For Melanie it had been a shameful love affair. Paul had taken her, then no longer wanted her around. So she broke away, went to Chicago, and in a few months carved herself a new way of life. A life of parading half-naked in nylons and panties for wanton men and their spoiled, expensive women... she was just a lingerie model in a fancy department store, but her voluptuous body and naive ways made her easy prey for the lustful smoothies of the big town. Hillman, who got her drunk and made her pose before his camera, then threatened to send the photos back home to her family if she didn't comply with his degrading wishes; Tallant, the down-and-out writer who was love-starved; and Dierdre, her room-mate, who could easily be the most dangerous, the strangest one of them all...
CHAPTER ONE
Looking out the grime-streaked windows of the bus, she caught her first glimpse of the city. There was certainly nothing pretty about it, she was forced to concede, disappointment rising within her. After all her dreams she had expected so much more. Acres of desolate wasteland, of littered garbage, the foul, putrid-looking waters of a river. On the other side of the highway more scabrous, defiled landscape, only now dotted with sprawling, smoke-belching industrial complexes, the sulphur piles, the spaghetti tangle of silvered pigs as they swept past the refineries and cracking plants. The acrid penetration swamped the bus, and she, along with the other passengers, wrinkled up her nose in distaste.
Now they were in South Chicago, and the close-packed highway-encroaching steel factories began; the endless concentration of slum tenements and decrepit, derelict stores and business establishments. The rising despair threatened to well over within her, a presentiment of home-sickness already; and she fought hard to control herself.
You big baby, she scolded herself, stop it! Act your proper age. After all, what did you expect? Disneyland and Sleeping Beauty's castle? Don't sniffle and get all red-eyed like some rustic bumpkin. Tough up, you're a big girl now. After all, no one made you come. Nervously she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
Now they crossed a big bridge, the highway at this point jammed between two hulking industrial plants. And there, shrouded in thick, murky clouds of concealing smoke, she saw the outlines of the city proper. Chicago, wow! she thought, her heart thumping. But it wasn't pretty and exciting as she'd anticipated. It was ugly, horribly ugly! Oh, why had she ever come? Suddenly she was pierced with an unholy dread. Yes, why?
Be realistic, twerpie, she continued. After all, how do you think cities come to be? They aren't made by master confectioners, to be shining and pretty. They're built as a place to manufacture products, to sell them -- a market, a port, a railroad terminal. They're a place where people make their living and that's all.
Momentarily she thought of Carl Sandburg, and his words, first read in a high school English class, came flooding back. Chicago -- city with big shoulders -- brawling, lusty -- Well it was that all right, she concluded. But was there nothing beneath its tough exterior? Was it a city without a heart? And fear pressing down on her, she shrank back into her seat, her eyes darting and furtive, fascinated with the venal, brutal display the city presented; wondering, wondering -- Three times, since the bus had left Indianapolis, big-time operators had tried to move in on her. She fairly reeked of virginal innocence, she all but begged to be taken for a ride. It was obvious she was Chicago-bound. And if they could arrange a thing, dazzle the hick off her feet, why, by the time they reached the town -- who knows -- ?
But it was her very hickishness that saved her. For they never had a chance. The minute one of the strangers -- dark, cocky-appearing men, confident of their prowess as lady killers -- approached her, took the empty seat beside her, her eyes would fill with fear, her mouth would curl with fiery loathing. And no matter what their approach, her rebuff was the same. Simple, to the point, and cuttingly effective: "Leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you. If you don't, I'll complain to the driver. I'll make a scene you won't forget . .
And the two-bit Casanovas, looking into her dark, intense eyes, seeing the steely, fanatical purpose lurking in their beautiful depths, would make tracks. Uh-uh. The kid was just dumb enough to do it. And all the commotion wasn't worth it. It was a long ride to Chicago -- And if an innocent dolly like that blew the whistle on you, what was the use? You were cooked.
So they all sat down by themselves and played little finger games. All alone -- by the telephone -- Her name was Melanie Mitchell. She was twenty-three, endowed with a beautiful body -- slim waist, sensuously-flaring hips, firm, maddening buttocks, trim, devilishly exotic legs and ankles, these stunning assets further crowned by voluptuous breasts. Gorgeously-symmetrical, prideful, distinctively pointed and high, they strained her nylon blouse enchantingly, sending long, shimmering wrinkles from their bold peaks in taut design.
She was a redhead. But not one of your bronze-copper-tressed beauties. Glints of silver-gold spun themselves through the bouffant, charming tangle of curb, catching the pale sunlight like crystalline, gossamer threads of silk, lending an airy, almost fragile quality to the lovely features beneath them.
At first glance the face was not overly striking. But a second look drove home its pale, mystic, vestal beauty. For here was a face, here were eyes, that looked out on life with a calm, serene, almost detached quality. And yet, somehow, frightened, asking for indulgence, begging silently for someone to take care of her. Here were eyes, burnished hazel, deep, calming pools -- which gripped you, drew you into a confusing whirlpool of emotion and wonder. They revealed to a cursory glance the innocent, little-girl predominance of Melanie's character. But looking further, deeper into their mysterious hues, you saw Woman -- primal, instinctive, offering rapturous delights to Man. To the right man -- Here was none of your freckle-faced redhead. Her skin was clear, translucent, unblemished. At times it would seem you might at any moment see her bone structure through that transparent complexion. How she avoided the ravages of sun and wind, even Melanie couldn't say. A freak of nature, her freckle-faced mother often marvelled. Another shake of the dice box, Melanie often mused, another chance for her chromosomes and genes to be thrown into confused disarray. A miracle of heredity.
Dark, taunting lashes, firm, yet lush lips, curved in a generous cupid's-bow, a small aquiline nose, perky at the last possible moment, a fine, elegant line at her chin and jaw. This was Melanie Mitchell, vision of Child-Woman to drive all men noisily out of their minds.
Abruptly Melanie was shaken from her despairing reverie as the bus came to a jarring stop. Dazedly she looked out to see that they had forsaken Chicago's seamier element, and were now cruising along the shore of Lake Michigan, on a wide, multi-laned thoroughfare, the other traffic swarming around the bus-behemoth like so many snarling, snapping puppies, harassing momentarily, then speeding onward on their frantic missions.
She was cheered all at once by the attractive modernity of the Outer Drive, by the cosmopolitan bustle,' by the new apartment and business buildings she saw about her. Perhaps Chicago wouldn't be so bad after all.
Scant moments later the bus drew into the terminal. The brakes hissed angrily, and the vibration and roaring suddenly died, causing a brief pang of nausea in Melanie's stomach. "Chee-cago!" the driver bawled self-consciously, then rose, leaving to undog the baggage port.
Dully, the fear returning, Melanie pushed herself from the seat, took down her coat. Carefully, standing out of the way of the disembarking passengers, she shrugged into the garment. It was May, traces of spring's influx were everywhere. But still a sharp wind whistled through Chicago's concrete canyons.
"Pardon me, miss," the voice came at her elbow.
She turned to find one of the knights-errant, Don Juan-fifth-class, smiling ingratiatingly at her. "But since you seem to be new to Chicago, I thought..." Melanie stared a hole straight through him, then moved away from him, toward the bus depot.
"Okay!" the man bristled "What a grouch!"
Inside the station, Melanie sat on a bench, went through her bag for her claim check. Briefly she stopped, a shudder feeling its way slowly down her back. For a moment she could not think because of the pain the remembrance sent through her.
Paul -- the voice within her brain wailed. If only-- If only you hadn't --This -- None of this would be necessary. I could be with you at home -- Happy -- Again she struggled to hold back the tears. We could have been so happy -- I would have seen to that. Why, Paul? Why?
Happiness -- she concluded. How many million light-years away it all seemed to her now. Almost an abstraction, as if the ephemeral state had never existed. Anywhere in the world. Nor for anyone. Had there ever been such a thing? Really?
She gave herself a good mental shaking. Damn you, Melanie, come off it. That's in the past. So much garbage. Forget it. She was startled that she'd even thought the curse word. It was unlike her. Then she smiled wryly. That's the big city for you.
She forced herself up from the bench, timidly advanced to the newsstand. The luggage could wait. First she had to see about getting herself situated. She certainly couldn't camp out in the bus depot. Purchasing a TRIB, she returned to her bench. "See the TRIBUNE for want-ads..." the catchy jingle went through her mind, inbred from years of listening to WGN, Chicago. How far Freshwater, and southern Indiana, seemed to her now. And now she was here at last, her illusory, childhood dream of Chicago irrevocably shattered.
She turned to the apartments and rooms-for-rent section. Feverishly, her eyes scanned the long columns, looking for someone who was advertising an apartment to be shared. Her mother had made her promise she would stay at the YWCA, or some other such women's dormitory, but Melanie had been determined from the very first that she would have nothing to do with such a confining atmosphere. If she was going to break, she would break good -- Then she saw the ad she was looking for: APARTMENT TO SHARE: Liberal-minded young woman, wishes to share with woman of similar bent, 25-30. Your share $70. No prigs need apply. Call LO. 3-3459 after six.
It was certainly a formidable looking ad, Melanie thought. What kind of girl would run a thing like that? Her curiosity was piqued. Then she decided No matter what, it was just what the doctor ordered. But just in case the vacancy was filled, she went down the list, jotting down several other possibilities. Glancing at her wrist watch she saw it was four-thirty. An hour and a half to kill. It was foolish to narrow her chances like this, probably miss out anyway, but again her spirit of adventure was tickled. Might as well start on a zany note.
She claimed her luggage, checked it in one of the wall lockers, then went out to have her dinner. Heaven only knew when she'd have opportunity to eat later. She was aware, as she ate, that almost every male eye in the restaurant had gradually zeroed-in on her. Goodness, its almost as if they've never seen a girl before, she thought. Then her thoughts became bitter.
Uh-uh, boys. You aren't getting any. Not this time. I've been through that mill already. I'm not just about to go through it again. You can send me all the hot, searching looks you want, but I can tell you right now, no soap. I've come to Chicago to forget, to make a fresh start. So go ahead, stew in your own juice. It's all the same to me.
But nevertheless she was secretly pleased and thrilled, that even in a big city like Chicago, where there were so many beautiful women trotting around, she could still draw admiring male stares from every quarter. Perhaps these Chicago people weren't so all-fired sophisticated after all. Or more realistically: she supposed men were the same the world over. Big town or small. They all wanted the same thing. The humiliation welled up within her, anew. Men --
Finally, dinner finished, she returned to the terminal, entered one of the phone booths. Her hands trembled as she extracted the scribbled phone number from her bag.
"Hello?" the female voice, soft and hesitant, demure almost, answered. It wasn't what Melanie had expected at all.
"I'm calling about your ad. You have an apartment to share. And I'm wondering..." Some of the cultured veneer came off the woman's voice as she interrupted, "You read the ad carefully?"
"Yes... I did."
"And you can qualify?" Now there was humor in her tone.
"I believe so. I'm not stuffy. At least I don't think so. You go your way and I'll go mine. That's always been my outlook..."
"Okay, honey," the woman soothed. "Skip the pitch. Tell me, how old are you?"
For a moment Melanie considered lying to the woman. "I... well, if you want the truth . .
"That's just what I want."
"I'm twenty-three... Is that...?"
"It's all right." The woman's voice sounded strangely elated. "I only put that age stuff on to scare away any eighty-year-old bags. Lord, they've been driving me nutty. Anyway until I changed the ad."
"I've just come in. I need a place right away."
"Sure, c'mon out. Look the place over, and we can take each other in at the same time. If we hit it off, honey, you've found yourself a new home. Now who should I expect?"
"Melanie Mitchell... I'm from Indiana..."
"Fine, Melanie. Push Dierdre Tresselt's button in the foyer. Entrance D."
"And the address?"
"Oh, hell! I'd forget my head if it wasn't fastened on. Got a pencil?"
"Yes."
"The apartment house is at 2245 W. Taravel. A big, brick mausoleum, about thirty stories high. The biggest place on the block. You'll like it, I think. We have a real swinging time."
It sounded exciting, Melanie thought. Maybe the perfect spot to find herself, to assert her independence, to break with the past once and for all.
"How far is it from the Loop?"
"If you take a cab, about forty minutes."
"And if someone else calls? Will you hold it for me?" Melanie liked the sound of Dierdre's voice. She was sure she'd like her, no matter how grotesque the apartment might be.
"I'll stall 'era like mad, kid. See you." Then the line clicked dead.
Melanie's heart pounded a nervous tattoo as she started for the storage lockers. For an instant she felt dizzying triumph course through her.
She was on her own at last.
CHAPTER TWO
And now, as she sat in the jarring, swerving cab, the weariness and fear crowded in on her again. Just as swiftly as it had come, the elation faded, then disappeared completely. Paul -- her mind called again, a bitter, tragic wail. She fought to keep the tormenting thoughts at bay. But she could not. The inexorable, damning rush of recollection swept her. She was back home again.
Melanie was not a virgin. She hadn't been for over eight months now, having surrendered herself to Paul one night in the back of his father's station wagon. It had been a terrible, yet glorious experience, compounded of circumstance, naivete, sacrifice of deluded love -- and beyond that, an uncomprehending outburst of pagan sexuality, capitulation to inborn primal urges. She had turned into a wanton, wanting only his lips, his hands -- his body, transfigured by unbridled desire, by hysterical passion that had blinded her to any and all consequences of her yielding.
Freshwater was a dull, provincial little place. It was the kind of town the caustic slogan, "A slow burg -- I spent a week there one day --" might apply to in painful aptness. Its 4000, dull, small-minded insular citizens concerned themselves mostly with the weather, crops and Red Skelton. There wasn't much more than that to their stifling, inhibited world. It was in this suffocating climate that Melanie Mitchell grew up.
She was a shy, awkward girl all through her school years, giving little advance notice of the absolute beauty she would one day become. There were few dates, no serious boy-friends. And then, during her last year of high school, her latent beauty began to assert itself, and almost overnight she was transformed into a ravishing, desirable woman. This, much to her prim, narrow-minded mother's shame. Too much beauty was sinful. It was the work of the devil, it evoked vanity lasciviousness, the torment of forbidden desires.
But at 20, after a terrible scene, Melanie had won the right to use make-up, to visit a hairdresser's and have her hair cut and done in current fashion; she was allowed to pick her own clothes. And then, overriding her mother's further protests, she had begun to date frequently. Once she had "come out" there was never any lack of suitors, for she was a very beautiful girl in a very ugly town.
But even in this it seemed her puritanical mother would win out, for the dull, penny-ante social whirl of Freshwater began to pall on her. There was nothing interesting to do, none of her rustic swains excited her; the evenings she dated seemed to drag interminably. And then one night she met Paul Kenyon.
After that, everything was different.
They had met at an Easter dance sponsored by the miniscule contingent of Freshwater Elks. She had been with Henry Forsythe, Paul with Barbie King. But after she'd caught sight of Paul, after their eyes had locked in magnetic attraction, after the excited tremors began ricocheting up and down her spine, there had been no one else. All the other men she had ever known paled into nothingness. Henry Forsythe, who up until then had been the most devastating of her impressive cadre of escorts, suddenly, faded into the woodwork. She might as well have been dancing with a straw man.
