All Beryl and her sister, Ava, ever wanted was a man to treat them kindly, someone they could lean on, and share their love with.
This is the story of what they did to acheive their goals, where it took them, and how they ended up.
For Ava, the story was short. She didn't give too much, and when she saw the right man, she grabbed him.
For Beryl, the story did not have a fairy-tale ending. She found the right man, but he wouldn't love her. He pushed her away, so far away, that there was no way she could return to the life she needed. From then on, her life became a nightmare, a nightmare of flesh-peddling, liquor and self-hatred; a nightmare that only she could end.
CHAPTER ONE
"If you want a good husband, Ava, there's only one way to get him, and it's got nothing to do with love." Beryl opened the single small window of their hotel room and leaned out into the night, to study the crowds flowing seven stories below along a wide Manhattan avenue. "Look at all that gold walking around," she mused into the Spring breeze. "Why shouldn't some of it be ours?"
"You're a nut," Ava's impatience came from the unmade bed. "I don't know what makes me stick with you. If I had any sense, I'd pack my undies and catch the first train for home before all this bumming around lands me in jail." She stretched one naked leg into the air. "Or worse."
Beryl ducked back into the room. "So who's stopping you?" She fluttered thick false eyelashes with mock innocence. "You're the older sister. You're supposed to have the brains and the gumption. Go on back and bury yourself in that crummy town. Why should I care?" She crossed to the clutter of cosmetics on the dressing table and selected a fire red lipstick. "I don't need anyone to help me out." She peered deep into the reflection of her own dark, intense eyes. "Least of all a chicken-hearted prude like you."
"You're not yourself today," Ava's comment held conviction. "It's getting you down, too, Beryl. Admit it."
"Nothing gets me down," Beryl answered quickly. "I can't afford to let it." She sat down on a wobbly stool and studied the gloss of nail polish bright and hopeful in angular bottles. "I came to New York for a rich husband. I'm willing to pay the price to get one, understand?"
"Not really," Ava said and Beryl heard behind the words an echo of disillusionment that recalled the long list of men they had both dated with high hopes that had ended only in broken promises. "Let's face it," Ava urged. "We're at the end of the line."
"Nonsense," Beryl answered quickly. She shut her eyes for an instant to force away the truth that was pressing in from the dingy walls. "Other girls do it. So can we." Defiantly, she grabbed up a comb and ran it through the heavy thickness of her raven-dark hair. "Now, get dressed. We're going out to find something." Her words were a stubborn resolve. "We've just got to."
Ava sat up and tossed a crumpled nightgown to the foot of the bed. "You go," she said. "I want to clean this place up a bit before it swallows us."
Beryl flicked a testing glance at the slender, pale-fleshed woman who was bending the long graceful curve of her body to puff up pillows and smooth the bed sheet. She had never completely understood Ava. There seemed to be secret facets of her personality that eluded \probing. A small, shivery sensation of alienation ran coldly through Beryl. It seemed that a thousand miles and a hundred years separated them, though they had shared the same room and the same life since childhood.
"You do that," Beryl said, forcing herself upward into buoyancy. She whipped the lipstick across her full mouth in short, practiced motions, then slipped into a pale yellow dress that clung and flared suggestively. She was not quite so tall as Ava, but men liked the lush roundness that she had learned to parade erectly. They had touched and bruised and used every inch of her, yet she looked new-crop fresh. Patting the scent of bath cologne behind her ears added a final touch of confidence. There must be some man who would be grateful to own her permanently. Any man, she told herself, so long as he had the price. "Well, I'm off," her voice lilted. "Don't expect me home early."
A rush of enthusiasm impelled her out the door and down the musty hall to where the elevator creaked upward in its narrow shaft. She had never learned patience. The slow, almost painstaking descent to the lobby revved her nerves, bringing a glow to her olive complexion and a swing to her stride that gave direction to her aimlessness. She saw the stare of lobby hounds following her behind as she crossed the thin-carpeted lobby to the side street entrance where a line of taxicabs idled beneath theater marquees. For almost a month she had been making the bar circuit where people gathered after show time. Apparently, this had been a mistake. What she needed to find was a place that screened out the playboys and the fly-by-nights. Yet who else squandered as much money? Beryl sighed, feeling herself caught on the horns of a complex dilemma.
While she struggled with these thoughts, her legs carried her automatically further west and out of the brightly-lit neighborhood. Long dim streets stretched toward quiet fog brushed by the odor of tar from the wharves. A faint yearning glimmered in her heart and pushed her along. She wished suddenly that she could keep going right on into the ocean and disappear from this crowded, turbulent city that was ignoring her.
The clatter of music bouncing with energy caught her awareness. Lured by its friendly sound, Beryl followed toward the source until she was standing across the street from a small bar and watching thick curls of smoke rising to cloud the narrow glass window. She leaned against the cold, damp bricks of a warehouse and felt her mouth go dry. A new and strange fear seemed to press against her chest, squeezing her lungs until her breath came too rapidly. With a hard, brittle stare, she let herself watch the thick, rough faces moving about inside the bar. It had been a long time since she had known the rise of true passion. Now it stirred in a single, urgent gush of warmth to overwhelm her good sense and her stubborn intentions. A brief urge to run away flashed through her to mingle with the beckoning odors of beer and the open stares of men whom she knew were not gentlemen.
A moment's hush surrounded her. She sensed her body being appraised by direct, no-nonsense eyes as she sauntered through the path cleared for her. There were no other women in the place, she saw with a stab of panic. Only male sweat, male muscle and male desire loomed hungrily.
"Whiskey, please," she said in a strong voice, knowing that the least sign of timidity would be an invitation of trouble. Lifting one hip, she slid up onto a stool and focused a persistent smile on the bartender. Through the fingerprints on the mirror behind the bottles, she could see the curly red head of the piano player. The carrot color, lurid in the pale lighting, seemed to Beryl an invitation. She wished she could sing or in some way perform to ingratiate herself quickly with the whole crowd at once. But she had no voice and she could only make a fool of herself by drawing attention to her raucous croak. Better to sit still. Maybe some young, kindly face would appear with whom she could flirt and be safely claimed.
The whiskey, a raw brew, razored her tongue as she tasted it and peered furtively from one rough face to another. Why don't I get out of here? I must be crazy. The restless shifting of feet seemed to be crowding in closer. A sweatered arm grazed her naked elbow.
"Ain't that a sweet-lookin' chick."
"Yeah. All white meat, I betcha."
Beryl ignored the conversaion behind her and busied herself searching out cigarettes from the depths of her purse. When she hung a cigarette from her lips, she heard the scratching glare of a match. The flame appeared, and she bent to take a light from thick, grimy fingers.
"Drink up. I'm buying the next round," came the low, hoarse voice of its owner.
"Oh, no, you're not," Beryl said, laughing. "I pay my own way, thanks." She had meant simply to indicate that she was not for .sale, but the words fell stiffly from her lips.
She saw two thick elbows lean on the bar. A squarish chin turned to rest on the lumpy curve of a thick shoulder.
"Uppity type, eh?"
Sour breath bruised her nostrils. "Okay, if that's the way you feel about it. Buy me a drink."
She could feel the man's body relax as he motioned for two more whiskeys and scraped a stool in close to hers.
"I didn't catch your name," he said.
Beryl gripped her glass as she realized that his words were a net cast to draw in the prize of her body. Her stare focused to appraise a blunt, oily nose that had begun to twitch with expectation. Above it, his deep, tiny eyes were warming into an eager smile, while the lips below moved in front of jagged teeth.
"I didn't throw it," Bery said with all the casualness she could muster.
His pause absorbed her from the waist up. "Smart, too," he chuckled. "Hey, Charlie," he called across the room, "play something to dance to, will ya?"
"I don't dance," Beryl interjected quickly as a clammy hand gripped her wrist.
Though she had spoken loudly, her words had fallen on deaf ears. She felt herself being dragged from the stool and pulled through the crowds of watching men. Furtive random touches mauled her body as she stumbled to a clearing on the floor. A low, languorous beat wailed from the piano like a lost voice. She tried to lean away from the man holding her fast, but his insistent strength mashed her against the hard mound of his chest and softer protrusion of belly. Tobacco reeked from the sweater and her cheek touched the rough wood. Beryl closed her eyes and tried to think of mink coats and decorous manners, only to find herself lost in a circus of stumbling dance movements that threatened to trample the last remnants of her equilibrium.
"Okay, Max, it's my turn."
Another, taller man encircled her waist. His hands slid, down along her back, reaching precariously for her ass. She realized what had happened. She was being bounced from one man to another as each demanded his share in the novelty of touching her flesh. Beryl flung her head back as faces blurred past. A strange, frightening and delicious momentum carried her. It rose like a roaring wave over her fear. Odors of perspiration mingled with the musk of human desire. She sensed beneath it a small seed of violence beginning to take root in the atmosphere, with herself in the very center. Beyond the brutal glittering of faces, she caught flashes of the piano player's head moving, a flickering flame that drew her again and again hypnotically.
I'm going to be raped. By all of them. A raucous laughter pounded against her eardrums. She realized it was her own voice goading her on. Flinging her defiantly down a long well into hot, bubbling desire as the music increased its tempo to keep pace with the racing of her pulse beat.
Bodies pressed more boldly against her. Grinning mouths brushed against her cheek.
"Cute kid, honeybunch. We don't see 'em like you every day." Words strung out like baubles glittered around her. She made no reply, only laughter in a crazy, panicked sound as though she had become two persons. One who wanted this. One who still hoped to save her from a destiny that could destroy her.
Vaguely she saw that the men had made a circle around her and were clapping now in time with the music. Slowly, they were closing in. The clapping grew louder in her ears. Overwhelmed the sound of the music. She remembered once having seen a savage ritual in a movie. She felt her skin growing hot and tingling. She would be the sacrifice, her own body offered to the demanding god of lust.
Then suddenly, like a. clap of thunder, came silence. Stupefied, Beryl stood quite still, blinking through the veils of smoke. She realized that the piano music had stopped. All the men were staring at her, their eyes bleary and glittering with mute expectation. In a last tiny gesture of self-defense, she put her hands toward them as full understanding exploded in her head.
"No," she shrieked. "No."
The continuing backwash of silence bound and gagged her. Wildly, she shook her head in a raging plea. Her tangled hair tumbled over her face. Her ribs became sticking barbs as breath squeezed from her lungs to ward off the first shuffle of footsteps coming toward her. She took one small step backward. A hand, reaching out to touch her shoulder, made her turn around. They were behind her, too. Everywhere. Rigid faces hovered, mirroring her own passion. She had asked for this, she had wanted it. And now there would be no escape.
Someone grabbed her elbow. She wrenched her arm free from the grasp and moved backward into the center of her own circle to pivot there as she tried to keep them all in sight at once. From the side of her vision, she glimpsed the red curly head coming across the room. For one long moment he loomed beyond her reach, then broke through the wall of men and came to her.
He was taller, broader than anything she had ever known. She could not seem to see around the dirtied white shirt hunching slightly like a wall suddenly sprung into existence. He was going to be the first, she decided. Take his fair share. Grey-blue eyes, slant-shaped, seemed to harden as they absorbed the sight of her flesh. His nostrils, taut on either side of a bony nose, quivered like a wild stag's. Madly, she half-expected antlers to spring from his head and a possessing bellow to resound from the deeply red lips. Beryl closed her eyes in a sudden wave of submission. There seemed to be nothing she could do to save herself.
Long fingers surrounded her arm above the elbow and squeezed down hard on the muscle. She winced from the stab of pain but did not move.
"Come on," he said. "You're getting out of here."
His words were harsh, yet they flicked on a strange new hope inside her. She felt her body being dragged along and willingly she stumbled forward. He moved sideways, using one shoulder to cut through the men, through the grumble of their voices. Miraculously to her, the circle began to move and loosen. Where there had been a mob there were now separate men once more. Beryl sighed. She could feel the tension of muscle in his grip and she knew instinctively what his body would look like naked. A fusion of blurred feeling told her that she would follow this man wherever he chose to take her.
Moments later she was out on the sidewalk, breathing clean air again. A misty night spread quietly around her. She felt his grip leave her arm as they walked beneath shadow and street lamps to the corner.
"Who are you?" she asked in a voice that thanked and hated him simultaneously.
"Someone you'll be sorry you met," his voice drawled around the stub of a cigarette.
"I already know that," she replied, rubbing her arms where other men had touched her.
They did not need to speak. There seemed nothing more to say, anyhow. What had happened between them was more evident than lightning and far more destructive, Beryl realized as they moved past crooked houses jammed tightly together in the face of an early morning wind. She could not yet see daylight but it seemed to be hovering just over the horizon.
He paused at a worn concrete stoop and studied her for an instant. Then, wordlessly, he turned and began to climb the stairs. She was free, Beryl realized. Free to leave him now, if she chose. Free to go back to her hotel room and take up again the sensible pursuit of a sensible husband. One moment of insane need had gushed upward, revealing what really lurked in her guts. But she was safe from it again. She could force away its memory and no one need ever know.
She gazed up after him. He had reached the dingy white door and was opening it, not looking back at her, but seeming to ignore her very presence. Beryl's throat tightened. Her tongue felt like a sponge swelling in her mouth to crowd out all practical words. In a second of time, she thought that maybe he had a wife or a mistress waiting for him upstairs. Maybe he didn't want her anyhow. And then she knew with feminine revelation that such an idea was nonsense. Slowly, like an unwilling dog forever leashed, she began to climb the stairs after him.
Her high heels slipped precariously on the tile floor, making a resonant clatter. He must know, she told herself, mat she was following him, but still he did not turn to acknowledge or help her. He continued to climb a narrow flight of stairs. The tapered outline of his body seemed to fuse with the darkness, creating an elusive shadow that lured her on. Nor did he pause at the landings to wait for her to catch breath. He seemed relentless and too sure of himself. Beryl clung to the (bannister and hoisted herself step after step doggedly. In the bar she had been a wanton dream. Here she was a person of flesh and blood, with tailings all too human. A simple fool without pride. A woman.
He did not pause until they reached the top floor. A slender, crouching cat whipped suddenly from a doorway and dashed past her. She leaned against a railing and watched him turn a knob. The door opened to his touch, then began to close. Was he going to lock her out? A warm indignity of shame flooded hotly into her cheeks. Then she knew that this strange demon of a man was offering her the final choice. She swallowed down the tight pain and pushed his door open with a cold and trembling hand.
His apartment was a single large room, she saw instantly. An old bed sagged near the window. A small gas burner, yellowed ice box and sink made a kitchen cluster along one wall. She watched him take out two cans of beer and heard the pop of yielding metal as he opened them and set one on a long, thick-legged table clustered with half-filled coffee mugs. A single rag of curtain played lightly with the breeze. It was an essentially bare room filled with the atmosphere of struggle. Still, and without reason, Beryl knew that she was home.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" she offered quietly. "I owe you my life, in a way. The least you can do is make it easy for me to say thank you."
He lifted the can of beer toward her. "I don't need your thanks," he said. "And I don't want it." He sat down On a red-painted chair and pushed off his shoes. She saw that his socks were a deep forest green and this bit of observation seemed oddly important to her, like a raft to which she clung through the turbulence of her own desperation. "You're not a city girl, are you?"
"No."
"You wouldn't have done such a stupid thing."
His derisive voice cut through her. "I knew what I was doing," she flung at him. "The hell you did."
She surveyed his jagged face softening with disgust. It was too hard and rough hewn for her to look at very long at a time. Challenging and ugly with independence. That gash of a mouth would not know how to pay a compliment or utter kind words. His razor-like eyes would seldom smile or forgive. The unruly mop of flame tumbling down over a creased forehead would never submit to conventional neatness. He was an outsider, she judged. A single, lone figure by itself, carved from steel that could stand forever and need no one. Beryl shivered. He was everything she had ever wanted and dreamed about, and poor as dust.
"Is that beer for me?" she said, forcing herself to gather courage.
"If you want it."
She came forward and swept the wet can to her lips to drink deeply of the icy, bitter brew. Trying not to watch him, she saw his hands pull off the shirt to reveal ridges of muscle that moved with his breathing. In contrast with his face, his body flesh seemed smooth. She could put her cheek against it and not be hurt. The thick arms tattooed with a crossing of veins would encircle her and draw her in to make her disappear and become part of him.
"I'm going to sleep," he said.
With a direct comment that held no moral implication, he dropped his trousers, folded and hung them over a chair. Jockey shorts outlined the interwoven muscles. With two long, strides, he reached the bed and flopped down on his back.
Beryl felt only the rocking sensation of her own heart as she poised on a see-saw of desire. A first light of dawn had begun to draw an outline of rooftops, making squares and rectangles and spires in a crazy quilt design beyond the window. A new orientation began to stabilize her. Once more, she could feel the quality of space and time that gave reality to her being. She switched off a tiny table lamp and in the shadows, began to undress.
Her clothes were damp and clinging, familiar with the scent of cologne gone stale. She draped them over his folded trousers and surveyed the contrast of materials in contact. A rivulet of thrills tricked over her breasts. The cooling air dried a film of perspiration that had gathered their weight. She glanced quickly to his face and saw that his eyes remained closed. He had fallen instantly asleep, she knew. This was a final insult that freed her and she began to massage the tension from her flesh. Her shoulders, heavy beneath burdens of fatigue, hunched as she folded her arms and tried to think. But there was nothing to think about. The facts were clear. She'd put her dress on again and leave him. Forever. The sight of his sprawled body was like a stain on her conscience.
And then she was standing beside the bed, knees pressed to the bulging mattress. There seemed nothing that she wanted more than to sleep beside him. To lie safe inside an oblivion of dreams that would protect her from the enemy of her passion. With a sudden surge of yielding, her body sank beside his. He had not left much room for her and she fitted herself in the tiny triangle of space. One arm dangled to the floor. Her fingernails grazed the warped wood. And yet, as the morning air swished over her skin, she knew that this place in the world was her place, and that it was enough.
She closed her eyes and waited for sleep and the destiny that would come to her unbidden.
But she found only electric restlessness as though she could never relax again. Visions of Ava arrowed through her mind. Then they faded to concentrate upon this man beside her who had both saved and condemned her in one night. Should she touch him? His flesh, so near, drew her. Lightly, she extended the ball of one finger till it made contact with a rib. She pulled it away again quickly, afraid that she might wake him. He needed sleep. But in sleep, he left her all alone. Cautiously, she snuggled toward him and let her gaze fondle the few golden hairs curling on his chest. Her knowledge of men seemed as nothing compared with what she knew this man could teach her.
He snuffled and turned onto his chest facing her. One arm flung out carelessly and landed across her chest, pinning her to the mattress. Beryl wet her lips. She did not want to move, yet she could not breathe beneath the weight Wiggling downward, she still could not free herself. And then, forgetting care, she turned to face him, moving her body until her jutting breasts were touching the tight bands of his belly.
There could be no pretense now. Her body quivered, demanding acknowledgement She pressed her lips to his chest, aware that he must awaken and not deny her.
Boldly, encouraged by the truth of her needs, she parted her lips and rolled her tongue along his skin. The sharp, tangy flavor of salt jolted her nerves into shivering hackles. She stretched out full-length, flung his arm off her and shimmied her body to lie on top of him.
His sigh lifted her as though she had no weight at all. "I want you," she whispered and watched for an answering movement from his eyelashes. "I want you."
Slowly, as though rising from a deep volcano, he came to life beneath her. She felt the tightening of muscle down the length of his body and knew that he could not avoid responding to her desire.
"Bitch," he muttered.
A jubilation broke through the yearning of her desire to make of her body a joyous possession as his arms moved to tighten around her waist. The stroking touch of his hands along her back told Beryl that she had won him. His head jerked suddenly upward. His possessing mouth caught hard, forcing her lips apart. Eagerly, she grasped his tongue with her own.
"You asked for this," he said. "Yes. Yes."
Her body dissolved into a swirl of answering that told him she was ready for anything he might care to do. Suddenly, he sat her up so that she was straddling his hips.
"Women like you... " he said but let the sentence trail off into silence as he studied her face.
She heard the hate in his voice. It reached out and found her own. Instantly, she understood the meaning of his existence and knew that he had been fighting, as she had been fighting, to stay free of the passion that murdered good sense. In the deep raw lines of his face, she read the history of the women he had known, taken and left. Always free at last from the final, choking chains of commitment. His life story reflected her own and here they were, facing each other to struggle against an indomitable force that dared not prove stronger than the will to survive unencumbered by love.
Before she could read too deeply, Beryl flung herself down to his mouth again. Tomorrow she could reconnoiter, tomorrow she would renew her avowed purpose. But not just now. The edges of his teeth grazed her tongue. She gasped a short sound into his mouth. Somewhere a window shade snapped suddenly upward, telling her that day had come for many others. And for herself? As her arms tightened around his neck and her legs entwined with his, Beryl knew that she had found only a deeper, blacker night. First shafts of sunlight spread to warm her naked buttocks.
Like a great whale, he lifted and heaved her onto the mattress. She saw the unending expanse of his descend. There was no gentle play needed as he plunged his pulsating cock into her warmth, to find and possess her with a direct demanding. The force of him made a wide, but welcoming gash of her body. A small shriek escaped her lips as she felt the full length of his shaft. No man had ever taken her with such strength. She felt torn and virgin and delicious as she moved in rhythm with his hammering desire. Her ears became as seashells roaring and flooding her with strange sounds both alien and familiar. She recognized that her dreams were blending with reality. That reality was a friendly nightmare that conquered all fears and made her, in the midst of helplessness, suddenly strong.
"Don't stop," she said as her body began to convulse. "Don't ever, ever stop."
She leaped chasm after widening chasm, her lust stretching effortlessly in long arcs. And when at last she faced exhaustion, Beryl knew that she could never again resume her old life with the same determination. She sank her fingernails into his shoulder and prayed for the world to explode now so that she would not have to face her revelation.
Who are you, she asked herself as he sat up into a patch of sunlight. He reached to the windowsill and stripped cellophane off a pack of cigarettes, then lit up.
"I don't even know your name," she said weakly, drawing up her knees and clasping them.
His smile, a smear of mockery, taunted her. "Charlie McNaughtor," he said.
"I'm Beryl Glover," she answered weakly.
