's great brown eyes was completely innocent. Rawls found himself looking down the front of her tailored blouse and coloring from the neck up. "Let's get out of here, Wilma. We'll go for a ride."
Jim tooled the car along the shore roads. He traced the contours of the ocean and the bay. The sound of the water as it banged against the rocks or whispered as it ran up onto the shore, filled their hearing.
Wilma's head rolled back against the seat. "Do you like this?"
"Very beautiful, Jim," she said. "You probably have forgotten, but you told me about this place long ago. In Paris, when I was a child. I had never seen it but you had made me love this place."
The stars traced the profile of Wilma Fareon and the moon light touched the swell of her breasts where her shirt opened. Jim stopped the car. He leaned over and kissed her mouth. It was a gentle kiss, a tender kiss, it was the way he would have kissed her twenty years ago. Wilma responded differently, however. When Jim tried to pull his head back her hand held it in place. "You shouldn't have done that, Jimmy." I m sorry.
"I hope not," her beautiful mouth said into his. "I mean it is awkward to have you kiss me in an auto-L mobile. I have been dreaming about you for twenty years. I wondered what would happen if you would touch me. You see your lips just brushed mine and I have turned into fire. I am burning up Jimmy; I am burning up."
Wilma Fareon's mouth came up to his. It was open, persimmon red and pulsing as it closed over his I mouth. Her tongue painted his mouth with desire. Red, dancing it plunged like a naked diver into his mouth. Without will his tongue leaped back. Mouth on mouth, tongue on tongue, they locked in equal combat. Then suddenly she tore away from him. Her eyes closed, her breasts heaving.
"Not in a car, Jimmy," she gasped, rolling her head from side to side. "I would hate it if we made love in a car. It is hideous that way. Take me to your room or come to mine or come outside on the grass but not in here."
Suddenly she opened the door and began to run across the grass, down an incline to the sea. Jimmy followed. When he reached Wilma she faced the sea and was breathing hard. "Oh, Jim, I was getting hysterical! Your touch was destroying me and if I did not run out I would have done it there-not on the back seat-but there on the front seat."
"I really didn't want anything to happen-nothing like that."
"Ami ... unattractive?"
"Of course not. I was just thinking about you in a way which was, how can I best express it, Wilma, in a way which was more serious."
"What is it you mean? "
"This is not the place or the time. Things are a little out of hand."
"Jimmy, why are you cold? Have pity? Take me in your arms. Kiss me. Please do it," Wilma Fareon said almost pleadingly.
Jim used all his will to suppress his mounting desire. His knees trembled. If he took one step toward her, if he kissed her, he knew all his control would be lost. He wanted to shout at her: Don't you understand, I want to marry you!
Wilma Fareon had unbuttoned her blouse. Her brassiere, which opened in front, had also been undone. He could see her lush lovely brunette breasts moving freely against the kissing cloth of her shirt. "Jimmy, hold me now! Take me now! Don't let me die, Jim."
All he could see as she walked slowly to him was a loveliness he had never in all his years encountered. She was woman but she was more. Her arms moved inside his jacket and encircled his waist. She pressed her cheek against his chest. Her hands explored him caressed him.
"I can't wait, Jimmy," she moaned, "I can't wait!"
He seized her hand when she reached for his belt buckle.
"That's all, Wilma. This is dirty. This is cheap."
Her hand became limp. Her eyes became cold. She turned away from him as she hooked her brassiere and buttoned her shirt. "I have terrible regrets that you see me that way, Jim. Take me home, please." She walked very quickly ahead of him. Although he tried to talk to her as they drove to her motel she would not hear him. Her face was a beautiful mask of cold stone. In the brown staring eyes tears welled up but did not fall.
CHAPTER SIX
"I am drunk as a skunk," Rawls said loud enough for the waitress to hear, without his having any idea that he was talking out aloud. The waitress smiled in his direction through the distorting mirror of his alcohol reality. "Drunk as a skunk," he repeated.
He tried to get a grip on his swirling consciousness. He told himself to breathe deeply. He breathed. Exhale, he instructed himself. He exhaled. Count to one hundred. He managed. Now count backwards. He stumbled at 93. He began with the breathing again.
He signaled to the waitress. "Coffee, please."
"How much?" the waitress asked with a teasing, sympathetic smile.
"How much ya got?" Rawls asked weakly. The waitress laughed. She turned on her flat heels and came back with a large silver tankard. "That should hold you."
Jim Rawls sat in the booth of the restaurant-bar and drank coffee and sang softly French songs which he had believed he had forgotten. "Damn you, Wilma Fareon, damn you," he mumbled, "Why did you have to come on that way? I don't need another Alice. I-want-a-girl-just-like-the-girl-that-married-dear-old-dad. A nice pure, cool girl who needs sex servicing once a week, that's what I need. I want a mother for my kid, don't you understand that? No more Alices.
The coffee had begun to push some of the alcohol out of his brain. He made it to the men's room and back to his table with not too much of a stagger. When he sat down there was a fresh tankard of coffee waiting. He nodded his appreciation to the waitress.
Wilma had shut off like a noisy radio when he had pushed away from her. On the ride home-to her motel-she had not said a single word. He had apologized although he did not know for what. He had tried small talk but he was extremely bad at that. Of course, he had not explained why he had refused her sincere advances. But what else could he do? It would have been silly, he believed, to say that he wanted a woman to marry mainly because he didn't want his daughter to be without a mother: the right kind of mother. Wilma might not buy that; probably wouldn't. She had needs of her own. He couldn't fault her for those but they were not the needs he had. Her needs were sexual, and he didn't intend to be a supplier. Then why all of this? Why did he leave her at the motel and speed through the night to this place? Where was this place, anyway? Why did he drive-for minutes, for hours-to come here and empty a fifth of bourbon? What was bugging him; what was eating Jim Rawls? He drank more coffee.
What a stupid world it was! His daughter would get married soon enough and that would end the problem for him, anyway. At least he hoped so. She was too good a girl to think she had to compete with the likes of Liz Rainer. At least, he hoped so. He shook his head vigorously and he heard the waitress laugh.
"Stick with the coffee, mister. That'll clear it up."
"I've got a bag on!"
"You don't have to say that. We all got the general idea."
"How long have I been here?"
"Since about ten-thirty, quarter to eleven. When you first came in, I said to myself: There's a gorgeous looking man without a trouble in the world, I'll bet. Then you order that bottle and, oh boy!"
"Oh, boy is right." Jim said clasping his head with hands. "What time is it now?"
"Five to one."
"I've got to make a phone call. Get me some dimes, will you please?" The waitress nodded and moved off. She returned with some coins but Rawls could not stand up.
His head had begun to ache. Perhaps he didn't understand women. Any woman. What had he understood of Alice? He closed his eyes to remember Alice when she was pure, when she was his bride. He saw her, sweet and smiling in a bridal veil. He smiled at that lovely, blond head which he had cherished long, long ago. Then his eyes moved down below the bridal head dress. Alice was naked. A bouquet of lilies covered her belly. Her round, ample hips rocked gently, hungrily. Her breasts, uncovered, moved in rhythm, up and back beneath the covering veil of lace. The erected pink nipples keeping the lace away from conforming to her hard roundness.
Was there something rotten beneath her sweetness even then? A thought he had never before had formed in his half cleared mind. Was it destined that every woman whom he would love would hurt him? The thought made him shudder violently. That meant Ginny. Ginny would hurt him. She had hurt him that day. It also meant Wilma. He had loved her so deeply when she was a child. Now as a woman she had come back to do what? To find a way to hurt? But he had hurt her by refusing, he reasoned. Then again, no-she had hurt him by asking for his manhood too suddenly, right there at the sea. Why was he here drunk? Was it because of the Ginny hurts or the Wilma hurts? He didn't really know. Maybe both of them. How much, he hoped, Ginny was ten years old again; Wilma was ten years old again! Inside his head his echoing voice said: But they are women Jim Rawls and you love them both and they will hurt you!
"No!" he said aloud and stood up suddenly upsetting the table and the coffee pot with it. The still hot coffee splattered on his light grey trousers. He fell back into his seat. He laughed helplessly. "What a mess! What a bloody, holy, awful mess I am." Then he closed his eyes and just sat still. Around him he heard the voices of people who were cleaning up the coffee, broken glass and cups. He recognized the voice of the waitress among them. The other voices included that of a man, a porter, and the voice of another woman. It was the kind of voice which speaks of authority and elegance at the same time. He didn't open his eyes to see if he was right. Rawls listened to the elegant voice giving orders. Soon everything seemed to be done. Silence formed in a cool pocket around the big man who sat in its center and enjoyed it. He dozed a little.
When Rawls Opened his eyes, the swinging room had slowed to a manageable speed. Sitting across the table from him was a red-headed woman in a form fitting black sequined gown. He managed to focus his eyes. Under the high pile of red hair was a tough-looking and very confident face. Appraising it, Jim thought it was a rather plain face which required a good deal of skillful painting to give it the almost pretty look it now had.