She slept fitfully that night. And throughout, invading all her fragmentary dreams -- Paul's dizzying, pulse-maddening image. The restless yearning possessing her was a new sensation to her. She'd never know such a feeling of incompleteness. And though she didn't recognize it then, Melanie retrospectively recognized it as the night when she'd first known love.
Her effect upon Paul Kenyon was no less disastrous. He called her the very next day, asked for a date. In a trance she agreed. They would go to a movie, then have something to eat afterward. And prosaic as the prospect might seem, it was suddenly the most exciting thing in the world to her. Because she would be with Paul.
Mother had protested violently. Her daughter dating Paul Kenyon? A boy with his reputation? Just because his father was owner of the Kenyon Manufacturing Company, Freshwater's prime source of income, he thought he could use the town's females for his personal playthings, to take his pleasure with them as he saw fit, and then discard them. No daughter of hers would have anything to do with the likes of him.
She might as well have talked to the wall. Melanie not only went out with Paul Kenyon, but within two months had so entranced him that he'd proposed marriage, conferring upon her one of the biggest diamonds the town had ever seen.
Well, Mrs. Mitchell had sniffed at that. Marriage, and to the town's most eligible bachelor, that was quite another story. Marriage was an honorable estate. And besides -- Paul would one day inherit his father's vast holdings in and around Freshwater. He was a real catch. And her daughter had done it. For the first time in her life she was proud of Melanie.
Paul was a handsome, beautiful, collection of male animal. Irresistible, gallant, exciting, all the things the other men she'd known weren't. He swept her off her unsteady feet within minutes of their first date, and from that moment on she was his. She was madly in love with him. There could be no other man for her. Ever.
He was a madcap; entirely nerveless, reckless and rash. He loved powering one of his father's Chryslers, or perhaps the Imperial, down the highway, at speeds between 100 and 120 miles an hour. He taught her to drink, taking her to fancy clubs in Indianapolis, yet -never taking advantage of her mildly tipsy condition. He thought nothing of kissing Melanie in broad daylight on Freshwater's main street. The more reckless he was, the more Melanie adored him.
He spent money lavishly on her. Flowers, jewelry, perfume, any object that struck her fancy at any given moment. When she protested at a set of exotic. French lingerie -- slip, brassiere, and panties, all evil black silk -- he'd laughed and said, "You're going to be all mine one of these days. I want you to be the prettiest, the sexiest, the most tempting female in the world . . And though she'd been shocked, she'd also been exquisitely thrilled.
When they were together, it was all Melanie could do to keep her hands off Paul. He was the handsomest man she had ever seen. Blonde, husky, tanned, an athletic six-feet, he was all man. Seeing the lingering, hot glances women sent after him wherever they went, Melanie was filled with paralyzing love, intermixed with fear.
He was hers, she exulted. This beautiful man was hers. Of all the women in the world he had chosen her. And then the fear took over. If she should ever lose him -- but she wouldn't. She couldn't.
Still, through their whole courtship, Paul had never made any improper advances to her. They kissed and clung together passionately, Melanie often surprised to find herself half out of her head with a feverish aching and longing from his kisses, but that was the extent of their love-play. Seemingly he respected and deified her as he had done with no other woman. In this Melanie was grateful. If he had ever pushed her any further, she feared she couldn't hold out against him. She wanted him so terribly.
Their marriage was planned for October 15th. Often during those hot, humid summer nights, as she lay on her sheets, her body tense and trembling, fighting to dispel the desires consuming her, she thought to herself: would October never come? How come she possibly wait?
A blare of horns at a stop sign brought Melanie back to momentary reality. Fool, she charged. Blind, stupid fool! How could you have been so stupid? How could you have ruined it all? Fool!
Finally, on a Sunday night in late August, the inevitable had occurred.
The day had been hot, humid, the temperature hovering at an enervating 90 degrees. Rain was in the air, but despite the low, threatening clouds, the storm had held off throughout the whole miserable, muggy day. She had a date with Paul that night, and it seemed that time had stopped, the afternoon had dragged so slowly.
As she and Paul had emerged from the air-conditioned theater, felt the blast of hot, sultry air strike them, a restless impatience seemed to possess Melanie. The mere thought of going home, to suffer in the heat, to try to defeat the wild frenzy Paul's kisses left her burdened with, was too much to bear. If they could run away, be married tonight, never return to Fresh-water's stultifying smallness. If she could just stay with Paul.
A strange chill struck her, causing a rain of goose bumps to race along her bare arms. She was wearing a pink nylon dress, a wispy, summery thing, sleeveless, and with a deep, darting decolletage. (How her mother had screamed when she'd seen her in it.) As a concession to her mother she was wearing-stockings ("Decent women don't appear in public without stockings.") and suddenly she couldn't bear the feeling of the clinging, hot nylon.
"This heat," she grimaced, desperation filling her. "I could die."
Paul smiled down on her, put his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. "Bear up, baby. It'll break by morning. That storm's due any minute." He held open the door of his father's Mercury station wagon for her. "You don't want to go right home, do you? I thought maybe we could take a little ride, cool ourselves off."
Melanie's heart leaped. "That's a wonderful idea. Let's. We've got an hour or so. Mother said midnight."
Paul laughed. "That mother of yours. Still living in the dark ages."
"She means well."
It was as they left town that the first small drop of rain splattered the windshield. "That's more like it," Paul murmured.
The rush of air coming through the open windows refreshed Melanie somewhat. But still her legs were hot. These infernal stockings, she thought. "Paul," she said lightly, "would you think me terribly brazen if I took off my stockings right here?"
"Of course not, silly. I won't look."
Quickly Melanie kicked off her black patent pumps, raised her skirt. The white lustre of her legs in the darkness as she unfastened her garter snaps, peeled down the gauzy hosiery, gave Melanie a strange start. A queasy excitement trembled in her stomach. Then the stockings were tucked into her handbag, she'd pushed her feet Lack into her pointed-toed slippers. "Okay, Paul." She pushed herself up against his shoulder, rubbed her face tenderly on the rough fabric of his sport shirt. The faint smell of his cologne came to her. "All dear. You can look now."
"Feel better?" he asked, taking one arm from the wheel, encircling her small, trim body with it.
"A hundred percent. Stockings in hot weather. Ugh."
"I like 'em."
"You would."
For a moment Paul held her closer. Then he slowed the car, headed for the wide shoulder. They were about seven miles out of Freshwater now.
"Paul? Why are you stopping?"
"Thought I'd like to give my beautiful, little fiancee a kiss. Is there a law against that?"
"Paul..." she breathed pleasurably. "Of course not."
Then the car was stopped, the engine and lights killed. And she was in his arms, pushing her body hungrily at him, grinding her lips relentlessly into his, answering, answering --
"Oooh, Paul..." she sighed heavily when they finally broke.
"I've wanted to do that all evening," he said huskily. "All through the movie I could think of nothing else."
. .
"I wanted you too, dear," she said. "Kiss me again.
Now as they kissed, Paul's mouth hard and heavy on hers, his hard chest tight to the velvet softness of her bosom, it seemed she'd turned to liquid inside, her bones dissolving, like so much molten lava. She couldn't get enough of him, she couldn't get close enough. Even Paul noticed this new intensity of ardor.
"Melanie, darling. What is it?"
"Oh, Paul, Paul... It's just that I love you so much. How long, darling? It seems like forever."
"Only another month, honey. "Don't you think it's hard for me? All this waiting?"
"I know, darling." Again she was seeking his lips, wanting to forget all the frustration, all the days of waiting ahead, wanting to drown herself in the glorious ecstasy of his kisses, of his nearness. Her breath came in quaking puffs, and involuntarily she began to tremble. Melanie, she cautioned. Control yourself. Don't let Paul see--
"Darling, darling," Paul groaned, his mouth twisted in an anguished grimace. "I love you, I love you..." And he crushed her go fiercely that Melanie couldn't breathe.
"Paul, stop!" she gasped. "You're hurting me."
His grip relaxed. "I'm sorry, dear. It's just that when you're with me, I lose all control."
"It's all right, Paul. Only I couldn't breathe."
"I adore you, Melanie. Jesus, what a woman you are!" He leaned toward her again, his lips half-parted, a strange, wild glint in his eyes. Now he, too, began to tremble.
"Baby..." And she pulled him dose, a stab of frightened delight going through her as his tongue darted at her compressing lips. Eagerly, a wicked thrill paining her breasts, she parted her lips, sent her tongue to meet his. You wanton, she thought, surprising herself, as the pain grew more fierce, seemed to swell inside her stomach.
They broke for an instant, gasping hotly, then as if their separation was unbearable agony, flung themselves at each other anew, twisting their heads and their bodies against each other, their tongues sliding and probing unceasingly. Melanie knew she should stop the frenzied outburst, now before it was too late. But she could not. The dizzying passion, the ballooning delight and exotic excitement were too exquisite to turn off now. She wanted more of it. More, more -- Her fingers clawed into his hair at the back of his neck.
And now, through her paralyzing, maddening frenzy she became aware of Paul's hands, sliding, clutching along her side, sliding from her waist to her arm-pit. She felt his fingers shaking. And then, her head seemingly splitting from the realization, the hand was moving upward, gently and persuasively, toward her breast. Strangely, at that moment, two sides of her mind were at war with each other.
One saying, stop this, Melanie. Stop it, before it goes too far. Melanie, stop him, draw away. Stop him! The other standing mute, tingling in anticipation, savoring every sensation of the fingers, wondering why they proceeded so slowly.
Then the hand encompassed her right breast, squeezed it lightly. She started, unable to withstand the overpowering urge, the numbing desire. Flames darted through her. It was lovely, lovely! She kissed Paul harder, letting him know it was all right. Confidently his fingers moved up, touched the nipple through the thin material of her dress and brassiere. It seemed the nipple would burst from the screaming pressure building up within it Finally she broke the spell. "Don't, Paul," she said, holding his hand. "Oh, don't. You don't know what you're doing. We'll spoil everything." She was so confused. She so desperately wanted the beautiful pain to start again, she wanted to direct his fingers to the turgid buds to spark them to life again. And yet she knew that to surrender to this incoherent, dazzling need meant disaster.
"Paul, darling. Wait, please." Then she began to sob brokenly, her control snapping beneath the weight of the wildly baffling adult emotions. "When we're married. It'll be so much more beautiful. I promise, I'll make it beautiful. So beautiful . .
Paul's hand fell heavily into her lap. "I'm sorry, baby," he muttered thickly. "I guess I lost my head. It's just that you're so lovely..." Please, Paul -- her mind raged. Don't say any more. Not one word more. No, Paul --
"I love you, Melanie, I love you. You're the most lovely woman in all the world..." The final shred of control finally snapped within Melanie, and her mind was bathed with a blinding flash of heat, her limbs turned rubbery. There was only Paul, his beautiful hard masculinity, his soft, tender hands. That and her consuming, rampaging need. Paul, J need you so. The world, all consequence be damned. I need you. I want you. I can't wait. It has to be now And sobbing bitterly, her face awash with slippery tears, she clung to him, driving her wet lips into his repeatedly, her tongue flicking at his with maddening provocativeness. A wave of warm, blessed relief swept over her as Paul disregarded her warnings, as he brought his hand up, began to caress her breasts again. Her body wracked with deep, shuddering spasms, she pulled his mouth closer, chewed at his lips with an insatiable hunger.
Headlights suddenly brightened the Mercury's interior. Then the oncoming car was upon them, blasting past. They sat frozen, their lips together, Paul's fingers busily undoing the buttons of her dress, unheeding. It was as if the car had never existed.
Now the straps were pulled from her shoulders. Then the gown. And still Melanie sobbed, still she held their savage kiss. "Paul, Paul... my darling..." she keened as their lips parted. He pulled her forward, and she came limply, willingly. It seemed he fought the fasteners at her back for hours. Finally the brassiere gave way, and she put her arms before her, so he could slide it off her. She shuddered as she looked down at herself, saw the swift rise and fall of her opulent breasts, as she saw the swollen dark nipples contrasted against creamy flesh.
The pain was an exquisite, tortuous thing, as he leaned, kissed the straining tips, as his lips closed on them alternately. Hurt them, hurt them, a wild voice cried somewhere deep in her subconscious. Love them, love them --
"I love you, Paul. Tell me it's all right, that what we're doing is all right If you love me, it's all right. If you love me..."
"I love you, darling. I love you. It's all right It has to be, if we love each other."
Now Melanie was out of her head with need. "It's good, Paul. Oh, Paul! I love you. Tell me it's not wrong!" Now a more maddening sensation commenced as Paul began sliding his hand beneath her skirt, all the while continuing to kiss her breasts. The sliding of his hands on her smooth legs -- Suddenly he stopped. Numbly, looking at her with wide, pained eyes, he tried to slide her dress off.
"No, Paul!" she protested. "Not here. Not right on the highway. Take me someplace."
Quickly he pulled away. "I know a place up ahead two miles." He gunned the car to life, and lurched away from the shoulder. His face was a tense grimace as he drove. Turning at a slight rustle beside him, he found Melanie half rising in the seat, pulling her dress off, over her head. Now she crushed it on the seat beside her, turned to him clad only in her panties, garter belt and glistening black pumps. Docilely she slid to him, clung to his arm, her eyes wild and crazed in the reflected glow of the headlights.
Two minutes later they were driving into a deserted tractor lane. It led over a hill and down into a hollow, out of sight of the highway. The lights were immediately extinguished, the ignition key flipped. In the distance Melanie heard an ominous roll of thunder. Then she was oblivious to everything as Paul took her in his arms again.
"Are you sure? Darling, are you sure?" he gasped.
"Yes, Paul. If it's what you want."
Again he kissed her, then leaned to her, his hands caressing the silky sheen of her body, pushing her back onto the seat. Suddenly Melanie started. A cold splash had hit her shoulder. It was raining. Quickly Paul rolled up the windows. Almost instantly the car was suffocating. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Only the dreadful, beautiful moment at hand.
"In back," Paul said, darting from the car. going into the back, putting the back seat down so there was a long, flat expanse of deck for them to lay upon Without turning, Melanie knew he was undressing. She longed to look, to see his handsome body, but she could not force herself to turn her head. "There's a blanket back here somewhere," he muttered. Then she heard him scrambling to spread it.
"All right, darling," he said hoarsely. "Come back." Then as she started to open the door: "No, Melanie. Climb over. You'll get soaked out there."
Awkwardly, still wearing her heels and panties, she scrambled into the back, amazed that she should be so willingly entering into this ultimate surrender. How ungraceful she must look, clambering over the back seat, she thought There was a faint, sickening smell of gas in the back, and she saw that an outboard motor was lashed to one side of the wagon's deck.
Then Paul was pulling her down on a rough gritty blanket, he was sliding her panties down her legs. Shamelessly she raised her feet to help him. Now her shoes. Once again all reason was blotted out by the floodtide of desire inundating her. It was as if her head was on fire, as if her bones ached from it Paul was kissing her, all over -- each touch an agonizing brand. God, God, she moaned inwardly. It was glorious, glorious --
"Will it be all right?" he was whispering to her.