In the bright spread of daylight, he looked somewhat younger than she had expected. On his shoulders the long red track of scratches gave her the only glow of satisfaction she could muster in the presence of his personality. She had possessed him, they had been part of each other. They had shared something more important than anything they could fight about during the daytime.
"If you want something to eat," he said, "you'll have to get dressed."
The smirk that spread across her mouth equalled his, she felt sure. "All this and breakfast, too?" she said softly.
His answering snort told Beryl that she had reached him. "I have to go, anyway," she said, pressing her advantage. Flinging herself upward, she sailed from the bed to the wash basin and splattered cold water on her flesh in the hope of washing off all temptation to cling to him. There was no mirror in the room. She dressed and combed through instinct, aware that she didn't really care what she looked like on the outside. Her important being, the essence of her life that vibrated unseen, had changed irrevocably. There would be no hiding it from herself, and so what the world saw didn't matter.
"I want to go out alone," she said as he buttoned his shirt.
Charlies shrugged. The movement was a languid denial that anything she might do or say could matter. The unspoken statement slapped her. She whirled and ran from the room, clattering down the stairs and out into a melee of trucks and human traffic.
"I'll never see him again," she said aloud, but the words somehow did not have a conviction that reached her heart.
CHAPTER TWO
The hotel clerk, standing as though imprisoned in his cubicle, motioned to Beryl as she entered the lobby.
"Your sister left this message," he said, handing her a folded slip of paper.
Beryl carried it into the elevator and up to the room before reading Ava's words. Nothing her sister could say seemed important. The pencilled letters, so small and neat, came from a world that Beryl knew she had left. Nevertheless, she forced herself to attention. - You're in luck, Dennis Cahill phoned. I'm out with him now to stall him till you get back. Meet us you-know-where. And for God's sake, put on something DEMURE. - The words made Beryl laugh aloud. Demure was the last quality on earth she could pretend at this moment. Crumpling the paper, she strolled off toward the bathroom and pulled off her soggy clothing. Dennis Cahill hadn't phoned in three months. She had no reason to believe that this sprite of a man, who had been divorced three times, could have serious intentions towards her. She scrubbed the residue of make-up from her face and wondered why Ava's note sounded so full of excitement. Surely, Ava wasn't such a dope as to fall for Cahill's glib words.
Nevertheless, she chose a pink cotton dress and white accessories to achieve the phony virginal look that attracted this man who had been everywhere and done everything. Though her mirror said she looked right, Beryl's mind felt tightly locked against any ray of enthusiasm. This was going to be a wild goose chase, she assured herself. Still, anything would do to put distance between herself and memories of last night.
Once inside the cab, she relaxed to watch the change of neighborhoods as she rode through Central Park and then further east, moving into the areas of sedate opulence that only yesterday had seemed the sole purpose of her life's achievement. How drab it seemed now, how lifeless. She barely recognized this new reaction as her own. Its alien feeling chided her as she clung to the hand strap and tried to understand the changes that were happening without her consent.
Too soon, the taxi stopped in front of a poodle parlor. Beryl moved through the shrill yapping sounds of puppies to the rear of the store and into the adjoining apartment.
"Beryl, darling." Dennis' voice, like the poodles, shrilled to her ear. "How good of you to come."
From beneath mounds of squirming curly fur, a small, slender person rose from a swivel chair. His tanned bald head beneath fluorescent lighting glistened brightly. Narrow glasses squeezed his smiling eyes into a perpetual squint. Clutching three tiny dogs, he came toward Beryl and squeezed her hand between ringed fingers. "I've been meaning and meaning to call you." He spoke rapidly, breathlessly from beneath a pencilled moustache. "But these poor, dear darlings. I can't begin to tell you the time and attention." Cahill sighed. "You don't know how they drain me."
Beryl's old response of irritation rose and transmuted into a bland, accepting smile. "They're darling." Her voice grated to her ears. "I'm sure they're worth every moment you give them."
"How good of you to say that." Cahill's tiny face beamed. "Most women simply can't understand a man's infatuation with these things. But you, my dear, are a rare person."
Beneath the banter of words, Beryl wondered where Ava might be. Through the archway she could see the other rooms that were Cahill's hideaway from the society that had long since palled on him. Yet, what had once been sympathy for this creature who could love only animals was now a congealed mass of boredom. To Beryl, Cahill was a waste of time. She had come here mainly to fish out Ava and get back to the privacy of their hotel room.
"If you're looking for your sister," Cahill interrupted her thoughts, "I'm sure you don't want to disturb her just now."
The hesitant tone that masked a deeper knowledge piqued Beryl's interest. "Oh?" she leaned against a grooming table and waited for Cahill to explain.
"Well, my dear," Cahill snuggled his chin down into the puppy fur, "It's been a long night, you know."
Realization dawned on Beryl with shock. Ava had written the note yesterday. She dared not begin to imagine what had happened during the meantime.
"Don't worry," Beryl said lightly. "Sisters have no secrets. May I go to her?"
Cahill's answer was a giggle. "As you wish."
Restraining her eagerness, Beryl strolled into the back rooms, trying to predict and prepare herself for what she was going to find. "Ava?" she called softly.
Hearing the click of coffee cups, she followed the sound into the kitchen.
"G'morning," Ava said and lolled backward against a tubular chair.
"Good morning yourself," Beryl answered coldly. She had never seen the girl with swollen eyelids and trembling hands that clattered the coffee cup against its saucer. "You don't look as though you missed me."
"I didn't."
Beryl's anger subsided as she noticed round bluish bruises on the pale skin of Ava's neck. Something had happened. Something drastic and degrading. She reached out a hand to touch Ava's wrist.
"You look too smug," Ava mumbled. "Shove it, will you?"
Beryl steadied the girl's arm. "We're going home," she said. "You'll tell me about it there."
Ava shook her head. The blonde hair fell in pale wisps across her forehead. "Too late for that," she said. "Too late... "
Beryl sighed. Suddenly, she didn't care about provoking a scene right here in Cahill's apartment. "You pull yourself together," she commanded. "One dope in this family is enough. One at a time, anyway." She realized that she was talking more to herself than to Ava.
Beryl pointed an unsteady finger at her purse leaning against an emptied wine bottle. "Dope, nothing," she rasped. "Next month's rent is right in there. All neat. All safe."
Beryl felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She stared hard into Ava's face and saw a bleak desert of shame reflecting from blue eyes that had gone too calm with hopelessness. "What in God's name did you do?" Beryl's voice was a whisper.
She watched Ava absorb the question. "You don't want to know," Ava said. "You just don't want to... "
Beryl bit her lip. This was no time to lose her temper or try to gain anything through force. "Never mind," she urged. "Just get out of that silly nightgown and put on your own clothes."
A slow laugh came from Ava as she stood up. The gauzy material reached just to the curve of her behind. Her smooth legs protruded naked. To Beryl, there seemed something terribly obscene about the transparency. It made a vessel of Ava's body. A slave ship. Each lithesome movement became an action of debauchery. Her proud breasts alternately hid- and peeped to play peek-a-boo. The belly .was like a curved hand beckoning...
Beryl looked away. "Did you think I ran out on you?"
"No, I simply decided to face facts," Ava replied with a small hint of bitterness.
"But you're not going to tell me that Dennis Cahill was capable of... " Beryl glanced over the bruises visible in small flowers of dark color on the girl's body.
"Oh, no." Ava lifted one arm and pointed over her head toward the bedroom. "My friend is still in there," she said with marked intent. "Asleep."
"Good," Beryl answered quickly. "So we can get out of here without a hassle. Now, will you stop this useless suffering and get dressed?' Ava shook herself free from Beryl's grasp. "I'm not going," she said bluntly. "I'm going to stay right here and make a fortune." Her head tilted upward for an instant. "You just don't know how much money I'm worth." She ran unsteady fingers through her hair. "I never did until last night. Besides, who knows that marriage is the best thing anyway? This way, I can come and go as I please. Always free. Always young."
"You're babbling," Beryl said, realizing her own helplessness. Ava's mood of hysterical despair was not one she could handle. She had never seen it before and now it dawned on Beryl for the first time that taking Ava out of their small town had been a mistake. A drastic mistake. Perhaps irreparable. Looking now into her sister's lost and puzzled gaze, Beryl saw the blunt truth of her own selfish ambitions and greed. She had taken advantage of a good natured and protective person. And this person was in the process of being destroyed.
Unable to contemplate further, Beryl stalked off to the bedroom in search of Ava's clothing. She would carry the girl out of there, if necessary. Barely glimpsing at the person huddled beneath blankets, she swept up dress, underthings and shoes. To hell with the stockings, she thought. This is no time to be formal.
Cornering Ava once again in the kitchen, she ripped off the flimsy gown. Instantly she saw that Ava was too weak, too demoralized to resist. She fastened the bra and pulled the slip down over her head. Buttoning her rapidly into the dress and forcing her into her shoes became a single^ whirlwind action.
"Now, walk under your own steam," Beryl ordered.
With relief, she saw that Ava had given up resisting. The sparks of rebellion had flared momentarily and then died, leaving a thin shell of a woman who walked meekly now.
As they pushed through Cahill's office again, Beryl realized that he had been listening to the whole scene. His smirking knowledge followed her over the ridge of puppy fur cuddled to his face.
"Let's hope for a better next time," Cahill called while Beryl pushed her sister through the store and out onto the street.
They rode back to the hotel in silence, each pressing rapidly into distant corners of the seat. From time to time, Beryl glanced at her sister and realized that there were no forms of apology, no taking back all the months of hectic living that had brought Ava to this low point of degradation.
"Don't worry," Beryl said with a valiance that shivered through her electrically. "We'll get security if I have to kill for it." She wet her lips. "And soon, too... "
No answer encouraged her but she needed no further urging. There were devious ways to win a husband that she had sworn to herself never to use. Now, in the face of Ava's collapse, these promises faded. She would pull out every trick in the book and, if necessary, some that hadn't even been invented yet.
In their hotel room, she filled a tub with hot water and got Ava into it, hoping that the physical sensation of cleansing would lift the girl's morale. Externally, it didn't look too bad. But what about the rest?
"I don't want to talk about it," Ava said.
"No, of course not," Beryl agreed, feeling an uncomfortable pressure rising through her guts that accused and accused. Had she been home last night, this could never have happened. Would she ever be able to admit the lust that had made her desert her sister who had always been so loyal? Images of Charlie McNaughton came and went. She cursed them, but she could not dissolve their yividness. Yet he would have to be erased. Completely. There could be no room in her life for such a man. Not now, not ever.
She got Ava out of the tub, patted her dry and put her to bed, trusting that sleep would begin the job of mending. Then she went to the phone and called Dennis Cahill.
"This gentlemen that Ava stayed with last night interests me," she said easily. "I'd like to meet him."
She went to wait in front of the Empress Theatre for a man who would be wearing a navy blue homberg and pin-striped suit. He would take her to dinner first. Then they could talk.
Milling over these arrangements as she glared up and down the street, Beryl could understand how Ava had been lured. It all sounded so respectable, so harmless. She tossed away a half smoked cigarette, glad despite her anger that she was forearmed with the knowledge of what Ava had experienced. For Ava, in broken words, had described the orgy.
The Spring evening lay reluctant to leave a clear blue sky. She gazed up at its cleanness and the unguarded moment brought thoughts of Charlie McNaughton. He had nothing, she told herself. Except honesty and independence. A limousine slowed at the curb and she saw a man bending to get out. He wore the dark homburg. The shock of his handsome face dissolved her equilibrium. Even, masculinely sharp features turned toward her. His grey eyes smiled kindly and his wide mouth relaxed good naturedly with greeting. He said some words to the chauffeur, then strode directly toward her, moving like a well kept greyhound.
"Miss Glover?"
He took off his hat, revealing black hair recently trimmed. Instantly Beryl realized how well they looked together. "Yes," she answered with a pleasant voice, "I'm Beryl Glover." She extended her hand and felt a curiously restrained strength to his |hand shake.
They crossed the street to the restaurant he had chosen. She felt relieved to see that it was a simple place with atmosphere comfortably understated in pastel shades of greens and blues. The long menu listed attractive dishes and she wished she could work up an appetite. Her stomach felt empty and tight with anticipation as she recalled Ava's description of what must inevitably follow all this pleasantness. He did not comment on her choice of a light dish, but ordered. the proper wine to complement her selection.
"You're the Flynn Hunterdon of the shipping lines," Beryl stated, echoing his name in an attempt to grasp something tangible that would pass for conversation.
"My brothers are." He smiled, showing wide, even teeth. "I'm the silent partner, you might say. Or, more precisely, the black sheep."
"I somehow doubt that," Beryl urged, wanting him to commit himself.
"Do you?"
"Yes." She unfolded a heavy linen napkin and placed it on her lap. "You don't have that night-walker look."
His laughter seemed genuinely amused. "Werewolves by day seem very innocent," he bantered. "That's how they get away with it, you know."
Beryl felt a cold shudder down her spine as she realized how readily he spoke the truth about himself. The vision of facing him naked suddenly dawned on her with a brutal blow of anticipation. After the sight of Ava, how could anything she might imagine be worse?
"You're not touching your food," he said gently. "Are you afraid of me?"
Beryl lifted her wine glass. She took a long sip and let the rich flavor run slowly down her throat.. "Yes," she said simply. "Afraid. And glad, too."
"How is that?"
"I'll be honest, Mr. Hunterdon," Beryl proceeded blandly. "You're just the man to take my mind off a few things I'd rather not remember." The words had come out before Beryl had screened them and now she realized how true they really were. Perhaps this night would cure her of Charlie McNaughton forever. "And that's why," she added, "you're going to like me. In fact, prefer me to any other woman you've ever known." She finished the wine. "Because, you see, I'm willing. In fact, I might add a few finishing touches myself to the night's revelries. All right?"
Flynn Hunterdon nodded. "Be my guest."
After dinner, he led her to the waiting limousine.
"Are we going to Cabin's place?"
"Now, don't be silly." Hunterdon closed the door and crossed his legs. "Last night was a chance meeting. I'm grateful to Cahill, but I prefer my own special brand of privacy."
"That's a good idea," Beryl answered. She leaned back against the plush seat and absorbed the luxury. There was no rule that said she couldn't enjoy herself, if possible.
The ride took longer than she had expected and Beryl found herself watching the city's outline fade as they crossed a high bridge. The car glided effortlessly and smoothly toward the last streaks of evening blending slowly out of sight. In twenty four hours, time had become an eagle that soared too swiftly. An unseen power that had silent, but final dominion over her days. She suddenly realized that age and ugliness could be a gift of freedom that prevented such things from happening as would happen tonight.
"Give me a cigarette, Flynn," she said softly. "I like the smell of that foreign tobacco."
The ride ended at last on the edge of a wooded grove- She could sense, deep in its forest, a country home intended for comfort and genial living. The kind of home she had once wanted to own would soon be but a brothel for her needs. Her thin soled shoes slipped slightly on the pebbled road that wound through trees and widened toward a large wooden place that reminded her of an inn. Substantial, shuttered windows made a welcoming atmosphere. There was nothing yet to warn her or even indicate what adventures the night would hold.
"Nobody's home, I'm afraid," Beryl laughed.
"But of course I am," he countered. "You're a strange woman, aren't you? I have no idea how you'll react to me."
Beryl's laughter broke suddenly free. The horrible moment seemed suddenly ludicrous. Oddly, she could see how Flynn Hunterdon, the gorilla, might actually be afraid.
The vast rooms she entered smelled of pine air. Despite the circumstances, she saw herself living in such a home as this with servants and every creature comfort. Even the presence of this reserved man seemed less and less formidable and she could no doubt tolerate him, too.
A television set blasted suddenly into the silence. She saw that Flynn had turned on a set that was built into the wall. It's mahogany cabinet was part of the panelling.
"I have to watch the company commercials," he said. "You'll forgive me. It's my small part of the Hunterdon responsibility."
While they watched, he poured drinks into tall glasses and Beryl settled into a downy cushioned chair, drawing her legs up beneath her. Standing in front of the set, wholly concentrated on the program, Flynn reminded her of a little boy lost in a world too big for him. It was a quality that he had in common with Cahill and she could see why they were friends. Rich, expendable and soft, time hung too heavy for them. Each had found his own amusement to while away the repetition of hours. Cahill with his dogs, Hunterdon with his pursuit of the gruesome. As she watched the commercial, the thought hammered home to Beryl just how wealthy this man was... and how much in control of him she was beginning to feel, though for no apparent reason. When he snapped the program off, a resolve had jelled in Beryl's mind, despite what she knew of this man's vices.
"Are you ready to pay attention to me now?" she said gently.
"You seem eager," Flynn said, not moving toward her.
"I told you," Beryl countered, "this is as much a game for me as for you. And there'll be a reward for each of us, just wait and see."
Hunterdon grinned. "I'm willing," he said.
Beryl opened her arms. "Then come to me and prove it."
She had known true passion in a man's arms last night and nothing that could happen to her would destroy what she had possessed. The muffled step of Flynn's shoes on the thick carpet brought him rapidly to her. She felt him lift her from the chair with an upsurging of unsuspected strength. Her dress came away with one long tearing sound. She saw that the smile had left his eyes to be replaced by a dark intensity that paled his face.
"You're not afraid of me," he whispered. "Why not?"
"Is that necessary?" Beryl asked lightly.
She smiled at him and ran her fingers through his hair, feeling the perspiration that had begun to gather on his scalp. He smelled of soap and the wine and she didn't fear him at all.
Her bra straps tore loose and her breasts swelled into view.
"Do you like me? Do you like the way I'm built?" She lifted his hand, removed the strap dangling from his fingers and placed his touch on her flesh. "Feels good, doesn't it? Warm. Soft." She meant her low voice to soothe him. "Now down here." She made him tear away her half slip and the garter belt till she stood completely naked. "Go ahead. Touch me." She guided his hands to her moist snatch. "Here... and here. Good?... Do you like me?" She watched the expression of pleasure mold and change his features. Without his realizing it, she had taken control of the situation. She knew instinctively that he would do nothing to her that she did not desire. "I'll undress you now," she said. "You'll like that, won't you? My hands on you?"
Gently, gradually, she unfastened the tie knot and the buttons of his shirt, using her body and a constant, easy patter to charm and lead him along. Ava had made a mistake, she realized, by submitting to brutality instead of using its energy for her own purposes. Ava had felt the weight of guilt, of sin. In contrast, Beryl was all business. Her thoughts were cool and guiding. Flynn Hunterdon would be clay in her hands. She could mold him as she chose... and for her own best good.
When he stood naked, Beryl moved, in toward him. "I'll bet you like to dance," she offered, recalling last night and its mayhem. She had given up control then, too, and therefore had been in danger. But dancing with Flynn would be completely different. She sought the walls for a built in radio, found it and switched knobs till candlelight music filled the high ceilinged room.
"We're going to know each other well," she whispered as they danced, touching, in small steps that swayed their bodies and stroked up desire. She watched the tendons along the side of his throat and saw them growing taut. "I like you," she urged. "And you can do anything you want to me. Anything at all dear. Just relax. Kiss me."
She rubbed her body against him to judge the stage of his passion. And when he slapped her with a quick, sharp flick of one wrist, she was not surprised. "Good," she said.
Calmly, she smiled.
And then she lashed out in turn, catching his cheek with a flat, rigid right palm. He went suddenly quiet and she thought for one instant that she had lost him. But then he tilted back his head and she hit him again.
"You make me feel good," he muttered.
"I know," she whispered back. "I'll do everything you always tried to provoke in other women. I understand you, Flynn, I know what you need."
A sudden rage for Ava's sake and for her own welter of loneliness strengthened Beryl. She held his head and slapped him back and forth, letting her fury pour until she heard him panting. Then quickly she got him to the big easy chair, flung him into it and sat on his lap, adjusting her position by squirming slightly, until she was impaled on his throbbing flesh sword. "You belong to me," she said between gritted teeth. "I'm going to use you. Drag you through the mud you love."
His speechlessness reassured her that this man with all of his superficially fine manners was seeking out the depths of degradation. Some people need churches for absolution, she knew. Others used ambition and Flynn Hunterdon used his body as though some medieval demon lived in his soul.
Holding him still, Beryl poised herself, then snapped her hips to gain deep contact. "Men like you," she said, "need women who understand." She spoke between quick, circular movements of her body. "I understand you, Flynn, and I'll release you from your prison." Her voice held urgency. She realized that her talking prevented other thoughts from crowding into her mind.
She pressed harder, goading him till she saw his face, flushed and sweating, go still as his wet explosion claimed him.
When it was over, she slipped away from him to the carpet and leaned against his leg. She listened for some sound of bird song to remind her that this was country, but only the persistant drumbeat underscored melodies filled the room.
"This is only the beginning, Flynn. You realize that, don't you?"
His hand reached down and stroked her shoulder. "You're an interesting woman, Beryl."
"Anil you don't yet know how very interesting," she added. "You see, I don't condemn your feelings, Flynn. None of us is responsible for what he needs to satisfy himself." She took his fingers in her own. They were warm and responsive to her touch. "I'm going to make you a proposition one of these days. I hope you'll be smart enough to take me up on it."
Flynn's quiet laughter told her that he had returned to normal feelings. "No doubt I will," he sighed. "No doubt at all."
CHAPTER THREE
She did not let him take her back to the hotel, for something had been aroused that she needed to walk off alone through the weekend throng. It was a feeling that she recognized too well and that she could not ignore. Flynn had whispered her responses into life and now her nerves would not lie down and be quiet. Beryl knew whom \she wanted to see... and that she dared not visit him ever again.
Broadway milled and pressed around her. Neons blinked and glared. She bought an orange drink and stood watching blue faces and laughing faces that had troubles of their own but could not share hers. A small muscle in her thigh quivered, ticking away as though a time bomb were latent in her body. She knew she ought to go back to Ava, but she could not bring herself to turn from this breathy, driving energy for fear it would explode.
Eventually, however, she returned to the dingy-ness and her sister, who was lying propped against pillows in a semi-doze.
"How do you feel?" Beryl asked, trying for brightness.
"MMmmm?"' "If you're all right, I want to go out again."
She watched Ava's hand wave her away. This, apparently, was not the time for a sharing of confidences. Relieved that Ava did not require her, Beryl changed into a pair of slacks and ran out again, feeling a surge of freedom carry her along on careless and happier wings.