"My face is not the best part of me, big man," the red-head said. "Well, you are looking better. Take my advice now and have a little hair-of-the-dog. You've had enough coffee to float a battleship."
"I'll try it; nothing much to lose, have I?" Jim said and was somewhat surprised by the almost sober sound of his voice. "The name of the dog, big man?"
"Bourbon was his name, lady, bourbon on rocks," he said and the red-head repeated the last phrase into the air. In a moment the drink was before him.
"You the boss?" Jim asked.
"That's right. Now, you toss that right down without thinking."
Jim did as instructed. The booze hit his empty gut like a rock bouncing off the Liberty Bell. The metal echoes spread outward through his body becoming wider and fainter as they moved. "Are you dead?" the red-head asked.
"Alive!" Jim said. "I think it is working."
"I'm glad about that. My place has a reputation-nobody ever staggers blind out of here. Not specimens like you anyway," she said placing a lot of Mae West on her last words. "The problem I see with you is not that you're loaded but that you're weak, big man. So I've ordered the kitchen to burn you a steak; thick and rare."
"I can use it!"
"Any man your size needs the right fuel if he's to navigate. Incidentally, my name is Hattie Clinton. Yours?"
"Rawls. Jim Rawls," he stroked his hair back. "You know something? I do feel a hell of a lot better. My mouth is watering for that steak."
"My, my you recover fast, big man," Hattie said. She patted his hand. "You be patient. That steak will be here in minutes. After you've put that away I have a special desert arranged for you."
Jim Rawls wiped his mouth with the napkin. "That was wonderful Hattie. I feel like a new man."
"The old man was good enough, Jim; don't go switching decks on me."
"Know something? I don't even know the name of this place or where it is. I have to know that so I can come back again."
"Naturally. This is Hattie's Little Heaven-eight miles East of Ft. Bridge."
Jim gulped: "I drove more than a hundred miles."
"I guess there was something you wanted to get away from in an awful hurry."
"Yes; women."
"Present company excepted, I hope," she said smiling. Jim smiled back without commitment. "Anyway you're as good as new-except for that wild brown coffee stain on your pants." Jim looked down at his trousers. The spilled coffee had dyed a ring across his thighs.
"I suppose if I had to explain that I could."
"There's no need to try too hard. I can have the pants cleaned up and pressed within an hour or two. I always like to see my customers leave here in as good shape as they entered," Hattie said.
"No need to bother."
"No bother. My man will take you to my room; give him the pants and rest. By the time they're done; you'll be ready to go. I think you can use the rest."
"I wouldn't expect to force you out of your room, Hattie. No thanks. I'll just drive on my way."
Hattie smiled broadly and shook her head. "Big man, you're not giving me a chance to be subtle. Every so often I see a man who gets my motor Tuning, you know what I mean? You happen to be that kind of man. Now I'd like you to go into my room and let my man get your pants cleaned."
"I appreciate the offer, Hattie," Jim said with a warm gentleness. "But I like to do the inviting and, lately, just about nobody is letting me get to it. The answer is no."
"Am I that hard to take?"
Jim looked at her closely. She wasn't young anymore. To be more correct, he thought, she was just at the ripest stage, the lushest stage, the time a woman really understands how to be all woman.
Her hair, if there was a touch of grey in it, had been artfully covered because the red looked a true and natural red. Her green eyes were flecked with a thousand colors, picking them up from everything around her. The tiniest suggestion of fine lines snowed at the corners of those very inviting green eyes. Her nose was thin and delicately arched, the nostrils flaring out and passionate. Her mouth was not small; there was in it a definite coarseness. Almost as if it were ready at any moment to release a stream of dirty words.
Hattie's neck was amazingly long as if it wanted to keep her head away from her large, pressing bosom. Without seeing them Jim Rawls knew that the nipples of those great white orbs of flesh were a bright pink and much larger than silver dollars. The slightest touch placed on those nipples would race her motors to an outlawed speed. Her waist was slim and contrasted beautifully to her hips which curved outward like the turn of the century and spoke with joy and the promise of complete abandon.
Her legs, and Jim Rawls could not help making the observation, were the legs of a whore. Something in the musculature, the pucker of the knee, the way nylon held to them seemed to whisper come on, baby, come on. It occurred to Jim that there was something of Alice's legs in Hattie's and something of Liz's. Here she was inviting him, imploring him, and he was saying no. Why? She probably was as good in bed as a stranger could ever get to be. The answer was simple and formed itself clearly in a mind which was now almost alcohol free. He was being picked up by a professional-not a whore-but a professional in the sense that love never entered into her sex life. Money could enter, kicks, force, perversion but never love. He was something she wanted as badly as a middle-class lady wants a mink coat; as badly as a desperate horseplayer wants a winning parley. Then a second thought came into Jim's mind: Hattie was determined to have him. It would be no less than rape, if Hattie had to resort to it. Jim became tense suddenly. His mind now was completely clear.
"Miss Clinton," he said to the redhead, "I want to thank you for your concern and for your generosity but I do have to go. What is the bill, please."
"Now, Jim, I suggest we clean you up first. Go on to my room; will you do that?"
"No time, Hattie."
"You've got the time, big man. If we didn't sober you up, you would have slobbered into a hedge row and laid there all night. You would have had time for that-you'll have a little time for me."
"I said thanks, Hattie. I appreciate what you did. Now, what's the bill?"
Hattie shot a venomous green look at Jim Rawls. She smiled wickedly: "The bottle of bourbon is eighteen dollars. The coffee is on the house. The steak is exactly ninety-two dollars and fifty cents. That makes one hundred and ten bucks and change. Is my arithmetic right, Mr. Rawls?"
"I don't like the numbers, Hattie, but the addition is just fine. Now let me ask the question? Do you honor credit cards?"
"Cash, Jimmy, we honor cash."
"I see. Will you take my name, address, license number and IOU? I'm pretty well respected in my town."
"You're a stranger here, honey. But I can get to know you-intimately, as they say. How about it? One hour."
"I'm sorry you're putting it that way. I'll just have to walk out Hattie."
"Without paying your bill? It isn't done here," Hattie said smiling now in an almost deadly way. Jim took a deep breath and slowly got to his feet. Hattie smiled and studied the great length of him for a moment. She snapped her fingers crisply. Jim heard the quick steps of men walking toward his booth. "Too bad, Jim. You're so beautiful. It could have been a many splendored thing as they say in the movies."
Two men blocked the booth entrance. One was the man who had cleaned up earlier-but how did he know that? He had only heard his voice. It was a guess. The other was a heavy set broken nosed pug. A beer bloated ex-middleweight who had blown up to heavyweight proportions. The first man was a trim heavyweight. All the knuckles on his hands had been broken at one time or another.
The two stood there saying nothing.
"This gentleman is a stiff, boys. He can't pay his bill."
"That's not good, Miss Clinton," one said.
"We can't run a business with bums what don't pay no bills, Miss Clinton. Bums like that can ruin a whole country, you know that. They can start a depression."
"We wouldn't want a depression. Would we, Killer?" Hattie asked without turning to the speaker.
"No. Things are too good for there to be hard times."
"You sure he ain't going to pay, Miss Clinton," the other asked in his soft voice. "Ask him yourself, Edward."
"OK. You payin'?"
Jim regarded them quietly. How strange it was. He was asking for a beating instead of getting into the sack with a lush, green-eyed, red-haired broad who without a doubt was one of the best bed experiences a man could possibly have. If he let her rape him, what a sweet rape it would be! But he knew himself too well. If he took her pleasure instead of her pain he was, would be, in his own eyes at least, a dead man, a moral bankrupt.
Jim felt his mouth move, his lips shape the word: "No." The man Hattie called Killer allowed Hattie to move away from the booth. He lifted the bourbon bottle from the table and smashed it open. The jagged top remained in his hand. Edward regarded him coolly. Killer pulled the table out of the booth enclosure leaving Rawls standing inside the U shaped space.
Killer lunged for him; the glass claw aimed at his face. Rawls caught his wrist in an upward motion and drove his knee into Killer's groin. He screamed and sagged against Jim. Almost in the same motion Jim shoved the falling body into Edward who for the first time lost his cool. Rawls vaulted over the booth partition and was free.
So was Edward. He came at Rawls with his hands held in fists, his body in a slight crouch. Before Jim could move out of range Edward's right fist had caught him a glancing blow to the jaw. His mouth began to bleed. Edward smiled and feinted with his left hand. Jim did as Edward wanted; he responded to the suckering motion. As he did the black man's right shot for his head. Jim seized it with both hands, twisted it, and whipped Edward into the nearest wall. Edward got up. His face was grim.