"Huh? What did you say, Paul?"
"A baby, I mean ..
The import of what he was saying penetrated the flaming wall of her mind. "Oh. It's all right. I'm safe." She smiled to herself. She hadn't been a straight A student in high school biology for nothing. She had an unerring accuracy in figuring her safe periods.
"You're sure?"
"Yes, darling. Yes, yes."
Carefully he moved to her. For a brief second panic flared within her. Ifs going to hurt, she thought. It will hurt terribly. Then the fear was replaced by swift exaltation. This is the man I love. I sacrifice myself to Mm. I want it to hurt. To hurt me awfully. To prove how much I love him.
"Darling," she moaned, the searing, demanding desire flooding back into her, making her stomach draw into a burning knot, turning her legs to putty. "Take me. Take me. I love you."
Then she screamed, three terrified cries, her body momentarily stiffening, as if to reject him. Then it was finished. He had conquered her. She clawed into Paul's back. The pain! The beautiful, magnificent pain.
Then the storm broke in full fury, the rain drumming thunderously upon the automobile's top, sweeping with lashing, shuddering strokes against the sides and windows. Lightning cut the sky jaggedly, deafening thunder blasts following. But inside the car, Melanie and Paul were unaware of the torrential storm without. Stray flashes of light caught the whiteness of their bodies as they struggled against each other, as they dealt with an intensely personal storm of their own.
* * *
But it was never the same again afterward, Melanie thought now, looking up, seeing the rushing traffic outside the taxi, definitely aroused by memory of that cataclysmic night. I knew it and Paul knew it, right from the very first date we had afterward. Though she'd chosen to shut her eyes to the truth for a long time, in her subconscious she'd known right away. No man should have seen that wildness, the licentious abandon of the night -- only one man -- your husband, should ever be allowed to know you like that. And the bitter truth of it was that Paul wasn't her husband. Not then. Nor would he ever be.
Though they fought against repetition of the act with firm determination, they were nevertheless, at the end, too weak to keep it from happening three more times in the next few weeks. Twice in a motel, again in Paul's automobile. After that Paul had broken off the engagement. He no longer loved her. It was as simple as that. He could have no respect for a woman like her. She was a pushover. And in the vengeful, tear-deluged scene that followed, he'd said cuttingly, "You're way out, Melanie, baby. You think any man could trust a girl like you? It'll take more than one man to keep a trick like you happy. I'd never know what to expect when I came home at night."
"But I love you, Paul. That's the only reason I acted like that. I couldn't keep myself from loving you so much. How could you even think such a thing? It was love, Paul."
"More than love there, doll," he'd interrupted. "It's a thing with you." He'd winced, gone silent. "Uh uh. Not for me, Melanie. You keep the ring, anything I gave you. But let's call it quits. I'm going out of town for awhile, maybe be gone for six months. By that time the whole thing will be ancient history..."
"You got what you wanted," she'd screamed. "And now you want to ditch me just like one of those pigs you ran with before..."
"That's right, Melanie," he'd replied, an insane, sadistic light in his eyes. "Just like one of those pigs. It wouldn't have lasted anyway. And so long's I didn't have to marry you to get a sample, you were one highly rated girl in my book..." When he'd left that night, Melanie, enraged, consumed by frantic, demented grief, had taken his ring, wrapped it in tissue, flushed it down the toilet. She would sue, her rage demanded, she would spread the whole scandalous story all over town. And then as days passed, as she regained her reason, she realized that she would do nothing. Nothing at all. Just take it.
In no time the story spread over the tiny town, and everywhere Melanie went she was met with pitying stares, smug smirks. Pride goeth before a fall -- the malevolent, taunting looks seemed to say. Her mother had been wild, uncomprehending, accusing Melanie of horrible things. And Melanie hadn't had the heart to deny any of them. She was a jilted woman, bound to her narrow, priggish existence, forced to suffer the purgatory of slowly passing time, until the story should fade, lose importance in the eyes of her neighbors.
The months after were horrible torture. Not only did she have to contend with her mother's acrimonious and constant nagging, the curious stares of the townspeople, but with her own conscience, the self-condemnation that constantly haunted her. If only she hadn't been such a fool, if only she had kept control of herself. Things might have been different.
And worse yet, despite the hurt he had bestowed, she still loved Paul.
There were not many beaus now. And those who did take her out had their minds on only one thing: determination to seduce Melanie. It was obvious that Paul had given notice that Melanie Mitchell was one hot chunk of back seat baggage. Theirs for the taking. After three consecutive dates during which she'd had to fight off her escort. Melanie gave it up as a bad job. She was washed up in Freshwater No decent man would have her after the smear job Paul Kenyon had done on her.
The winter had dragged intolerably, and Melanie had survived her grief, somehow managing to retain her equilibrium. But the shut-in, estranged existence was taking its toll. Another month in "the dreary town and she'd have lost her mind. She needed to run away, to reclaim herself, to forget, to start all over.
And now Chicago -- Her body stiffened, and the tears she'd fought to hold back so hard these past days broke forth, an agonized penance. In the cab's back seat she surrendered herself to noiseless, shuddering sobs.
Once the cabbie heard an escaped cry, and looked back in confused surprise. Then he shrugged, concentrated on his driving.
Abruptly, Melanie's painful reverie was interrupted.
"Here's your stop, miss," the driver said gruffly.
CHAPTER THREE
The building, housing the Chelsea Apartments, at 2245 W. Taravel, was almost exactly as Dierdre Tresselt had described it over the phone. Only there weren't any thirty stories. Slightly under. Say nine. Taravel Street was in a nice district, quiet, away from the El. the surrounding structures being mostly other apartment houses. Melanie knew she would miss the sight of green grass, as the Chelsea Apartment butted up tight against the sidewalk, leaving no room for even superficial landscaping.
Two blocks away, she had noticed through tear-glazed eyes, that there was a small business district -- dry-cleaner's, bakery, movie house, supermarket, liquor store. What more can a girl want? Melanie thought dully, drying her eyes with a hankie. Now her composure was regained and she hefted her two overnighters, and started up the small flight of stairs.
Almost as if she was afraid the buzzer would bite, she pushed the button and drew back. Immediately she heard a metallic buzz, and pushed open the door. Apartment 633, the card beneath Dierdre's name had read. That meant the sixth floor. Then as she was letting herself into the self-service elevator, a young man passed, a handsome blond of perhaps 24-25. In a quiet glance his eyes appreciatively swept Melanie's figure. Then he smiled.
God, she seethed as the door slid shut Don't they ever think of anything else?
She was just starting the wrong way in the hall, when she heard the voice call her. "This way, honey. Down at this end."
She wheeled to see a lovely brunette, clad in a red shortie lounging jacket, black, gold-striped pantinos, her feet in furry pink bedroom slippers, leaning in a doorway halfway down the hall. She held a cigarette languidly to her mouth.
"Oh," she said, startled. "Miss Tresselt?"
"Righto. Come on in, Melanie."
Close up, Melanie could see that Dierdre was at least five years older than she was, but nevertheless still a very beautiful woman. She could see immediately why she wouldn't want to share her apartment with just anybody.
Dierdre took one of the suitcases, ushered her into the apartment. Even though it fell far short of her childish daydreams of what Chicago apartments must look like, it was nevertheless a very attractive and comfortable layout. "Oh, it's very nice," she breathed.
"I think it'll do," Dierdre replied. "For the money, you can't touch anything like it in all Chicago. I know. I looked."
Dierdre appraised the newcomer slowly, her eyes lingering on her body, on her lovely face, seeing the ravages of Melanie's tears in her streaked make-up. Finally, she considered Melanie's clothing and luggage. She'd do, she decided, making a snap judgment. Poor kid, she thought sympathetically, she's got big troubles.
"In here," she said, leading Melanie through the spacious, clean, well-decorated living room, to the apartment's single bedroom. Without a word she dropped the suitcase on the pink bedspread. "You take that one. I sleep over here by the window." She smiled. "Seniority, you know..."
"You mean... I mean, am I all right? Ill do?"
"I think you'll work out fine." Her gaze became speculative, and she worked at her lip with a thumbnail. "You drink?"
"Why, yes... not to excess, but now and then . .
"How about men?"
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Are you a virgin? Have you gone to bed with a man?"
Melanie colored. "Well, really, Miss Tresselt . .
Dierdre smiled, pleased. "Dierdre, honey. Skip the Miss stuff."
"Well, after all, what a question to ask..."
"You don't have to answer. I got you kid. You're a virgin all right. But I hope your attitudes are different."
"My attitudes?"
"Yeah. In case I don't come home some night, yon won't go calling the cops, screaming bloody murder. I'm a big girl now, you know..."
"Oh," Melanie flushed again, "I understand."
"And if some night I'd -- ah... maybe like to have the apartment to myself... you could make like an avid movie fan or something?"
"Oh... why yes, of course..."
"Then I guess you're in, honey. Like Enrico Korsakov..."
"Huh?"
"An expression, Melanie. Forget it."
"Oh."
"One more thing. Are you a devotee of the idiot box?"
"The idiot box?"
"You know, television. Because if you are..."
"No, I'm not particularly addicted."
"Good. There is one. But I threw a shoe at it last week. She don't work no more." The last in a mimicked sing-song.
Melanie smiled. "It's good I don't like television then, isn't it?"
"Guess so. How about books? Like to read?"
"Oh, yes. Why back home I always had my nose in a book. Mom was forever complaining..."
"That's what I like to hear. And musk? You dig classical?"
"I can't say that I've ever listened to much of it. But I can learn, I guess. Anything that's soft and easygoing..."
"There's a portable stereo out in the other room.
Use it any time you like. My records are all over the place. But like I say, they're all classical."
"I'm sure I'll acquire a taste for it in a very short time. Maybe you can teach me..."
"Good girl, Melanie." Dierdre threw a comradely arm around her shoulders, led her from the bedroom. "I think I'm going to like you very much. C'mon, I'll show you the rest of the dump."
The rest consisted of a large kitchenette and dining alcove, a modern, sparkling bathroom, and a storage closet. "Kinda skimpy for $140," Dierdre said, "but then what can you do? It's Chicago..."
"We'll have to let out our minks and wear them another year," Melanie joked.
The living room was the apartment's showplace. There was a large, modern sofa, done in heavy frieze, pure black, with orange, white and grey throw cushions scattered on it. Two other overstuffed chairs and two Danish lounge chairs were arranged about the room. A modernistic coffee table, done in plate glass, free form, balanced precariously on wrought iron legs. End tables, book cases, literally crammed with books of every description, and pole lamps, filled out the complement of furnishings. Melanie was pleased to see that her roomie was a neat, fastidious person. There was no clutter anywhere. Except -- On a low table at the living room's far end, a table made of a door set upon concrete blocks, reposed Dierdre's hi-fi phonograph, its speakers spread on the floor beside it. Everywhere on the table were stacks of records. On the floor, stacked in another wire shelf, were some more. Seemingly a flood of records. There must have been at least 300 albums. It was quite impressive to a girl whose parents' musical heritage to her had been the Saturday night barn dance programs beamed in from Nashville.
"Quite a pile of music, huh?" Dierdre smiled proudly. "There's some baroque stuff in there that's magnificent. Ill work you up to that. But I swear... you ever bring in any of that lousy rock and roll in here, and I'll throw you out the window." Her eyes flashed in splendid fury, and Melanie found herself liking Dierdre even more.
"But what the hell?" Dierdre said. "What am I thinking about? You must be beat, you're probably dying to clean up." She pushed Melanie toward the bedroom. "You get some fresh things, get in there and take a bath. Soak some of those kinks out."
Docilely, enjoying the feeling of being told what to do, Melanie went to the bedroom, stripped off her dress and shoes. She started to remove her slip, then stopped. She would feel self-conscious parading past Dierdre in her bra and panties. It was just never done back home. Instead she peeled off her stockings and girdle. Then she found fresh undies in her suitcase, grabbed her towel and wash cloth, her hairbrushes.
Dierdre was at the record player, adjusting the volume, when Melanie emerged from the bedroom. "Here's something special," she said. "Shostakovich's Fifth. Real austere stuff." She turned, gazed at Melanie reflectively, catching her in momentary profile. "Christ, honey," she breathed fervently. "What cannons! Ill bet they drive the boys to trembling fits."
Melanie smiled uncomprehendingly, then hurried into the bathroom without answering. As she disrobed, she caught sight of her full, yet high breasts, and understood what Dierdre had meant.
Yes, she mused, recalling Dierdre's last comment. They had done that. Again she recalled Paul. They had led to his destruction -- her destruction -- the very destruction of their love. Remembering again, she felt a hot glow suffuse her, she felt a darting pang invade her breasts, almost as if he were with her now, again touching, kissing. Lassitude filled her, and she lifted the breasts high, her eyes half-closing with aroused delight, almost as if offering them to him again.
Suddenly a tremendous shudder shook her. She forced her hands away from her body and turned away from the mirror, ashamed. Brazen hussy, she taunted.
* * *
Lord, she thought as she stepped from the tub, her legs trembling, how I needed that bath. Another minute and -- Rapidly she toweled herself and hurried to dress, lest the exotic thoughts return. The brassiere, then her panties. She gave her hair a quick once-over and lightly touched up her make-up. She slipped on a terry-cloth house coat, and stepped from the bathroom.
"Hold on there; babe," Dierdre called as she started for the bedroom. "What's the rush? You're at home now. Lounge around anyway you like. There's no need to get dressed again. C'mon, I've got some drinks poured for us. They should really perk you up."
Dierdre was seated on the sofa. On the coffer table before her was a tray holding a gin bottle, a dish of ice cubes, a bottle of sour soda. "Some gin and sour." she coaxed. "Surely that won't stunt your growth..."
Melanie advanced slowly, smiling appreciatively. A drink would really taste good right now. "I wish you'd quit treating me like a baby. After all, I am twenty-three."
"So old," Dierdre joshed. "If I enjoy mothering you, indulge me, huh, Melanie? Here." She handed her the glass. Patting the sofa beside her, she said, "Sit down here, honey. You must be tired."
Melanie took the drink. Yet she could not bring herself to sit next to Dierdre. For some strange reason she just didn't want to. She moved to the easy chair at Dierdre's right.
Dierdre saw the move, but ignored it. After all, she was just a kid, new in town, fresh from the sticks, from all signs so far. "Tell me about yourself, Melanie. Where you from? What are you doing in Chicago?"
"I come from . . f She paused. "Now don't laugh. From a town called Freshwater."
"C'mon now, Melanie. You're kidding..."
"No, I'm not. It's for real. Down in southern Indiana. A funny little town of about 4000 people."
"Lord, you really are from the sticks, aren't you?"
Melanie stiffened. "Oh, not that far into the back country. I'm not exactly a hillbilly."
Dierdre's eyes scanned Melanie's figure meaningfully. "You can say that again."
"I mean, I'm not as much of a babe-in-the-woods as you seem to think." Melanie stopped suddenly, realizing she was already in over her head, displaying her callowness by the mere act of protesting.
"What are you doing in Chi?"