Her legs stretched in long, eager strides as she proceeded westward. What was wrong, anyhow, about seeing Charlie just once again? No human could be expected to go through what she had with Flynn and come out cool and collected. Her bipod felt fire hot and pulsing in her veins. And she was ready to face the mob again, just to be with Charlie. Vivid memory led her to the bar. She stood on tiptoe to peer in through the window. Her gaze sought the piano and a carrot red head bobbing behind it But, she saw with horror, the pianist tonight wore a tattered cap. He was short and bulky. Sifting carefully through the crowd, she knew that he wasn't here tonight. She spun quickly and hurried off to his apartment, desire and longing overwhelming her shame.
Hardly aware of them, she ran up the six flights and rattled the loose doorknob.
He was lying on the bed with an open book over his face, hands clasped behind his head. She could not tell if he had fallen asleep.
"Your day off?" she said.
His head moved from side to side beneath the book. He lifted it off and let it fall to the floor.
"I went to look for you, you know."
"I know."
Beryl licked her lips. With two words he had taken command of her just as readily as she had ruled Flynn Hunterdon. "Aren't you glad I came?" She knew the question was silly, but since she had to ask it.
"Why should I be?" he asked in return, sitting up and searching the floor with one naked foot until it found and slipped into a loafer.
"Pardon me," she flung. "But I thought you rather enjoyed yourself yesterday."
Charlie nodded. "That was yesterday," he added in clipped words.
She surveyed the beer cans still sitting on the table where they had been left, adding to the clutter of the coffee mugs. "Don't you ever talk like a person?" she blurted.
"What for?"
"What for?" she repeated in a loud, echoing voice. "Because you ARE a person, that's what for."
"Then I don't suppose I have to prove it." His voice held a smile.
"Is that why you quit your job?" she persisted. "So that you won't have to go proving you're anything or anybody?" She let out a deep sigh of impatience. "Don't tell me you're one of those clucks who's got himself pitted against the whole world."
"Wrong, as usual," Charlie said in a soft voice that made a resonance through the room. "But I'm not about to tell you my life story."
"Thank heaven. It would probably bore me to tears."
Charlie's head tilted. His gaze seemed to go right through her, caressing as it passed. Her knees became squares of flab that threatened to crumple her to the floor. She leaned, stiff elbowed, over a chair and propped her weight on the arms. "Maybe I'm wasting my time." she said, "but I had a feeling you could keep me amused for a week or two."
"Till you go back to your hick town?"
Beryl lowered her eyelids and fixed him with a steady, purposeful stare. "I'm no tourist," she said. "And I'm not looking for thrills, if that's what you think."
"I didn't bother to think about you at all," he answered, looking for a tee shirt and pulled it on.
"You're lying."
"Am I?"
He had to be, Beryl thought desperately. I can't feel like this without him sharing it.
"All right," he added slowly, "how do you know?"
Beryl needed something to support her as the fury raged and trembled through her. She came around and sat down on the hard chair. It seemed more comfortable, somehow, friendlier than all the cushions in Flynn Hunterdon's house put together. And she knew she must speak the truth to Charlie if to no one else ever.
"Because I'm a part of you," she said, risking being called a fool again. "And I know you.
She saw her prediction come true as his face soured over with disgust. This seemed to be his most habitual expression, yet not repulsive to her at all.
"Nobody's part of anybody else. I hate romantics."
"You don't know the meaning of the word," Beryl flung at him. "You're just a bottle of stale beer. Who needs you anyway? Who wants you? Here you sit in this crazy, dirty room Nobody comes in to clean it up. You don't care. Where's your self respect, for God's sake? What do you intend to do with your life, rot?"
She had spoken with a gush of sincerity that would have overwhelmed any normal person. Yet as her words subsided, she saw that Charlie remained beyond her, out of reach.
"Have you had your say?" he asked.
"No."
Charlie's sigh told her that she had better try another tack. But what?
"All right," she codded. "I give up."
"What do you give up?"
"All my excuses."
She was being honest now and though her words bruised the last remnants of her pride, she realized that with Charlie, there could be no other way. "You know what I came for," she said quietly. "Say it."
"To sleep with you."
"That's better," he said, scratching his chest.
"Well?" Her voice was a plea.
"Well?" His word questioned.
Silently, her soul naked, Beryl moved from the chair and went to him, praying that he would put her through no more grilling. His hands moved to settle on either of her hips. She leaned over and kissed him on the head.
"God help me," she said, "but I need you."
"It's all right," he muttered.
"How can it be all right?" she wailed. "You're a miserable, poverty-stricken wretch. You'll give me nothing but misery. You'll ruin my life and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Why does it have to be you, of all men, Charlie? There are so many others."
His mouth pressed to her belly. "Are there?"
Beryl shook her head. "No... Not a one. Without you, it's an empty world. You're my torture and my salvation... "
"What corn," Charlie said in a muffled voice. "What a load of crap." His arms tightened around her waist. "You're not used to making much sense, are you, Beryl?"
"Oh, I don't know. I don't know anything. Least of all how to talk to you."
"Then don't try."
Her stomach came alive where he pressed against her. She was nothing and everything both at the same time. The room seemed to be spinning dizzily, flinging her upside down. She felt flung into a world where sense became nonsense. Only the living truth of her desire for this strange man flowered sturdily and proud, declaring itself while it made her a slave.
He slid upward from the bed and dragged her roughly to him. She did not want it softly on the bed this time, but on the hard floor where the resisting wood, like part of this man, would hurt her. She let her body go loose. Together they slipped to the floor. She heard a chair topple as he kicked it aside. Was this love, she wondered, or a poison eating away her soul?
Yet it did not matter. All that she cared about was to possess him, to blend their bodies so that she could know the brief but brilliant meaning of life at its highest peak. Her clothes came away easily and she wore no undergarments that needed undoing.
"I'm ready for you," she groaned. They looked at each other like enemies.
Charlie hovered over her for an instant them plunged roughly into her sopping pussy. He dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her ass as he slammed his cock into her incessantly. Thoughts of her future faded. There was only now, shooting its comet-like course through the heavens.
"Why can't you love me?" she murmured. "Why?"
His answer was a thrusting of himself deeper. All words, all questions died in her throat as she clung and gave herself to a rising tension of lust.
Her body seemed to burst like a melon suddenly dropped. Seeds of yearning flowered into fulfillment. Her spine, tensing high, seemed to arch her over the universe as her being became a long and radiant rainbow that glistened with satisfaction.
"What's going to become of us?" she said, rolling away from him.
"Like what?" he said, wiping sweat from himself with his shirt.
"I can't go on like this, Charlie." She took his Ugh ted cigarette and drew on it deeply. "You're an accident in my life. I can't afford you."
"You have no choice."
She heard the factual statement and knew there was no answer for it. If she could only run away. Permanently. But there was no use trying to kid herself. This would happen over and over. Promises not to return and then the demands of her body dragging her ruthlessly back into his arms.
"I wouldn't worry about it, though," Charlie added, lying on the floor and following the angular motions of a fly that buzzed and bumped against the ceiling. "Maybe it'll die out soon. Maybe you'll use it up and then you can forget it."
"Do you really think so?" Her voice was a mockery of hope.
"Well, if you want consolation, go to the Salvation Army. All I have to offer is me... "
"That's enough," she added hurriedly. "Quite enough. I'm not asking you for sympathy. Why should I? You're in the same predicament, aren't you?"
"Not quite."
A sudden shock of fear trembled through Beryl. The possibility that she might lose him presented a phantom horror to her eyes. And yet it would be the best thing. She would be forced, then, to end the rushing tide of desire threatening to drown her.
"Is there another woman?" she said softly and turned to watch his face for answers.
"I've got another job," he murmured. "That's why I quit the last one."
"You mean, one more night and I would have missed you in that bar?"
"Yes."
Beryl sighed. "I'm beginning to think Fate hates me," she murmured.
"Don't be so damned conceited. Fate doesn't think about anybody, much less waste time in hating. You're a child in some ways,. Beryl. Self-centered. Demanding. Does the world owe you a weekly allowance or something? What is it?"
"I never asked for handouts," she said quietly. "Only a fair shake. The kids in my family were left to fend for themselves a little too early, I suppose. And you know what I learned? Nothing for nothing, but more often, nothing for something. I don't want the dirty end of the stick, Charlie. I'm sick and tired of holding it. Now it's going to be Beryl first... and why not? If I can get it, I deserve to have it."
"That's true," Charlie said. "If you're willing to pay the price."
His words made her blood run chill. She knew that he had read between her sentences and that he understood her desire to capture a Flynn Hunterdon who would make life easy.
"I don't picture you, though, sitting on a chaise sofa eating bon bons for breakfast, but I guess you won't know about that till you've got it in your hand."
"I like bon bons," Beryl replied. "Even if I never had any, I know I love them."
Charlie took the stub from her fingers and rubbed it out against the bed leg. "You've got an awful lot of faith in that dream, haven't you? And what happens if it turns to dry bread in your mouth?"
"I'll worry about it then," Beryl replied with conviction.
"After the indigestion?"
"Yes, afterward."
She heard his sigh of disagreement. "Where's your new job at, Charlie?"
Charlie shrugged. "A dive further uptown."
"Another dive?"
"That's none of your business."
Beryl stroked his arm, then pulled her hand away as she felt the cold muscle that seemed to ward her off. "Everything about you is my business."
"You're a possessive bitch."
"You called me that once before."
"Which doesn't make it any the less true."
"Maybe not. But you ought to see something more in me than that, I hope."
"So I won't lose interest? Is that what you're afraid of?"
"I'm afraid." Beryl stretched and crossed her legs. "And I want it more than anything else in the world right now. I don't have the courage to leave you, Charlie, we both know that. But if you kicked me out, it would be final."
"I could do that anyway, if you really wanted it," he answered and rolled over to lean his chin on his palm and stared down at her. "Do you?"
Beryl looked away from him. "What am I supposed to say?"
"Only the truth, always."
"Then the truth is that I wish you were different. I want you to have ambition. I want you to have money. Lots of it. Money could save my soul right now, Charlie. If you only knew."
Charlie's eyes closed for a moment and then she knew he was veiling impatience. "The convenient excuse," he said, "for lack of guts."
"Call it what you want," she snapped back, "but it's me."
"Sure. But that doesn't mean that I have to like it."
"So we hate each other again," she smiled. "Isn't that where we started?"
"I'll tell you a secret, Beryl." He leaned over and grazed his lips along her nose. "You don't know the meaning of hate. Or love either, for that matter. If you could kill, I'd believe you. If you could tear yourself up by the roots and not give a damn about your conscience, I'd believe you, too. But as long as I see that crummy fiend of self preservation lurking around your mouth, I'll know you're kidding me."
To pull away from him, Beryl sat up. Her gaze searched the room for her clothes and found them lying in a heap near the toppled chair. She felt no different from the small pile of rags, so lifeless and waiting. "It's hopeless to talk to you," she said. "I'd better be going."
"To come back again tomorrow?"
His voice taunted her. "Perhaps."
"Perhaps not?"
"I can always hope for that, can't I?"
"Sure," he said as she pulled on her slacks. "You go ahead and hope."
"All right, let's face it," she said, dressed now and standing rigidly on wide spread legs. "You don't want to marry me, do you? You're not offering me the things a respectable woman has a right to want?"
Charlie's laugh was a slap. "Respectable?" He stared up at her from the floor. "That's a funny word, coming from you."
A hot flash spread through her cheeks and slid up along her temples. "Is that what you think of me?" she said with a rhetorical heaviness. "You think I'm a slut wandering the city for kicks? Well, you've got the wrong woman, mister. You don't understand me at all."
"Oh, come down off that damned high horse," he answered tiredly. "I know you're supposed to be the shining star on a pedestal, absolved from all blame, no matter what you do. But that just ain't the case, honey."
She could take no more of his stabbing. Her throat seemed riddled with holes and like a ship sinking, she rushed for the door to get out of the deep waters that always flooded her in Charlie's presence.
Down the street, she waited for a moment, hoping without real expectation that he would come down after her and apologize. But she knew instinctively he wasn't the type. Charlie would never apologize to anyone, least of all to her. She turned to search out his windows on the top floor.
"I'm going to marry Flynn Hunterdon Shipping," she said aloud and ignored the people staring at her. "Then you'll be sorry, Charlie High Horse McNaughton."
As she walked alone down the street, she knew it wasn't Charlie who would be sorry at all.
The idea of marrying into the Hunterdon fortune began to consume Beryl with a growing pressure of purpose. For the first time since her arrival in the city, she felt the glow of confidence which told her that there was hope. With him, a new facet of her personality came through. She was openly and without compunction the boss. Besides, and most important, Flynn Hunterdon enjoyed the idea. Reviewing the evening with him as she walked inspired further plans. She would see him again soon. And in time, when she had made herself indispensable to his desire, she would propose the marriage.
And Charlie McNaughton could go to hell.
As this last thought bubbled bitterly, she realized that he had neglected to tell her the location of his new job. There were too many dives in midtown Manhattan to go searching him out. And maybe - she didn't put it past him - he would decide to move closer to where he worked, thus leaving her with no avenue of access to him. Turning over this new possibility, a quaver of panic struck. She did not feel prepared to give him up just yet. She needed someone to calm her after an evening with Flynn.
A clock in a store window told her that it was one, yet the night seemed hardly begun. The craving that Charlie had satisfied seemed to have opened the doors to further cravings, as though her body were a maze of endless corridors. For the first time in her life, Beryl felt a dizzying sensation that she was trapped. By her lust. By her need for money.
The city on the weekend night did not reflect her mood. With its endless crowds and its garishness, it seemed a laughing monster threatening to trample her out of existence. There seemed no way out and she sought the last refuge of the hotel room where she could curl up in silence and lick all the open wounds that were her body and soul.
"That you, Beryl?" Ava's voice called.
Beryl closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment. She heard the din of the bathroom shower. "Who else?"
"I'll be right out."
The room that she had left in such a cluttered mess greeted Beryl with a fresh neatness. The worn bedspread lay tucked in place. All their stale clothes bulged from a laundry bag in one comer. Even the furniture looked bright, as though recently dusted and polished. She heard the water shut off. Moments later, Ava came in, her body wrapped in a voluminous towel, hair sticking damply to her forehead in soft curls that reminded Beryl of a child.
"What did you expect?" Ava said, grinning. "That I would languish and die?" She rubbed her body briskly. "I wouldn't give any man that satisfaction. There isn't one of them worth it."
"Good for you," Beryl said evenly.
"Well, you know," Ava continued, dragging the towel behind her ass as she went to the closet for a bathrobe, "I was lying there feeling so sorry for myself, till I realized it wasn't such a luxury after all. I don't want to be a millstone around your neck." She tightened the bathrobe belt with an energetic twist. "I'm still older than you are. By three years."
"Does that make me a baby?" Beryl smiled, reflecting her sister's mood.
"In my eyes? Always. Even when you're ninety."
Beryl's laughter was a chuckle. "I'm glad we're going to live that long."
"Well, what the heck. Let's just forget the past couple of days and start all over. Okay?"
Memories of her intentions toward Flynn and Charlie came up like a brick wall in front of Beryl, cutting her off from a total sharing of Ava's enthusiasm. These new, hopeful words could not erase what she had already done tonight or destroy the vision of her purpose. She sat down at the dressing table with her back to its mirror, unwilling to look herself in the eyes and face facts.
"Anyway, where have you been? You're such a busy one these days and you haven't told me a thing about it."
"Maybe you don't want to know," Beryl answered slowly, while Ava sprinkled powder and patted it into her throat.
"Never mind that," Ava rattled on. "I had a marvelous idea under the shower. You know how I get my best ideas there. Well, it seemed to me that with all this nice weather, we ought to try the country for a little while. There are lots of fine hotels-filled with men. Maybe it would change our luck, Beryl, to get away. New scenery, new tempo." She glanced up. A drop of water slid form one darkened eyelid and rolled toward her ear.
"It's a fine idea," Beryl said, answering the girl too quickly. "Only the timing's a little off. For me, anyway." She pressed her hands against her knees and leaned forward. "But you go, Ava. The change will surely do you good. You seem ripe for it."
Ava shook her head as though she were trying to clear her head of dissonant sounds. "So. There is something going on that you're not telling me about." Her voice was thoughtful and disappointed. "I didn't know we kept secrets from each other."
"No secret," Beryl said lightly. "Maybe a couple of irons in the fire, but there's no use talking till there's something to say." Her words sounded paper thin, a flimsy excuse that fluttered and died, leaving Ava's expression unconvinced and puzzled. "All right," Beryl blurted, "you want the truth. I'll give it to you." Defiantly she tossed the weight of her chair back. "I intend to marry Flynn Hunterdon."
An explosion of silence greeted her. She watched Ava's mouth go flaccid, the eyes dull, aghast. She sat for a long moment with the container of powder poised in mid air. Then slowly, she lowered it to the floor. "Who?" she said softly.
"You heard me the first time. I don't expect you to understand, though. But don't worry. He's rich enough and I can handle him."
"Beryl, if you believe that, you're a conceited fool."
"You mean you don't want to admit that I can do something you can't," Beryl answered steadily.
"No, I mean you just can't imagine what he's like."
"Oh, can't I?" Beryl's mouth twisted in a smirk. "Where do you think I've been? And what do you think I've been doing?"
Ava drew in a deep breath. "So you've been sleeping with that warped maniac behind my back... "
"Yes."
"And you're simple enough to believe that you can handle him?"
"Well, I've done it," Beryl snapped with impatience.
Ava's hands reached out into the air with pleading. "Oh, honey, can't you see? He's playing possum with you. That man's no dope, after all. He knows we're sisters and that I must have told you everything. He wouldn't dare repeat the same things on you. Not right away, anyhow."
Beryl shrugged. In the face of such urgency, she realized that there were no words adequate to convince her sister. "I suppose that's the chance I'll have to take."
"Over my dead body."
Beryl sat now in silence. The air between them seemed to vibrate with Ava's desperation, yet there was no way to relieve it. A small, writhing sensation from this argument was stirring her. Something that had more to do with Charlie McNaughton than the Hunterdon money. "Oh, it's all tangled up," she said. "We'll talk about it another time. When all our nerves are in place."
"Mine are in place right now," Ava said. "And yours better be, too. You're not going through with this crazy scheme."
"I guess I can do as I please," Beryl said, hating herself for the need of such a retort.
"All right," Ava flung back. "We'll see about that. I'm going to fight you all the way."
"If you can."
"I can, all right. I didn't leave that man exactly unimpressed, you know. He'll go out with me again. I'll get him away from you for good."
"And kill yourself in the attempt?"
"Well, I started this. I'm going to finish it. You've always had a swelled head about what you could accomplish. But I can't let you overestimate yourself. Not when your whole damned life is at stake."
"Dramatics\ don't touch me, Ava," Beryl persisted. She opened her blouse and took it off and then folded her arms across her bare bosom, feeling where Charlie had touched her. Her skin burned' with the imprint of his contact, blinding her to anything Ava might say. How could she tell her sister that it would be worse not to marry Hunterdon? Regardless of what he was, what he might do, at least marriage would be an insulation protecting her from total addiction to Charlie. Alone, without ties, Beryl knew she would be free to ruin herself over Charlie. Wind up down the drain. Destitute, alone, empty. Hunterdon wouldn't give her much, but at least she would have the security. And with money behind her, she knew she could talk Ava into giving up the life toward which they were both headed. Watching her sister's determined face could not make her forget the crack that had broken through to the surface.
"I'll make you a bargain," Ava said into the heavy silence.
"What?" Beryl's voice was thick.
"You come to the country with me for two weeks. Just two short weeks, Beryl. If neither of us finds a man by then, we'll face this thing more squarely. Okay?"
"Nothing's going to change in two weeks, Ava."
Ava let the robe fall away and smoothed a silken nightgown over her nakedness. The bluish bruises were still there and slowly she rubbed one shoulder. "I have an incentive now. Stronger than anything. And so have you, Beryl. Please help me... for both our sakes?"
The slight tremor in Ava's voice held Beryl. Obviously, Ava realized that she really couldn't win Hunterdon Fear and memories stood in the way to make her plead, now, instead of demand. This tacit concession softened Beryl. And besides, it couldn't ruin anything between herself and Hunterdon, so she had nothing to lose by giving in to Ava's request. Beryl got up and wrapped the robe around her own bare shoulders. "All right," she said. "We'll give it a try."
Ava touched her sister's face with a caress of fondness. Her eyes glowed, Beryl saw, with the satisfaction of accomplishment.
CHAPTER FOUR
They checked out of the hotel. Then, at the bus terminal, Beryl paid for two round trip tickets while her thoughts skimmed over the plans they had made to get the most for the least outlay of cash. Despite herself, she felt glad to be leaving the city. Perhaps with distance between herself and Charlie, she could gain control over her feelings once more. Anyhow, it was worth a try.
When they were settled on the bus, Beryl closed her eyes. Her body felt like a burlap bag filled with tiny grating pebbles.
She needed sleep or the strain would begin to show on her face, her basic commodity. The springy velvet seat seemed to absorb some of the tension, yet she could not keep her eyelids closed. She gazed for a long while at the passing scenery, watching it change from drab concrete facades to expanses of green. Beside her, Ava sat doing crossword puzzles in a magazine. They had four hours to waste. It felt like an ocean of limbo to Beryl. A small reprieve in the midst of battle. They had made no reservations anywhere, preferring to scout around when they arrived for what would look like the best bet, so there was nothing to think about just now. Nothing to worry over. Nothing to prepare for. Beryl closed her eyes again and this time sleep came. She gave herself to it gratefully.
By noontime they were standing beside their luggage at the exit to a small depot. Beryl hailed a local taxi "Take us to a nice boarding house," Beryl said. "One not too far from the big hotels."
"Lady, you're in luck." He pushed up the sleeves of a new sweater. "My mother just happens to run such a place. Accommodations as good as any and the food's a lot better than what you get in these fancy clip joints." He winked. "And who's to stop you from going dancing at night anyplace you want?"
"That was our idea exactly," Ava said as he hefted their two suit cases and ambled to the car.
The Robin's Inn, built on a knoll of grassland, had been remodeled from an old farm. It sprawled in the clear sunshine and seemed to rest comfortably on the earth.
"Give these girls the corner room," said the driver to a small woman who, except for the gray bun, had the same blunt, ruddy features.
Beryl and Ava followed up the wide flight of polished stairs to a large square room that seemed to be all windows.