He circled Jim slowly. He was going to jab, Jim reasoned. When he did Jim thought he would have a pattern ready for him. Edward circled him slowly. Jim moved in a tight inner circle keeping the man directly before him. Edward faked a half jab. Then another. They moved in another complete circle. The thought entered Jim's mind that this circling itself was Edward's complete tactic: Where was Killer? The answer was simple. Killer was behind him with a chair in his hand. He brought it down with considerable force against the back of Jim Rawls' head.
He fell like a dead weight across two tables. Cups, dishes, glass ware and artificial flowers scattered across the floor.
Hattie Clinton looked down at the unconscious face. "Too bad," she said, "Utterly magnificent." Then she turned to Edward; "Call the cops, will you, please?"
CHAPTER SEVEN
The police medical check-up showed nothing but the obvious bruises and the not so obvious headache which plagued him when he awoke in the grimy cell. The blankets on the canvas steel-framed cot were vermin ridden. The narrow room was visited through the night and morning hours by cockroaches and by occasional rats. The smell of urine managed to overpower the odor of weak antiseptic. When he had regained consciousness and figured out where he was Rawls had gotten to his feet and had slept leaning against the peeling walls.
The absolute and final horror dawned on him. If the news got back to Clarksdale that he was jailed as a drunken brawler in a cheap dive a hundred miles away, all of his reputation and standing would go down the drain. His job, too, but that wouldn't matter. What would matter was that he would be exposed as a pious fraud. Jim Rawls who would rather cut off his arms than get involved with any thing that would sully his fourteen-carat-gold character is just as human as any one else-except he lies about it! Then Ginny-oh, how they would take it out on her. Hear about Ginny's father-phony Jim Rawls-they caught him dead drunk with a hooker he's shacked up with all these years. And don't let anybody tell ya that little Ginny hasn't been having fun on her own. Why the other night....When gods fall, Jim thought, they make an awful crash. Clarksdale would crucify him over this and Ginny-who knows?-she might be hurt badly enough not to forgive him either. After all if he created an image-he had created it for her. To keep her safe from harm and smut. Now this.
He gripped the bars of his cell and shouted, "Hey, somebody get over here quick. I want to make a call." An hour later they gave him the privilege.
He called Tex Mattaway's home. It was eight-fifteen, too early for Tex to be at the office. The phone rang a long time. Finally, a sleep filled voice answered. "Who is it? Who is it?" It was Louise Mattaway.
"Me. Jim Rawls. Is Tex there?"
The voice was awake now. "No, he isn't."
"Has he left for the office? I must get to him."
"You won't be able to do that for a few days, he's in Chicago at an important meeting."
Jim swallowed hard. He couldn't delay and he realized that it was only through Louise that he could get something done. He blurted out the whole story-leaving out what he considered to be the non-essentials, leaving out Wilma Fareon and the size of the bag he had tied on, leaving out the whole business with Hattie Clinton. What he had to say to Louise, however, was enough. When he finished she laughed. "Why Jim Rawls! You! You got drunk and busted up a booze bistro? My, my Jim Rawls, how people are going to talk."
"I don't want people to talk, Louise. You've got to call Tex wherever he is and tell him I'm in trouble. I've got to keep this quiet," Jim began angrily and ended almost with a plea.
She laughed again. "It's so nice to hear you talk that way, Jim."
"Please."
"This is too much," suddenly Louise's voice became hard and ice cold. "What is it worth to you, Jim, to keep this quiet?"
"It's worth anything I've got."
"Alright, Jim. I'll help you."
"You'll call Tex?"
"Don't be foolish. Tex couldn't do very much about keeping it quiet. I happen to know a judge, a powerful judge, in that area. I know him very, very well. I met him in New York a number of times-understand?"
"I suppose so."
"Good. I'm going to call him. He's going to get you out clean as a whistle. Not because of Tex but because of me. So long-for now Jim Rawls."
"So long," he hung up. His flesh crawled. He felt dirtier than he had in the cell.
Two hours later he was in his car driving back to Clarksdale.
When she awoke in the morning Ginny Rawls had the feeling that the house was empty. Then she thought, that's impossible. Daddy had never been away without saying so. And it would always be a very specific place like an athletic coach's convention or an important AAU track meet. He'd be up in a moment she told herself and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. When the coffee began to perk she thought it would be good to call him. She enjoyed having breakfast with him. Besides the talk they had had in the gym yesterday had not been too unpleasant. She had acted in an almost childish way. Perhaps she had hurt his feelings. How complicated life was, she thought, you always end up doing exactly what you want most to avoid. Or, was it really the other way around?
She went to his room and called. When he didn't answer she pushed the door open. He was not there. The bed was unmade. She shuddered, suddenly she was seized by terror. What if he were dead? She pushed the thought out of her mind. There's an explanation; there always is. She ate breakfast slowly with an ear cocked to the door, hoping he'd come in at any moment. After her third cup of coffee she went to take her morning shower.
The spray needled down on her flawless skin. At this moment, she hated her body. It was such a trouble-making instrument. It kept crying out for love-making and it kept being told that there must be no loving until the papers were all signed. Then being put down the body acted up. It built fires. It sent signals to the brain. Translated the signals all said: Go on; do it! Do it with, Billy! Do it with some one! Do it with anybody! Then you would see images and you would hear voices. You'd see the dirty pictures Liz had. You'd make up some of your own which would put poor hot Liz to shame and put you to shame as you imagined your make believe pornography. Burning, burning, an unquenchable burning inside Ginny Rawls and there was, she knew, only one way to put it out. She turned the water on full blast and ice cold until her breasts shrank with the coldness, until her teeth chattered, until her lips became thin and blue.
As she dressed the phone rang. When she heard Jim's voice she shrieked with delight and then shouted: "Where have you been?"
"Ginny, something came up. Something I can't explain."
"Oh, Daddy, I'm not going to pry into your love life. But you should have called before this. I almost went out of my mind when I discovered you weren't home."
"I realized that, Gin. I'm very sorry. I could tell an easy lie about not calling but I won't. Just believe me when I tell you I'll explain ... later."
"You don't have to explain anything, Dad. Just get home."
"I'll be home in two hours. Ginny, listen. You'll find some money in my top drawer. Take fifty dollars and buy yourself something."
"Bribe?"
"No. A peace offering. I love you. I want you to celebrate that. OK?"
"OK. I love you, too."
When she hung up she was bursting with joy. Everything was fine again. She dressed quickly thinking about what she would buy. She decided, too, to call Billy. On the phone he was sweet and never mentioned a single word of what had happened. They made a date for early that evening.
She soared as she left the house and walked to the bus stop. By the time the bus had arrived she had managed to blot out the important men in her life and concentrate on what kind of dress she should get.
Her sense of joy remained even in the dress department of Carter's. Ginny worked her way through rack after rack of what the Carter people insisted were the latest words in world fashion. Some of the things were quite stylish but they were also quite expensive; more than her fifty dollars worth. Besides there was the display in the far corner which kept calling her. The mod dresses; the miniskirts. The dresses were relatively inexpensive and they were so perfect for her. If not for Daddy, she thought, I would have bought clothing like that long ago. All they really did, these new clothes, was go back to the flapper styles of the 1920's; skirts above the knees and in some cases reaching almost mid-thigh. Unlike the flapper styles, the mod designs did not destroy or hide the bosom. Ginny smiled at this: How would she ever manage either to hide or destroy hers? She came, finally, to a conclusion. If nobody objected to Ginny in bathing suit, bikini, tennis skirts, or walking shorts, nobody could object to Ginny in a mini-skirted dress and that was that! She walked with long easy strides across the floor to where the mod fashions were.
She selected several garments and took them into the dressing room. Quickly, she undid her skirt and pulled her cotton pink turtle neck over her blond head. She faced the mirror in her panties and bra, holding the bold black and white dress before her.
"Not bad, not bad," a voice said and whistled softly. Ginny clutched the dress to her bosom as if she had been caught in some shameful act. It was Liz Rainer.
"My goodness, Gin, do you jump every time some one whistles?"
"Liz!" Ginny said with a tone of exasperation, "Really, you scared the day light out of me!"
"You didn't expect to be attacked in the ladies dressing room, did you, Gin?" she asked smiling, teasing. She pulled the dress from Ginny's arms leaving her self-consciously standing in her undergarments.
"You'd look sensational in this, Ginny; honestly you would. It's a wild one!"
"You're too cooperative and too sincere. You make me worry when you come on that way, Lizzie." Ginny said and took the black and white surrealist dress from Liz and put it on. She studied the effect in the mirror. The square cut neck dipped low toward her bosom. Her abundant young breasts lifted the black and white cloth outward, making it taut and near form-fitting. The skirt, conforming to her belly and hips, slashed daringly across the middle of her firm, tan thighs. "Well, Liz, I can't say I disagree with you too much about this outfit. It does look rather well."