"I came to find a job."
"You mean you just came to find a job? Without my prospects or anything?"
"Yea." Melanie studied her hands. "That's it."
"Well, there's no worry there. We can find you a job all right. Only it is a bit unusual. How come Chicago? What's the matter with Indianapolis or Fort Wayne? Or even Louisville or Cincinnati? They'd be closer to home, I should think."
"Maybe I don't want to be closer to home," Melanie said, hard-put to keep the irritation from her voice.
"Oh," Dierdre replied, catching the note, her eyes wary and knowing. "It's like that, is it?"
"It isn't like anything," Melanie protested, reining in her voice. "I just came looking for a job."
"You didn't run away from home, did you? God knows you're old enough so's you wouldn't have to run away from home."
Melanie was amused. "No, I didn't run away from home. Mom gave her full blessing. Said if I had to find out the hard way, then she guessed..." Again Melanie caught herself in mid-sentence.
"And what did Dad say?"
"There is no Dad," Melanie said softly. "He died when I was sixteen."
"I'm sorry," Dierdre said.
"It's all right. After all, it's been seven years. People forget." Then she thought of Paul. Do they?
"Let's drop it, huh? You came to Chi to find a job. We'll let it go at that. Someday you'll want to tell me about it. Maybe you'll need a shoulder to cry on. Just remember me, huh? I only hope it isn't anything serious. No big fight or anything."
"No," Melanie forced a smile. "Nothing serious." No -- not at all.
"Now about this job. What kind of work are you trained to do? Secretary, beautician, waitress? I'm a book-keeper myself..."
"Nothing much of anything, Tm afraid. I lived in Freshwater with Mom, just keeping house. I guess that's my only skill..."
"Hell, you don't need a job, you need a husband."
"Yes," Melanie tried to smile bravely, to force back the sudden, hot upsurge of tears behind her eyelids, "I guess I do."
Paul, Paul -- For once Dierdre didn't see the inner turmoil working within Melanie. She went on. "Have you ever done any saleswork? I mean like being a salesgirl in a store? That doesn't take much, I guess..."
"No, nothing like that."
"Well, how about it? Think you'd be interested? It's as good a place to start as any."
"Yes, I think I'd like that..."
"Well, then you're all set. You come down to the store with me tomorrow. I know the personnel people down there real well. We'll have you punching a clock by Monday."
"Do you really think so?"
"Sure thing. And it won't be just any cheesy job. Pelletier's is one helluva classy store. Women's wear. We handle nothing but the best. We have only the ritziest people in Chicago coming in every day. And with a face and figure like yours, we'll have you married off to some tycoon's son before you can say Maiden form..." Suddenly there shone in Dierdre's eyes a regretful look, a look of envy almost.
"Oh, Dierdre," Melanie said excitedly. "This is too good to be true. The job I mean. I'm not interested any tycoon's sons right now, thank you."
Dierdre smiled puckishly. "Oh?"
"What kind of dress do you think I should wear?"
"I don't know. Suppose we get you unpacked, and I can see what you've got. Maybe I can lend you something of mine." Then she shot a look at Melanie's bust-line and frowned. "I guess that's a bum idea. We're built just a wee bit differently." She sighed. "Let's take a look. " The suitcases were unpacked. The dress, shoes and accessories were chosen. All this amidst gay, busy chatter. Melanie sought to prolong the moment. She was afraid to face the darkness, the solitude of her thoughts. For there, in her bed, alone and bewildered, she'd have time to think of Paul, to recall the wretched mess they had made of her life.
And now, finally, the dreaded moment was there. The happy talk was ended, the lights were extinguished. Across the room she heard Dierdre roll over in her bed. "Goodnight, honey," she called sleepily.
"Goodnight," Melanie answered.
And though she didn't want to cry again, she couldn't help herself. She was so alone -- seemingly no one in the whole world really cared whether she lived or died. Ninny, she called, writhing against the sheets. Oh, Paul, why? It could have been so different.
She buried her face in the pillow to muffle her sobs.
In her bed Dierdre was still awake. She heard the heart-rending breakdown, she longed to go to Melanie, to hold the poor kid, to comfort her. But she stifled the impulse. No sense in scaring her off first thing, she concluded.
At long last the tears abated, and Melanie dropped off to sleep. An hour later Dierdre fell asleep also.
But it was not a sound sleep. Even as Melanie tossed and writhed against the soon-damp sheets, Dierdre twitched and spasmed in her unconsciousness, also. It was as though a silent, obscure ballet were being staged in the bedroom, either girl so involved in her own esoteric movements that the other's gyrations had no effect. Dierdre began to dream, and in the sleep-visions she saw Melanie, not as Melanie, but as herself, and the years passed rapidly, and the years that were past had robbed her; she was not the Melanie in the bed across the room, she was a Dierdre-Melanie whose life was big city life, free of that innocence of childhood or nature the new girl possessed. She saw her past clearly, and the way she was now. Then -- Then she was face to face with her haunting thoughts.
CHAPTER FOUR
"WOW!" Dierdre said the next morning when they were they were finally ready to leave for downtown and Pelletier's. "You'll knock 'em dead in that outfit. If they don't hire you, they're blind. And if I know anything about Tom Burrill, he'll put you on in a minute."
It was true, Melanie was forced to admit, as she pirouetted before the full-length mirror in the b" 'room. She did look very nice. A slight frown crossed her face. Only one thing. If only her breasts weren't so big She almost looked overbalanced. "Don't you think this dress is too tight across the chest?" she asked.
"Hell, no," Dierdre smiled. "That's just the effect a gal needs to get ahead these days. If I had your shape, Melanie..."
"Don't talk like that, Dierdre. Your figure " lovely."
"Yeah, for a scrawny, underfed boy..." Melanie giggled, and then they were ready to go.
It was just as Dierdre had predicted. The interview went through without a hitch, and judging from the yearning scrutiny Tom Burrill, the assistant personnel manager, gave her breasts and legs, it was quite obvious that women were here to stay. "Miss Tresselt has recommended you enthusiastically, and though you've virtually no experience in the merchandising line, I'm willing to give you a chance."
He fought a vicious battle to bring his gaze up from her slow-rising bosom, and to fix his gaze on Melanie's eyes. Finally he was victorious. "Now there are openings in only two departments at present. That would be accessories and young misses' ready-to-wear. Since you've had no experience, I'd recommend the accessories department."
"Oh, that sounds fine . .
"The salary isn't much, but in time, with raises, you'll be able to work yourself up to something better. You'd be starting at roughly $55 a week."
And so, the very next Monday morning, Melanie began in the vast accessories department at Pelletier's. The work was interesting, the stock varied, the contact with customers and other salesgirls invigorating. There was so much to learn, so much store knowledge to assimilate in so short a time, that there was little of it left to think of herself and her problems.
Melanie was in charge of the counters featuring such oddments as scarves, belts, handbags and inexpensive costume jewelry. And working with these accessories, seeing the use to which they were put to enhance feminine artifice, by appraising and imitating the chic, fashionable dress of the sophisticated, well-heeled women who patronized the store, Melanie was able to acquire a cosmopolitan, worldly sheen of her own.
It seemed that the first two weeks fled past in a fleeting trance. From nine-thirty to five she was submerged in the procedures of earning a living, fascinated by, and involved in, the store's activity. The evenings were given over to relaxation, often to near collapse (some days were really rugged), to getting to know her roommate better. Many evenings, they merely sat listening to music, making desultory comment on petty store politics, feeling each other out, and by a process of near osmosis, uncovering the weaknesses and problems of the other, gradually coming to understand what made the other tick.
For instance, Dierdre had gathered, from the slips Melanie made from the pained expressions that crossed her features when certain topics came up, that Melanie was trying to forget a love that hadn't turned out. And yet, never once did she openly pry. The first night Melanie had appeared at the apartment she had made an indiscreet faux-pas. It did not happen again.
Melanie was never required, as Dierdre had intimated in their first interview, to leave the apartment so Dierdre could entertain lovers there. Several nights Melanie had waited up for Dierdre when she went out on a date, surprised and dismayed by the wild, haunted look that shone in Dierdre's eyes as she returned. Just by looking at Dierdre's usually immaculate clothing, seeing an awry stocking seam, a zipper not fully pulled up, a wisp of hair in disarray, she knew that Dierdre had allowed a man to possess her. In an automobile, in his apartment, in any of a number of places. But what did it matter?
What mattered was the frightened, tormented expression in Dierdre's eyes, a look of dissatisfaction, of remorse and regret. Of self-loathing even. It seemed to Melanie that the woman was driving herself, forcing herself to indulge in these promiscuous, stolen moments. And even after the ultimate debasement -- still unfulfilled. It was definitely an unsettling conjecture. What private devils ate at Dierdre? Why couldn't a woman as sweet and affectionate as she find real love?
But she was snooping, Melanie would think, changing her tack, fighting to dispel any thoughts centered about any such thing as love, jogging her mind with other considerations, to forget, to dull the agonizing remembrances of her own past. And for the most part she was successful.
But there were times -- Otherwise she and Dierdre left the apartment, Dierdre insistent upon showing Melanie around Chicago. She owned a beat-up '57 Ford, and it was in this vehicle that they made the rounds of the gigantic metropolis, Dierdre guiding her to the ugly, derelict districts of Chicago as well as to the city's showplaces. To a girl brought up in a small town, spending her life in the deadening atmosphere of a Freshwater, the vistas Dierdre laid before her were fantastically exciting, and Melanie never tired of the tours. Some nights they drove for hours in aimless wandering all over the broad expanse of the city.
It was on light-hearted nights like this, invigorated and dazzled, that Melanie was most happy, that she was glad she had fled home, escaped to Chicago. She would never regret her decision. Or so she thought.
Anyway, until the night of the party.
* * *
The Chelsea Apartments were a devilishly-involved and complicated warren of living units. A person could live there for twenty years, Melanie often thought, and never even see most of the building's other occupants. Once people were in the structure, once their doors closed behind them, they moved into a private, secret world of their own -- they shut out and denied the existence of another world beyond their door And still Melanie had encountered enough of the tenants, in the octopus-like extensions of corridors and floors, to know the temper of the building.
Several times she'd accompanied Dierdre to other apartments, occupied by women like themselves, career girls, working in any of a hundred different capacities in the city. Some of them bright, happy, hopeful for the future, others already darkly pessimistic, surrendering to the baser sides of their nature. These visits always left Melanie unsettled and confused. But always, when Dierdre tried to take her to the apartment parties where men would be present, she demurred. The memory of Paul was still too fresh in her mind, the ache in her heart too agonizing. She wanted nothing at all to do with men. Not just yet. Now there was only her job, the period of convalescence she must live through-There were men enough in the apartment complex. And those whom Dierdre came in contact with were all bachelors, living together in twos and threes, sometimes even more, snaring expenses, keeping slovenly quarters, preparing hasty, botched-up meals, engaging in a seemingly ceaseless round of drunken parties. Dierdre had often asked Melanie to attend these brawls with her, but Melanie had refused.
"C'mon, baby," Dierdre said. "The guys keep asking for you. They've spotted you in the hall, they're all dying to meet you."
"No thanks," Melanie smiled. "I've seen those creeps ogling me. I know what they want, and it isn't polite conversation."
But finally, that night in June, almost six weeks after Melanie had arrived in Chicago, she relented.
"It'll be fun, Melanie," Dierdre had coaxed. "This isn't your usual collection of rum-dums. This is a more elite gang of guys. I promise, Melanie, nothing'll happen to you. Ill keep my eye on you."
"I'm not a baby," Melanie bad said, rising to the bait "I can take care of myself."
"Then what are you afraid of?" Dierdre challenged. "Honey, honey..." she hugged Melanie. "So your sweetie gave you a bad deal. Are you going to mourn the rest of your life? Are you going to become a female hermit because of the no-account slob?"
"I never told you anything about Paul," Melanie said confusedly, surprised that Dierdre knew her problem so well.
"Paul, is it? No matter. Come off it, baby. You didn't have to tell me anything. I could read you page by page the first week you were here."
"I hadn't realized it showed so plainly."
"Skip it, Melanie. How about it? Or are you afraid you can't handle yourself in the big city?"
It was this final taunt that decided Melanie. Her mouth drew to a thin line, and a moment later she said, "All right. Ill go."
As they arrived at the fourth floor apartment of Clancy Foster that Saturday night, the party was in full swing. Having been oriented by Dierdre, Melanie knew that Clancy was an important cog in a free-wheeling Chicago specialties company, a real comer. He and his ace salesman, Bill Compton, shared one of the classiest apartments in the building. Also, that Bill Compton was a real living doll.
It was ten o'clock before Dierdre and Melanie arrived, the wild outburst of noise emanating from the apartment almost bowling them over as they let themselves in. There were approximately twenty other people crowded into the apartment, most of them standing around conversing earnestly, drinks in hand, some taking turns at the self-service bar in the far corner of the living room, others dancing in an adjoining room, to the blasting strains of a monstrous hi-fi rig. The improvised dance hall, originally a dining room, stripped of conventional furniture, was dimly lit by a few flickering Capri lights, and Melanie could see several slowly-gyrating couples, their bodies pressed tightly together, looking like shadowy phantoms in the gloom.
Quite frankly, Melanie was disappointed. The fabulous apartment wasn't what she'd expected at all True, it was furnished royally, the walls, carpet and drapes sparkled, but beyond the lavish garishness of the two stereo speakers and the component cabinet, there was no mark of individuality to the room. The bar, about five feet long, done in fat, bundled bamboo pilings, was the only other striking feature to the room's furnishings.
Before she knew it, there was a martini in her hand, and quite nervously she began to sip it. For a time it seemed she and Dierdre were studiously ignored. Then Dierdre grabbed her arm, pulled her toward a tall, handsome, dark-haired man who was wrapped up with a bleached blonde, his eyes furtive, roving, obviously wanting to get away.
"Melanie," Dierdre said, "this is Bill Compton. Bill, Melanie Mitchell My roommate."
Bill's face suddenly brightened. "Well, now," he breathed happily, "this is more like H. Now I know why I bothered to come to this party. How are you, Melanie?" The blonde, a disgusted look on her face, instantly faded into the crowd.
"Nice to meet you, Bill," Melanie said softly. She knew at a glance what Dierdre had meant. He was an extremely handsome man. And from his manner, he apparently knew his way around women. She'd have to watch her step.
"Where's Dierdre been biding you, Melanie?"
"Oh, here and there. I'm pretty much of a homebody," she replied, hard put to think of any clever retort. Momentarily she felt awe and self-consciousness. Stop it, Melanie, she thought. He's not half the man Paul was. There he was again, invading her mind. When she most wanted to forget She sipped thirstily at her martini.
"Well, well soon change that. You're one real item of doll-type merchandise." He noticed her martini glass, now empty. "Here, that's no way to have a party. Gimme. I'll get you a refill." Aggressively he was off, toward the bar.
"Isn't that something?" Dierdre smiled, seeing the effect Bill had had on Melanie. "How'd you like to tuck in beside something like him?"
"Dierdre," Melanie snapped. "Don't be bawdy."