"We'll stay for two weeks," Ava said promptly.
When they had been left alone, Beryl bounced onto the double bed and felt it give beneath her weight. Suddenly, she needed desperately to rest from everything that had ever touched her. Thoughts of Hunterdon or Charlie were too painful and seemed out of place with the surrounding peace. She had travelled a million light years from herself. She could look out the windows and see clear to the horizon line with nothing to block the view except for some trees that had been planted or left standing for their shade. Gauzy tatters of cloud floated high and now she could hear erratic chirping so different from the clash of human voices in distress. She had forgotten the feeling of peacefulness that flooded through her now, a new experience. The click of latches told her Ava had begun to unpack.
"I have to admit it," Beryl said. "This was a good idea you had, for a change." She rolled over onto her belly. "I'm not going to think of a damned thing for the next three days at least. Except enjoying myself and getting a tan."
"God knows we both could use a change," Ava replied. "And we have a little money to throw around anyhow. Hunterdon was generous."
"He paid for what he got," Beryl muttered. "And you?"
Beryl shook her head. "I didn't approach him on a money basis, Ava. That was part of my bait."
"Well, never mind." Ava shook out dresses and hung them into a deep closet. "Let's promise each other not to talk about if for awhile." She paired up shoes on the floor. "We'll go out tonight and find lots of new faces... "
"Sounds like you have a premonition." Beryl kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes. "I hope so, anyway."
The change of pace from city life refreshed them, so that by the time dusk had fallen, both girls were glowing and eager. Vivaciously expectant and open to new and promising ventures. The taxi driver, who had finished work for the day, offered his services free of charge to ferry them around. Beryl, realizing his eagerness to show off his special knowledge, accepted without compunction, including his offer to call for them later at night to bring them home.
"Take us to the biggest, showiest place first," Beryl said from the back seat.
"Might as well start off big, eh?" He winked at her in the rear view mirror.
He let them out in front of a hotel that was an edifice of glass and white brick towering toward the sky. Recently built, it was sharply modern, stretching bold angles skyward from jutting curves of terrace. Beryl thought she could smell the dollars and her expectation took fire. To sit in the lobby, alone with Ava for an hour, would no doubt bring results of some kind.
"Not bad," Ava said under her breath as they entered the hotel.
Long, low sofas done in shades of violet and pale blue made a perfect compliment to Ava's blondness and Beryl smiled with approval as they strolled arm in arm across the lobby. Without looking directly at people, she could sense the flickers of curiosity they drew, but she knew better than to smile beckoningly at anyone. Unlike a barroom, this hotel atmosphere would require subtlety. She heard too many stories of prostitutes who worked out of places like this one. Such a reputation or even the hint of it could frustrate their purpose.
"You know what I'd like," Beryl said, addressing full attention to her sister.
"Hmm?" Ava's response seemed already preoccupied.
"Let's go on up to the beauty parlor and get our nails done." Beryl spoke in a soft voice not meant to carry beyond them. "That'll give us a reason for being here, just in case."
Her sister looked at her.
"We've got a reason," Ava's reply was an insinuation.
"Oh, come on. I know you're full of wild oats tonight, but we've got plenty of time."
"You can't resist acting like a rich matron, Beryl, no matter where you are. Can you?"
Beryl heard the warm affection yielding to what seemed like a whim and in silence they sauntered up the wide carpeted stairway. There was no need to explain to Ava her pet theory that the intimate conversations of women, off guard in beauty salons, often could point out the trail to likely sources of male supply. Sitting side by side beneath hair dryers, women often became too talkative. Broken love affairs, the availability of an eligible, but problematic son often bubbled up to the surface.
On the mezzanine landing, they followed the direction of a horse shoe shaped arcade lined with small shops that displayed sports clothes and exclusive dresses, children's play togs, a camera supplies nook and finally the plate glass front of a salon labeled simply SIDNEY'S in a scroll of fine gold lettering.
"You're not expecting to get in there without an appointment, I hope," Ava said as they looked in on a white and gold painted counter where a receptionist dressed in white and gold was seated, talking on the phone and jotting something into a thick looseleaf book.
"Let's try anyhow," Beryl answered, pushing open the swinging double doors and entering the familiarly heavy, sweet scented air.
The slender receptionist finished her conversation and displayed her brightly impersonal smile. "Good evening, ladies. May I help you?"
"I hope so," Beryl said. "My nails need doing. Is it possible to get someone just now?" The receptionist, shaking her head, glanced nevertheless down a list of scribbled jottings. "I'm sorry. Mitzy seems to be the only one free just this minute, but she only does wash and set."
"Well, that's all right," Beryl retorted easily. "So long as I have to wait, I might as well get that done, too." She could feel Ava, beside her, taking a step backward.
"You just go right through that arch then," said the receptionist. She pressed a buzzer. "And you'll be taken care of."
"I'll wait for you downstairs," Ava said.
Exchanging glances with her sister, Beryl perceived that Ava seemed rather eager to be by herself for awhile. "Fine. I'll meet you near the black torch lamp as soon as I can."
As Beryl entered a dressing cubicle to don a plastic gown, she felt glad that Ava wasn't here to interrupt her private surveilances. With no one to think of but herself, her attention would be free to focus more sharply and sniff out where the clues were hidden. Proceeding to a large rose colored room lined with swivel chairs and the shiny metal cones that filled the atmosphere with a droning sound of blowers, Beryl swiftly took in everyone. Women of all ages sat with magazines or watched the progress of their changing appearances in mirrored walls. The only man present was a short, slender creature with a smile that flashed on and off mechanically as he flitted about to make comments or give directions to the workers. Everything else was intensely female. Mitzy motioned two bent fingers at Beryl and she proceeded directly to the only empty chair. She gave herself to the tilting motion and settled beneath the feel of hot water running backward from her scalp, down the slanted metal tray to gurgle in the sink. The feel of able hands plying her was good and she knew that Ava's words about feeling like a rich matron were accurately true. There seemed nothing more delicious than being fussed over... except for the lack of fuss that had been Charlie McNaughton's peculiar attractiveness.
"Are we going to style you?" Mitzy said when she had wrapped a towel around Beryl's head.
"I'd like to wear a deep side dip tonight," Beryl said, feeling languorous.
As birdlike fast, but strong finger worked on her hair, Beryl noted which dryer seemed like the most strategic placement. When she saw a woman taking out a tiny thermos from her purse, Beryl decided that this person was to be her objective. The flask no doubt contained whiskey and women who had to drink even in beauty parlors were the ones who would talk most readily. In a few moments she had the woman catalogued as being maybe a few years older than herself, despite the sagging flesh beneath her eyes. Her pallid complexion was devoid of makeup except for a thin line of rose colored lipstick. Yet she was attractive, Beryl felt. High cheek bones and a wide jaw lent her a certain arresting mystery. And her body, if the legs were any indication, held itself with a proud grace that managed to keep the lines of her from sloping too irrevocably downward. A single gold bracelet slid down to her wrist as she replaced the flask. Beryl looked away before the woman could discover that she was staring.
When Beryl's hair was ready, she sauntered casually to the dryer adjacent to her objective and opened a magazine to flip through it at random. She hoped the woman would start to talk to her first. She let the magazine drop to her lap and let her gaze rise casually to her neighbor with an open and innocent smile. She could smell the whiskey and she noted that the woman's hands hung loosely as though in sleep. Was she drunk, Beryl wondered, or simply involved too deeply within her own thoughts?
"Pardon me," Beryl said after a few moments, "but if you've finished with that issue of Vogue-"
"Of course."
As the woman handed it over, Beryl renewed on her own face an invitation to talk, though the hot air blowing violently in its metal prison around her head overwhelmed all sounds of voices. She reached up and turned the knob until the machine made less noise. "One keeps forgetting how hot these things can get," she offered.
"Yes, don't they."
Beryl averted her glance from the slender fingers that had begun to fidget. In another moment, they would reach for the purse again and take out the flask. She could feel a desperation emanating from the woman that overwhelmed all shame.
"It's a tiresome business at best," the woman said, lifting out the thermos and tilting it to her lips. "But it does make the time pass."
"This is my first time at Sidney's," Beryl said, hanging onto the tenuous thread of talk.
She watched the pale lips twitch as the whiskey went down. "Sidney used to do the work himself, before he got so big and important." The words came sluggishly, but not yet thick. "Anyway, what's the difference? Men don't bother to notice. I don't think they care, really, what a woman looks like."
Beryl picked up her cue. "Bastards, aren't they?" she encouraged softly. An answering smile satisfied Beryl that she was making progress. "Sometimes I think I'll give it all up and join the Peace Corps. But nature gets to be a habit, doesn't it?"
"I'll tell you this much." The woman uncrossed her legs and stretched them. "If the Peace Corps would help, I'd try it. I'd try anything-" Her slanted eyes took on a distant look. "My ex-husband brought me here to see if we could make a go of it again." She closed her eyelids for a moment "I came against my better judgment You can't build a fire from dead ashes-"
"He must love you very much," Beryl said, putting on a glow of admiration.
"Love? Oh, sure. That's such an easy word. They all use it They toss it around like money. But I'm sick. I'm sick of being naive and foolish. A woman ought to have her own business and be independent of them. Some do. They're the smart ones, I tell you. But Ranch-that's my ex-he says women belong in the home. He's something right out of the Victorian age. My God. I should have let it rest and be content with the alimony checks. I had to listen to him and believe him."
"Ranch?" Beryl said. "That's an odd name. Have I heard it somewhere before?"
"Why not?" the woman laughed with a shrug. "Ranch Prince. Horses and cattle and the like. Oh, he's a big operation, my cowboy, though you'd never know it to look at him."
Beryl slipped quickly through her mental list of faces and names, but she could not catch an image to match Ranch Prince.
"I'm going to tell him later tonight that it's no use," the woman continued. "And leave him flat with his suite of rooms and his pig-headed ways. I'm not the farm wife type, you know. Believe me, that's a breed all its own. You've got to be born with a taste for it."
Beryl caught sight of pointed, polished shoes. Then Sidney, who had appeared swiftly, lifted the dryer from the woman's head and patted her hair. "You're ready for the comb-out, Mrs. Prince."
Beryl nodded a goodbye to the woman, contemplating the loping walk as she moved off. She could not imagine what atmosphere would be friendly to this person. Perhaps she was a constitutional misfit. Picking up the magazine again, she let her mind wander over their talk and found herself hoping again, hoping with an avaricious intensity that Mrs. Prince would keep her promise to walk out on her ex-husband tonight. Beryl smiled deliriously to herself. If that happened, there would be at least one lonely millionaire who might appreciate the attentions of a sympathetic female companionship.
When Mitzy had finished combing out her hair, Beryl decided not to tell Ava what had happened. Instinctively she felt that Ava would not approve. For Ava was still one of the weak ones who believed that love was sacred territory. Beryl watched the progress of hair becoming a fluffy frame that lengthened and emphasized her even features. No doubt, Ranch Prince was still in love. She lifted her chin to observe the smooth line of her flesh that looked so young and resilient in comparison with Mrs. Prince. He would be a pushover, Ranch would. A thrill of expectation warmed her. The evening was beginning to take on solid interest. It promised a challenge that Beryl felt peculiarly confident of meeting.
From the top of the stairs, she could see Ava lounging in a sky-blue reading chair beside the black lamp where they had promised to meet. An ornate wall clock told her that the evening was still new. Her glance flicked away to see if she could search out Mrs. Prince and, more importantly, the ex-husband, but the people milling and lounging were all strangers.
"That was quick," Ava said as Beryl approached her.
"I decided not to bother with my nails," Beryl replied lightly, examining the dark ovals that she herself had polished flawlessly. "How do you like my hair?"
"I don't."
"Why?"
"You look too sexy," Ava said. "Not that you think there's anything wrong with being so obvious."
"Maybe it's just my nature," Beryl grinned. She became aware now of how tightly her dress clung at the bodice. "Besides, I'm not ashamed of being a woman-like some people I know."
Ava's tongue clucked once. "If you had a little less conceit and a trifle more modesty, you'd be a really attractive woman."
Beryl threw back her head, recognizing in Ava's remark the first symptoms of restlessness. "We can't all be like you, dear. Did you have a boring time while I was gone?" She sat down in an adjoining chair.
"Horrible." Ava's lips tightened. "I could have had at least a dozen pickups. But they all had that stupid lecherous look. You know."
Beryl lifted the weight of her hair over the cushion's edge. "You don't really want me to be too subtle. Look at all the work we would have to do then."
"I wouldn't mind a little work once in a while, if it had the proper reward."
"Well, quiet down, honey. Here comes someone now and he's got big eyes for you. I can see it all the way across the room."
Beryl opened her purse and busied herself fishing out a cigarette holder carved from ivory. It was a gimmick that she used at such times as this because the opening was too narrow. She would be honestly occupied with twisting and easing a cigarette into place, thus giving any man a chance to talk to Ava without seeming to intrude on a tightly exclusive conversation.
A few moments later she heard a male voice make its opening gambit in words carved with harder sounds. From the Midwest, she judged, as he invited Ava to dine with him in the video room. Mentally, she crossed her fingers, hoping that Ava would accept. Yet she felt surprised to hear her sister's almost premature acceptance.
Beryl waved her off. "Have a lovely time," she called and watched Ava saunter away, moving with that special grace that told Beryl how angry the girl was. She watched them enter a candlelit room that opened off the lobby. Ava would have a good meal and dancing and maybe a couple of laughs, if she permitted herself some fun. To Beryl, the world seemed like a strange place tonight. Here amidst opulence and time for squandering, women became somehow uneasy and irritable, like spoiled children who had nothing left to yearn for. In contrast, she felt lighthearted and hopeful. She got up, deciding to stroll around the grounds and find an escort of her own that would camouflage her search for Ranch Prince.
A boy sauntering toward the elevator with a wet bathing suit slung over his sw^eat shirt became her quarry and Beryl circled in a wide arc to intercept him. He seemed to her perhaps twenty-one or two, smooth-skinned and tan. There was a healthy, vital bounce to his walk. She smiled inwardly, asking herself if he were a virgin, then decided that such a condition could not be possible despite the silky, still-new gloss to him. As she passed close by in front of him, she ejected the unlit cigarette from its holder, then bent quickly with mock horror to retrieve it. The abrupt stoppage of movement caught him off guard and he stumbled against her.
"Excuse me," he said, bending quickly to her level. "Did I hurt you?"
Beryl put out one hand and clutched his arm, appearing thereby to steady herself. She fixed a deeply intense smile on his serious brown eyes. "It was my fault, really," she said in a soft tone. "I can't ever seem to get this holder to work properly." She held it out with helplessness toward him. "See? There's some kind of little clip in there that I don't have a knack with yet." As they stood up together, she pressed the holder into his hand.
As he peered into the recess, Beryl took the bathing suit from his shoulder.
"Don't bother with that. Please," he stammered, reaching for it.
She caught his hand. "It's no bother at all," her voice remained low. "Has the swimming been good today?"
His full red lips pursed with self-effacement "I'm just a junior on the team," he said.
"Team?" Beryl echoed, realizing that he was a sweet boy and that she could like him. There was still water clinging to his freshly combed hair and she could not tell how blond he might be when it dried. "The Olympic team?"
"Oh, no. Nothing like that," He laughed and the edges of his eyes crinkled as though he were accustomed to laughing easily and often. "Just the Bayswater Seven." He tried to reach again for the bathing suit. "Intercollegiate."
"How very healthy of you," Beryl said, letting him have the suit. "I'm Beryl Glover and I've never seen the inside of a college. Are they pretty?"
The boy flung the suit over his shoulder. His fingers seemed to clutch. "You don't think of it that way. Not an all boys' school."
"I'd think of it that way," she drawled, gazing up through her eyelashes at him. He had stopped fidgeting and Beryl felt satisfied that he had given up the conflict between wanting to run away from her and wanting to stay. She took the cigarette holder from his limp fingers. "Do you think maybe together we can figure out how this thing works?"
Gently, subtly, she led him away from the elevator and outside to walk with him away from the bright lights and through the damp grass. Solid wooden chairs grouped in twos and threes on the lawn, tennis courts beneath spotlights, the swimming pool enclosed by a glass dome added a certain touch of nonchalance that helped Beryl with her flirtation. Ava had been smarter than she knew, in suggesting that they come to a resort. A feeling of play, of transcendence, could put people off guard. "What do your friends call you?" she asked, staying close behind him so that the scent of her perfume mingling with the night air would reach his nostrils and hold him.
"Tom," he said. "Thomas Upjohn, Junior."
"The Philadelphia Upjohns?" Beryl said, though she had never heard the name before.
"No, Connecticut. Litchfield County."
"Well, you certainly do get around, don't you, Tom?"
"Oh, I don't know about that."
"You're too modest," Beryl answered softly, feeling how very much like a puppy he was and how easily she could train him to her own convenience. "I'll bet you have a modest father, too."
Beryl sensed the stiffening of his body and instantly realized that she had said the wrong thing.
"I live with my Uncle Joe and Aunt Cicily," Tom said. "They run things now."
The tone in his voice told Beryl all and she could scarcely believe her good fortune. Only in the movies had she seen women like herself cross the paths of young, innocent boys who had inherited the family business too young. His history, though untold, spoke clearly from his manner. "Do you want to take over the family business?" she said, as though he had confided everything.
"I'll have to," he shrugged, "because what I want doesn't matter."
Beryl touched his arm. "But it does," she said softly. "It does very much." And her voice added: "To me."
They strolled another twenty paces in silence before Tom said, "I know it's awfully late, but if you haven't had dinner yet by some chance-" Beryl tilted her head and let her delight glow up at him. "Why, I'd love to, Tom."
He pulled the bathing suit off his shoulder and rolled it up into the palm of one hand. "Just give me a few minutes to change my clothes."
"I'll wait for you in the lobby, Tom. Don't be long."
Back inside the hotel, Beryl settled herself in one corner of a long couch from which she could survey the comings and goings while she waited for Tom. Her thoughts dropped him the moment he disappeared into the elevator and began to take on instead the fresh, faster tempo that signaled the arrival of nighttime entertainment. Couples, brilliant in evening clothes, were arriving now from all corners of the resort. Music drifted out from the small night club where Ava was, interspersed by blossoms of laughter that came in response to the stand-up comic. She could see him spotlighted on the narrow stage. Premonitions prickled her skin with excitement. The world of leisure and money seemed to be settling right into the palm of her hand. And Tom Upjohn of Connecticut would escort her gallantly this evening as she panned for gold.
Feeling thus secure, Beryl yielded to an impulse. She went to the desk clerk and asked for the number of the Prince room, then jotted it into her memory. It wouldn't do, of course, to try for a foursome at dinner. She wondered if perhaps they were having a fight in their room right now. Beryl lit a cigarette and stood racking her mind for some excuse to call and re-establish contact. But there was nothing that wouldn't look too clumsy for her purposes.
As she was standing absorbed in her search for some strategy, she saw Tom striding toward her. Dressed in a dinner jacket, he seemed even younger than before. His walk was an elastic stride that made the carpet seem as though it were a downhill slope. His blond hair, as soft as Ava's, reminded Beryl of her sister. There was that same untouched aura which could cover the most debauched of sins, only she felt sure that Tom had tasted none of them.
"You look marvelous," Beryl said, hooking her arm through his. "Are we going into the Video Room?"
"If you want to. I thought we might go someplace quieter."
Beryl knew that he meant to be alone with her, but that would ruin her whole plan. "I'd like that, too," she said, letting the lie sound apologetic "But I promised my sister to drop in for a few minutes and say hello." She was already steering him to the club's entrance. "We won't stay long, I promise," she said easily, knowing that once they were settled at a table, he wouldn't know how to pry her up and out again.
They came inside just as the show ended and the ceiling lights snapped on just enough for Beryl to survey all the faces. She spotted Ava sitting in a curved nook beneath a wall planter dangling artificial grapes. "I can't imagine where she is," Beryl said, leading Tom in the opposite direction from her sister. "It's so crowded."
A hostess took over then and brought them to a small round table. Beryl took the chair that let her see the doorway by simply shifting her gaze an inch to the right of Tom's face. She could only hope that Mrs. Prince, needing more drinks, would drag Ranch down here so she could tank up.
An interim band provided dance music while Beryl ordered lobster salad and champagne. Glancing at the price list, she wondered idly if Tom lived on an allowance from a trust fund and just how much money he really had free access to if he needed it. There was only one way to find out "Good athletes are usually good dancers," she said, toying with a water goblet.
Tom leaned across the table as though she were holding up a tantalizing bit. "Would you like to?"
Beryl's smile reached out. "I'd love to." On the tiny oval of polished wood, Beryl moved in close, letting her breasts graze against his chest His body felt thicker, more substantial than she had supposed and for the first time, she amused herself by thinking what he might be like in bed. If she allowed him to sleep with her, he would be hers completely. But what would she do with this advantage? Absently, her fingers stroked the back of his neck and up into the soft stubble where he needed a haircut And then, as they danced past a pillar, she saw Mrs. Prince just sitting down with a great barrel of a man. To Beryl's practiced eye, they were both drunk, though each maintained a rigid decorum of subdued manners.
"Oh, I see some friends," Beryl said, aware that she would have to make her move right now. From her own table the pillar blocked her view and therefore all possibility of contact. "Come, I want to introduce you."
Clasping her fingers through Tom's, she led him through a winding maze till she reached the Princes.
"Hello again," Beryl said to the woman.
As she spoke, she heard Ranch Prince scrape back his chair and stand up. The artificial lighting gave his ruddy jowls a purplish tone. Beryl recognized in the bloated face many years of hard drinking, but the bright fire in his eyes could not be dulled. They focused on her, then through her, as though he had met her type many times before and found her both amusing and very unimportant.
"Join us," he said after the introductions had been made. His voice said that he and his wife had agreed to part forever and therefore a little fun might as well be had by all.
Beryl gave Tom a quick look that asked him to bear with the need for courtesy, then accepted the chair that Ranch Prince held for her. "We can only stay a minute," she said. "Tom has already ordered our dinner."
"Well, that's no trouble at all," Ranch said. "The waiter can bring it here or we can order another." His sharp glance settled for an instant on Tom. "Makes no difference to you, son, does it?"
"No, I guess not," Tom said in a weak voice.