Liz stared at Ginny Rawls who was standing before the three way mirror. Everything about her was so perfect, so lush, so delicately colored, she seemed to be a creature from another time, another world.
"Are you getting a dress, Liz?"
"I just bought one. Now seeing you in one, I'm almost afraid to wear mine. You'll upstage me. Oh, well, you always do, honey. Ginsey you just have too much. I give up."
"What bull!", Ginny said with a slight trace of yesterday's anger, "What about the surprise party for Billy? That was mean! You didn't even tell me-you made me look like an idiot." Liz laughed, "I thought that was rather clever of me. I must admit, it got more of your goat than I thought it would. Every one knew you were angry."
"I wasn't half so angry about the party as about the play you made for Billy. You know he belongs to me!"
"As long as you can keep him he does," Liz smirked, "All's fair in love and etcetera. Besides, I know that you are a true blue virgin, through and through, and you are never going to give Billy what every good soldier needs."
"He doesn't want that from me," Ginny said her voice rising.
"Well, maybe he'll want it from me then," Liz said and lost the smile she presented as Ginny's hand slapped smartly across her mouth.
Ginny hung her head. She looked up at the still startled expression on Liz's face. "I'm sorry. Truly, I am, Liz. That was very stupid of me and very ugly."
Liz rubbed her cheek and massaged her jaw. She smiled. "No, Ginny, I had that coming to me. You pack quite a wallop; glad you kept your fist open. You might have killed me."
"I'm so ashamed; but the idea of you going to bed with Billy! I don't mean you personally-anybody-do you understand?" Ginny asked softly but not with out tension.
"Of course, I do," Liz said laughing a little too loudly. "It's a well known fact that I have all the makings of a first class slut."
"Don't say that, Liz."
"True is true," Liz said. "Maybe that smack in the mouth cleared the air between us; maybe we can try to be friends. Would you like to try?"
Ginny nodded briskly and smiled brightly, "Yes. I would. Very much."
"Great! Tell you what then, just to celebrate let's have a coke and sandwich, a drive out the beach and a swim to celebrate. My car's in the parking lot."
Ginny and Liz lay side by side on the bright beach sand. It seemed to Ginny that Liz was not as bad as she had been thinking. It was true enough that she was wild. There was the question of her promiscuity, her dirty photos, her parading naked in the moonlight. Yet Ginny knew she could not condemn Liz for that; not deep in her heart she couldn't. Wasn't it true that the dirty stories and dirty pictures had somehow excited her even as she had protested? And, when Liz had exposed her breasts that night, hadn't she, Ginny, imagined herself in Liz's place?
There was a difference between them all the same, Ginny thought. But what was it? Ginny sought for the quality of that difference between herself and Liz Rainer. Only one thing, Ginny concluded, Liz is willing to step over the thin line of her fantasies and try to make them real while she, Ginny, was frightened by her secret desires, fearing that she would be condemned for having them. The thin line was fear. Fear of what exactly, Ginny could not quite decide.
The tide was coming in and the cold water of the bay sloshed against their toes. Liz howled: "It's cold!"
"Oh, don't be a baby, Liz! It's invigorating!"
Each time the water touched her, Liz shrieked. Finally she drew her legs in and sat up. She watched Ginny and the water rolling in, caressing her beautiful legs. She had become so silent Ginny thought she had gone. Shielding her eyes against the sun, Ginny looked up at Liz who sat crosslegged staring at her. "Something wrong?" Ginny asked.
"No, silly; it's just that I've been watching you. You're so beautiful, Gin."
"Oh, Liz, cut it out. That's for boys to say."
"I wish it weren't. I've been watching the water creep up your legs and, Ginny, you know, I wish I were the water, touching you."
"Liz! Stop that nonsense!" Ginny scolded in a halfhearted manner. Somewhere she liked what Liz said. It made her feel good. The water, which she had not thought of until now, suddenly felt like a living thing exploring her body. The sun was so warm and sensuous, it made her body tingle. There was the sensation of a shadow which passed over her. She opened her eyes as Liz Rainer's face came down over hers. She gasped as Liz kissed her mouth; her tongue pushing in.
Ginny got her arms between them and pushed violently. Liz tumbled backward, gripping the straps of her bra top and tearing it away.
The beautiful breasts of Ginny Rawls leaped into the sunlight. Each white breast, untouched by the sun and surrounded by tan gold sun, heaved angrily. "You beast!" she shouted.
"I couldn't help it. Please be kind to me, Ginny. Let me touch you."
"Give me my bra!"
Liz backed away, the suit top in her hand. She stared at Ginny's uncovered breasts, the large pink nipples heavy and pointing. "Let me touch you and I'll stay away from Billy; you'd like that wouldn't you?"
Ginny rushed at her furiously like a wild jungle cat unleashed. Liz turned and ran. When Ginny gained on her she hurled the brassiere top into the surf. It was then that Ginny became self conscious about her semi-nudity. She dived into the cold water, searching the shallows until she had retrieved her brassiere.
She walked out of the surf to find that Liz was gone. The sound of Liz's car roared out to her. She replaced her bathing-suit top. When she looked up, Billy Larkin was walking toward her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
From the look on his face Ginny knew that Billy Larkin had seen what had happened. She turned her back to him. "Go away. What happened was bad enough-you didn't have to be a Peeping Tom." She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Don't touch me!" she shouted. His hand withdrew. He said nothing and the sound of the surf enveloped her. After some minutes she wondered if he was still there.
She would have to turn about sooner or later. The idea made her shudder. She wondered if she stayed facing the sea long enough that the earth might open and swallow her or, better yet, a great tidal wave might sweep up and pull her out in the sea to be lost forever; devoured by little fishes. Yet, sooner or later she would have to turn about.
When she did Billy was seated on the sand ten or twelve yards away. His bronze muscular body blended with the beach. His hands played idly with pebbles and broken sea shells. What was he thinking she wondered? Was this the end between them? Let it be however it would be! She did nothing wrong. Then she said it out loud: "I did nothing wrong." He looked up at her briefly and then looked away. "I saw what happened at the end. I have no idea what happened before. I had just walked onto the beach when she ... kissed you."
"Did you know we were here?"
"Of course," he said softly with an edge of impatience. "Ferris at the garage told me he thought he saw you and Liz driving out this way. I thought it would be fun to put on my trunks and surprise you."
"I guess we both got surprised, Billy."
"Yes, we did. I really don't know what to say. I was shocked; a little sick. It's something that makes you sick."
"Why didn't you yell out? She would have stopped immediately."
"I was stunned. I froze. I thought...."
"You thought that Liz and I were ... that way. Didn't you?"
"I did, yes. What would you have thought if you found me with a guy and we were loving it up?"
Ginny began to weep. She sank down slowly onto the sand. Her head rested on her knees as she cried. Her deep sobs shook her body violently. For a long time Billy watched her. Finally, his eyes filling with tears, he sat down alongside Ginny Rawls. "I'm sorry, my darling. I saw what had happened. I didn't believe what my eyes saw."
"What did your eyes see, Billy Larkin?" Ginny's muffled voice asked. "Liz attacked you."
"Yes, yes, yes. She attacked me. And if you don't believe that completely, Billy, we will never make it together. It will be your ghost."
"I believe it, Ginny," he said reaching for her. She withdrew. For a long moment she looked at him then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Billy, Liz asked me to make love to her so that she wouldn't make love to you."
"That's ridiculous, I wouldn't touch her."
"Why, Billy? Because she's unattractive?"
"No, she's attractive. She's more than attractive. I wouldn't go near her because it would hurt you. I'd never do that; hurt you, I mean."
"But if she were a fraulein?"
"I've already told you I'm not a virgin."
"That's exactly the point, Billy. I am a. virgin.' And everybody wants to keep me that way. Why, Billy, does it make everybody feel better because I am pure?"
"Darling, let's talk about this later. We'll have a hamburger and talk about it then."
"No Billy; now! I do not want to leave here without knowing what I am, why I am what I am."
"Alright; on one conditon," he said and looked hard at her angry blue eyes, "You must kiss me." Without waiting for her answer he took her into his arms and crushed her against his body, his mouth closing over hers, until the rigidness left the muscles of her strong back, until her eyes became soft and rolled back. Then he released her suddenly and ran diving into the cold surface of the sea. When he came up the face of Ginny Rawls was alongside him in the sea and smiling. She kissed him quickly, softly and swam away, too fast for him to pursue. He waited and watched as her body plowed the ocean into a neat green white furrow. Suddenly she disappeared. Billy Larkin looked for her to surface. She didn't. It seemed a long time had passed, too long a time; his heart began to pound with anxiety. He was about to call her name when he felt her body sliding up from below. Her head broke the water and she was in his arms. Their kiss was long and deep. They ran from the surface and stood now in the warm sun admiring each other.