But, somewhere along the line, Compton was side-tracked. At any rate he never returned with Melanie's drink. While they waited, she was introduced to Clancy Foster. He was nice, but just barely polite, being too much engrossed in the black-tressed, sultry, and olive complexioned beauty with sleepy eyes, who hung on his arm possessively.
"Sleeping together," Dierdre said matter-of-factly when they moved away.
Again, Melanie was taken slightly aback. This attitude, the way everyone took their sex life so casually, was definitely disturbing. It knocked her sense of perspective, her small town philosophy of love and morals, for a loop. She didn't know what to think. Was she wrong to set so much store by continence and married love? After all, wasn't she making too big a thing of her tragic experience with Paul Kenyon? Wasn't she being hokey and small time?
It seemed that an endless string of men were detaching themselves from the milling mass within the room, now, asking Dierdre for an introduction; or, Dierdre being busy elsewhere, taking the initiative and introducing themselves. By then Melanie was working on her third martini, and was openly thrilled and pleased by the attention being paid her. And yet, suave as the men were, they could not conceal their basic intents. They were not looking for a wife. They wanted a one night stand, and most of them, after one dance, seeing that Melanie was not to be so easily conned, drifted off rapidly.
It was just as well, Melanie thought. For the most part, they made no impression; their names and faces were forgotten the minute they turned their back. Only Bill Compton had made any distinct impression. And he was making himself terribly scarce. Oh, yes, she conceded. There was one other. The dark-eyed, brooding Val Tallant.
He was an aspiring author, free-lancing now, and not overly successful, judging from the self-deprecating tone he took toward himself. Tallant was not an extremely attractive man. Appealing enough, but save for his dark, tangled thatch of brown hair, his piercing, probing gaze, he was rather plain. Melanie had noticed while they were being introduced, that his Lips were full, almost feminine. Yet there was something unnerving about the way he unflinchingly fixed his eyes on hers.
"What sort of things do you write?" she'd asked trying to put real interest into the question, but it was hard to do, because Tallant was a vague specimen. He was with her and he wasn't.
"Anything that pays a buck," he smiled diffidently. "Articles, stories, fillers... right now all my spare time's going into a novel."
"Spare time? I shouldn't think there'd be any spare time if you're writing anything as important as a novel."
"Be realistic, kid," She resented having him call her a kid. "A guy's got to eat. I turn out the pulp most of the time. Every little bit helps."
"You've published?" she asked archly. Again she caught herself sipping her martini. She was getting absolutely woozy now.
"Gobs of stuff."
"Well, I'd think that once a publisher prints one of your stories, you'd be set. Your reputation would be established, and you'd be on easy street. I hear they pay fantastic prices..."
"God," he'd smiled condescendingly. "But you are a new type aren't you? A one hundred carat ingenue."
"Thanks," she replied coldly. "I like you too." And then she stalked off. Later she was surprised to see him standing off to one side, apparently alone, studying her with an intense, yet somehow amused gaze. She could have throttled him with pleasure.
By one A. M. the party was at full tilt. The small dining room was jammed with dancers, some piling out into the living room. As she watched one couple -- the girl a long-limbed, thin creature, her brunette hair in slight disarray -- they clung together in the doorway, barely moving to the music. Unashamedly, the girl allowed her escort to move his hand down her back, slide it arousingly along the pert, firm swellings of her fanny. Even through the gin, Melanie felt embarrassment and turned away.
Then suddenly she became aware that Dierdre was missing. She was nowhere in the apartment. Taking her drink, she approached Chuck Draves, one of the men she'd been introduced to. "Have you seen Dierdre anywhere?"
He sent her a slow, patronizing smile. "No, honey I haven't." It was obvious he knew where she was, whom she was with. "But if you're real worried, well, why don't you and I go looking for her? I've got several ideas..." Melanie made a wry face. "I'll bet you do. No, thanks."
"Spoil-sport," the man smiled acidly.
By concentrating (Melanie was working on her fifth martini) she was able to see what was happening. Every once in a while a couple would disentangle themselves from the dancers, and, waiting for a moment when their departure wouldn't be noticed, would leave the apartment. Even Melanie, though it filled her stomach with pangs of disgust, wasn't so thick as to not realize where they were going, what they intended to do. Her conclusions were further reinforced, when five minutes later she saw a different couple enter the apartment, the girl drunk, her face strangely aglow, a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile on her mouth. Her male escort winked openly at a friend, a signal that he'd scored.
Then ten minutes later she saw Dierdre return to the party with a man whom Melanie did not know... they'd been to bed, that was plainly evident. Only the expression on Dierdre's face was not a self-satisfied, fulfilled one. The inner torment was clearly reflected again.
Now Bill Compton appeared, asked Melanie to dance. Her heart suddenly beat faster, and she rose, melted into his arms. Those martinis, she thought, quite drunk now. Jammed together among the sinuously dancing couples, Melanie felt Bill press himself tightly to her, burying his lips in her hair. An electrifying surge of warmth darted down her spine. And despite the fact that Compton was also intoxicated, and was dancing clumsily, she enjoyed his nearness. It felt good to be in a man's arms again.
Through the alcoholic haze, she thought she felt his hand slide down farther on her back than it should have. But she was not sure, so she disregarded it. Fun, she thought dully. She was having fun. It was a long time since she'd had any fun. Suddenly Melanie quailed, as a familiar warmth swelled in her. Paul, she recalled. She had felt this way with Paul.
But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered now. Confidently Bill Compton held her closer, his hand sliding luxuriously up and down the silk of her back, catching her skirt, rubbing it against the satin of her slip, of her girdle. She shuddered. Now, as they were caught in a crush of barely moving dancers, his hand slid further downward, began to touch her buttocks, to press against her hip, sliding up and down on the hem of her girdle.
The sensation was delicious, Melanie thought, and since they were entrapped, since she was positive she could maintain self-control this time, she permitted the intimacy.
Then suddenly, Bill had drawn her into a corner, was kissing her hungrily, pushing her head painfully against the wall. A rush of delight came to Melanie. and she wound her hands in his hair, kissed him back Fun -- her blurred mind cried giddily.
Compton broke the kiss, smiled in supreme self-assurance, then moved in again. And still, intending only to tease, to flirt, Melanie countenanced his sudden ardor. "Baby," he murmured, "the things you do with those lips of yours..." Melanie was flattered. "Try me again," she sighed blearily, oblivious now to the softly-treading dancers moving past them. Immediately Bill complied.
"Let's go somewhere," he breathed hoarsely.
"Naughty..." Melanie giggled.
"No... somewhere so we can be alone. So I can really kiss you."
"No, Bill..." she sighed. "It wouldn't be right, it wouldn't..." Again he took her into his arms, and they began to dance again. His hard, warm, demanding lips came down once more, suffocating her with their fierce hunger.
When they were opposite the corridor leading to the back of the apartment, Compton tried to move her into it. "No, Bill..." she protested.
Again the scorching, consuming kiss. She yielded, let herself be pushed backward.
Then they were in a dark, muffled room, the sounds of the party distant, and Bill was kissing her rapidly, his kisses impassioned, barely giving her time to breathe. Now they slid down her face, moved along the length of her creamy throat. The pain was maddening within her now.
"No..." she started to scream, as Bill's hand cupped her breast, as it tried to slip inside her dress. Finally she was awake to the danger she'd exposed herself to. It was going to happen again, with the same loathsome result. So much animal frenzy. No love, no lasting relationship. Just animal rooting and pawing.
She was frightened, her body rigid. No, no --What had she done? She didn't want this. She hadn't intended Ms. Melanie struggled to break free. But Bill's grip was like steel bands, trapping her body, rending her motionless. God, not she thought. Help met "Bill, please. Don't. Stop, Bill. I'll scream!"
Roughly, impersonally the big hand came up, covered her mouth. "Hell, doll," he laughed. "You won't scream. Not yet you won't. Later maybe."
Then he was pushing her down upon the bed his arms pinning her rigidly. She lost one of her shoes. She felt a run race the length of her left stocking. She fought fiercely, gasping for breath. Now Bill was lazily opening the buttons on her dress. His lips came down on hers again, gagging her. Now his hand pinched her nipples through the material of her brassiere. He was pulling her skirt up, reaching to touch here there.
I didn't mean it, Bill. I didn't mean this, her terrified, incoherent mind wailed. God, dear God, please help me.
She gasped in pain as he tore at her girdle, trying to pull it off. "Dolly," he moaned ecstatically, "you're going to be good."
Melanie broke away, managed a muffled scream. "Bill, please stop. Oh, someone help me!"
At that moment the bedroom door was thrown open, then rapidly closed. Someone entered.
"Who's there?" Bill gasped, his body stiff, his eyes straining to pierce the darkness.
In answer, the lights flashed on. Both Bill and Melanie stared toward the door, their faces frozen with frightened surprise. It was Val Tallant. He stood immobile at the door for an instant, getting his bearings. Then he flung himself at Compton, pulling him to his feet in a single vicious motion He slapped him once across the face, the crack resounding echoingly in the room.
"Broom off, you hound! Leave the kid alone!"
'You bastard!" Compton raged, struggling free, aiming a punch at Tallant. It never landed. Tallant's right deflected it, his left smashed full strength into Bill's face, and he went down like a sack of flour.
Tallant turned to Melanie where she squirmed on the bed to button her dress, to pull her skirt down. His eyes were narrowed, his words scathing: "You dimwit. You're even dumber than I thought. Now get out of here."
Quickly, Melanie slipped her shoe on, brushed at her hair with her fingers. In panic, filled with a warring sense of gratitude and hate toward Val Tallant, she fled from the room. Behind her, she heard the throaty grunts of the two men fighting, heard the tearing slap of fist against flesh.
She attempted casualness as she broke from the dark hallway, walked to the apartment door. But her disheveled appearance gave her away, and several couples turned to stare. Among them was Dierdre. Mercifully, Melanie escaped before full attention was leveled upon her.
* * *
"I'm so ashamed," she wailed to Dierdre as she sat on the edge of her bed, "I'm so ashamed."
"Don't, baby," Dierdre said, her face white with outrage. "There, it's all right. Forget it..."
"It was just like taking candy from a baby. Green. God, how can anybody be so damn green? I'll never be able to look myself in the face again. Another minute and he would have had me undressed..."
"It's okay, honey. You're safe now." Dierdre's grip tightened around Melanie, she pulled her down on her bosom and rocked her comfortingly. Momentarily, Melanie clung to her. As she pulled away and rose to get undressed for bed, she noticed a strange thing.
The torment was gone from Dierdre's eyes. Instead, there was a happy, distant stare. She smiled strangely. "It's going to be all right, darling..."
Melanie found herself shaking for no reason at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
Word seeped through the grapevine that Val's intervention in the intervention in the near seduction of the country girl from apartment 633 had turned out to be a real fine brawl, with the Tallant lad coming out on top by quite a wide margin. Not that anybody thought Melanie was worth the fuss. Any girl that naive deserved just what she got. Anyone who fooled with Bill Compton could expect to get burned.
For the next few days following the disastrous party, Melanie was seized with a feeling of mental abhorrence, of dread and regret. Why had she allowed herself to get into such a compromising situation? Hick, she thought. Just come in OH a bale of key. Apple cider hick. She deserved every nasty thing anyone had to say about her.
And she began to question the sagacity of her move to Chicago. Maybe she wasn't really ready to play in the big leagues yet. As world wise as she'd thought herself, it was obvious that she was still a novice, a dewy-eyed babe-in-the-woods. These Chicago operators play for keeps, she mused dourly.
Another disturbing consideration: Why had Val Tallant bothered? What difference did it make to him if some hayseed broad got her pants torn off, if she walked into a rape? And slowly, detail by detail, Melanie tried reconstructing the hazy events that had led up to the bedroom attack. Tallant must have been watching her like a hawk, every minute of the entire evening. But how? She'd looked at him several times as the party progressed, and he'd been sitting in surly silence or otherwise busy with other girls. Once he'd sent her a condescending, arrogant smile.
And if he had been watching her that carefully, why? How was he concerned with her? Unless -- she found her heart fluttering wildly at the insane thought. Kid, she cursed herself. Greenhorn kid I Only someone like you could think up such nutty angles.
On Tuesday morning, as they'd stood on the steps of the apartment building, Dierdre shaking out her umbrella, she'd seen Bill Compton emerge from the building, stride quickly past them. At the last minute he turned to stare at her, a vengeful, angry expression on his face. Melanie noticed one eye was still puffy and dark, there were two long bandages on his cheek. Swiftly she turned away, filled with embarrassed shame. She was sure her face must have been a burning red.
But by Thursday the shame, the near tragedy of the party was pushed into the back of her mind. The ugly events did not seem quite so vivid; in fact, there were moments when she could not believe it had ever happened. She was engrossed in her job again, in keeping up with Chicago's hectic pace. Her brain was dizzied throughout the day with the details of merchandising at Pelletier's, by the interesting people she encountered every hour of the day. She was making new friends among the other salesgirls, and day by day she was becoming more confident, more secure in her self-chosen niche. She was positive she had made the right choice in fleeing Freshwater, and for the moment she knew that she was happier than she'd been in a long time.
On Wednesday, a strange thing happened in her department One of the plainclothes detectives caught a shoplifter as she was leaving the store, a $4.98 bracelet from Melanie's counter in her handbag. Unbelieving, she was called to the office to confront the woman, to identify her as Mrs. Weldon For tinier. But this was crazy, she'd thought, looking to where the woman was weeping in frightened disgrace, her eyes downcast. This woman was the wife of one of Chicago's wealthiest lawyers, she was one of Pelletier's best customers. The diamond brooch she wore at her breast would buy hundreds of cheap bracelets like the one she'd stolen. Why?
When Melanie had said as much to Mr. Blake, the manager of Pelletier's, he'd sent the woman a pitying look. "It's a thing with her," he'd murmured so Mrs. Fortinier wouldn't hear. "She's sick, I'm afraid." He flipped a switch on his intercom. "Miss Prentice, will you jet Mr. Fortinier on the phone? Mr. Weldon Fortinier." It was at this point that Melanie had been dismissed.
Excitedly, she detailed the happening to Dierdre that night as they sat in the apartment drinking highballs, listening to some Vaughan Williams. "But why?" she asked. "Why should she steal? With all the money she has?"
"Happens all the time," Dierdre smiled patiently. "Some people get their kicks that way. Lots of people get satisfaction in lots of different ways." Her gaze had turned inward, her mouth had formed to a thin, bitter line.
Abruptly Dierdre brightened. "But why should we worry about the likes of Mrs. Fortinier? She's got a sugar-daddy to get her out of hock. She'll get a warning and that's about it. Gals like that bitch never have to face the music." She rose. "How about another drink?"
"Why yes," Melanie answered. "I could stand one more before I go to bed."
But the experience had been more disturbing than Melanie had thought. Despite the three drinks she consumed before bedtime that night, she had slept restlessly, her dreams haunted by visions of Paul, of the interrupted rape by Bill Compton. She awoke momentarily, trembling, her body wet with perspiration. For a moment, it had seemed she was caught in Compton's unrelenting grip again, that she had felt his hot breath on her face.