Beryl avoided looking at Tom and at Mrs. Prince as drinks came to clutter the small table. She knew that her presence wasn't wanted here by anyone except herself and perhaps as a moment's amusement for Ranch. Since she had accomplished the introductions, there was no need to struggle with a desultory conversation. Somehow, she would manage to find Ranch later on and pick up in private the threads that she had begun to weave. After two drinks, she wangled herself and Tom away and back to their own table.
"You aren't angry, are you?" Beryl said in a contrite tone when they were settled in then-own seats.
"No," Tom said and struck with energy a match for her cigarette. "It's just that Ranch Prince is famous for his bad manners."
"But you aren't for yours," Beryl said, deciding that she could use Tom's sudden flare of jealousy. She looked at their plates. "We don't have to bother with all this food, if you'd rather not" She touched his hand that had moved to lift a spoon. "If you'd rather go."
Tom's forehead wrinkled. "What about your sister?"
"I suppose she just isn't here," Beryl sighed. "She's the forgetful type anyhow."
"What would you like to do, then?" Tom said, putting down the silver.
"Be with you."
Beryl paused, waiting for his response. She had spoken directly. There could be no mistaking what she meant, what she was offering. Still, she knew that Tom could not possibly think of her as a slut. His ideas of such things would require that she flounce about in a tight red dress, too much rouge and swing wildly bleached hair from one shoulder to the other.
"All right," Tom said.
Beryl's smile told him how grateful she was, that he understood her admiration for him. Privately, she chuckled at her good fortune while she gathered up the loose strings that would tie him more tightly to her. As she preceded him out of the room, a brief chill of loneliness fled through her to settle in a thin film of frost around her heart. A face began to etch itself in crystal that would not dissolve. Mentally, she smashed out with a hard fist, but the face of Charlie McNaughton seemed to float beyond her reach. It refused to be destroyed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beryl waited outside the lobby as Tom ordered his car to be brought around. When it came, she settled herself in the convertible Cadillac and looked up at the stars. The dark sky was thick with them and they seemed to be standing still while the car rolled and glided swiftly through the night She did not ask where they were going. It made no difference, because she knew how the night must end.
'*You must know this countryside well," Beryl said because conversation seemed necessary.
"I guess I do, a little." Tom's foot gunned the gas pedal and the car seemed to leap. "I thought you might like to see a little place at the edge of the woods. It's not like the Video Room at all. Maybe you wouldn't like it, after all."
Beryl heard her cue. She snuggled in closer to him. "Please don't feel annoyed with me, Tom," she said. "Occasionally, I get things all tangled up and if someone like you comes along to straighten me out, how can I be anything but grateful?" Beryl watched his profile until she saw it soften. "I'd love to go anyplace you want to take me, don't you know that?"
Tom nodded with acquiescence. "I have a pretty bad temper once in a while. It's a good thing I decided not to study law."
"Is that what you wanted?" Beryl coaxed him on.
"I don't know any more. I had to stop thinking about it when Dad passed away and begin building up the image of being a corporation president" He swung the car onto a narrowing side road. "It makes me so damned mad, thinking of all the guys who deserve that job so much better than I do.
Guys who really worked. And here I am, the boss' son-"
"You have an admirable conscience, Tom," Beryl offered soothingly. "But not a very practical one. I don't think there's anyone who could maintain the company's morale as well as you can. People who need something to follow. The president's son and heir is something to stir feelings of loyalty." She saw Tom shake his head with sudden amusement. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No, you said everything right. But not too many people have that same point of view. Except Uncle Joe. I always thought he was out of date."
"And now you think differently?"
"I'm beginning to see that it's possible, anyway."
Beryl leaned her head against his shoulder. "I'm glad, Tom. I really am."
The car slowed and crunched over pebbles into a darkened parking lot sprinkled with a handful of automobiles. Through a clearing beyond, Beryl could see a bright ring of lights reflecting and shimmering on the surface of an oval lake. Three rowboats rocked at the water's edge and a tiny shack on stilts overlooked them. Tom led her down a steep path of wooden steps. He bought half a dozen crab sandwiches at the shack, then helped her into one of the rowboats.
"This isn't an aimless trip," he said, sliding the oars out and dipping them into the water.
"Knowing you, I wouldn't think so," Beryl responded, holding the bag of food on her lap.
The splash and drip of water made a rhythmic counterpoint to the boat's gliding movement. Soon it came aground on the opposite side of the lake. Beryl's curiosity began to grow as her shoes pressed pine needles into the earth and velvet petals brushed her arm. She expected to find the usual hunting cabin that people with money owned or a house like Flynn Hunterdon's, secluded and therefore convenient for wild orgies. Yet Tom Upjohn didn't fit her image of the wild type nor would he have the nerve to be so obvious. They reached a patch of grassland, cleared at the top of a hill. Beryl looked around her. Miles off, she could see clusters of bright lights that marked off villages nestled among hills and above her, the stars seemed closer then ever.
"Do you like it here?" Tom said, standing behind her.
"It's beautiful," Beryl sighed sincerely.
"My grandfather left me this piece of land. Someday I want to build a house on it."
Beryl took his hand. She understood what he was driving at. A slow warmth spread through her in response to Tom's insinuation. She wondered suddenly what type of girl he had known or if he had known any. Perhaps, and it thrilled her strangely, something had convinced him to believe in her. She turned and slipped her arms around his neck. "Tom," she whispered, "you're very nice." She felt the breath of his sigh against her neck. "The woman who marries you will count her lucky stars." She put her lips to his mouth to touch him lightly. She placed her thick tongue deep into his throat and grabbed the large prick that was hidden inside his pants.
"Well, Uncle Joe must know what he's doing, surely."
"Yes, for the good of Upjohn-but not for me."
"I'll bet you haven't given it a chance," she said with her mouth on his neck. He smelled vaguely of chlorinated water and it pleased her, in contrast with what she expected from Ranch Prince later on.
"I've given it every chance," he replied. "But it's just no go. I hate snobs, Beryl. Women who aren't real."
She put a finger to his lips, then pressed her mouth harder to his, letting her body yield softly and mold against the ridges of his muscle. It felt pleasant to be with a healthy young boy who still felt the passions of ideals.
In a few years, he would be ruined, she realized, by the pressures of tradition. "If I can help-" He grabbed her closely. He shoved his hardened cock into her groin and panted. He started to quiver. He was now ready for her. He stripped her nude and she did the same to him. They were both exposed and ready to fuck. She lay down and he crawled into the saddle. She put two fingers on top of his prick head and rubbed it softly. Then she took the thick hot rod into the palm of her hand and worked it up and down. It was hard and thick. She spread her legs up over his shoulders and he was on his knees directing that ten-inch cock to her wet cunt. He plunged into her, deep into her, and her legs were almost up over her head.
"That's it baby. Fuck my little dripping cunt. Jam that dick deep inside my hole." She was waving her hips back and forth for him. He pulled out hard and crammed that bitch back down to the floor.
"How does daddy's dick feel?" He looked deep into her eyes and came down to her mouth. She drew his tongue inside her throat and at the same time she pumped his meat in and out of her. He could feel her hot quim expanding as he crammed his dick to the left and to the right of her cunt.
"That's it honey! Cram it! Cram it and bang that thick pud all over my pussy"." She was giving him jetting motions with her beautiful thighs. She let her legs drop to the floor. She then pushed her heels hard, down onto the floor, and banged her cunt into his. solid rock dick. He could feel the hot fresh cream in his balls beginning to boil.
"Okay, baby, push that pussy of yours straight into my cock. Wave those nasty hips of yours. Oh sweet thing, it feels like heaven. Come on sweet bitch and bring my tall thick dick to grand slam come!" He was panting very hard now and she knew she was ready to drop her load of wet cunt juices onto his large hard prick.
"Come on baby. C'mon and rake that heavy dick of yours all over my cunt. Bang it baby. Slam it and cram deep inside. Oh hhoonneeeyy! Here I coommee. Oh baby, pump faster and harder!!!" She was going strong.
"Wait for me baby! Here comes daddy right behind you! Wave those hips. Oh sweet bitch. Ooohh shit, it's good!"
"Are you all right?" she said when they had separated.
"Yes. And you?"
"Fine, dear. Perfect." She sat up to stretch the muscles of her neck. "You know, I thought this was going to be the first time for you. But I was wrong, wasn't I?"
"Only in one respect," he said, reaching over to light her cigarette.
"I understand," she nodded, aware of what he meant. He had been with other women because he was supposed to, but none of them had made him feel what he had experienced tonight with her. Beryl knew that this strengthened her claim on him. She could do whatever she wanted with Tom Upjohn. "May I ask a question?" she said slowly.
"Oh course. Anything."
"Does Uncle Joe really control the business?" Beryl realized she was taking a chance and stroked his face while she spoke, in order to keep his mind clouded with the remnants of passion.
"Only until September. The provisions of the will make him my legal guardian until I graduate from college."
Beryl felt her senses beginning to ignite with a familiar tingle that wanted to reach out greedily to grasp all that Tom Upjohn had to offer. "And then it's all yours," she said softly, "to do with as you please. You don't have to marry anyone who doesn't please you, Tom. You'll be your own boss."
Beryl watched the words sink into him. No one had ever talked to Tom this way before.
No woman had tried to possess him with a selfishness that matched her own. She could imagine the Connecticut Miss who was supposed to become his wife. No doubt, she had plenty of her own money and didn't need Tom for anything except the perpetuation of family prestige. "Just a few short months," she urged, "and you won't have to listen to Uncle Joe anymore."
Her words were like machine gun bullets ripping through him, she saw, tearing him apart from his accustomed habit of thinking.
"We'd better be going," he said uneasily. "Your sister is probably wondering what happened to you."
Beryl stood up and fixed her clothing. She felt no need to force the issue with Tom. It was too premature anyhow. Let him think about it, she decided. Let the new possibilities take hold of his imagination. Let him become comfortable with the opportunity she was offering him. When they got back to the car, Beryl was debating with herself whether or not Tom Upjohn would be man enough to break away from his Uncle Joe's domination.
Snapping on the radio, she gave herself to the placid sense of relaxation that flowed through her body. There was no need to worry about Tom Upjohn. There were other fish in her net and Beryl felt certain that she was bound to land one of them.
When they reached the hotel again, she decided to get rid of Tom and see if she could search out Ranch Prince.
Just outside the hotel, she turned to Tom and put her fingertips up to his jacket lapel. "Will I see you again soon?" she cooed.
"Of course, Beryl. Whenever you say."
"It'll be easier for me to phone you," she spoke with apology.
He squeezed her hand. "I'll be here for another two weeks. Please call me soon."
Beryl watched him move through the lobby and disappear once again into the elevator. When the doors closed, he snapped off from her thoughts, leaving there a vacuum of emptiness. Beryl sighed. She felt strangely dirty and clean at the same time. The merry-go-round of man hunting rang hollow to remind her of a persisting emptiness-the space that Charlie McNaughton had occupied and refused to yield. Wondering if she might dare call him, she sauntered to the bank of phone booths. Recalling the image of his room, she remembered noting that he had no telephone. Yet that seemed like Charlie, aloof, disinterested. And even if she did call, what could they possibly have to say to each other? She sighed heavily as the situation appeared hopeless. To have Charlie meant that she had to give up everything else without a promise of reward. She would be a fool to throw away the opportunities that were beginning to knock.
"So there you are."
Ava's clipped words cut into Beryl's thoughts and she turned around with a heavy smile of acknowledgment. She felt in no mood for her sister just now.
"What happened to your boyfriend?" Beryl asked.
"Who needs it?" Ava's tone was acid. "You can imagine what he wanted, can't you?" She took Beryl's cigarette and lit her own from it. "So I told him this wasn't the month for free samples."
"Well, you got a good dinner out of it, so nothing's lost," Beryl tried to cheer them both up "And you?" Ava asked.
Beryl remained silent, deciding not to tell what had been happening to her. Ava could not understand the complexities of manipulation. She would only be horrified by a recounting of her affair with Tom Upjohn. Besides, it was too early in their relationship to be sure enough for discussion. "This is a good hotel," Beryl said finally. "I think we ought to stick around awhile."
"You mean tonight?"
"Yes."
"I see," Ava drawled, switching her purse from one arm to the other. "Exactly whom do you have in mind?"
"Don't be so hasty," Beryl grinned. "I'm not even sure his ex-wife has left yet."
Ava nodded. "One of those deals, eh?" She licked her lips as though to wipe away a sour taste. "You going into the broken hearts business?"
"Have you something better to offer?" They strolled through the lobby and found seats in front of a television set. The hour had just passed midnight and the shine had begun to wear off those who lingered. It seemed a good hour for picking up the lonely hangers on. The chronic drinkers. To Beryl, this was the prostitute's hour and she wanted no part of it. Still, she preferred to stay here rather than go back to the boarding house. Ranch Prince might wander through at any moment and she would snag him. There was no doubt in her mind that he had found her interesting. A rebound from his wife, of course, but this was not a situation requiring that she bring in her pride. What she wanted was a wedding ring and to hell with the social amenities. If, in the backwash of Ranch's discomfort, she could find a marriage band for herself, Beryl knew she would grab it gladly. After all, weren't any of these men better than a Flynn Hunterdon?
As she mused through these thoughts, Beryl's glance rested absently on the television set. The camera was focused in a close-up on the pianist doing a solo number and Beryl thought nothing of it till the shot plunged backward and she saw that the pianist was Charlie McNaughton. A jolt shot through her thighs and her nails dug into the chair arms. Dressed in a tux, he still looked wild and uncivilized. The rough, jagged line of his face set in concentration on the music. It seemed to Beryl that he didn't give a damn, that as far as he was concerned, he was still playing in the west side bar or even in his own room. Fascinated, she watched and then came to realize that the dive uptown he had mentioned to her was an expensive nightclub and that the show was being broadcast from there.
Distress and frustration shot razor edges of pain through her temples. Why hadn't he told her? And now, how could she go to him, without it seeming that she was coming back to spend the money his new job must be bringing in? She pressed dry lips tight against each other and felt the trap closing in on her more obviously than ever.
"Let's go home," Beryl said, not wanting to watch anymore. "I've suddenly got a splitting headache." For fear of revealing her fury to Ava, she got up quickly and started for the doors, hoping that by the time she reached the exit, she might gain control over herself.
When she got there, she saw Ranch Prince putting his wife into a cab. He turned, then saw her and started up the path in her direction. Why must it come all at once, she thought, her head spinning. But she could not stop the tide that seemed to be carrying her along and which threatened to dash her against the rocks of a destiny she alone had fashioned for herself.
Minutes later, Beryl stood introducing Ava to Ranch Prince, while her body seemed to be caught in a whirlpool that meant to drown her. Numb to the world outside, she acted out the role expected of her by these two people. And soon, she was moving back inside the hotel, joining with Ava a group of men who were Prince's cronies. Someone mentioned party and someone else mentioned gambling. Beryl let herself be swept through the lobby and upstairs into a suite of rooms. Liquor bottles came out of cabinets. Cards came out of a drawer. Money and drinks began to flow while Ava moved about, bending over a shoulder here and there to speak words of female encouragement Beryl realized that she could not go through with this night and keep her sanity. The sight of Charlie McNaughton had split her right down the middle. At any costs, she must have him, she knew, as her body trembled with a longing that would not subside.
Ranch handed her a glass and said, "Drink up," tilting his own with a single quick movement Beryl could sense that he was suffering the same frustration as herself and that this debauch with strange women was his way of escaping the pain. But she had no escape. Liquor would not kill her feelings. And no man could possess #her so completely as Charlie McNaughton. In her life, there could be no substitutes, no compromises or bargains that might enable her to go on living like a normal person. For here stood Ranch, wide open. She knew that she could have him, if only because he wanted to give himself away. All she would have to do would be reach out Offer him the slightest opening.
"I'm sorry, Ranch," she said and handed him back the glass.
She went to Ava, whispered for her to take advantage of Prince's condition, and left quickly, aware that she was going back to the city, willingly, to accept whatever might happen to her once she came face to face again with Charlie.
The few dollars in her purse paid for a cab to take her to the bus depot Holding a container of tepid coffee, she waited what seemed like hours for the next bus, then climbed on it, relieved that she had at least made up her mind to go all out for Charlie. You fool, she kept telling herself. Then another voice reassured her that there was nothing else in this world to be desired. The half empty bus jolted and creaked through the night, stopping every few miles at small stations to pick up vagrant passengers like herself. She did not try to sleep, but stared glumly out the dirty window to watch night shadows slide by. Her body seemed a thing apart and she could not feel if she were tired or wide awake. There was no tingling sensation to tell her, only the pall of a colorless dread warning her not to do this thing that she knew she must.
When the bus pulled into the city at last, every drop of energy had been drained from her. Her eyelids felt swollen and burning and her back ached from sitting in the same position these many hours. She had no room to go to and not enough cash to rent on. A streaked mirror showed her the reflection of a girl she barely recognized. Straggled hair and a rumpled dress made her look like a bum. Barely twenty-one, tonight she seemed years older. Who would want her like this? To whom could she go for the night and not be taken advantage of as a down and out slut? Ava's warnings echoed through her Head. The spinning sensation was not a whirlpool, but herself going rapidly down the drain. Where would it end? How could she stop herself? And the worst, most frightening part was the ruthless knowledge that she did not want to stop at all.
Devoid of pride or sense of self-preservation, she phoned Dennis Cahill and pleaded with him to lend her some money. His giggle told her that she had called the wrong person. He gave nothing for nothing.
"All right," Beryl conceded. "I'll come to your place. Be outside to pay for the cab."
Riding toward his poodle shop, she did not seem to care what she would have to go through in order to earn the cash and therefore the freedom to search out Charlie McNaughton later in the day. Without him, her body was worthless anyway. How she treated it did not much matter.
When the cab pulled up, Cahill was standing there, a cocoa brown poodle huddling in his arms. He paid her fare and led the way inside.
"You don't look well, my dear," he said.
Beryl heard the disappointment in his voice. For the first time in her life, she felt the fearful realization of being considered something less than a bargain.
"I've had a long ride," she said, trying to be light. "Let me take a shower, Dennis."
"Be my guest."
Crossing through the bedroom where she had found Ava, Beryl closed herself inside a glass doored shower. She felt ready to turn on the water with all her clothes still hanging from her. With a last effort of sanity, she stripped herself naked and gave herself to the warm needle flow. Her body felt like a sacrifice that must be rightly prepared.
When she had washed and dried and scented her flesh, she went to the bed and lay down among the flowered bedding.
"Are you ready, dear?" Dennis called.
"Yes."
He appeared at the doorway and she saw that he had changed to a ruby red kimona. Its three-quarter length sleeves made him seem even smaller and more slender than she knew he was.
"How exotic you are tonight," Beryl said, aware that compliments were expected of her.
"Just for you, my sweet one."
The bed creaked as he climbed onto it. His cool lips touched her leg, grazing up and down between her ankle and knee. He liked to take his time, touching here and there, looking, examining, discovering, exploring. Reaching for a flask of perfume, he dabbed some beneath her breasts and on the undercurve of her belly. An aroma of sandalwood rose from her flesh.
"Now you begin to be beautiful again," Cahill said.
She heard the slither of silk and knew that he sat naked on the bed. It was time to fuss over him, as though he too were one of the poodles. Beryl sat up and began to massage his back, letting her fingers knead the flesh with slowly languid motions. She took the bottle from him to pat drops of perfume on the back of his neck. To her, Cahill belonged in a different century of time or in the jungle where male animals preened. But who was she to judge another's preference? With her free hand, she scooped up the puppy that bounded among the bed linen and set it on the floor.
"Tell me," Cahill said as he turned to fondle her breasts, "what was it like with Flynn Hunterdon?"
"Painful," Beryl said. "You know how he mauled Ava-how he must have kicked and beat her."
"Yes, I watched that. But what did he do to you, dear? To you?"
Beryl stared into the expectant stare fixed on her raptly. "Everything," she whispered.
"Tell me, specifically."
"I don't want to remember it."
"Oh, you do. You do." Cahill's tongue darted from one corner of his mouth to the other. "Did he bite your breasts? Did he do that?"
"And more," Beryl said, managing to shudder. They were sitting crosslegged, touching each other knee to knee. Cahill had ready access to all parts of her body and his hands moved rapidly on her as they spoke.
"You don't look bitten," Cahill said, his voice filled with disappointment.
"I heal quickly," Beryl said. "It's the young flesh, you know. Resilient"
"Yes, of course. But he must have pinched you-here-and here, till you screamed?"
"Mmm-and here, too," she said, reached out suddenly to pinch Cahill along the inside of his thigh.
A shrill scream of pleasure came from him. He fell backward on the bed and ran the heel of one foot up and down on top of her thigh. "Lie on me," he said.
Beryl flung herself over to fall flat on his belly. She could hear the thundering of his heart that seemed to be ready to break through his thin chest. She could not tell where the scent of her flesh ended and his began, but it could make no difference. Tonight they were one. She despised herself as much as she despised him. No two people deserved each other more, Beryl told herself, as she slipped and slithered about to make Cahill groan with delight.
"Did he slap your buttocks?"
"Very hard."
"It stung, didn't it?"
"Oh, yes, for quite awhile. It brought tears to my eyes. I was almost crying."
"Poor child," Cahill sighed. "Poor, sweet little girl."
"And you know him, Dennis," Beryl said into his ear. "You know how large he is. He really hurt me, I tell you."
"When he did it?"
"That's right."
Cahill was stroking her behind now. "How many times?"
"Oh, I can't keep count. All I remember is how much it hurt me and used me up."
"But he didn't stop then?"
"No."
"He was insatiable?"
"A monster."
Beneath her, Cahill's body was winding up, growing tighter and smaller into a hard knot of growing desire. His knee bent and moved to rub along the inside of her legs, spreading her wide as she lay on him. "You want to do it again with him, don't you? Even though he hurt you?"
"I can't wait."
"You can't wait-" She felt his body pressure on her. She was ready to take his large cock into her wet pussy and bang away. She wanted to go very slow with his thick cock but he wanted a quick fuck and she wanted what he wanted.
He put his prick in between her legs and teased her with it. She grabbed his large cock-rocks and rubbed them and juggled them up and down in her hand. She watched his little pecker grow into a thick seething piece of big meat. She spread her legs into space and gave him clearance to start landing his hot jet right into her dripping cunt. He slid inside her and started pumping faster and faster. The walls of her cunt felt soft against his prick. "Push me in deeper baby, I am coming!!! Oh baby, that's it. Run this cock deep inside. Ooohh! Shit, it feels goooddd, oh baby, pump!!!"