"I want to be a woman," Ginny said. "I don't want to be protected any more, Billy. Darling, it's such a long-faced lie for you to have frauleins in backrooms and to pat me on the head and say be a good girl until we're married. And then what, Billy; be bad, is that it?"
"Don't be silly. When you're married it's different."
"Is it?"
"You're confusing me, Ginny; really you are. I can wait for you."
"Fine, lieutenant, and maybe, if all the conditions were right I could wait for you, too. But they're not right, Billy."
"Oh?"
"No, they're not right at all. Will they call you overseas to some combat area when your furlough ends?" Billy turned his head away from her questioning face. "They will, won't they? Billy, Billy!" She took his head softly in her arms and cradled it against her breasts. "We're not married, are we? You have kept me pure. But the frauleins have had you and maybe the Vietnamese girls will have you but not me; because I'm pure."
"Please, Ginny, don't," he said pulling back. "I don't expect to die."
"Does anybody?"
He suddenly got up and walked along the shore line. The sun was beginning to set. Ginny watched him and for a moment he seemed to have become a little boy kicking a can along a lonely street. How confused it all seemed to be! She had been pleading for this man to make love to her in the completest sense. It aroused only shame and guilt. Yet she was the woman he loved and would marry and with whom he would have children.
And what was happening to her as she waited for the official event that united them? Her body was bursting. Her passions flared more suddenly, more violently, more easily than ever before. Who knows if Billy went away and was gone a long time that she would not succumb to some casual man or to some Liz Rainer. The thought ran through her young body on a train of cold terror. "Billy!" she shouted. He sprinted back to her. "Hold me!" she said, "Hold me!"
The last rays of the sun outlined their embracing bodies. "Do you love me, Billy Larkin?"
"More than anything that lives in this world!"
She kissed his chest and ran from him toward the sea. She turned back and shouted. "Don't move, Billy!" She plunged into the water and after a long moment she emerged. She walked out of the surf toward him. She was naked.
Ginny Rawls smiled. Her free moving breasts were wet and cool. The pencil rays of the receding sun touched her nipples with golden warmth. She threw her shoulders back as she ran. Billy was smiling.
In his arms, her breasts lifting upward, her body arching, she said: "I don't want you to remember a single fraulein. I want all your dreams to be filled with me, only me."
The sand dug into her back. The salt of her body mingled with the salt of his body. A great sob exploded inside her and like a ball of lightning rolled through her. She moaned. Above her, above the man in her arms, she could see the sky turning red and gold.
Over hamburgers and coke Ginny Rawls and Billy Larkin talked about their life together. How it was going to be. How many children they were going to have. What kind of house they were going to build. Where they would put the nursery and where they would put the den. Then they stopped talking entirely and sat looking at each other across a strip of formica, holding hands.
CHAPTER NINE
Jim Rawls had no idea how long he had been sitting in the dark of the living room. The green lawn outside the picture window had long since disappeared into the night. Occasionally a shaft of moon light found its way through the cloud cover and touched the old maple outside. The ice in his glass had melted down and diluted the last of the bourbon. He looked at his wristwatch. It was a little after ten.
He wondered what Louise Mattaway would do. He wondered what she had in mind. Perhaps he should have insisted on speaking to Tex. Perhaps he should have called any attorney just to get released on bond and then, if he liked, consult with Tex. All second thoughts now. He had been frightened. His reputation, his good name; and most urgently, Ginny. Yes, that was it! He had acted properly to protect his daughter. Nothing else really mattered. Besides, Louise did get him released and, most important for him and all concerned, cleared. As matters stood, the entire incident at Hattie Clinton's place may have been the figment of somebody else's imagination. For that he thanked Louise Mattaway and the judge, whoever he was. He listened to the car crunch the stone chips in the drive way. The laughing voices of Billy and Ginny rippled through the night air. That's being young for you, he thought. Yesterday world's end. Today the best of all possible worlds. Kiss and make up and no complications.
He listened to the giggling for a while and to the sound of kisses which seemed to come almost in between every other word. Ginny seemed to moan in response to whatever it was that Billy was doing. Her voice became clear for a minute and Jim heard her saying, pleadingly, "Oh, Billy, do that again!"
Rawls felt like an eavesdropper. But hard below that feeling, a wave of sickness moved through his body. His daughter was with a man. She and Billy were doing things he didn't want to imagine his daughter doing. Images of Alice naked and drunk filled his mind and he could not suppress them. Rawls pulled himself out of the chair and went into the den. He closed the door behind him and stretched out on the couch. He felt depressed and, for the first time in his life, absolutely worn out. He blinked when Ginny snapped on the den lights. "You hiding, Dad? I didn't think you were in the house. The den door isn't generally closed and I thought maybe....and there you were. Something wrong?"
"No, course not. Just thought I'd check a few bills.
Never got around to it, that's all. Did you have a nice afternoon?"
"And night, too. I hope you had a good time: you old stay-out."
"I'd be lying if I said it was a good time. It wasn't really. But I think it will all work out OK."
"I don't understand. What will work out OK?"
"Nothing, sweetie!" Rawls said and smiled, or tried to smile, reassuringly at Ginny. "I'm being over dramatic. Just financial problems."
"Is that all?" Ginny said with obvious relief. "Why in the world did you send me shopping?"
Rawls shrugged comically. It was the first time he had ever told Ginny a lie. It did not upset him much. The truth sometimes was a dirty thing. "Made up with Billy, did you?"
"Yes, but how did you know?"
"The special look in your eye."
"Well, you've become pretty clairvoyant, Mr. Rawls. Except you are missing the big things." Ginny said, beaming. "You'd better sit down for this one. Come on, come on, sit down." He did. "Alright, hold tight. Billy Larkin and Ginny Rawls will get married before this summer ends!"
For a moment he said nothing. Then he shook his head slowly.
"What's wrong, Daddy?"
"Wrong? Nothing is wrong," he looked up smiling, "Everything is right and everything is going to be alright! You lucky kid-you've caught the best guy in town!" He pulled his daughter down onto his lap and kissed her. She put her arms around his neck and he rocked her. For Jim Rawls all the years rolled away.
This was his baby, this was his little girl. He slept easily that night and woke an hour before the alarm went off.
The wet echoes bounced off the white tile walls of the Clarksdale Community Center swimming pool. Rawls listened to the sounds from his office. He tried to make out individual voices but they were lost. He got out of his clothes and into his swimming trunks. He tried to compose himself: how would he face Louise? How would she greet him? Her helping him out of the jam disturbed him. Why? he asked himself. Because, he answered, Louise Mattaway has something in mind and whatever it is I don't like it. Play it by ear, he thought, just see what happens and be cool.
He scanned the pool and looked for Louise Mattaway. She was not there. Her absence made him nervous. He wanted to go back into his office and call her home. Why wasn't she there? Damn it; and Tex was in Chicago! What difference did it make where Tex was really? He played no role in this except as the special victim of Louise's lust. A rash of sweat broke out on Jim's forehead. His legs trembled slightly. It was a great relief to be able to get himself into the water. He swam along the side trying to keep from contacting any one.
He was aware of the fact that someone was swimming close to him. He sprinted away without looking but when he returned across the pool the swimmer would dog him again. Whoever she was, she was not part of his Senior Life Guard class. Her swimming form he noted was terrible; her biological form was-not terrible, not terrible at all. He was mildly curious about getting a look at her face when she cut across his pool side lane and he could not avoid half swimming over her. They both dropped their legs. Rawls waited for her to turn. She did, a great smile on her face: Wilma Fareon. "Forgive me, Jimmy?"
"Wilma! Of course, I forgive you. I don't know for what."
"For hurrying, for going too fast," she said quite seriously, tucking a wet lock of hair under her flowered bathing cap. "Maybe, because I hurry so, I have pushed you away from me forever? Oh, forgive me again, I'm so confused. Am I pushing you away from me-talking like this?"
"No. I'm very glad you're here, Wilma. I forgive you. Can we get together after my class?"
"Mais, oui!" she beamed, "I may not kiss you right here, right now?"
"No, you may not. You may get drowned!" Rawls said and sprinted cross pool and pulled himself up and out. After a moment he clapped his hands for attention.
The encounter with Wilma drove Louise from his mind. While he gave his Senior Life Guard group their instructions and tests he found he could not easily keep his eyes away from Wilma Fareon who sat now in the bleachers smoking a long cigaret. Her red bikini, Rawls thought, must have been made in France. The bra cups, if that's what they were, were obviously adequate to lift her breasts, if they needed lifting, and from what he had previously seen, they didn't. Her breasts, beautiful and bountiful, overflowed their cups. The red bikini bottoms seemed to be a mere slash of cloth across her sensuous hips-a slash of cloth and a red triangular figleaf.
It was quite obvious that Jim Rawls was not the only male who was staring at Wilma Fareon. Several times he had to shout for attention. Aside from returning Jim Rawls' own stare, Wilma seemed oblivious to the pool filled with suppressed male wolf calls.