Moments later she fell back, dozed more soundly. Only now her dreams were filled with the image of Val Tallant's face, of his angry, insolent smile.
* * *
On Thursday, Melanie was called to Mr. Blake's office again. Something to do with Mrs. Fortinier and the intercepted shoplifting, she supposed. It was as she waited in one of the plush, modern chairs in the anteroom to Mr. Blake's office, that a disconcerting incident occurred.
The man, obviously an executive by the way be carried himself, entered the office, approached Miss Prentice's desk. "The boss in?" he asked breezily.
"Yes," the secretary-receptionist said. "But he's tied up on the phone at the moment. Miss Mitchell," she indicated Melanie with a languid motion, "is due to see him next. If you'd care to wait, Mr. Hillman...
"Okay," he smiled. "I'll do that little thing. I've got time to kill, I guess . .
He was a handsome, striking man, Melanie couldn't help but notice as she glanced up. Perhaps 45 or so, he was thin, tall, immaculately tailored, his suit grey, his shoes glistening lack. The color complimented the man well. It set off his swarthy complexion, his dark, piercing eyes, the wide swaths of grey hair sweeping back from his temples. When he smiled there was a debonair, devilish fascination in his eyes.
It was with difficulty that Melanie forced herself to look away, to study the painting on the wall behind Miss Prentice. But still her mind buzzed with the cursory appraisal of his self-possessed, aggressive masculinity. For an older man -- Then her thoughts were interrupted as she glanced toward the man a second time. Immediately her heart commenced to race, and though she fought her gauche reaction, she knew she was blushing.
For the man was calmly and unashamedly ogling her, his eyes scanning her face, her figure, her legs, team the top of her gold-red head to the tips of her blue, sharp-toed pumps. With almost scientific deliberation, he concentrated on her breasts, his mouth and eyes speculative. Then his eyes began a lazy downward movement, sliding on her hips, on her belly, moving along her thighs, down to the svelte, exciting line of her legs. It felt to Melanie as if he was actually touching her, as if his fingers were actually grazing her flesh, sliding on the silk of her legs. He smiled a strange, small smile.
Then she knew she was reddening to the very roots of her hair. Of all the unmitigated gall! she raged. He was inspecting her just like she was so much meat on display. And in that instant she felt dirty, crawly inside. She wondered if the man was actually undressing her with his eyes, imagining her lacy underthings, her opulent, creamy flesh. Then her anger overcame her embarrassed shame, and she flung an enraged, contemptuous stare in his direction.
But if the man was in any way chastened, he definitely did not show it. He smiled blandly, his eyes delving deeply into hers, holding her gaze in a hypnotic, pulse-awaking grip. Melanie felt her ears burning, she felt her mouth open in uncontrolled outrage. With a furious surge of determination she broke the spell, looked away in baffled amazement.
At that moment the buzzer on Miss Prentice's desk sounded, and she heard the crisp, authoritative tones of Mr. Blake: "Send me Miss Mitchell, please."
Miss Prentice smiled and Melanie rose, started toward the door. In that last instant she glanced back, saw the man eagerly appraising her legs, his eyes boring into her back, her hips, seemingly fondling the voluptuous swell of her buttocks. She walked into the office.
"Miss Mitchell," Mr. Blake said in a business like way, as she sat down before his desk. "About that matter yesterday, with Mrs. Fortinier..."
"Yes?"
"The matter has been disposed of in a satisfactory manner, both to the store and Mr. Fortinier, I want to ask you to be discreet about this thing. Please don't mention it to anyone. Mr. Fortinier, sad to say, is a man with much influence..." He cleared his throat softly.
"He's promised that hell keep Mrs. Fortinier out of our store. It's her third offense here, you know. But I want to warn you... if she should ever appear in your department again, don't let her out of your sight. Keep her engaged in conversation." He studied his hands. "How should I say it? She needs to be protected from herself. She's a very sick person."
Then after a few complimentary remarks about her finesse in confronting Mrs. Fortinier, Mr. Blake dismissed her.
As Melanie emerged from his office, Mr. Hillman rose, approached her. She quailed. God, he isn't going to try something -- right in this office. He smiled again, displaying his even, white teeth. "Excuse me, please," he said softly. "Miss Mitchell, I believe it was?"
Staring at him open-mouthed, she said nothing.
"I wonder, Miss Mitchell. Would you mind standing over there?" He took her shoulders and gently moved her to the far end of the small room. Gripped by numbed surprise, Melanie allowed herself to be moved like a rag doll. Again, the roving, disturbing stare.
"Now, Miss Mitchell. Would you mind turning around? Letting me see your back?"
Finally Melanie gave vent to her exasperation.
"Now, really... This is a little too much of a good thing, Mister..." She'd forgotten his name. "Mister, uh..."
"Hillman," he prompted with an unruffled gaze. "How foolish of me, but I thought you knew who I was. Permit me. I'm Nick Hillman, the personnel manager here at the store."
"Oh?"
"You must be new," he said. "I don't recall seeing you before. Who processed your application?"
"Ah..." Melanie said, dumbfounded, afraid she'd insulted this most important executive. She couldn't afford to offend her own boss. "Mr. Burrill..."
"Oh yes. Tom. Well, he should have told me."
Melanie waited in stricken silence.
"I'm sorry if I've embarrassed you. What department are you working in now?"
"Accessories..."
"Oh. What a waste. Tell you what, Miss Mitchell. Stop in and see me tomorrow. Say three o'clock? I'd like to talk to you concerning your work here at Pelletier's..."
"Yes, sir."
"My office is just down the hall." He smiled charmingly. "Tomorrow at three?" Then he turned, started toward Mr. Blake's door.
"Go right in, Mr. Hillman," Miss Prentice said. Then she sent a superior, amused smile at Melanie.
The rest of the afternoon was dogged by premonitions of doom. Melanie was still not attuned to optimism. She could only regard the encounter with Mr. Hillman, the impending interview, with extreme dread. What had she done wrong? Wasn't her work satisfactory? Perhaps it had something to do with Mrs. Fortinier. But h" this was the case, why the prolonged peep-show in Mr. Blake's office?
It was with this disordered tangle of thoughts working themselves into a tight knot within her brain, that Melanie returned home that night. Her mind was a confused blur as she emerged from the elevator on the sixth floor. Walking down the long hall, she was stunned into paralyzed panic by the sudden appearance of Val Tallant She had been appraised of the fact that Val lived somewhere on the sixth floor of the Chelsea Apartments, but she had never dreamed his apartment was only four doors from her own. He was locking his door, his face frozen in inscrutability as Melanie approached.
In her befuddled state, Melanie hesitated, then screwed up her courage. "Oh, Mr. Tallant," she called, "what a surprise..."
"Val," he corrected. Then acidly: "And who's surprised?"
Then the words couldn't be held in, she blurted them stupidly: "I want to thank you for the other night" She was flushing again. "At the party, I mean, you know . .
"So? What's to thank? I've been wanting to slug that creep for a long time. You were just incidental, I guess."
Anger tightened Melanie's throat. Of all the egoistical, hard-nosed individuals! Then she saw the livid, healing gash on his cheek, and suddenly found her anger melting. He'd got that defending her --
"Anyway," she finished lamely, "thanks a lot. I could explain it all, I suppose..."
"Could you?"
"Are you always this nasty?" she snapped. "Or do you practice nights?"
"Skip it, honey," he smiled sarcastically. Then he brushed past her. "Just keep your nose clean. Stay out of strange bedrooms. Next time I just might not be around." Then he sauntered off.
For a moment Melanie stood in stunned shock, the rage expanding within her. Then Val was in the elevator, the doors hissed shut, and he was gone. "Oooh!" she grated, then started toward her own apartment.
"It's okay, Melanie," Dierdre said after she had finished relating the day's happenings, the unexpected introduction to Mr. Hillman, the insufferable indifference of Val Tallant. "Don't let it throw you. Any of it. You've got to learn to take things in stride. If you let every little thing in this ugly city break you, you'll be buggy in no time. You've got to be hard-boiled, honey. And the sooner it happens, the better off you'll be."
"Well, I hope I never get so tough I carry an eternal chip around on my shoulder like that Tallant jerk!"
"What's with Tallant? Why all the fuss? You stuck on him or something?"
"Dierdre," Melanie shot furiously, "sometimes you talk like an absolute fish."
Later that evening, after dinner was over, they aired the prospect of the upcoming summons to Mr. Hillman's office. "I don't figure it myself," Dierdre said. "But don't worry your pretty head about it, baby. Maybe it's a different job or something. There are lots of good jobs in that dump. You haven't even scratched the surface so far. But don't look on the gloomy side of things. He isn't going to can you, that's for sure."
Dierdre paused, blew cigarette smoke through her nostrils. "I don't run into Hillman very often, so I've never pegged him. I hear nasty rumors, though. He's a real smoothie. So if he goes into the octopus bit, be ready to give him a swift slap. Scratch him a little . . - Melanie glanced up then, was amazed at the burning hate in Dierdre's eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
It seemed that Friday was 58 hours long. Melanie had never known time to drag by so slowly. Again and again she caught herself looking at the large clock fronting the up escalator, wondering if three o'clock would ever come. Despite Dierdre's reassurances last night, she was still apprehensive, imagining all sorts of dire happenings. She examined and re-examined her daily routine since her arrival at Pelletier's. She could find nothing she'd done wrong. Then what was it Mr. Hill-man wanted to see her about?
And finally it was three o'clock.
Melanie hesitated for long moments before the door marked with Mr. Hillman's name. Should she knock or should she just barge in? She decided to knock.
"Come in," the genial voice came. Hillman's voice.
Timidly she turned the knob and entered.
Mr. Hillman occupied a spacious, well-decorated, fully-carpeted office. While not as large as Mr. Blake's, it was still very luxurious. There was no secretary; they were alone in the office. He put down the papers he was studying, and regarded Melanie with a happy smile. "Ah, Miss Mitchell . .
"You said you wanted to see me, Mr. Hillman."
"Quite right." He rose and held a chair for Melanie, a chair that was strategically located at one side of his desk so he could have a full-length view of the seated female. "There. Comfortable?"
"Yes, Mr. Hillman."
He riffled some papers. "Now let's see, Miss Mitchell. You've been here six weeks now, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir." Instead of becoming calmer, it seemed she was more nervous than ever.
"Fine. And tell me, how do you like it here? Do you enjoy working at Pelletier's?"
"Very much, Mr. Hillman."
"Good. Glad to hear it." He clasped his hands on his desk, composed himself. "Well now. To get down to business. I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here this afternoon."
"Yes, I am."
"Well," he hesitated, as if formulating a way of phrasing himself. "Please understand this, Miss Mitchell, before we start. Anything I might say to you now, or might ask you to do should not be misconstrued..." Do? Melanie questioned inwardly. What it he going to ask me to do that he has to lay groundwork beforehand?
"I'm trying to be very ethical and professional about this, and no matter how embarrassing it might be to you, remember it's just as embarrassing to me. The only difference is that I'm being paid to do it. It's my job."
"Yes, Mr. Hillman," she replied, her tone uncertain.
He smiled, tried to make a quip of his next question. "Tell me, Miss Mitchell. Are those really yours?" And he wagged a pencil at her, his eyes unmistakably fixed on her high, taut breasts.
A chill shudder swept over Melanie, driving waves of goose-bumps before it, all the way down her spine, back to the base of her scalp. Was she hearing correctly? Did he really mean -- "Mr. Hillman?" she squeaked in disbelief.
"Please, Miss Mitchell. Don't make this difficult for me. I have a reason for asking. You... ah... don't wear a padded brassiere, do you?"
Melanie swallowed hard fighting to be blase" about the question. "No... no, sir. Ah... that's all me."
"Fine." His manner became brusque. "So often when a woman has a fine, trim figure like yours one finds that her... bosom is also... diminutive . . -" Seeing the incredulous, astonished expression on Melanie's face, he cut her off before she could answer. "You see, Miss Mitchell, a very peculiar situation has opened up in one of our departments. The lingerie department to be exact. As you may know, our lingerie department is one of Pelletier's drawing cards. We carry an extensive and complete line of female underthings, domestic and imported. Our staff prides itself on the complete line we carry. Have you had occasion to visit our lingerie section?"
"No, Mr. Hillman, I haven't."
"Well, let me tell you, it is an elaborate collection. The largest in the midwest, believe me. We have a private salon incorporated in the department, where models display the more expensive items..." He paused for effect.
"Now to the reason I called you in. One of our top models has just left us. She's going on to bigger and better things. That leaves us with an opening that must be filled."
"Yes," she murmured, her pulse hammering in her ears. He couldn't mean that she --
"It was a mere stroke of luck that I saw you yesterday. I'd been intending to call an agency. But I'm sure no agency would have a model on hand as beautiful as you are." He smiled respectfully. "You do have an absolutely lovely figure, Miss Mitchell..." Melanie found her face hot at once. "Why, thank you, Mr. Hillman," she stammered.
"What I am discreetly trying to say is that I'd like you to consider filling that opening. Would you think you'd like to become one of our lingerie models?"
Control yourself, stupid, Melanie warned. Don't blurt out the first dumb thing that comes to your head. But through the shock in her brain, the words shouldered their way through. I couldn't. I absolutely couldn't I'd die of shame.
"I don't know, Mr. Hillman," she said. "I really don't know."
"How much do you draw in the accessories department?"
"It's a little under $55."
"Well, how would $150 sound to you? For a start that is. Later, as you became more experienced, you'd get more."
Melanie's mind went blank. The stunning impact of the offer -- and now a promised salary of $150 a week. It was too much to assimilate all at once. "You said $150?"
"That's right. I think that's a pretty fair salary. Especially for a beginner..."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Hillman . . she breathed wistfully. "It's just that..." It's just that I couldn't bear to expose myself like that, to parade like a shameless wanton before the probing eyes of any customer who happened to wander into the salon. It would be wicked, immoral.
"It's just that I've never had the slightest experience in modeling..." she finished lamely.
"No worry there. The other girls will be glad to show you the ropes. Gina Martino, she's one of our girls who moved up from the ranks herself, would be glad to help you."
A hundred-fifty-dollars, Melanie thought, her mind spinning at the tempting prospect. What she couldn't do with money like that. Oh, if only --
"You don't have to decide right now, Miss Mitchell. Take the weekend to sleep on it. Let me know on Monday and I'll put you to work right away. And if you should decide against it, well, there'll be no hard feelings."
"That's very kind of you, Mr. Hillman, but . . " His voice became stern. "As I said, think it over.
I think you'll agree it's a wonderful opportunity." He rose, signifying that the interview was ended.
In a confused, almost comatose state, Melanie rose also. She backed off a few steps, stood in a hesitant pose.
"You'd be missing a good bet," he said suavely, his face very suddenly strangely agitated, his eyes looking Eke black, smouldering coals. "Stand there a minute," he ordered.
Melanie froze, one hand balanced lightly on the back of the chair. She was wearing a slim, dark, pencil-stripe skirt, a pink blouse, black, rapier-toed shoes, the heels high and sharp. Her breath was coming rapidly, her breasts heaving and falling in monumental magnificence.