Cahill sighed and rolled over. "That was nice," he said. "You really are quite good at this thing."
"Yes, I know," Beryl said. "I ought to make a business of it."
"That's what I've been telling you for months." Cahill yawned with satiety. "Ava's beginning to smarten up. I hope you are too, Beryl. You could make yourself a sizable bank roll-and I know that's what you're after."
Beryl slipped from the bed and began to dress. She had no intentions of sharing her private thoughts with Dennis Cahill. "If that's the case," she answered casually, "I trust you'll be generous with me." She turned and smiled at him with insinuation. "For an incentive-"
"I will, my dear," he replied eagerly and reached across to the pocket of his trousers.
CHAPTER SIX
The day had moved on to midmorning by the time Beryl left. She had fifty dollars in her purse. Enough to keep her going till she tracked down Charlie. On impulse, she hailed a cab and went to the nightclub, hoping that someone there could tell her where she might find him.
His photograph pinned to a billboard beside the canopy didn't even bother to smile and Beryl felt his impertinence emanating from it. The sight of it gave her courage. Already she felt closer to him. If need be, she would wait until tonight when he would appear on the stage again. Then she could see him, speak to him, throw herself at his feet if necessary.
Going inside, she found an old man busy mopping the floor. The room, long, narrow and only partly lit, was done in areas of black and white. Even without clientele, Beryl could feel the swank. He must be earning plenty, she thought, yet somehow this didn't matter at all. It never had with Charlie. The situation was ironic.
"Can I help ya, miss?"
"I hope so," she said gently, watching the man bend to wring out the mop. "I want to find Mr. McNaughton. Do you know where I can reach him?"
Shaking his head, he kept his eyes on the bucket of darkened water. "I'm only the janitor's helper, miss. You'll have to speak to Mr. Gerald for information like that."
"All right," Beryl said. "Where can I find him?"
"You might try his office round the corner. Number 967. He's on the second floor."
To go to so much trouble when only a few hours separated her from Charlie seemed out of proportion, yet Beryl felt a surging of impatience that she could not stop. She needed to be alone with Charlie, not have to share him with a crowd. And suddenly, she hated all the women who admired him, as though each were an obstacle that she would have to climb to reach him.
A typewriter clattered from behind a translucent door that marked Mr. Gerald's office. Inside, pictures of stars hung in thin black frames on a green wall that was peeling at the corners. When she finally stood across from the man who sat lolling in a chair behind an old desk and pushing a cigar stump from one side of his mouth to the other, she wondered that Charlie had the inclination to deal with him.
"Whatdaya do?" he said, squinting up and down her body. "Sing? Dance? You ain't bad lookin', kid, but I ain't got a single opening now. Try me in the Fall sometime."
"I didn't come for a job," Beryl said quietly. She felt her clothes being peeled right off while she spoke and she had to resist the temptation to cross her arms over her breasts for protection from his x-ray eyes.
"Oh now?" he said and his square, pudgy face wrinkled with interest.
"I'm looking for the whereabouts of someone who plays at the Seven Spades," she continued. "Charlie McNaughton. The cleaning man said you could tell me where to find him."
"McNaughton?" The raspy voice sounded incredulous. "What does a classy lookin' dame like you want with a crumb like him? Shit, he's a-"
"I didn't ask for your opinion," Beryl interrupted. "Just for his address."
Mr. Gerald nodded, moving his head in an oval that seemed to describe lechery. "Don't it happen every time, though," he mused. "All you women like to get it in the neck. Darned if I understand why." He sighed. "But okay, I guess. He shouldn't mind me sendin' up a chick like you."
With the address scribbled on a sheet of paper, Beryl restrained herself from running out of the office. Downstairs she looked at the number and realized that she had been right in predicting that Charlie would move to be closer to his job. A taxi took her all the way east and into a section of tenements similar to where he had lived downtown. What was there about Charlie, she wondered, that didn't want to live in comfort? She could see him ten years from now, doing all the better clubs, maybe having his own orchestra-and still living in a single room that stank from sweat and stale garbage.
There was only one missing name plate above the bank of bell buttons and Beryl assumed that it must be his. She rang it twice and waited for an answering buzz. When it came, she knew that he must realize that it was she and be waiting for her with an open door. Taking a breath, she clambered rapidly up the stairs.
"How do you always manage to find top floor apartments?" Beryl said breathlessly.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Dressed in a black tee shirt and black slacks, he looked like a shadow sprouting flame. The unruly hair curled down over his wrinkled forehead and Beryl realized with a shudder that he wasn't glad, especially, to see her.
"I caught your act last night," she said honestly. "So I couldn't resist coming to congratulate you."
"Still with the com," Charlie said, barely stepping back as she entered the narrow foyer that led into three rooms of a railroad apartment The flowered linoleum that covered all the floors seemed like a purposeful assault upon good taste, but the place smelled of ammonia and looked dustless. Beryl passed by a cubbyhole of a room stuffed to completion by a double bed. Beyond it, another, larger room with two windows that faced out onto a sooty brick wall seemed to be the living room, she decided, because it contained two upholstered chairs, an empty bookcase painted with black glossy paint and a large wooden cabinet that must have been a radio a long time ago.
"How comfortable we are," Beryl offered, sitting down without an invitation. "What makes you so expansive all of a sudden, Charlie? Did success go to your head?"
"If this is the mood you're in," Charlie said, sitting down on the windowsill and watching her, "you might as well leave right now."
His words made Beryl go cold. She felt suddenly that she had come here not to visit, but to stay forever. Life had been a nightmare without him and she didn't want to return to that, ever again. "I thought you might be glad to see me," she said.
"Why?"
Beryl shrugged to fend off the blows of his nonchalance. "For old time's sake," she persisted. "Aren't we friends yet, Charlie?"
"Hah!"
"Well, congratulations, anyway," Beryl said, deciding not to let his derisive attitude wear her down. "You played well and you looked good. You'll be a success despite yourself."
"That's what Gerald tells me, but I don't believe it."
"You'll have to get used to the idea sometime, you know," Beryl said, taking out her cigarettes and tossing the package to him. "Not if I can help it."
"But you can't, Charlie, that's the whole point. I know how you hate the idea of ambition or even getting paid for what you do at all. But facts are facts. And you're not the misfit you like to think you are."
"Determined little bitch, aren't you? He lit one of her cigarettes and returned the package, letting it arc over to her lap.
"I'm only telling you what I see."
"Well, it's all done with mirrors, Beryl. Never forget that. If I start licking around after fame and dough, it's just going to run away. Pretend you don't know and it all rushes in on you. It's some kookie law of nature I once read about."
"Call it what you want."
"Thanks for the permission."
They looked at each other then and Beryl saw something begin to glimmer in his eyes. Her spine relaxed against the lumpy chair cushion as she realized that he was indeed glad to see her. In his own way, of course. Nothing affectionate, nothing that required him to make a gesture to demonstrate his feeling. Only a quiet flame, glowing there all by itself and requiring no acknowledgment.
"I missed you, Charlie," Beryl said, knowing she had to say it first. "Whenever I turn around, I find myself thinking about you. Wondering what's happening."
"To bad," he said. "That could put you at a disadvantage."
"Not unless you're out to do me dirt." Beryl crossed her legs. "And I don't think you are, Charlie."
"You don't?"
"Oh, stop testing, me, for heaven's sake." She flicked ashes onto the linoleum. "I'm not a jungle cat waiting to pounce the minute you have your guard down."
"Yeah? And how do I know that?"
"You take my word for it."
Charlie flicked his cigarette stub out the window. Beryl realized that she hadn't convinced him.
"Tell me," she continued. "What could I do that would make you trust me?"
"Nothing."
The stone wall again, she felt. Rising irrevocably around him. Cutting Charlie off forever from every offer of love she could give. Yet, perhaps he was right Perhaps he was simply made that way by nature. Supposing he couldn't trust anybody, did that prevent her from finding love in his arms? Beryl got up and went to him. She reached above his head and drew down the window shade. Holding his face between her hands, she felt the stubble of his beard just beginning to come through to rub her palms.
"I can't help myself, Charlie," she said. Then she leaned over and kissed him.
It happened just the way she had dreamed it would all during the bus ride and during her venture with Dennis Cahill. She felt Charlie's arms tensing. He lifted her off her feet and carried her backward into the center of the living room. Circling dizzily within an eddy of passion, she could not tell which one of them got her clothes off. She knew simply the cool nakedness of her body brushing and yearning toward his answering. body. It felt right and true, the two of them together, squeezed tight in the semi darkness of the hallway, surrounded by blank walls that seemed to cut them off from all humanity and cradle them together.
She felt the rough plaster rub against her shoulders and down her spine. Her flesh felt as though it were being clawed at by a cat that had landed while she was not watching. Perhaps this was how Charlie felt about all things, all people.
"Let me love you," Beryl said, knowing her words were hopeless, useless.
Charlie stopped her with his mouth. His hands moved down along her sides, clutching her hard and bringing her forward to him at the hips. She wondered if she had the strength to remain standing up. But she had to have it, she had to be able to do anything he wanted or demanded of her. Maybe in that way, she might yet prove herself to him and be able to reach across the moat that surrounded her heart and touch him where it counted.
"You came at the wrong time," Charlie said.
"Why?"
"Because I could finish you off now. I'm in that kind of a way."
"Then do it," Beryl pleaded. "Do it and be damned. I have no use for cowards and I'm sick of myself, if you want to know the truth. All my life I've been looking for something-and it turns out to be you." She spoke breathily against his chest. "So that's my misfortune, but you don't see me trying to deny it."
"Oh, no?" Charlie's answer seemed noncommittal.
"I don't know what else you think of me," Beryl urged. "But one thing you'd better know. I'm dead serious with you, Charlie. I've known a lot of men in my day and if you know the first thing about women, you'd see that I was on the level with you."
"Whatever that means."
"It means that I'm not out to make a sucker of you. Take your money, make you work to buy me mink coats. If I wanted that, I could have it, my friend. From men who could give it to me a lot easier than you could."
"If you're so darned on the level as you say," Charlie's voice was oddly innocent, "what makes you think to mention it in the first place?"
For an instant, Beryl felt stumped. She clung to him for fear that his very question would slip out of her arms and away. "Because that's how your mind works," she answered at last.
"But it doesn't," he replied. "I didn't have a single idea like that until you put it there."
"Well, all right then," Beryl blurted with a surge of exasperation. "So you know what I am. What I'm out for." She tried to pull away from him.
"That's better," Charlie said, nodding his head calmly. "Try to play the Miss Innocent with me and I'll stop you every time. But come on with the truth and I'll accept you. I don't care what it is, so long as it's honest, understand me? I've seen hookers like you before. Dozens of 'em. And I know how you spend your time. It's written all over you. The way you walk. Dress. Hold yourself. And the way you look at me. That phony don't-to uch-me look. It's like cellophane, honey, and I can see right through to the rotten heart beneath."
Beryl closed her eyes. She leaned her cheek against his chest and felt that he had begun to perspire. For all he seemed so calm, but she understood that he was annoyed and it gratified her. Better that he should feel something, anything, than be indifferent. "Nobody kicks a dead dog," she whispered more to herself than to Charlie.
"The smart ones don't, that's for sure."
Beryl ran the tip of her tongue along his chest, hoping that he had finished talking for now. Between them, words always managed to get in the way and muddy her intentions. They had an instinctive understanding. Why spoil it with arguments?
Raising herself on tiptoe, she pulled his head down to her mouth. A need to devour him, to consume him and make his maleness part of her own body overwhelmed her. She had gone through hell to get him. She must never lose him again.
"Must we stay here, standing up?" she whispered. "I don't think I can bear it." Her voice trembled.
He took her blouse off ignoring her plea about standing. He put his hands on her pointed tit nipples. She fell against his growing dick and started to pull at his meat. She started to open his pants. His cock was free.
He pushed back onto her tits and slid inside her clothing to find her wet cunt box. She slid her hips up and down on his exposed dick and he now felt her hard clit with his finger.
"That's it," she said, "that's the place baby. Rub that hard little fucker. Get it good and hard." She squirmed and squeezed his cock head. While his finger tortured her clit, her knees buckled from standing and she thought she would fall "Come on baby. Hold that dripping pussy of yours straight Hold it steady and straight so your lover can stick his hard cock inside," he moaned. She guided his hard rock cock into her cunt. She knelt down so it was easier for him to get his dick in.
"That's it honey. Bend a little more. It's in! Oh, now pump it baby."
They humped each other standing there. She pushed her hips in and out so she would meet every inch of his love stick. She didn't want one inch of it to go to waste.
"Oh baby, slam that hot rod into your bitch's wet beaver. Cmon honey, pump that dick into my dark wet cave. Ooohh sweet meat! I'm coming, oohh! Shit honey, it feels sssooo good!!" she screamed.
"Don't let go sweet thing. Daddy is ready to blow his river into your cunt! Oh honey, here comes my hot cream!" He mumbled and shuddered against her in convulsive movements. The couple came and their passion became sweet ecstasy. He left his hot dick inside her for a while. Then, when it faded completely, he lifted it out slowly and sighed. Her body seemed a long tunnel going from nowhere to nowhere. And in mid space a force exploded, scattering her wide. On the screen of her closed eyelids, shrapnelled bits of color made a beauty that became her whole reason for being.
Afterward, she struggled to stay awake, but a peaceful perfection soothed her into sleep. She flung out one arm to touch him, to assure herself that he would stay here with her for as long as she might need him. They lay down and went to sleep.
"Charlie?" Her eyelids fluttered open. A dark silence swam up, greeting Beryl with emptiness. She bolted upright and kicked out one foot across the bed where he had lain. "Charlie," her voice came louder. She slipped to the cold linoleum and went to peer out into the hallway. There were no lights and no answer. She sighed, remembering that he had a job to do, that he must be at the Seven Spades right now, sitting at the grand piano, cool as a mint julep and casual. Switching on a ceiling bulb, Beryl searched out her clothing and examined the condition of her dress. She knew she could not wear it, in its wrinkled and damp condition, to the nightclub. Frantically she sought in all the closets, hoping against hope to find an iron, yet knowing that Charlie, of all people, would not own such a thing.
She found one of his shirts and a pair of his pants. Rolling up the sleeves and the cuffs, she went into the hall outside and knocked on the door of the nearest neighbor. A fat old woman who smelled of sauerkraut invited Beryl to come inside and iron her dress there. Gratefully, Beryl accepted, while the woman went about smoothing ancient doilies over chair arms of pale plush green.
"You're the new couple that moved in?"
Beryl nodded.
"Just married?"
Beryl nodded again. She could not avoid the woman's inquisition nor did she dare tell the truth. This was an old tenement, Beryl knew, and filled with respectable people like this woman.
"I wish you good luck."
"Thank you," Beryl smiled easily. What difference could a lie make? It was convenient and it would keep all the narrow minds happy with a minimum of talk. Beryl finished the ironing and went back to Charlie's apartment.
Hurriedly, she dressed, then went down stairs and cabbed to the Seven Spades.
The long, narrow room had already begun to fill. An army of waiters moved adroitly among the arrivals, carefully setting drinks from tiny trays to tables. She looked around, but could not find Charlie. On the raised stage, a buxom woman glittering in a sequined dress belted songs into a microphone. Her high, teased hair, bleached white, reflected the pale spot lighting. Beryl moved quickly toward the back of the room, hoping that she could get through to find Charlie in his dressing room.
"You want something, lady?"
She looked up at the bulky man blocking her way. "I'm looking for Mr. McNaughton."
"He'll be on in ten minutes. Just have a seat, there's plenty of tables."
"No, I'd like to speak with him."
"I'm sorry. Nobody goes back there."
Beryl heard the immovable tone. "Will you give him a message for me?"
"Sure."
She scribbled her name on a piece of paper and folding it, pressed it into his palm along with a five dollar bill.
The man looked at the bill and shook his head. He seemed to hesitate, then shoved the money into his pocket. She watched him turn around and retreat into the area forbidden to her.
Some few minutes later, he returned. "He says he'll see you later. After the first set."
Beryl probed the man's expression and felt helpless before it. She drifted back to the lineup of tables and found herself an obscure nook where no one would see or bother her.
"Scotch and water, please," she told the waiter. Her stomach felt empty, but she did not have the calm that would allow her to eat. A knotted ball, her stomach seemed to be on guard against an unseen enemy. Nonsense, she told herself, yet her spine remained rigidly alert, pressed to the leather backing. She had often been in bars like this one during the months before she met Charlie and now, from force of habit, her gaze began to wander over the masculine faces surrounding her. Because she was sitting alone and drinking alone, she was not surprised to discover that some of the men were looking back at her with curiosity. What would be Charlie's reaction, she wondered, if he came out and found her to be the center of attention? Would he stop taking her for granted? Would he be jealous, somewhere deep inside himself? Would his instinct of possession rise and give him the incentive to come claim her? These questions, sticky and unanswered, impelled her toward discovery. And besides, if she intended to stay close to Charlie, she would need cash of her own to float her through time. Not all men were as repulsive as Dennis Cahill or as complex as Flynn Hunterdon. If she could find a single source of supply that she could handle easily, why not?
Beryl allowed a soft, inviting smile to suffuse her features in reply to the inquiry coming at her from a stocky man with a moustache. She watched him beckon to the waiter and whisper some words into his ear. The waiter came toward her. "Pardon me, miss, but the gentleman over there would like to buy you a drink."
"Thank him for me," Beryl said instantly, "but tell him, please, that I have an appointment with someone I'm waiting for."
The waiter's brief glance was impersonal, yet it seemed to reflect an elusive disbelief. "That's Mr. Broome, you know," he added surreptitiously. "Edgar Broome?"
Beryl understood and she felt her cheeks pale. They were taking her for a whore already. Two minutes alone in a bar and she had a reputation. What was it Charlie had said? That she looked like a hooker? The way she walked and dressed. "I'm sorry," Beryl replied with heat. "But I do have a previous appointment."
A cold satisfaction seeped through her as she watched the waiter back off and go to deliver her message. They had no right to take her for granted, these vultures, Beryl told herself. She fixed her gaze on the singer, deciding to give Mr. Broome a very distinct cold shoulder.
The song was coming to its last rally of chords. In a moment she would be off and Charlie'd be sitting at the piano. Beryl sipped her drink, then finished it with an impulsive swallow. She ordered another one, then, to pass the time that seemed to be rebelliously stretching out into eons.
A round of soft applause blossomed for the singer as Beryl attacked her second drink. The cold glass felt irritating against her hot fingertips. She knew that she could reach out with the nervousness vibrating through her hands and strangle any man who dared come near her. She wished, suddenly, that she could become invisible or just another statistic in the annals of human fate. And then, from behind a drape of dark blue curtain, she saw a curly redhead emerge. Her anger paled and washed away. She knew only the intensity of her own staring as she struggled to keep herself from running across the room to him and burying her troubles against that jetty of human strength. Nervously, she waited for his glance to flick around the room and find her. with his acknowledgment of her presence, she would be safe again, secure and protected from the conflict of temptations. She jiggled the glass and heard the ice cubes rattle. But Charlie kept his eyes on the piano. He sat down and leaned slightly over the piano, to slouch comfortably as he had been the first time she had seen him.
The music started and Beryl knew that she was lost again. He had seen the note. He knew she was here, less than twenty feet away. Yet she might as well be in China for all he cared. The cold reality of his denial met her. She was nothing to him. Nothing but a piece of female cunt. He could live without her without a qualm. Beryl sank back into a dark pit of loneliness, aware that she could wait here forever for Charlie and that he would never come to claim her love. She ordered a third drink and then a fourth, while she cursed the piano that he was touching. With a sudden impulse of hate and helplessness, she turned to seek out Edgar Broome. He, at least, was looking at her. Paying her the compliment of his attention that told her she really was alive and worth knowing. She smiled at him openly and let her eyes tell him that she would accept his offer.
With satisfaction, Beryl watched him stand up and excuse himself from the other two men at the table. With a light stride, he crossed the room unobtrusively and slid onto the seat beside her.
They were about the same height, Beryl noted, and his face, on a level with hers, was easy to look at. The dark, fine moustache lined a full mouth that had a good humored tilt at each corner. Above this, a small nose and round eyes completed the pleasant appearance. She could smell the sweetish odor of grooming liquid that held his hair back. He seemed perhaps ten years older than herself-and at the same time, ten years younger.
"Would you like something to eat?" he said as the waiter approached them.
"All right," Beryl answered, speaking from past experience that warned her to put something solid into her stomach before the whiskey knocked her off balance. "A chicken sandwich'll be fine."
"Come along," Edgar said. "Try the frogs legs. They're famous for it."
"Fine," Beryl rejoined agreeably. It could make no difference what she ate. Nothing mattered really, except that Charlie should discover that she had a willing escort.- She could hardly wait for him to spot Edgar Broome lavishing his attentions on her. She hoped that Charlie would split a gut inside.
"That's a fine pianist," Edgar said, as though following the direction of her thoughts.
Beryl turned in her seat just enough to cut Charlie out of her vision. "Is he?" she said.
The food came and she stabbed bits of meat with the tines of a small fork. She noticed that Edgar wasn't trying to sit too close. There was no knee rubbing or furtive exploring of her body beneath the table. She was longing for an explanation.
"How do you like it?" he said, pointing to her dish.
"Delicious," Beryl said, although she could barely taste a thing. Her mouth seemed filled with cotton batting and she could just distinguish between warm and cold. The vital centers of her being seemed to have snapped off, leaving loose ends that hung limply without a central source of energy. Yet, at the same time,' she felt imbedded deeply within a pit of rage. Mechanically, she got the food into her until the" plate was half empty. She had consumed enough to absorb the liquor, but she still teetered with precarious balance. "Why don't we go somewhere else?" she said suddenly. "It's so smoky in here." Each word was an electric shock that wanted to propel her out of the Seven Spades before Charlie had his chance to ignore her openly after his portion of the show. She dreaded facing the moment when he would step down from the stage to go to the bar or back to the dressing room, without so much as a nod or a glance in her direction.
"Good idea," Edgar said. He signed the check that the waiter brought while Beryl stood up and hurried to the door.