Rawls qualified his students with half-a-mind. One of the boys whispered: "Anybody can make Senior today. Rawls is too busy trying to look through that red bikini!" Liz Rainer, too, was fascinated with the lady in the red nothing.
In a certain way Liz was angered by Rawls. Here he was-Clarksdale's All American Boy Wonder-flirting with some stranger who happens to come in for swim. Rawls, she reasoned, was probably a thousand times worse than his daughter. He, like everybody said, just had to drive out of town to get himself a barrelfull of sex. And with that body, Liz was as sure as she could be, that he could take on a woman a night; two, even three! What angered Liz Rainer most was the fact that he stayed away from local girls. That was unfair. Oh, how much she would like to try a hot session with Mr. Rawls! Even if he was Ginny's father he wasn't so old. Her anger increased even more when she thought of how proud he was of Ginny-his sweet little virgin! Why she would have played the game with Liz Rainer right there on the beach if Billy Larkin hadn't come onto the scene. But she didn't hesitate to give up Billy, Liz said laughing to herself, and it was fun to sneak back and watch them do it! Come to think of it; the way Ginny did it she didn't look like a virgin at all.
It was Liz's turn to rescue Jim Rawls and he waved at her to get ready. Jim crawled out to mid pool and floundered. Liz dived flatly and sprinted after the drowner. Rawls, remembering Liz's maneuvers of the previous session, was alert and watching. Almost sensing it, Liz smiled beneath the water. Yet, as she moved his body from one position to another Rawls could not be certain which illicit touch was an accident and which a fulfillment of desire. When Liz brought him to the surface and had him saved, Rawls said: "Very good, Liz. Next, I'll give you a little more resistance."
"Fine," Liz said getting her wind as they stood side by side in the shallows. Suddenly she asked, "Don't you ever get really passionate handling all us gorgeous women?"
"I try not to; never train any life-guard that way."
"Don't you ... slip once in a while. I'd invite you to slip if you wanted to slip with me, Mr. Rawls."
"I'll make believe I didn't hear that Liz. Your reputation in Clarksdale, Liz, is not nearly as good as it could be. Don't work to hurt it."
Liz bared her teeth. "Don't worry about my reputation. Think of your daughter's. I wish I had pictures of what she did on the public beach with Billy Larkin yesterday."
Jim gripped her wrists and pulled her out into the pool with him. Liz was about to yell when Jim jerked her below. He smiled into her terrified face as he held her down. Her feet thrashed; her arms clawed out without quite reaching him. Jim felt absolutely savage. He was not quite sure what he would do with this teenaged bitch. All he had to do was hold her for another minute and that would take care of Liz Rainer and who would know the difference? Her eyes had begun to bug out of her head. Her face was pleading. Suddenly, he let go. Rainer shot up to the surface and weakly made it to the edge of the pool. She retched into the gutter.
Ignoring her completely Jim signalled for the next swimmer to get ready.
He changed his clothing. He didn't hurry. Is that why Billy and Ginny were hurrying to get married? He poured himself some bourbon. He was about to drink it when the office phone rang. He picked it up.
"Did you miss me, honey?" Louise Mattaway's voice asked.
"Louise?"
"That's right, big man. I'm waiting for you at home. Bed's all made, sprayed with perfume."
"You're drunk."
"Had a few, Jimmy; getting ready for you. I thought it best not to come to class; rouse suspicion. An' it has to be t'night, lover. Tex'll be home in the morning."
"Louise, you're drunk. You don't know what you're saying."
"Is that so, big man? Listen, if I don't see you, if I don't get my piece of lovin' this whole town is going to know about you and that whole drunken business, that fightin' and smashin' and havin' orgies and landin' in jail...."
"But I didn't...."
"Didn't you? You be here tonight or I'll fix it for you."
Rawls was cold with sweat. His heart pounded. "Alright. Ten o'clock." He hung up.
CHAPTER TEN
Rawls pushed the car through the expressway evening traffic. The cars on the road disappeared; nothing existed for him except the thoughts which filled his bursting mind. Louise Mattaway had stated the price for his freedom and for her silence. She wanted him to become her stud, her sex slave; it was that simple. The only leeway she was willing to give him at this time was the selection of the hour. The six o'clock news announced itself on the radio. He had four hours to decide. Four hours to juggle and face either a reputation which would be ruined by Louise and in the process, perhaps, depriving Ginny of any chance for happiness, or sneak through the shadows, enter the back door, get into the bedroom and service her. Tonight, tomorrow, forever.
And how would he manage to pretend? How would he manufacture passion on command? Or had Louise figured that out? In his fear and disgust a murderous hatred began to build. He had been able to control himself with Liz Rainer. But that was a simpler matter: smut and hateful gossip. This was a matter of lives: his, Ginny's, Billy's, and, yes, it had suddenly become painfully clear, Wilma Fareon's. He kept his eyes on the tail of the car ahead. He kept driving.
When the traffic thinned he was still on the road. He hunted for the next markers and smiled cynically at his great, good fortune. He was no more than ten minutes from his house! His mind leaped through its emotional arithmetic and came out with a big fat zero. He decided to drive home. There still was enough time to think: it was a little before eight. But what would he think about: making love or committing murder? It was a hell of an option.
When he pulled into the drive way a great flood of rock and roll record music poured out to assault him. The lights in the living room were all up full-just as the sound was. At first Rawls assumed Billy and Ginny were having some amusement. But Billy's car was not in the drive or in the garage. No cars at all. Without knowing why, Rawls became concerned: something wrong with Ginny? Alone, lights up, music up? He slammed the car door behind him as he took off running in a single motion. He pushed the front door of the house open, crossed the small vestibule, and stepped into the living room.
"I'm fine. But the lights, the music. I thought you...."
"You were worried about me? Well that is a bit too much, Dad," Ginny said with a show of anger and annoyance. "The other night you simply vanished and didn't come home at all. Tonight, I thought you were coming home for dinner but I learned from Wilma that you had made a dinner date with her and that you hadn't been to her place either...."
"Which, Jimmy is very rude, no?" Wilma said her head appearing over the top of the high-backed chair which had hidden her from view. "First, I said he is angry with me again. He doesn't want me to disturb him."
"But that's not true! I want you ... I mean...."
Ginny smiled broadly, "I think I see what you mean, Daddy. You've fallen in love with Wilma Fareon."
Wilma turned color and pressed a scalloped lace handkerchief to her mouth. "Ginny, you mustn't say things like that. Jim has said nothing. I have already imposed too much. I think it is time for me to leave now."
"Wait," Rawls said softly, "And please sit down." Wilma did and Rawls followed her as she lowered her lovely body into the chair. The smooth skin tight fit of her slacks hid nothing; she may as well have been wearing her red minimal bikini. Jim went to the small bar and poured himself a tall bourbon on ice. "I know," he said looking at Ginny, smiling, "It's a bit too much." He rattled the ice in the glass and he turned to Wilma Fareon. "What Ginny said is true. I've fallen in love with you."
A little cat like sound came from Wilma. Her high cheeked face puckered, tears fell suddenly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So suddenly; just like that! I have loved you all my life, Jimmy Rawls. Yet, I thought, it would happen differently. I dreamed that we ... Oh, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm so happy, so happy." Her weeping became uncontrollable.
Ginny came to her side, sat on the arm of the chair, and put her arm about Wilma's shoulders. "Daddy, what is wrong with you! You should be comforting her-not me!"
"Comforting her! I just told her that I love her and she cries right in my face. Ginny, I'm offended."
"Daddy, I'll whack you with your bourbon bottle!"
Wilma looked up from her sobbing, half laughed, and said: "Don't you dare, Ginny, chere! Soon I will have a claim to that head. Besides, Jimmy has always teased me. But I will have my revenge this time! I promise this to you." She blew her nose hard and suddenly the three of them laughed. It was some minutes before they could bring the laughter down. When they had managed, Jim slumped suddenly into the private world of his terror: Louise Mattaway. It was now eight forty three. It was Wilma who opened the question up, quite directly: "Jim, there is something wrong. There is no doubt something is very wrong. I insist you must tell us."
Rawls attempted a smile. "Tell you? I wish I could. I wish I could tell somebody."
"We're your family, Daddy. If you can't tell us, you'll never tell anybody. You'll just suffer and die with whatever it is that's doing this to you."
We're your family....how good that sounded to Jim Rawls. And it was true! He had a family-two beautiful women. Not babies of long ago but women who loved him and wanted to help him in any way they could.
A shaft of light burst suddenly through his stuffed brain. That was it! Simply that: tell your family the whole dirty, stinking mess! Then what? It made no difference, Rawls knew, no difference at all. Just tell them and see what the next step would be.