"You have very nice posture. You'd be a shoo-in," he continued, his voice soothing, mesmerizing. "And your body is perfectly proportioned." A note of wistful yearning crept into his tone. "Absolutely ravishing."
Dumbly, Melanie smiled, said nothing.
"As I said, so many of your thin, willowy girls are thin all over." He moved to stand beside his desk. "Turn around. Slowly. That's it."
As if hypnotized, as if she no longer held any control over herself at all. Melanie whirled slowly before him feeling an evil twist in her stomach.
"Put your arms out," he ordered. "That's right. No, bend them at the elbows."
After two more turns, Melanie stopped, looked at him with a stricken expression on her face. Then like a bolt out of the blue his next command came: "Raise your skirt please. Let me see your legs."
"Sir?" she asked in a hollow voice.
"Your skirt," he snapped, his voice sharp. "I'd like to see your legs."
Entranced, not knowing what she was doing, Melanie leaned, grasped the hem of her skirt, lifted it slowly. For long moments she stood transfixed, her face pale and drawn, staring out the window, at the wall, anywhere but at Mr. Hillman's eyes. Finally she forced her gaze up, was chilled by the strained, hungry twist to his lips.
"Higher," he said coldly.
Melanie hitched her skirts up still more. She knew her stocking tops, the snaps of her garters were visible. A draft played about her bare thighs.
"Now turn around," he said. "Let me see the backs of your legs."
What is this? Melanie moaned in incredulous panic, What got into her? Why was she following the man's bidding so permissively?
"That's fine, Miss Mitchell," he said finally, and Melanie let her skirts drop. When she turned she saw that he'd regained his composure, that he was his perfunctory, suave self again.
"Will that be all, Mr. Hillman?"
"Yes, Miss Mitchell.' Just let me know on Monday as to your decision. Believe me, you'll make one fine model."
Woodenly, her legs feeling like they were yards long, Melanie left the office. A wracking tremor hit her as she walked along the hall to the elevator. She felt feverish, shaky. What had come over her? It had been as if she were an entity outside of herself. For a moment there she would have continued following his commands, even had he told her to remove her skirt, the rest of her clothes. Or would she? What strange power did he hold over her?
* * *
That night as she and Dierdre went over the details of her interview with Mr. Hillman for the tenth time, Melanie still found it hard to believe what had happened. Purposely she left out mention of the posing and skirt-raising sequence. She couldn't explain that to herself, let alone to Dierdre. "I don't know, Dierdre, I don't know. I want to model and I don't want to. Just imagine, $150 a week! But when I think of parading around in just a girdle and brassiere before all those people, I curl up inside."
"What's so terrible about that? Mostly there'll be females. You don't catch many guys getting dragged into a place like that. And if a guy does come along with his wife or sweetie? What better way to attract a guy than whirl around him in a wild collection of satin and lace?"
"Dierdre, sometimes you talk so awful."
"Awful? What's awful about snaring yourself a nice rich hubby? There's bound to be some. Nothing fazes some of these rich, pampered bastards. And why should a terrific doll like you settle for second best?"
"But if mother ever found out. She'd die..."
"Since when does that mother of yours come to Chi for her underwear?"
"I know, but . .
"You're nuts, honey. Here's a real chance to get ahead, and you want to let a little false modesty stop you. After all, you're not naked..."
"But almost . .
"Hell, Melanie. This could mean something big. Who know where you can go from here? You can probably step into better paying modeling jobs after this."
But Melanie wasn't listening. She was embroiled in a welter of thoughts, her mind a twisting, writhing turmoil. One segment of her brain held out for the modesty bit, the other, opposing, hammered at the practical aspect of the offer -- the fabulous salary, the opportunity of bigger paying jobs -- or even, as Dierdre hinted, the possibility of a good marriage.
And finally, an all-conclusive argument forced all her false objections to beat a hasty, rampaging retreat. If she was ever going to finally break with her stodgy past, if ever she was going to wipe the hick stigma from herself, what better opportunity could there be than this? How sophisticated and worldly wise could a person get. A girl who was a lingerie model could never be labeled as gauche. She was a woman who had come to grips with herself, with her femininity, she was trading realistically upon her physical attributes. She would be truly a hard-headed sophisticate.
At that moment she knew that when she returned to Pelletier's on Monday, she would say yes to Mr. Hill-man. She would become a lingerie model. And still she had misgivings.
"How can I ever force myself to come out in front of people only half-dressed?" she wailed.
"It's a state of mind, honey," Dierdre said. "Something you get used to. Just like that first time you give in to a man. You're scared silly. But afterwards you get to like it. It's no more embarrassing than changing your shoes. Are you going to do it?"
"I... I think I will . . Melanie said timidly. "At least I'll make a stab at H. If I flop, then at least I'll know that I've tried."
"That's the stuff, Melanie! Hell, you'd be a damn fool to turn down an offer like this."
"But what happens if the time comes for a showing and I can't make myself walk out there?"
"You've got to condition yourself." Now an anxious, expectant quaver tinged Dierdre's voice. "And there's no time like the present to start. Take off your dress."
"Take off my dress?" Melanie asked, startled.
"That's what I said. If you can get used to showing off your body to me, then you can do it in front of anybody."
"I don't know..." A nameless apprehension gripped Melanie. It would seem unnatural, perverted somehow.
"Suit yourself," Dierdre frowned. "I was only trying to help."
Can I have a drink first? I think it would help me to be less self-conscious."
"Are you going to start taking stiff ones before every showing, once you start modeling?"
"No..."
"You've got to go into it cold with all your faculties unimpaired. Now how about it?"
"Yes," Melanie wavered. "I guess I want to. Do you really think it'll help me get over my bashfulness?"
"Well, there's only one way to find out Shuck out of that dress."
And there, in the center of the living room. Melanie stripped off her dress and slip, stood before Dierdre in her brassiere, girdle, stockings and pumps. Her skin was instantly pebbled, soft, swift shivers possessing her exposed limbs. She couldn't believe she was actually doing this. Shyly she brought her hands up to cover her breasts. She could feel herself blushing.
"C'mon now, honey," Dierdre snapped, an odd flame darting to life in her eyes. "Quit being so damn prissy. If you're going to be a model, be a model. Don't just stand there. Show the merchandise."
Slowly Melanie began to walk around the living room, holding her arms in what passed for a graceful pose, pirouetting slowly, as if she were showing the latest thing off the boat from Paris. "That's better, Melanie," Dierdre said. "Get that head up. Shoulders back. Be proud of those cannons. Not many broads in this damn town can match 'em. Elbows back. Strain 'em."
For more than a half hour the sexy style show continued, Melanie little by little overcoming her embarrassment, toward the end feeling it was the most natural thing in the world to be prancing around in her scanties before an attentive watcher.
"We've got the whole weekend to get ready," Dierdre said. "Tomorrow night and all day Sunday. So if we're going to lick this thing you've got to cooperate. Whenever I say strip, I don't care what you're doing, you've got to strip."
Now Dierdre winced, almost as if blocking a yearning she wished to subdue. "God, Melanie, but you've got the most devastating body," she sighed. And she dug her nails into the edge of the davenport, to keep her hands from shaking.
All that weekend it was, "Strip," and "Strip." and "Strip." Whether Melanie was doing dishes, reading a book, or tidying up the apartment. Morning noon and night. Even Sunday, just as Melanie was leaving for church.
It was as Dierdre had said. By Sunday night I sensed nothing at all as she whirled in her undies bet Dierdre's appreciative gaze.
No more embarrassing than changing her shoes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Beside Melanie there were two other models employed in Pelletier's private lingerie salon. One was the aforementioned Gina Martino, a tawny-skinned, black-haired Italian girl, the other Bettina Nielsen, a thin, lithe creature, coldly quiet, almost fragile, a true Nordic type with blue eyes and cornflower hair. Within an hour they were confidantes of the closest nature, imparting all the secrets of their specialized trade, of their personal lives with eager abandon.
"Just keep your nose clean, and you've got it made," Gina smiled as they sat in the models' dressing quarters, a long, narrow room, crowded with small tables upon which the undergarments could be laid preparatory to a showing, a long, mirror-backed vanity for the models, comfortable overstuffed chairs and davenports. "Don't ever let old hawknose catch you smoking, and never, but never, come to work with a trace of liquor on your breath."
"Hawknose?" Melanie asked.
"Miss Fenlon," Bettina answered. "She's in charge of the lingerie department. She's the bag who brought you in here. Watch her. If she ever gets familiar... and she will... slap her paddies right away. She's a dyke from way back..."
"A dyke?"
"Hey, honey," Gina said pityingly, "where you been all your life? A homo, a lesbian. You know, like she likes girls..."
"Oh," Melanie said, confused and angry that she'd betrayed her innocence once more. Of course she'd heard of lesbians. But nobody had ever pointed out one of the afflicted creatures to her. "And you say Miss Fenlon is a... dyke?"
"Lezzy as hell," Gina said. "She's got a girl-friend she's lived with for five years. Boy, I'd like to look in on one of their torrid sessions..." Momentarily Melanie felt nausea in the pit of her stomach. "And you say she'll try something?"
"Try to finger the goods," Bettina said. "But just put her off right away and she'll leave you alone."
Then, as Melanie sat stiffly on a straight-backed chair, she was amazed to see the other girls unconcernedly step out of their clothes, peel off their girdles. Then prancing around in only their bras, panties, garter belts and stockings, they put on loose, flowing robes. And to think she'd been embarrassed to parade before Dierdre at first.
They had lovely figures, Gina especially. Long-limbed, their calves swelling gorgeously in their high-heeled pumps, narrow-waisted, their hips slim and hard. The kind of figures that would never really require a girdle. Bettina's breasts were delicate, small, but perfectly symmetrical, proudly erect. Gina's fell somewhere in between, twin cones dazzling in a shimmering white brassiere of simple, uncluttered satin. And then there was Melanie.
"Well, come on, kid," Gina urged, surprised to see Melanie still sitting fully clothed. "What do you think this is -- burlesque? Show us what you've got. We're both dying to see if those bumps of yours are bona fide."
"Oh they're real, all right," Melanie said, forcing herself to be flippant. For a moment she recalled Mr. Hillman making a similar conjecture. Abruptly she stood, began jerking at her zippers with grim determination. She wouldn't freeze before these two. She'd show them she was professional.
And now her dress was neatly hung on a hanger, her slip on a hook beside it. She turned to face Gina and Bettina, squaring her shoulders almost defiantly as she did. "Wowee!" Gina breathed reverently. "They are the real stuff, aren't they? No foam rubber construction there, huh, Betty? Real blockbusters..."
"Yes..." Bettina said, her look unabashedly envious. "Yes, indeedy."
"Whip off that girdle," Gina said.
"If I do my stockings will fall down."
"Well you can't go out there and try to sell your own girdle. No garter belt?"
"No. I guess I wasn't quite awake when I left this morning. I forgot."
Gina rummaged about in one of the vanity drawers. "Here," she extended a black criss-cross of elastic straps, "try these. Later when you strap into the latest creation you won't need them. But for now..."
"We certainly can't have your stockings falling down, now can we?" Bettina quipped.
Now the three women sat in careless disarray, Bettina working at her nails, Gina redoing her dark brows. "Hell!" Gina snapped finally, dropping her equipment. "It's going to be a hot one today." She rose and threw off her robe, sat in only her undies. "No sense getting all sweated up."
Surveying the scene, Melanie couldn't help but wonder, wouldn't some man love to sit in on this session? His optometrist would be treating him for eyestrain for months afterward. If that was the worst of it.
"Christ," Gina snapped, "Melanie, don't sit back like that. You'll get your skin all marked up. And don't cross your legs. It leaves big red splotches. You've got to be careful about how you plank your keester. And for God's sake, don't sit too long at one stretch. Get up and walk every once in awhile. Stretch. It keeps the skin tone right."
"Oh." Melanie said, and straightened herself in her chair, arranging the robe Bettina had loaned her beneath her so there were no cutting folds. Nervously she looked around. "When do we start?"
"Not for an hour yet most likely," Bettina said. "Unless there's some eager beaver on the floor. Most of these debutantes don't stir until ten-thirty in the A. M. Beauty sleep you know."
"Wait'll you see some of the elephants that waddle in here. Real living dolls. Sometimes they bring daddy along. Then do your snaps get a working over. After bedding down with the Mack trucks they married, the sight of a normal attractive woman... and in her underwear... is like a shot of adrenalin to some of the creeps. Of course every now and then there's a nice one wanders in. Then I don't mind letting him slip his fingers under my girdle." She smiled mischievously. "To test ze gootz..." she mimicked.
The fear within Melanie, submerged thus far, flamed to life, was reflected openly in her eyes. "You mean... they actually touch you...?"
"Hell, that's the least of it." Then Gina saw the apprehension gripping Melanie, became immediately concerned. "Hey, Melanie, you're not scared, are you?"
"No. What made you think I was?"
"Come off it, dolly. You can't fool an old pro like me. Well, forget it," she comforted. "It's nothing to be afraid of. The first couple showings might be rough. After that you'll go through it in a trance. Just don't panic, don't let yourself get embarrassed. If you let yourself blush... Lord, it's the worst possible thing you can do. Just hang tight."
"You're so much meat on the hoof?" Bettina interjected. "And after all, you do have something on. It isn't like going out there stark naked. Be hard-headed about it."
Ten minutes later Miss Fenlon entered. She approached Melanie, smiling unctuously, her face strained. "Well, are the girls showing you the ropes?"
"Oh, yes," Melanie said in a rush.
"Well, I hope so." She turned to the others. "Mrs. Drautman is coming in at eleven."
"Oh no," Gina moaned. "That witch. She wants to see everything in the store."
"Now, Gina," Miss Fenlon coaxed. "It's witches Eke her who pay your salary. You know she's usually good for $1000 worth of merchandise," She turned from Gina, studied Melanie intently.
Miss Fenlon was sparse, thin, almost completely devoid of feminine characteristics at all. A sexless, mannish caricature of a woman, flat-chested, her brown hair drawn down severely about her ears, her legs shapeless, clad in large, clumsy shoes. For an instant Melanie felt pity for the woman. Life certainly must be a joyless thing to her. Then as she saw the scheming, hungry look in her eyes, she became as suddenly repulsed.
"Let's take off the robe, shall we, darling?" Miss Fenlon said. "I'd like to see what Mr. Hillman has brought us. Stand up, will you please?"
Docilely, Melanie rose. Avoiding Miss Fenlon's eyes, she stripped off the lined terry-cloth robe and dropped it on the chair. She forced a smile, and took an awkward pose. Her stomach began to quake as Miss Fenlon came close, began to stroke her waist, to turn her head with soft, clammy fingers. She walked around Melanie slowly. Melanie felt the cold touch on her back. It slid lower, rested briefly on the flaring curve of her buttocks.
"Very nice indeed," she said at last. "Have the girls showed you any of the poses yet?"
"We were just about getting to that when you came in." Bettina said curtly.
"Very good." She turned to Melanie. "All right, dear. You may put your robe on. You'll do very nicely indeed."
"Thank you."