The night air was like a slap that awakened Beryl to her futility. She had come running all the way back from the country to be with Charlie. They had fucked as one. His cock had melted into the hotness of her pussy, their come running together.
No two people could be closer than they had been. What more could she do that would break through Charlie's wall of nonchalance toward her? Linking her arm through Edgar's, they strolled around the corner to where his car was parked in a lot across the street from the rear entrance of the Seven Spades.
"I'll wait here for you," Beryl said, still hoping that Charlie might come out for a cigarette and, finding her alone, be forced to talk to her. But he did not come-and Edgar's dark green Lincoln stood waiting. Beryl rushed to its open door and climbed inside, giving herself to the futility of her predicament.
"We'll make the rounds," Edgar said. "I don't get out for a good time very often."
"You look like every minute of your life is a good time," Beryl offered, watching his relaxed movements and easy going manner in contrast with Charlie's intense solitude.
"I like my work," Edgar said with a small laugh. "Lots of challenges to keep the mind occupied. All sorts of people, litigations. I guess I have a barrel of fun, in my own way."
"Why aren't more men like that?" Beryl mused. "Obviously, it doesn't take a serious, grim attitude to be successful."
"Who can speak for anyone else?" Edgar said mildly. "Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones." He pushed in the dashboard lighter as Beryl took out a cigarette. "Now, you put all those philosophical questions out of your pretty head and have a good time with me tonight. Is that a deal?"
"Why not?" Beryl laughed.
She let him take her to all the clubs, the brassy ones where they danced, the intimate ones where they listened to the best entertainment. She saw that no matter how much Edgar drank, his words and his actions remained cool. When they danced, his hands remained where they belonged, as though Edgar's innate respect for himself transferred into his treatment of her. This was something new for Beryl and she enjoyed the compliment. The hard core of shame and tense greed had somehow dissolved. She found herself talking to Edgar, telling him bits and pieces of her life.
When they had closed the last bar, Edgar said, "I'll take you home." Beryl threw up her hands. "Edgar, you're the perfect gentleman and I wish I were a lady to match," she said lightly. "But the truth is, I don't have a place to stay tonight. Really-"
"I don't understand," Edgar said, leaning against the door of his car.
Beryl knew that to tell him the truth would only spoil the illusion. This was a night out of Cinderella. Something to cherish as a keepsake memory. What would it matter to bend the truth a little? "I came back to town just a few days ago and I've been staying with a friend."
Edgar nodded. Silently, he put her back into the car. "Where does your friend live?" he said in a low voice.
Beryl knew that she was trapped and at the same time, she realized that Edgar had no intention of getting back his money's worth for the night. Taking a breath for courage, she gave him Charlie's address.
"This might seem weird to you," Edgar said, "but I'd like to see you again. Soon. I hope my leaving you untouched tonight hasn't ruined your expectations. But you see, it increases mine."
"I'll be glad to see you any time you like, Edgar. You've been very good and sweet. I've enjoyed myself for the first time in I don't know how long and that's the truth." While she spoke, Beryl stared through the windshield. They were coming into Charlie's neighborhood. It was possible that he might be strolling home and she did not want the two men to see each other.
"Here we are," Edgar said,. pulling the car up to the curb in front of Charlie's house. He reached into his wallet and drew out a small card. "My phone number's on this. Will you call?"
"Of course," Beryl said, swinging the door open. "Please don't bother to get out."
Slamming the door, she opened her purse to drop Edgar's card inside, sensing that he would watch until she had climbed the stoop and let herself into the house.
As she looked up, it seemed to Beryl suddenly that Charlie McNaughton must be a devil and not human at all. He was sitting on the stoop, the glow of a cigarette stub dangling between his knees. Beryl closed her eyes and swallowed. For an instant she stood uncertain and still, as she felt herself caught between Charlie fucking her cunt and Edgar buggering her ass-both of them staring right through her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maybe I can just run up the stairs, Beryl thought wildly. Maybe he's angry enough to. let me keep right on going. Maybe- She passed Charlie and started to take the first step up. Then she sensed his arm shooting out and his fingers grabbed her wrist. She spun around and stumbled down the step, braced from falling by Charlie's strength.
"Hey," Edgar's voice shot from the car.
"Let go of that girl." The car door slammed and he bounded across the sidewalk. A fit shot out and caught Charlie on the jaw.
Charlie's head tilted slightly with recoil. "Don't waste your time on this one, mister," he said coolly.
Beryl, distracted, stared from one to the other, forgetting to struggle to free her arm. She shut her eyes as Edgar's fist shot out again.
"All right," Charlie said, "if that's the way you want it." The bulk of his arm jackknifed as his fist slammed out. Its force lifted Edgar into the air. He staggered backward and a gurgling sound came from his throat just before he crumpled to the sidewalk. Charlie let go of Beryl's arm. He bent to Edgar and dragged him by the armpits back to his car. Opening the back door, he dumped- Edgar inside. "I didn't kill him," he said to Beryl. "In a few minutes, he'll come to and drive himself quietly home."
"But why?" Beryl breathed. "Why did you have to do that?"
Charlie grinned. "Nobody tells me what to do. Especially not little fat men who think they own the world because they drive around in big, shiny cars."
"Then it's got nothing to do with me," Beryl said sadly. *'I thought you might be fighting for-for-" She could not find a word that would not look silly in the face of Charlie's nonchalance.
"Your honor?" he said.
And now for the first time since they had met, Beryl heard him roar out in laughter. In the pale, torpid light of a streetlamp, he seemed like a statue that had been carved from the rock of a mountain and come to life. Involuntarily, Beryl recoiled from the sound that tore her open and spilled her guts out. Yet she stood there, hypnotized by the mystery of him, unable to run away or toward this demon.
"Let me go," she whispered hoarsely. "Let me go."
"I'm not holding you," Charlie said. He lifted his hands. "You're free as the wind, Beryl."
Realizing this, Beryl subsided. She didn't have a single excuse with which to accuse him. And still, she felt that he held her prisoner with invisible bonds that she herself had tied. "I hate you," she rasped. "Hate you."
She flung herself into the front seat of Edgar's Lincoln and drove the car away with a roar, heading into Central Park to circle round and round its winding paths. Her vision was a blur and her foot pressed down too hard on the gas pedal, so that the tires shrieked as they clung to the sharp curves. Minutes later, she saw Edgar's reflection in the rear view mirror as he sat up, rubbing his jaw and blinking.
"What happened?" he said. "Where are we going?"
"I don't know," Beryl wailed. "I don't know anything. Oh, please take me home with you, Edgar. I don't care what you think of me for asking this. But I can't stay alone tonight. Can you understand me?"
"Yes, yes. But slow down, will you, before you get us both killed."
"Maybe that doesn't matter either," she sobbed. "Maybe even if I were dead, he'd haunt me. Oh, how I hate him."
Edgar leaned forward. She felt his arm grip her shoulder. "Now, get hold of yourself. You don't know what you're saying, Beryl. Just pull over to the side there-That's a good girl."
Beryl made herself stop the car. Edgar got out and came around, moving her gently to the side seat and driving off again. "That man is the pianist, isn't he? At the Seven Spades? I recognized that hair." He swung the car out of the park and drove down Central Park West. "He's the man you were waiting for, isn't he, Beryl?"
Beryl covered her face with her hands. "I never want to see him again, Edgar. Take me someplace, will you? I don't care where. Just get me away from him-"
"It's all right," Edgar soothed. "He packs a hard wallop there. I can see what you see in him."
"I'm a fool, that's all. He's nothing but a self-centered, unfeeling demon."
"No doubt,". Edgar smiled. "But I daresay that has nothing to do with your frustration."
"Oh, you can't understand the half of it."
"Maybe not," he replied. "But any man who can work a girl into such a fury as yours, Beryl, has my admiration." He fell silent for a few moments and the car rolled quietly on. "Maybe I can help you," he said.
"Help me?" Beryl's laugh was bitter. "Why should you want to waste your good time on my stupidity?"
"I don't know," Edgar said. "Let's say I happen to like you a little."
"You mean, I remind you of your dead grandmother or somebody."
"No, not at all," Edgar smiled.
"Then don't be silly. Don't waste your time on my troubles. All I want is to stay with you for the night, till I calm myself down. Then I won't bother you any more. You've been more than good to me already."
"All right," he said. "I'll take you home, if that's what you really want" Beryl sighed with relief and subsided into a silent doldrum. The bottom of her world had fallen out, to leave her suspended in the middle of a vast emptiness. There seemed nothing to do or to hope for. Whenever she turned to Charlie, he managed to push her away. She could not continue beating her head against the stone wall of his indifference. And yet, she didn't quite know why, she knew that Charlie in his own way did care for her.
"Here we are," Edgar said. "Let's see if we can make you comfortable."
Contritely, Beryl stood beside him as they rode up to the top floor of a large apartment house. Edgar opened the door and snapped on lights to reveal a panoramic view of the city twinkling random lights here and there through the darkness. The furnishings were done in a simple, classic style that seemed right for Edgar. Nothing loud. Nothing obvious. Every chair looked comfortable and welcoming.
"Sit down," he said. "I'll get something to calm your nerves."
Obediently, Beryl let herself go limp into the deep cushions of a wing chair and stared into the dead ashes of a fireplace that took up one wall. She, too, felt burned out and light enough to blow away into oblivion. Only she was not so lucky as these ashes. She could not simply rise through the flue and disappear into a peaceful sky. Though she had come to Edgar for refuge, Beryl realized that no one on earth could console her or protect her from the ravages of her own private passion.
"Here," he said behind her. "Take this and drink it down."
Beryl accepted the glass and gulped a bitter taste.
"You'll sleep soon," Edgar said. "Come, let me show you where."
She followed him past many rooms till they stood on the threshold of one furnished in shades of rose and tan. "It looks peaceful," she said.
"Good. Now, make yourself at home. I'll see you in the morning."
Before Beryl could answer, he moved her inside and pulled the door closed between them.
Beryl closed her eyes for a long moment and tried to imagine why Edgar was showing so much consideration. There was a limit, after all. And no matter how kind his nature, they were still strangers to each other-and she a mere pick-up that did not deserve such care and attention. A small bath off the bedroom looked inviting. Beryl went into it and let water run to fill the tub. She wished she could throw her clothes away and her skin along with them. Every trace, of her being seemed a reminder of Charlie. How could she forget him when her very flesh burned where she had been branded by the searing entrance of his savage cock? Pulling off her things, she lowered her aching body into the tub and rested her head back against a rubber pillow suspended from its edge. This was the life, she thought. All the comforts. If she were smart, she would devote herself to cultivating the man who was providing all these comforts. She slipped a finger into her vagina. What difference would it make? It was true he inspired no response in her but wasn't gratefulness enough? And security? And the fulfillments of a decent life?
The wash cloth felt soft and fluffy to her hand. She rubbed a cake of creamlike soap, then smoothed the lather over her arms and shoulders and breasts. She let her legs float up on the water that was stroking her and raining off the tensions. Like a sleepwalker, her movements seemed to happen without the need of her will. She rinsed, dried and wandered to the bed. Her limbs, so heavy and sluggish, were responding, she realized, to the medication Edgar had given her.
Her eyes were shut fast with sleep almost before her head sank into the depths of the pillows.
So soon?
Touches of sunlight probed in through the Venetian blinds to prod Beryl awake. She lay beneath the covers, feeling slept out and somehow empty as she had pieced together what had happened and where she was. Glancing over the room's soft and tasteful furnishings, she knew that it had been decorated for a woman, that a woman must have lived here once and Beryl wondered idly whose place she was taking in this bed. Perhaps later on Edgar would tell her, if she really searched to find out Yawning and pulling the covers tightly around her shoulders, Beryl knew that she didn't really care. She had enough troubles of her own and Edgar didn't seem the type to need her sympathy.
"Yes, come in," she said to a gentle knocking at the door.
It opened, revealing not Edgar, but a small woman in a starched blue uniform. She was wheeling before her a breakfast cart that shone with the gleaming meal of a small coffee pot.
Beryl pushed herself up along the pillows. "Is Mr. Broome awake yet?" she asked. "He's gone, ma'am, some hours ago."
"Oh?" Beryl yawned again, not wanting to get out of bed, ever. "What time is it?"
"Near noon, ma'am." She lifted out a bed tray and set it across Beryl's lap. "Just ring if you need something. I'll be in the kitchen."
"Thank you," Beryl said and waited till the woman had gone before she moved the tray back to its cart and hopped out of bed. So Edgar had left her alone here, which meant that he trusted her. Beryl shrugged, trying to decide whether he was simply casual or foolish. Perhaps he was used to having women stay over and sleep late. The maid certainly hadn't seemed surprised by her presence. Taking a cup of black coffee to the telephone, she fished out Edgar's number and dialed.
"Good morning," she said brightly. "I wanted you to know that I've come to."
"Come to what?" Edgar's voice was light with amusement.
"My senses, I hope," Beryl answered.
"Good," he said. "Will you meet me for lunch?"
"I haven't even had breakfast yet."
"All right, meet me for breakfast, then. Say, in about an hour?"
"Edgar," Beryl's voice was soft. "I know you'll think this is silly, but I really have no clothes to wear."
"That's simple. Try the closet in the dressing room. Take anything that pleases you."
"I'll see you downstairs?"
"Just inside. Near the newsstand."
"I'll be there."
Beryl hung up and went to roll back the closet doors. She stood in silence before the selection of clothes that faced her. Looking for something simple, she tried a cotton print dress and discovered that it fit well enough when she notched in the belt. Whoever had worn these things had been well built, probably with a large frame. An older woman, perhaps, who had matured without becoming dumpy. Satisfied that she looked well, Beryl sidled out to find the maid and discovered her dusting the books on ceiling high shelves in the living room.
"Do you recognize this dress?" Beryl said. "Yes, ma'am."
"Would you tell me who owned it?"
"Well, no one in particular, ma'am. Mr. Broome is always bringing home female clothes. Sometimes he gives a few pieces to me, too. He's a fine person, ma'am."
Beryl did not press the topic further. Perhaps this woman was sworn to secrecy, perhaps she was speaking the truth. But there was no way to discover which was which and Beryl controlled her own curiosity rather than waste time probing about things that could make no difference.
"Just press the buzzer for the car, ma'am, and it'll be waiting for you by the time you get downstairs."
"Thank you," Beryl answered vaguely, aware that this woman knew all about the plans and proceedings for the day. Feeling transparent but without shame, Beryl left the apartment. After all, she consoled herself, nothing had happened yet between herself and Edgar Broome that the world could not see.
She came outside onto the street in time to see the green Lincoln being backed out of a basement garage. The man in striped overalls grinned as he held the door open for her. Beryl lifted her chin to ignore him, but she felt like part of a parade that trooped in and out of Edgar Broome's apartment.
Nothing, however, could dampen a determination not to sink into depression. She owed it to Edgar, and to herself, to remain optimistic and firm in her resolve to beat this thing about Charlie McNaughton. She couldn't be the only woman in history to be bitten by this rabid bug of love. Why let it get her down?
As she stood in the lobby waiting beside the newsstand for Edgar, Beryl put on her best smile and pulled herself tall. When she saw him step from the elevator, she waved jubilantly and watched his smile answer hers.
"Feeling better?"
"Much." Beryl linked her arm through his. "Where are we going?"
"Oh, a nice little place. They're all jammed at this hour, but you look like you could take anything today, Beryl."
"Well, I slept well, thanks to you. And the service was royal."
"And you look beautiful in that dress."
Beryl felt her cheeks warm with a blush. "Let's stop talking about me for a change. I'm tired of the subject."
"Resilient youth," Edgar laughed. "Last night you were ready to kill yourself."
"Not really," Beryl protested. "I just tend toward dramatics." She kept her stride swinging in step with his. "Believe me, it's all forgotten. Everything, that is, except your kindness." The noontime rush and flow circulating through Rockefeller Plaza exhilarated her as she became part of the crowd. With opportunity surrounding her, with Edgar Broome, with everything so close that she could actually reach out and touch it, the ghost of Charlie McNaughton seemed to have blown away into a night wind. A bright sun dispelled all gloom and all illusion. She turned toward Edgar and looked intensely into his face. "I wish there were some way I could show you my gratitude."
Edgar patted her arm. "Now, now, my dear. All good things in their time."
Beryl stopped herself from protesting. This was a successful business man and not a babe in the woods. There was no need to urge him along or tell him what to want. No doubt Edgar Broome had his life all arranged. Eventually, she would find out where and how he planned to fit her in. Keeping silent, she went with him into another tall building and rode up to a penthouse restaurant. Seated at a table near the window, the whole city stretched before her spitting smoke from cluster of chimneys and glinting sunlight off long banks of windows. Beryl knew suddenly that she was hungry again and that she could eat now. Somewhere uptown, Charlie McNaughton slept or brooded alone. She hoped, if he were eating now, he would choke on his food.
"Order for me, Edgar," she said softly. "You know what's good."
After they had eaten, Edgar asked if she would like to see his office.
"Of course," Beryl answered. "It'll get me out of the groove of my little rut."
"And maybe," he said. "I can find a little job for you. That is, if you need something to keep your mind occupied and could use a little loose change."
Beryl-laughed. "I'm no good in any office."
"Don't be too sure about that. You might not be able to take dictation, but there are plenty of women for that. Girls like you, the pretty ones, can serve a more decorative purpose, which is just as important, you know."
Beryl let him steer her past receptionists and file cabinets into a suite of air conditioned and spotless offices that reeked with a certain plush glamour that Beryl had seen in magazines. "Are you taking me to the Inner Sanctum?" she grinned.
"Why not?" Edgar winked. "In a moment, you'll know all my secrets." He opened a thick door and Beryl came inside to a wood panelled room that reminded her oddly of Flynn Hunterdon's home in the country. Heavy drapes and carvings made an abrupt change of atmosphere from the businesslike maze through which they had just come. "Do you like it?" Edgar asked, pulling up a chair for her.
"The country squire in midtown Manhattan," Beryl smiled. "I'm charmed and flabbergasted."
"Good," Edgar said, pressing a button on the narrow intercom. "I'm not to be disturbed," He said, then snapped off the machine. "Well, now, Beryl, I think it's time to talk business, don't you?"
Beryl's head tilted with surprise. This was the same man who had saved her, the same bland smile, but at the same time, something soldierly and elusive had snapped to attention in his face. "I'm listening," Beryl replied, unable to predict what was coming next.
"My proposition is simple," Edgar said, taking out a thick note book from a bottom drawer and opening it on his desk top. "Come here. I want you to look at these pictures."
Silently, Beryl complied. Standing beside Edgar, she watched as he turned the pages that held photographs of men. They looked like enlarged duplicates of identification shots.
"Do these men work for you?" Beryl asked, not knowing what else to say. *'No. They are employees of other companies. Companies we sell to, Beryl. They are well-to-do and respectable men. I think that much you can see for yourself."
"I begin to understand," Beryl replied, feeling a wash of disappointment flood through her. "These men come to town a few times a year. They need to be entertained."
"So you want to use me as a whore?" Beryl took a cigarette from the silver case on the desk. Her glance took in the finely made blotter, a carved letter opener. Respectability reeked in this room. But what did the word mean? It was hollow and thundered conveniently like some accessory to an orchestra.
"So you picked me up last night, not for yourself, but for these prospective clients?"
She snapped on the table lighter. "One might say that you're a talent scout and I seemed like likely talent."
"That's one way of putting it," Edgar smiled. "There's easy money in it for you. Good times, nice surroundings. All the things a woman likes to have." He leaned back and touched the drape. "You can't do much better than what I'm offering you." His finger slid down the material. "If only for the safety, you'd be wide to take me up on this deal. No cops to worry about, no percentages to pay-" Beryl took a breath. She realized now that he was thinking of her. That she was a common whore. Her knees began to tremble. Well, why not? What had she done to prove that she didn't deserve such an opinion? Even in her own eyes, the label seemed right. Hadn't she taken money? Hadn't she prostituted herself with Dennis Cahill? No matter what her reasons, she had sold her body. And now, without Charlie McNaughton as a reward for her sacrifice, there seemed no reprieve.
"Why not, Edgar?" she said softly and reached out to squeeze his hand. "A girl knows a good bargain when she sees one."
Edgar leaned forward and kissed her cheek. His lips felt cold, impersonal. She could imagine what had been going through his mind last night when he had spotted her sitting alone in the Seven Spades. And no doubt the fight with Charlie later had clinched it.
"Good," he said. "Believe me, you won't regret this decision."
The words bounced off Beryl's eardrums. She didn't want to think. Not about what she had just committed or what might happen to her in the future. She knew only that it had happened at last. Ava's warnings and fears had suddenly sprung to life behind her back. It seemed miraculous, yet she could chart every step of the path that had led to this moment. Beryl went to the drapes and drew them back, to take one last look at the city with its freedoms and opportunities. Once, she had been an eager girl, glowing with high hopes and certainty. She had gone out with men and let them do what they wanted. She had lied to herself each morning when she looked in the mirror. All the tramping around had not been harmless. All the firm attention to a single goal had not dissolved the damage that had rotted her soul away inch by inch. Cahill, Fly Hunterdon, Tom Upjohn, Ranch Prince-they had all been links in a circle that had finally closed in on her. Beryl sighed at the hazy sky. Only Charlie McNaughton had been separate, only Charlie might have helped her to save herself. If he had wanted to-if he had loved her. But he hadn't. And what was the use of thinking about all that now? Dirty water under a bridge that had collapsed beneath her feet.
She turned to Edgar. "I'm ready to start any time you say," she said quietly.
Edgar was looking at the book of pictures. "I showed you these for a reason," he. said.
Beryl shrugged. "I have no preference, if that's what you mean."
Edgar raised an eyebrow. "No particular type interests you?"
A small smile twisted Beryl's mouth. "What difference? This isn't a marriage bureau. I expect there'll be quite a turnover."
"Yes, in fact, there will." Edgar closed the book and slipped it back into the drawer. "Well, when do I get started?"
"Now," Edgar's reply was swift. "We'll get you a room and some clothes to wear. You can choose whatever suits your mood."
"So long as it's happy." She heard Edgar chuckle. "Well, a girl who specializes in good times has to keep herself laughing first, doesn't she?"