Painfully, haltingly, Jim Rawls told the story. The waves of shame and guilt ran through him in great jolts; almost as if he was wired to a powerful generator which lashed into him for each sin of his life. The faces of Ginny and Wilma listened softly. Not condemning, not judging. The faces of women responded to his pain with pain of their own. His voice went out to them and they took it with love and understanding. It was difficult for the big man to control himself completely and, he knew, that there were tears on his face. Then as suddenly as he had begun to speak, his account ended. The room filled with an almost unendurable silence.
Through the tears which filled his eyes, still, one of the women moved to him, took his head and pressed it to her bosom. There was no doubt in Jim's mind which woman it was: Wilma. He felt soft and at home. He did not know how the situation had changed with Louise Mattaway but he knew that it had-completely. He no longer felt afraid. Wilma Fareon lifted his strong face up. She kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his lips. He smiled warmly for the first time that evening.
The three gathered in the kitchen for some icebox raiding. Like soldiers before a battle they were filled with laughter and a devil-may-care hysteria. When they had gorged themselves shamelessly Wilma Fareon expressed the first ideas of what was to be done.
"We three and your Mr. Billy Larkin will keep the appointment with Louise Mattaway. At ten o'clock sharp."
"But Billy doesn't know anything about this!" Ginny protested, "What will he say? How can we tell how he will react?"
"Oh, nonsense!" Wilma said with a litle wave of her hand, "Billy Larkin will act splendidly. Have you no confidence in him?"
"Worlds!"
"Call him up, then. Tell him to get prepared to slay a dragon-a female dragon!"
When Ginny ran from the kitchen to make the call, Wilma Fareon put her arms about Rawls' neck. "So, my big man, you do sleep with other women!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Don't you dare be sorry, Jim Rawls. I love your past-all of it. Only in the future when you have a problem-a biological problem-you will come to me, hey?"
"Without a doubt, lover. Say, exactly what are you going to say to Louise."
Her tongue darted into his mouth as she ignored his question. Their kiss was long and deep. Something was beginning to stir in Jim's stomach. Something old and familiar; something which should not stir in a kitchen. He pulled his mouth away. "You haven't answered my question, Fareon."
"It doesn't really require an answer, Rawls," she whispered and struggled to kiss him again but could not escape his arms length restraint. She relaxed and smiled. She lit a cigaret. "OK."
"I do not know precisely what I will say. That we will all see when the time comes," she reached up to his mouth with her handkerchief and wiped away the lipstick. "You are like most American men. You are a big prude. Prude, that is the word, no?"
"I suppose so. But I never thought of myself in those terms. I'm really not a square; you know that."
"Ah, but I did not say square, Jimmie. I said prude. Different," Wilma corrected. "Of course, you advocate knowledge of sex-what Ginny calls mental hygiene. Not a very charming expression. But you are shocked when your daughter makes love to Billy...."
"But it's OK; they're going to get married."
"But, but, but, what if they did not get married would you call your daughter a tramp? Shush, don't answer. Take yourself. A woman betrays you-your Alice-and for this you want to destroy your life? Five years you torture yourself! Was it not apparent that Alice did not love you? What difference did it make if she went to other men? She had no love to give you and she would have left you sooner or later. Or you would have left her, no? "
"I suppose so."
"Sleeping with others-that was her way of telling you that it was finished between you."
"She could have picked another way."
"Yes. But she was weak or stupid or a nymphomaniac. I never could understand why you married her in the first place."
"You'll never believe this, but she was a virgin and I was the first and I fell in love because she gave me her purity."
"I have no purity to give you, Jim."
"Whatever it is you're giving, I'll take it."
"Why did you have all the panic with Louise?
Again, because you are a big prude! So you have a wonderful poolside escapade. You feel guilty for copulating with the wife of your best friend. But it was she who took advantage of you, Jim! Oh, if I were Louise I would feel the same as she. She gives you some pleasure and you say Madame, think of my reputation!"
"The way you put it, it does sound silly. Still, Wilma, there is my feeling about Tex."
"Wonderful and I agree but tell Louise just that; No, it was great fun but I can not make love with you any more because there is Tex. Tex is very concrete. She can understand that; but your reputation, nonsense! Louise thinks, quite correctly, that you are rejecting her for a fake reason."
"You think Louise was right?"
"Of course not. She is petty. She is cruel. She should not want to make love to you because you are the good friend of Tex. Her other problem of wanting men and having affairs-this is between her conscience and her husband. I just feel sorry for her."
How rational, Jim thought, how beautifully sane! He knew that he would never see Alice again in the newsreels of his memory; never be haunted by her breast bouncing drunkeness. He knew that nothing Louise could do would hurt him. He knew that his daughter was a fine woman and a credit to him. And he knew that Wilma Fareon made him see it all so deeply; all his devils had run away.
He took her in his arms. "If I wanted to make love to you right now, this instant, would you say alright?"
"Yes. Anytime. Anywhere."
He crushed her to him. Her breasts lifting, straining out of the halfcups which held them, could not smother the sound of her accelerating heart. Her hands at his waist began to tug at his shirt, when Ginny returned.
She feigned shock at the sight of the embracing couple. "Father! Miss Fareon! What will the neighbors say; the shades have not been pulled down!"
"I don't care I love him!" Wilma said, not releasing him.
"Well, there's altogether too much love tonight and there's going to be more, too. Billy will be here very shortly. And we don't have to tell him anything."
"No?" Rawls asked in surprise.
"No. I told him on the phone. I'm proud of him. You know what he said. The whole thing wasn't worth the bother except some nice people might get hurt and that some stupid people in Clarksdale would get the wrong ideas about a lot of things."
Rawls, couldn't suppress, his feeling of amazement and a growing respect for his daughter and her fiance: "Did he say anything else?"
"Oh yes."
"What?"
"None of your business, father dear."
It was Ginny's last remark which really did it for James T. Rawls. He threw his head back and roared with laughter. He felt that it was he who had grown up. When he stopped roaring and could speak again, He said quite simply: "Let's go get the dragon."
The short trip to the Mattaway house was passed in casual conversation about almost any subject but the purpose of the visit. It was almost a foregone conclusion that there would be no difficulty with Louise Mattaway. Only Jim had doubts about the outcome of the impending encounter. He did not, however, express them. The Mattaway home loomed up on the left and Billy turned into the road running up to the doors of the large Tudor house.
The slamming of the car doors seemed especially loud to Jim Rawls. As they waited for Louise to answer the door bell, his heart slammed, loudly and nervously against his rib cage. The door opened slowly and Louise smiled out at the group, not quite grasping the nature of visitation. She held a tall drink in one hand. Her honey blond hair hung loosely down to her shoulders. The negligee she wore was a delicate transparent yellow which allowed every feature of her body to be clearly seen. A white, feathery boa separated her full breasts which had the swollen look of amorous expectation. The brick red nipples peered out from behind the negligee curtain like two fixed and wondering eyes. Louise Mattaway took a long moment, looking from face to face, until she finally seemed to comprehend. Rawls suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy for Louise Mattaway as she desperately tried to cover her breasts and her curving hips without succeeding; finally spilling her drink down her front.
"Come in, please. This is so unexpected," Louise stammered and retreated, leaving the door open to them. "I'll put something on."
The time following Louise's retreat and her return in more covering attire seemed to be endless. Jim found himself continuously mopping his brow. His . hands, large enough in their natural state, now seemed to be the size of steam shovels and he struggled to hide them. He marvelled at the calm of Wilma, Ginny and Billy. They took the opportunity of Louise's absence to look at the Mattaway furniture, appointments and art collection. Jim found the bar and opened a decanter of bourbon. Wilma took it from his hand, which was trembling slightly, and fixed the drink for him. She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
Louise returned dressed in a tailored tweed skirt, form fitting sweater and a bright orange scarf tied at her throat. Wilma Fareon spoke first: "How lovely you look, Mrs. Mattaway! Let me introduce myself. I am Wilma Fareon a very good friend of the Rawls, whom you know, and Lieutenant Larkin whom you also know. Jim said he was meeting you tonight at ten and when he asked us to come along we were just delighted. You don't mind this very large intrusion, I hope."
"Not at all!" Louise said through a chilly smile. "Please make yourselves at home. I see you have found the drinks." She turned to Rawls, "I'm terribly embarrassed Jim; I had completely forgotten our date!"
"I see-that accounts for the-ah-informal appearance."
"Rather embarrassing, I'd say," Louise repeated as Billy Larkin handed her a gin-and-tonic.
"Embarrassing, perhaps," Wilma Fareon, said, "But I would say quite lovely. Mr. Mattaway must be a very lucky man. You do have a beautiful body. Don't you think so, Jim?"
Rawls knew he had turned beet red. "Yes, of course. But I have seen it before ... at the pool."
"Jimmy!" Wilma Fareon said in playful shock. Ginny giggled.
Louise grimly held onto her smile. "Jim insisted that we all come because he wanted to thank you, for himself and for all of us."
"Thank me?"
"Yes. Jim that's your task to thank Louise for helping you out of trouble," Wilma said and patted Jim's hand.
How could Wilma be so calm, he wondered. She was positively enjoying this encounter. And she could be so charmingly catty. He made a note never to forget that Wilma Fareon had lots of sharp claws. He mopped his head with an already shredded remnant of tissue. "Yes, Louise, thank you for your help. It would have been a mess without you."
"What are you talking about, Jim?" Louise asked with an uncharacteristic sweetness, "What trouble? What mess?"
Jim marvelled at her cool. She was assuming ignorance to find out who knew what about what. She did not believe that he would or could have revealed what had taken place. Her attitude, so contemptuous toward him, toward his integrity, his pride, yes, toward the whole silly image he had tried so hard to protect, altered his feelings about the entire thing. His self-consciousness, his painful embarrassment disappeared. He almost turned to Wilma to say; See, I'm not a prude!
Calmly, he heard himself saying, "That's very sweet of you, Louise, but they know all about it. I had to tell the family how you called the judge to get me out of jail after I had gotten into that brawl. I must admit I was as drunk as a skunk. I tied one on, alright. When Tex returns I'll have to thank him too; I'm sure the judge is a friend of his, too. We'll have you all out for dinner."
Louise's face had lost its smile. "Oh, Jim. You're making too much of a fuss. All I did was make a phone call. Now, please don't tell Tex about it. You'll upset him. You see, the judge involved wouldn't want Tex to feel that he had done anything special. He owes Tex some very special favors but getting you out of the clink was not one of them."
"It was a big thing to me," Jim protested.
"Please do me a favor and never mention it to Tex, please," Louise was actually pleading now.
"If that's the way you want it," Jim said softly.
"Mrs. Mattaway," Wilma said, "You have the most charming home. Would you be good enough to let me walk through it?"
"Not at all," Louise said delighted to break the conversation and to leave the room. "Let me show you around."
Louise led the way. Wilma smiled as she walked with her, chatting amicably.
I'll be double damned, Rawls said to himself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jim Rawls drove Wilma Fareon back toward the motel. It was a little after midnight. The night air rushed into the open windows at seventy miles an hour. Wilma's hand was on his thigh stroking it, kneading it. It sent a slow shaft of heat into his body. He recognized the feeling for what it was. He enjoyed it and he could contain it with ease; for the first time in many years he could control his feelings. No sudden lightning; no sudden explosion. He returned her caress.
"Now tell me; what in the world did you say to Louise when she took you through the house?"
"Many things, darling. I'm sure you know that French women are practical as well as passionate."
"I'm beginning to find out. But I'm very curious. What did you tell her; when you came back into the room it looked as if poor Louise had been whipped."
"But certainly. I whipped her as hard as I can," Wilma said laughing, continuing her lush massage. "First, I told her that I knew about you making love to her. On the swimming pool tile."
"I never told you that!"
"No. But I told Louise that I knew every detail. And she asked me if that included the tile action. I believe she was trying to make me angry with her complete description. I said I thought it was very good but rather uncomfortable. I recommended beds. So that made her anger go up."
"Baby, you've got brass."
"For you, Jimmy, I have lots more," Wilma said. She pushed the car lighter in, lifted it up to her cigaret when the coils glowed red. "I am sorry now I was mean to Louise. I didn't have to be."
"You were mean-in what way?"
"She knew that her game was all over because we faced her as if it was nothing to us and it was nothing at all; we were not bluffing. She knew it. But then I punished her." Wilma giggled as she said it. "I told her that you really did not enjoy sex with her at all. I told her that it was your opinion that she needed experience."
"You couldn't!"
"But I did. I was sure that she would pass out. She became pale. Then, I did the final thing, the coup de grace. I told her I would appreciate it, in the future, if she let me handle your passions because it was bad for you to be frustrated. It only drove you to drink."
Rawls roared his laughter. He could not control the car and pulled off the road. They both laughed until they were speechless. "Wilma Fareon," he said when breath returned, "Before I kiss you or suggest shameless things to you, I want you to answer one important question. You must answer it quickly. It must be either Yes or No. And there must be no discussion.
"OK?"
"OK."
"Will you marry me?"
"Yes."
He started the car again. On the way to the motel Wilma snuggled against Jim. The car speed dropped to the minimum. It was minutes before they spoke again. Wilma looked up at Jim and asked; "But really Jim-on the tiles?"
"It wasn't my idea."
"Life in a swimming pool must be very tempting."
"When lush French tomatoes show up wearing postage stamp sized bikinis, it's almost unbearable."
"That was my old model, darling. I have another which is, how shall I say, very daring."
Rawls looked at her in complete disbelief. "Show me," he said.
"Alright," she said with a nod of her head, "There's my motel. My cottage is the fourth one to the left."
It was a slightly larger than average room. The decor was a typical hotel version of modern. Jim was surprised to find a bottle of his bourbon, unopened, on a tray. There was an ice bucket and glasses alongside. "Wilma! You planned to have me here tonight!"
"Of course, Jimmy. At the pool this afternoon. I was sure. Besides, your house would have certain dangers-the children. And I have already paid for this place, no? And a motel-is it not a place for lovers?"
"You are practical!" Rawls said and drew her into his arms. Their mouths met. His tongue moved firmly through the red darkness. Her mouth was soft allowing his tongue its will; then it contracted suddenly, meeting his firmness, drawing him in.
When she released his mouth, she smiled up at him. "And I am passionate, too."
"Yes," he said huskily, "You are French."
"I'm a woman and I love you Jim Rawls." The bed was immediately behind her. She allowed herself to topple. She snapped the radio on. The music was the big beat. The music he had never been able to stand. He was about to say turn it off when he realized that he didn't mind it now. Was it because it was a young music and because he felt far younger than his thirty-nine years?
"Open my blouse, please," Wilma whispered. "I can do it myself but I want to have my hands on you."
His big fingers barely managed to release the tiny white discs. As the blouse opened under the high thrust of her breasts Jim Rawls smelled the perfume of her skin. He liked it and that was important, he reasoned, because he was going to be close to this body for a very, very long time.
"You know how to open it?"
"It snaps open in front. Between the cups." She made an animal sound as a response. The hook caught and it took both hands to release the little catch. He lifted one cup away. The pulse in his throat throbbed hard at the sight of the perfect, unblemished sun gold breast. As gently as he could, he touched the conical, erected pink nipple. A shudder gripped the long muscles of his back. He leaned in close and took the breast in his trembling mouth. Wilma moaned at the touch.
She pressed his head down with one hand and with the other pulled the pink lace brassiere completely out of the way.
Wilma pushed him away after a moment. "We must undress, darling. I can't stand this much longer."
Rawls watched her as she slipped out of her blouse and stood half nude above her tight slacks which vanished quickly under her hands. Then her panties, and the shoes in two quick kicks. "Jimmy," she said looking at him, "You haven't undressed!" He had been staring at her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in reality or in fantasy. All the parts were perfect-the face, the neck, the exquisite breasts, the sweet roundness of the belly, the turn of buttock and hip, the thighs and the stem like drop of her beautiful legs, ending, finally, in the trimness of her ankles and the delicateness of her toes. All the parts were perfect, but the combination exceeded in beauty any of the excellence of Wilma Fareon's marvellous parts! "You are so beautiful, Wilma; I have never seen such a body; such voluptuousness; such beauty."
"In the eye of the beholder; now, hurry, darling undress."
Somehow, Rawls managed to get out of his clothes and put his great length of body down on Wilma Fareon's bed. "You're staring, darling," he said and snapped the light off.
Only at the very beginning was Jim Rawls aware of the existance of Wilma Fareon in the bed alongside him. He felt her hands like a thousand petal blossoms moving across his body. Her mouth, filled with secrets, told him truths which had no words. Her sound, wordless, talked to him like drums and moans. His hands found her. His mouth explored her. Then her existence vanished and his along with it. Rawls dived down from a great height through an air of gold. His arms were flung outward. His back swept in a strong curving arch. His toes pointed to the swirling purple skies. He hit the warm blue waters. A spume and a slow braking of his body by the waters weight. He fell into a sleep; a trance. He remained there for a long time.
The telephone rang. Wilma answered.
"Yes," she said, "Yes, my sweet. I will tell him."
"Who was that?" Jim asked coming up on one elbow, pulling the sheet over his hip.
"Ginny. She has forgotten her keys and can not get into the house."
"And she called here?"
"Well, she apologized. But ... what could she do?"
Jim Rawls began to laugh slowly. Then his body shook under the enormousness of his laughter. Wilma Fareon, sat up in bed and tried to quiet him. Then she shrugged, hugged her knees to her bosom, and smiled. The laughter of the big man filled the room and enveloped them.