Beryl took the charge plate that Edgar extended toward her and slipped it into a side pocket of her purse. Yes, I'll be happy, she thought. I'll laugh, good and loud, till the sound of it drowns out Charlie McNaughton forever.
"Ava, listen-" Beryl closed the door of the phone booth and turned her back to the department store shoppers who were waiting in line. "I know I've been a bitch to run out on you, but that's not why I'm calling. I've got my hands on something good and I want you to share it with me."
She did not tell Ava about Edgar Broome's proposition, but about the charge card and all the free clothes they could both have, if Ava would catch a bus back to the city right away. Patiently, she listened to Ava's protests and suspicions.
"I don't think I want to join in on this," Ava said. "I don't know what you're up to, but I can smell the stench from here."
Beryl felt a shock of surprise. Wasn't Ava always the one to hang on? To try to guard them both from falling into the mud?
"What is it, honey?" Beryl said at last. "Did you fall into a pot of gold up there that you don't want to talk about?" She listened to Ava's hesitancy and then the final confession.
"If you want to know the truth," Ava said in a low voice, "This Ranch Prince isn't a bad sort at all."
Ava's voice told Beryl everything. "I see," she replied slowly. "Well, soak him for all he's worth, Ava. A girl lives only once, you know."
When Beryl hung up, she realized what their conversation meant. Ava, like herself, had succumbed finally to the last temptation. There had been no talk of marriage only quick money. Both girls had faced each other without pretense and admitted what had become of them. Beryl smoothed her dress as she walked through the crowds, wondering if the slime that now clung to her showed. In the exclusive dress department, she strolled among the thick carpets and let the saleslady treat her like a respectable matron. She chose the most expensive dresses she could find, added accessories and a gray mink stole. Then she phoned Edgar Broome and took from him the name of a real estate agent.
"Don't worry," Edgar said. "He knows where to send the tab."
By late that afternoon, Beryl had chosen a three room apartment with a view of the East River. The tan colored walls were spotless and in the kitchen, the most modern appliances gleamed. Already furnished in good, contemporary taste, there seemed nothing left to do except sit back and enjoy herself until one of Edgar's clients phoned for the first date.
"Well, I ought to be used to it by now," Beryl told the walls. Then she went to the bedroom and turned on the radio full blast for whatever company it could offer. The bed she lay on seemed to stretch miles, vast and empty, but she knew she would not be alone on it for long. Impulsively, she phoned a local liquor store and had bottles delivered.
As night fell, she sat in front of the television set drinking bourbon and watching to see if there might be another broadcast from the Seven Spades.
The telephone ring shook her loose from the torpor of her imagination.
"Hello?" Beryl listened to the deep voice introduce itself. She heard his name, but it bounced off her brain unimportantly. For one date or two or three at the most, she could call him dear or honey or something equally meaningless. She sipped at the drink while he talked. From now on, they would all be sweetheart or darling. Endearments without faces. Desire without love.
After the conversation, she bathed and dressed, moving mechanically through the routine of making herself beautiful. The dark yellow gown, so expensive, so coveted, seemed to Beryl like a clown's costume. Fitting tightly over bodice and hips, narrowing fashionably down her thighs to flare out at the ankles. It was a dress meant for enchantment Beryl felt only dullness. She blinked into the mirror at her body, soon to be treated like dirt. She mixed one highball and then another. By the time her caller rang the doorbell, Beryl's face was radiant, her cheeks glowing.
He was a silent man with a mid western accent and he stood in the living room with hat in hand while Beryl went for her wrap. She knew, without him saying so, that he had a wife and family back home. As they left the apartment, she squeezed his hand, telling him thus that a good time was waiting for him tonight.
They did the nightclubs in a circular ritual that dinned in her ears. She danced. She talked. She laughed at his jokes. Champagne bubbled in her glass, at her lips and its after effects in her eyes. The night dragged on, changing tempo as the hours passed. His gentle manner, diluted with alcohol, became more aggressive. Beryl tried to get drunk too, but her brain remained stubbornly calm.
When they returned to her apartment, Beryl knew that he did not require preliminaries. In the dining room beside the low buffet table, she loosened his tie, then opened his collar. "Come, give me your jacket," she said. Piece by piece, she hung up his clothes neatly, as though he were her own husband and she had a right to care for him. She led him to the bedroom where the blinds were already drawn. While he sat naked on the bed watching with bleary eyes blinking, Beryl undressed, peeling her clothing off slowly, massaging her body with languid, caressing motions that implied he would soon be privileged to possess something special.
"You're beautiful," he muttered. Silently, Beryl came toward him and pressed his face to her belly. She felt his moist lips on her cunt and felt his tongue dig into her honey pot. Her nerves had turned to stone. Her body felt like a construction of metal and mud. His hands, slipping into her cold pussy to pinch and feel and linger, aroused nothing but an idle curiosity in Beryl. She seemed to be hovering above herself, watching this man, distant and safe from all participation.
The sheets had been perfumed. She pulled him down with her into the subtle scent of roses. Stretching her arms she encircled him and covered his body with her own. She felt the edges of his teeth against her breast and heard the irregular breathing that made hot blossoms of vapor between her breasts and then further down. She saw the hair on his legs, a fine fuzz. She began to stroke him, moving her fingers through his hair, down along the back of his neck.
She slipped the hunk of meat into her quim and let him slam-bang her dry hole until her juices flowed down his jerking penis. He fucked like a dog.. Beryl clung and held him, poised and stayed with him, knowing that she had to wring his cock dry of come. He tensed, shivering then fell away. It happened over and over till finally he had spent every drop and pulled out, limp. He then pushed his face into her sticky crotch and sucked his own sperm out of her oozing cunt.
At daylight, she awakened him. She showed him where the electric razor was. At the door an hour later, he thanked her and said goodbye.
Toward noon, Edgar Broome phoned and told her to meet him in front of the statue at Rockefeller Plaza, so that she could be paid for a night's work well done.
She put on a sports dress of cream colored linen. Appropriate for a leisurely day, the costume made her look like someone always pampered.
"You're staring," Edgar laughed, stepping forward to pat her arm.
"Am I?" Beryl said, realizing that she had expected him to grow horns.
"Come, I'll take you to lunch."
"I'm not hungry, thanks. Let's limit ourselves to the business end of the transaction right now, Edgar."
They were strolling down Fifth Avenue. She was in the center of a living, moving crowd again, but today it did not seem to exude the promise of opportunity that, once upon a time, had thrilled her.
"Don't be in such a rush," Edgar said softly. "Live a little. Enjoy yourself. There are good times ahead, Beryl. Give yourself to them."
"Isn't that what I'm doing?" Beryl said without emotion.
"You seem particularly ungrateful today," Edgar mused. "Were things difficult?"
"On the contrary." Beryl paused to examine a shop window that displayed shoes. "It was magnificently easy. Like eating jelly beans."
"I see."
"Do you, Edgar?" Her question was swift. "Somehow, I tend to doubt that."
"Because I, myself, haven't touched you? Is that why?"
Beryl turned to stare at him. "I suppose I did expect you to sample the merchandise first."
Edgar's laugh was a chuckle of amusement. "I trust my girls," he said.
Beryl's mouth tilted with a smirk. "I didn't think this had anything to do with trust."
"You don't honestly want to go to bed with me, Beryl," he said matter-of-factly. "What are you pushing it for?"
"Maybe I just hate to see you missing out on all the fun," she said, noting the serial number on the t-strap sandals she would later buy.
"Or maybe you want to give me the business," Edgar said. "Punish me for what you think I'm doing to you."
"I'm not such a fool," Beryl replied. "You haven't done a thing to me that I didn't deserve."
"If you have such a just and noble mind, why do you hate me so?"
Beryl let him light her cigarette. The sun had gone behind a cloud and a light breeze whipped at the hem of her skirt. "Because you shattered my last illusion, Edgar. My very last. In some childish way, I thought you were going to save me from myself. But you only rubbed my nose in it, instead."
Edgar shrugged. "You want those shoes? Come, let's get them for you."
Beryl realized that he could neither understand nor care about her feelings. He couldn't afford to. As she watched him pay for the shoes Beryl realized that she couldn't afford to either. That the moment she permitted remorse to creep into her system, the end would come swiftly.
"I need a few hats," Beryl said when they came outside. She lifted her chin high as they went from one shop to another. Somehow, she must manage to keep herself respect, even if it were only a facade.
Edgar carried the boxes to her doorstep and handed them to the uniformed man standing beneath the canopy. "Be a good girl, now," he winked. "You won't be left alone tonight."
Inside the apartment, Beryl unwrapped her new accessories and stood them on the dining table to survey the afternoon's accomplishment. When the phone began to ring, she took her time about answering the call. Whoever he was, she decided, he could wait, for she had not become a grovelling beggar yet.
"Yes?" she said into the receiver, letting the barest touch of frost cool her welcome.
But it was Ava's voice that spoke. Her tone was curiously vivacious.
"You sound all doped up," Beryl said. "Are you drunk or something? And how the hell did you get this number?"
Ava clucked her tongue. "I didn't," she said. "It was Ranch. Ranch can do anything."
Beryl sighed. "Is that how it is?" she said without enthusiasm.
"You'll never believe this," Ava said, "but I think I'm getting a crush on that man. Can I come over? I want to see you, Beryl, very much."
Beryl surveyed the condition of her nail polish. "Well, come soon, then. I'm a busy woman these days."
"I'll be there in ten minutes."
Beryl stared at the receiver, wondering if she had heard correctly or if Ava had lost her mind. A twinge of anger barbed her thoughts. Could Ava be such a fool as to give herself sincerely to a man like Ranch Prince? She poured straight whiskey into a small glass and swallowed it. "I must stop this drinking," she said aloud, then poured herself another.
The doorbell buzzed with three light taps and then Ava swept in. A new shantung suit of pale gray emphasized the sun tan that gave a rosy glow to her fair complexion. She dropped a shiny alligator purse on the table and stretched her arms out to embrace Beryl. "Do I look as good as I feel?" Her voice was clear and strong.
"Even better," Beryl replied, kissing Ava quickly on one cheek. "Would you like some scotch? It's the best, aged twelve years or something like that."
"Yes," Ava said with a bounce in her voice. "I don't mind if I do."
While Beryl poured the drink, she waited for the questions and the grilling that would force her to confess. Yet, as she watched Ava float through the rooms, she realized that her sister's mind was far away from this moment and these surroundings.
"I never knew the meaning of good luck," Ava said, "until I met him."
"Ranch?"
"Yes, Ranch."
"I don't see what's so lucky."
"Don't you?" Ava whirled and danced toward Beryl. "Don't you see that ifs happened?"
"I see that you're acting like a child fresh out of school, if that's what you mean," Beryl said dully.
"Oh, don't be such a stick in. the mud."
"That's my nature." Beryl refilled her own glass and emptied it, wondering idly if she would ever be able to get drunk again.
"I gather you didn't like him," Ava said.
"That's not true," Beryl protested blandly. "I just didn't much care one way or the other. He was just one more card in the deck to me, Ava. And frankly, I'm surprised to find you so impressed." Beryl took out a new hat and tried it on in front of an oval mirror. "Would you mind telling me what he's got?"
"Oh, Beryl, he's kind," Ava thrilled.
Beryl winced into the mirror at Ava's enraptured eyes. Kind? So was the vet back home, but you didn't carry on like this.
Ava came up behind her and slipped her arms around her waist. She pressed her cheek to her sister's neck. "I don't know what to tell you," she said dreamily. "AD I can say is that Fm glad. So glad and happy. He respects me, Beryl. And he wants to give me the world."
"The world?" Beryl's voice was skeptical. She pushed the hat to an angle over one eyebrow and smoothed the wide brim. "How about a wedding band for a starter?"
Ava closed her eyes and drifted away, to sit. down and gaze hazily at the lineup .of shoes. "That'll come in time." She smoothed a bit of wrapping paper. "I'm sure of it."
"Are you?" Beryl's voice was cold. "I didn't know you were quite so blind."
Ava slapped her knees. "Stop sounding so sad and embittered. What difference does it make whether or not he marries me? There's only one thing that's important. I love him, do you hear? I finally care about something beside myself and my future. Isn't that enough, Beryl? Isn't that salvation?"
Beryl's laugh rang with a biting, acid tone. "When you're walking the streets for two dollars a trick," she said softly, "ask yourself that question again."
She watched Ava's head lower, as though she had been hit by a club.
"I think it's a little late," Ava said, her voice barely above a whisper, "for either of us to give that kind of advice to the other."
"No," Ava said. "I don't think that's what's doing it. There's something else and it's eating you alive. I've seen it in you before. When we were kids and I was the first to wear lipstick. And later on, when you started to flirt with that ice cream man because you thought I had a crush on him." Ava played with the shoes, putting them into neat rows before her. "You're jealous of me, for a change," she said quietly and without anger. "You're jealous because I've managed, somehow, to find a shred of happiness in this garbage heap-" Beryl felt her lips stiffen and knew that the blood was draining from her face. "Of Ranch Prince?" She pressed tight fists against her hips. "You're way off base, Ava. I couldn't care less if you went with him on a trip to the moon." She shook her head, trying to clear of of the fury that had clogged her ears. "My God."
"I wish I could believe you," Ava said. "But I know my sister. Look at you. You're turning green. Well, if it's any consolation, you had' your chance with him first and you threw it away. I don't know where you went that night or why, Beryl, but you left me a clear field. And I'm not sorry I took advantage of it." She slipped her purse up along her arm. "I guess I'd better be going," she said with soft disappointment. "If you ever change your mind and want to reach me, I'm staying at the Boswell. Ranch leased a suite of rooms for me."
Beryl felt no urge to stop her sister from leaving. She knew only the dull gray rage that rocked her so that she had to clasp her hands together to keep them from trembling.
When Ava had gone, she kicked a chair leg, then ran into the bedroom and flung herself face down on the rumpled bed to bury her face and smother the hoarse sobs that tore from her throat. She had seen that it was true. Ava had indeed found love, love that was being acknowledged and pampered and oddly respected, too. Beryl pulled the pillow tight around her ears, seeking for darkness and oblivion. Whatever else Ranch Prince might be, he was a person of flesh and blood whom Ava could reach. Not like Charlie. Not like Charlie McNaughton, because no man on earth could be as impossible to reach. And Ava had been right to accuse her of jealousy. The blood pounding through her veins felt green with it. Not for Ranch Prince, as Ava had thought, but for the satisfaction he gave to Ava. A satisfaction Beryl knew that she could never have from Charlie McNaughton, even if she lay herself bare before his feet and spent the rest of her life there, pleading.
CHAPTER EIGHT
As they stood waiting for the elevator, Beryl turned to the gentleman caller and smiled close to his frameless spectacles. "I hope you like frog legs, dear," she cooed. "If you do, I know the most marvelous place in the whole world-" He flicked a finger across the tip of her nose in a gesture of intimate affection. "Anything to make the little girl happy."
Beryl crinkled a smile and flicked his nose in return. "You're sweet" As they drove to the Seven Spades, Beryl felt electric stirrings of anticipation beneath her smooth cardboard exterior. Ava's accusation of jealousy had chopped holes in the nightmarish wall surrounding Ava. She had been forced to realize her own weakness, her own love, and admit privately that she could not stay away from Charlie McNaughton forever. She had to resolve the problem once and for all. She had to make one last try to reach through to him. As things stood now, she was a bundle of loose threads tangling tighter around her own neck, threatening to choke off all hope for a sane life. Maybe there was a way to touch him mat she had overlooked. Blowing smoke fumes toward the window, she considered that her first step must be simply to see him again. From a distance, of course. He would not care that she had brought an escort. Probably, Charlie wouldn't even see them. But this stranger sitting at her side and touching her thigh tentatively with one finger would be a crutch for her. His presence would stop her from making a fool of herself right there in the club.
As the cab drew up to the maroon canopy, Beryl felt her heart beginning to thud. Her glance sought Charlie's photograph that stood beside the door and reassured her that he was still working here. She waited for her escort to pay the fare, then walked casually inside to find a table out of the line of the spotlight. Feeling the shadows surround her, she tried to relax in the knowledge of being well hidden from Charlie's view. Yet her breath came in painful, uncertain wisps that seared her throat like flame.
The blonde singer was still on the stage while Beryl helped her escort to order the food. She could feel his stare plastered to her, circling over the bare flesh of her throat and cleavage. She had selected a dress that revealed much for just this purpose. This stranger across the table would not care where her thoughts were. He would not be conscious enough to realize. Using her body for bait, she could keep this fish interested with a minimum amount of talk. His imagination would do all the work for her, Beryl thought as she swallowed a double scotch. Pressing her back to the cold leather, Beryl waited. When the singer finished and sidled off the stage, the room seemed suddenly to go hot. Clammy perspiration rose on the insides of her thighs. She rubbed her hands up and down on the tall glass.
And then she saw him. The same wildly curling hair, the same wide shoulders sloping nonchalantly as though he were dressed in sports clothes. The hefty bulge in his crotch, the same disinterest that ignored his audience. She heard the clatter of her escort's fork against his plate and for a frantic instant, she thought that surely Charlie must have heard it too and would look over to find her sitting there, staring at him, the hungry longing shameless on her face. But no. Charlie glided to the piano and sat down to business. His back faced her.
Beryl forced herself to toy with her food and to answer with short sounds her escort's attempt at conversation. The music, apparently, had been his signal to talk. He pulled his chair in closer to hers. Then she felt his hand resting on her knee. The table cloth veiled his movements and they became bolder, exploring upward along her thighs, then slipping his finger deep into her twat. She wanted to reach out and smash him in the face with the plate of frog legs. Instead, she smiled and reached down to shove his hand deeper into her pit. She knew her fingers were hot and trembling. He would flatter himself that the passion was due to him. Their fingers entwined for an instant. He put an arm around the back of her chair. Beryl gritted her teeth and pretended that this was Charlie's touch. Her cunt seemed to tear loose from the stability of her loins and swim toward the stage to suck in the lean nigged cock of the creature who did not know she was alive. She felt her legs beginning to part as though moving of their own volition to welcome, imaginatively, Charlie's rigid prick. Beneath the tight dress, her breasts tingled with sensation that hardened their tips and thrust them forward. Her cunt juiced up in longing anticipation to be fucked royally.
"Come on, baby," her escort whispered. "Let's go someplace-"
"We just got here," she said forcing herself to sound good natured.
The heel of his hand rubbed across her mound. "You don't know me," he spoke against her ear. "I'm a fast fucker."
Beryl made herself look at him. She saw that his eyelids were thickened and that his lips hung slack. Familiar symptoms that told her he had drunk too much, too fast. "I'd like to finish my dinner first," Beryl said.
"Well, hurry up. I want to ram my hot meat into your ass."
It occurred to Beryl, suddenly, that there was nothing to fight for, what difference could it make whether they went home now or stayed for two more performances? To Charlie, it would be all the same. And she realized that her sore cunt could not take much more of this finger-fucking torture. At home with this stranger, she might be able to continue the pretense that it was Charlie rimming and riding her. Perhaps, in phantom arms, she could find relief. "All right," she said with clipped and breathless words. "We can go now."
In the cab, Beryl gave herself to his mauling hands. His face disappeared into her crotch and he nipped at her mound. The cab driver gazed determinedly at the traffic.
By the time they reached the apartment, Beryl's bra had already been unhooked and her tits hung limp beneath the protective stole. She let the fur drop to the floor, then pushed the shoulder straps down so that her breasts swelled into full view. The man bent quickly with opened mouth. Beryl clasped his cock between her fingers and jerked it to stiff attention.
"Fuck it good," she groaned. "Oh, please fuck it good."
He struggled to unzip her dress all the way, then cursing, tore it down. "Come on, get outta that damn thing."
Beryl helped. She pulled the dress away till it crumpled to the floor, then stepped out of it.
"Hate black lace," he muttered. "Reminds me of a funeral."
Rapidly, she took off the gauze undergarment. Beneath it, only a strip of black bikini panties hid her. He fell to his knees before her and pressed his tongue deeply into her steamy hole. Beryl felt her legs trembling violently and her balance threatening to teeter as she poised in the slender high heels. She bent over him to grip his shoulders and steady the precariousness.
"Let me go for a moment," she said. "Just a moment."
But he followed her into the bathroom and pressed her backward over the sink. She could feel the unleashed violence trembling in his jabbing prick. Her own body shared it as the dry hard rod dug into her. The tiny tiled room was like a prison cell. She stared at him furiously. She had wanted to bathe away with cold water the fever boiling in her. But it had been a futile useless gesture. Beryl kicked off her shoes and felt his balls slapping her ass as he rammed his penis into her quim.
"Baby, baby, baby," His voice was a babble of slobbering syllables.
"Where are you?" she said, feeling for him.
"I don't gotta get undressed."
She felt his hands moved to stroke his flagging member and then back to her cunt lips, taking her hand and forcing her to jerk him off.
Like any cock, Beryl thought. Hot as any prick, no different She clung to him and thought of Charlie. Suddenly she knew what she had to do, and also, that she had to do it right now. She pushed the man over, and heard his head strike the side of the tub. Good, she thought, he'll be out for a couple of hours.
She raced out and leaped into a cab that had hardly stopped. Giving him Charlie's address in a breathless tone, she leaned back and waited, in a crazed stupor.
Up those stairs again. Beryl was beyond logic and thought. She threw her body against the door, and felt the lock resisting her force. Then she noticed the light coming from under the door. He was in there.
"Charlie!" she screamed, her voice edged with a lunacy that was spreading throughout her body.
No answer, but she heard a grunt, as if he were sleeping.
Without waiting, Beryl raced down the stairs, her brain a jigsaw puzzle scattered on the sidewalk. Charlie, she screamed silently, you don't have to pay... I already picked up the tab, no more buy and sell, just me...
Up the fire escape, tripping and muttering, eyes glazed, hair flying around her head. She banged frantically on his window, until his face came into view. She heard the window open, and felt herself being dragged in. Then the voice.
It looked like Charlie, and the calm explosive voice was his, but the words were wrong.
"I'm leaving. Do what you like."
She saw a flicker of red, the ocean of his uncaring face, and then the sound of his steps.
A woman named Beryl walked slowly to the bathroom. She reached to her purse, and pulled out her lighter. Her skirt caught instantly.
The color of Charlie's hair. The color of her past.
The woman pressed her lips tight to keep from screaming.
And then there was only the sound of footsteps growing fainter.