Ten-thirty, girls. Start getting ready then. Unless something unexpected comes up." Then she left, her steps ridiculously mincing.
The next hour was devoted to showing Melanie how to stand, how to walk, how to turn, Gina and Bettina taking turns, revealing dozens of secrets and tricks of their peculiar art in an incessant, breathless torrent. "Not so fast," Melanie protested, her head spinning. Would she ever be able to learn all this? The problem seemed insurmountable.
"Take it easy, baby," Bettina reassured her. "Just pick out what you need for this morning. The rest will come in due time."
"Come on," Gina said. "Let's go into the salon. Well put you through the paces."
The locked, heavily-draped salon, windowless, was a luxurious, heavily-carpeted room, the furnishings elegant to the nth degree. The entrance, at the end of the short hallway upon which the dressing room opened, was on a slight rise, a tier of three steps leading onto the showing-room floor.
"No, honey," Gina said, "don't just race down those steps. Pause as you come in, turn a little. Give the grand effect. Slide that robe back over your wrists. Your hands on your hips. Graceful, baby. That's it. Now come down those steps slowly. Don't wobble."
Melanie practiced the entrance again and again, so concerned with the effect she was creating she never bad time to think of being embarrassed. She was clad in only her bra and pants, the borrowed garter belt, stockings and shoes. A full length peignoir, baby blue and completely transparent, hung on her shoulders. If a man should walk in at that moment As instructed, she proceeded into the salon, carefully and slowly walked the length of the room. Then she made a few lazy pirouettes, and went into a mock showing, stopping at each empty chair and divan, showing the invisible garment to invisible customers. Now she took the peignoir in her fingertips, and held it wide, to expose the full length of her body to the antique gold brocade of a chair-back. Momentarily she panicked. Would she be able to display her naked body so unashamedly when this chair was occupied, only minutes hence? Oh, God, she wailed.
"Very good, Melanie," Gina congratulated as Melanie turned slowly, inclined her head sultrily, regarding each empty chair. "Use that act today. In time you'll find other refinements you can use. But for a start, that's great. And whatever you do, take your time. Give Betty and me time to change into the next iron maiden."
Mrs. Drautman arrived punctually at eleven, accompanied by three other females. They sat in a small compact group along the salon's east wall, indicating to Miss Fenlon what it was they wished to see. It was a lengthy list. Then Miss Fenlon hurried to the dressing room, her arms full of garments, a harried looking, mousey woman behind her. Rita, the dresser-helper, Bettina confided to Melanie. And then they were engaged in the mad scramble to get dressed.
Now, finally, the third one in line, it was Melanie's turn to enter the salon, to start down those dreaded steps. Her heart was pounding insanely in her ears, her breath came in shallow gasps. Melanie was dressed in a witchy, black lace girdle and brassiere and black stockings. A special import from Enrico's in Madrid. "Remember," Gina joshed as she hurried past her on the way back to the dressing room, wearing the corselet that matched Melanie's outfit, "just so much livestock. You're going to be great."
Melanie was. The moment she entered the room, she became involved in the studied intricacies of modeling, and forgot the embarrassment. The dazzling, surging cones of her breasts, wicked in crisp, appointed lace and nylon, the beautiful length of her hips and legs, created quite a stir among the women in the salon. In that moment Melanie was prouder of her figure than she had ever been before. A luxurious thrill went through her. She knew she was going to enjoy being a lingerie model!
She suffered a momentary set-back, fighting desperately to route reddened embarrassment as one of the women drew her closer, ran her hands along the bad; of her girdle, as she tested the firmness of its holding qualities at Melanie's buttocks. "Notice the fine quality of the craftsmanship," Miss Fenlon was crooning. "The exquisite, precise hand-stitching." It seemed that Melanie's skin burned where the woman's fingers crept beneath the leg of the girdle.
All in all, Melanie displayed four girdle and brassiere sets, two corselets, two negligees and three slips. It was twelve-thirty before the women had placed their large order and departed. Melanie collapsed in a chair and breathed a fervent sigh of relief.
"How was it?" Bettina asked smilingly. "As bad as you thought?"
"No," Melanie sighed tiredly. "It wasn't bad at all. But just the same I'm glad it's over. I'm bushed."
Miss Fenlon hurried in. "Very good, girls," she chirped. "It was quite a successful showing. Those dear ladies purchased over $2000 worth of lingerie this morning-"
"And they sure made us work for every penny of it," Gina snapped. "I thought that one cow was going to peel that corset right off me."
"Never mind," Miss Fenlon said sternly. "You girls catch lunch. We've got two showings this afternoon. The first is at two. Mrs. Vernelli and some of her friends."
"Ouch!" Bettina protested. "She's the one who always brings her husband along. What a lecher! He nibbles the clasps off your brassiere with his eyes."
A deep, chilling pang of dread pierced Melanie. Instantly all the confidence the morning had instilled within her was gone. A man. She couldn't. She just know she couldn't appear before a man garbed in only female underpinnings.
But she could and did. Mr. Vernelli, evidently a fabulously wealthy man, self-assured and puffy in his success, was about fifty, a fat, evil smiling person. Loathing clutched her stomach when Melanie first entered the room, saw him sitting beside his wife, a smug, expectant expression on his face. Again Melanie was wearing the Enrico of Spain creation.
It was definitely a hit with Mrs. Vernelli. She kept Melanie before her for quite a time, running her hands along the slim, taut line of Melanie's hips. Like the woman that morning she felt the hem of the garment, even indicating that her husband do likewise.
Which he was only too happy to do. Melanie steeled herself, forced her face into stony impassiveness. as his hot fingers crept inside the corselet. It seemed he appraised the material's resilience much longer than was necessary. But it was only the beginning.
"Watch Fatty," Gina warned five minutes later as the showing went on. "Keep away from him. He's got a sudden mania to test everything. The little bastard just pinched me."
The showing seemed interminable. Filled with disgust for the ugly, degenerate little man who could plainly buy his way into any woman's bed (It was obvious he'd done just that with Mrs. Vernelli, for she was only 28, a ravishing blonde. Only money makes women like her sleep with men like him, Melanie concluded.), Melanie fought to keep her contempt concealed. Her smile was brilliant and hard, painted on her face, as she looked at Mrs. Vernelli, while all the while her husband was becoming more and more familiar, his hands taking quick liberties with her legs when his wife looked away.
At one point the frog-like Vernelli decided to test a corset before his wife made the suggestion. He indicated Melanie should approach him, and as she stood dumbly, the crimson flaring up from between her breasts, suffusing her neck, throat and cheeks, Vernelli's moist hand slipped up between her legs, and after a moment that seemed an eternity, touched not flesh but the silken contours of the corset. It was a flagrantly lecherous overture, and had Melanie not been afraid of losing her job, she would have drawn back without thought and smashed him in his pudgy, disreputable face. As for Mrs. Vernelli, the gorgeous blonde who had long ago been bought by the toady-seeming man, she merely gave Melanie a vicious, victorious sneer, as if saying, See, any woman can be purchased, even you, little voluptuary! The look on the woman's face, and the sneer, terrified Melanie more than her husband's vile touch, if that was possible.
"Anyway," Gina spat afterwards, "they spent $500. If that's any consolation." She glanced to the tired eyed, flushed Melanie. "You think you'll make it, dolly?"
Melanie took a deep breath, regarded Gina with a feverish, dazed stare. "After today, how can I miss? Nobody could be more obnoxious than that Vernelli creep."
Gina and Bettina laughed together. "That's what you think," Bettina said. "Wait'll they start slipping little notes with ugly proposition inside your girdle."
Momentarily Melanie felt queasy. Then she gathered her determination. She'd stick. She knew she would. All in all it was a good racket. Besides, it was more than a job with her. It was a way of proving an indefinable something to herself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The first exciting and revealing week of Melanie's new employment had passed, and she was going into her second, when she had occasion to bump into Mr. Nick Hillman again. Seemingly it was an accidental meeting, occurring on Tuesday evening as Melanie hurried to meet Dierdre for their homeward trek aboard the El. It was as she emerged from the lingerie department, as she started toward the elevator, that she saw him.
"Oh, Hello, Mr. Hillman," she said hesitantly. "Why, Miss Mitchell. What a pleasant surprise. I've been meaning to stop up and see you. How are you getting along? Like the job now that you're used to it?"
"Yes, Mr. Hillman." Which was nothing less than the truth. She was a hardened pro now. It was almost as if she'd been modeling lingerie for years. "I think it's fine. I wasn't sure at first, but now I like the job very much. I want to thank you for recommending me."
"Not at all, my dear. You were a natural for the job. With that figure you were destined to be a model."
"Well, anyway, thank you so much..." Her voice trailed off.
"Going home? Perhaps I could offer you a lift?"
"Oh no, thank you, Mr. Hillman. We live way out on Taravel. That's quite a drive. Besides I'm meeting my roommate. That's Miss Tresselt."
His expression was disappointed. "Oh, I see. Maybe some other time." He turned away. "I'm glad you're happy in your new position," he said lamely.
"Thank you." Melanie took three rapid strides toward the elevator.
"Oh, Miss Mitchell?" he called her back.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering... if you haven't anything planned for Friday evening. Perhaps you'd consider having dinner with me. We could leave right from the store. Take in a show afterward? The road show company of Sound Of Music is in town. I can get tickets..." Melanie was plainly flattered. Mr. Hillman asking her for a date -- Then she recalled Dierdre's words of warning. "I hear nasty rumors, though..." And yet she was afraid to risk offending her superior by refusing him. And after all, she didn't have any Friday plans. What was the harm?
"Ah..." she stammered. "Well, I..." Then the words tumbled out: "I think that would be lovely. Yes, I'd like to have dinner with you..." He smiled with sincere delight. "Fine, Miss Mitchell. I'll meet you right here at closing. Does that sound all right to you?"
"Yes, swell, Mr. Hillman." Immediately she could have bitten her tongue for using the slang expression.
"It's set then. See you Friday." He grinned warmly once more and hurried off.
Well, why not? the words repeated themselves as Melanie entered the elevator. What did she care for Dierdre's rumors? She was a big girl now. After her unfortunate experience with Bill Compton, she'd be on the alert for danger, she'd nip any seductive advances in the bud. And it was, after all, quite a feather in a gal's cap to have her bachelor boss ask her for a date.
She knew that Gina or Bettina -- even Dierdre herself -- would jump at the chance. And if these realistic, sophisticated girls would have accepted the date, who was she to refuse? She had a right to some fun also.
"You know what I said," Dierdre said when Melanie told her the news. "Just mind your yeses and noses." Melanie sensed a coldness in her roomie's voice. Almost as if Dierdre were actually jealous of her good fortune.
"You worry too much," Melanie defended. "You act like I'm the greenest..."
"Honey," Dierdre was sarcastic. "Face up to it. Really, underneath it all, aren't you?"
"Drop it, Dierdre. I'm doing all right. Little by little I'm getting rid of my Country Cousin attitudes."
"Well I for one, am glad to hear it. Somewhat surprised too, I might add."
"Dierdre, stop!"
And that was where the matter rested until Friday night.
* * *
The routine at the lingerie salon was pretty well established by now, and Melanie felt confident and happy in her new calling. There were certain unpleasant aspects to the job -- the dull waiting in between showings, the ugly way some of the men took advantage of the models, knowing they were helpless to protest, knowing any such protests would likely jeopardize the girls' jobs. But in time these became an insignificant blot on her happiness; she swallowed her pride and took things in stride.
And thus far the predicted request for assignation from any of the men visiting the salon with their wives and sweethearts -- or mistresses -- hadn't happened. There were no notes slipped to her, nor were any secreted in her undergarments as the men furtively pawed her legs.
What some people will do to earn a living, she thought, self-condemnation plaguing her on days like this.
But generally the work was pleasant and easy, her companions becoming closer friends with each passing day. Most of the days passed in leisurely fashion, there never being more than five showings daily. In between there was time for desultory chatter, to read, to think.
It was this latter activity that Melanie dreaded most. For now with so much free time on her hands Melanie found that Paul Kenyon's memory was invading her mind again. The old remorse, the cutting regret and sense of irrecoverable loss bore down upon her with fresh fury. When she'd been busy behind her counters in the accessories department, she'd been able to crowd his image from her mind. But now, there were moments when it was all but impossible.
Some of her spare moments were spent in writing tremendously imaginative and fictional letters home to her mother. As far as mother, knew, her sweet, innocent daughter was staying at a sedate, women's dormitory (there had been no openings at the YWCA), her roommate a decorous old maid who worked for the same employer as Melanie. Last weekend they'd visited the Museum of Science and Industry together. This week they were going to take in a planetarium show. That should certainly reassure mother; to know her baby was so culturally involved in the sinful big city.
Often Melanie became petrified with fear as she envisioned her mother making a surprise visit to Chicago to see her. She paled as in her mind's eye she saw the straight-laced woman come charging into the lingerie salon in mid-showing, to see her daughter modeling fancy women's underwear. What a Donnybrook that would be!
Oh, mother, she thought, her heart constricting at the thought. You poor innocent. If you only knew.
Another strange inconsistency: in the days preceding and indeed during the days following her date with Mr. Hillman, Melanie never mentioned the existence of such a relationship to either Gina or Bettina. It was almost as if she feared they would know something damning about the man, that they would warn her off. And pondering this ridiculous impasse, Melanie was at a loss to explain it to herself. Mr. Hillman was a fascinating man, a wavering inner voice told her, financially well fixed. He could take her to exciting places, they could have fun together. A startled prickling raced along her back.
And if something else should develop -- She wanted to handle it in its own good time. To prove to herself that she was an ingenue no longer. No femme fatale perhaps, but on the other hand, no pumpkin stacker either. Sooner or later she had to come to grips with life, she had to be able to handle it on its own terms.
The date with Mr. Hillman went off without a hitch. He took her to a famous restaurant in the Loop, treated her to one of the largest and most tasty steak dinners she'd ever eaten. They had two Manhattans before dinner, and by the time the second was gone they were no longer Mr. Hillman and Miss Mitchell. It was Melanie and Nick.
Nick Hillman was a witty, urbane person, quick to laugh, adept at tossing subtle, solidly-scoring compliments. He imbued Melanie with a sense of importance, hanging on even her most inane remarks with gentlemanly patience, and she couldn't remember when she'd enjoyed herself so much. With almost effortless ease and discretion he pried the story of Melanie's Indiana background from her, filled in his own origins with an amusing, once-over-lightly insouciance. In a word, he dazzled Melanie. He became all at once a symbol of the worldly, brittle bon vivant she longed to emulate. A person who could take all life's disasters, its surprises and sudden bounties with a non-committal shrug.
If only, she thought, as they finished their meal, I haven't been too much of a disappointment to him, if I haven't been a dud (knockwurst the current deriding term was), if only he'll ask to see me again.
The show was an innovation to Melanie. It was her first exposure to live theater and she was enthralled. Expressing her pleasure afterwards, she thought she saw amusement color Nick's expression. Could it have been affectation?
As he escorted her from the theater to his Lincoln convertible, to the small, intimate night club where they had several drinks, danced to a jazz combo, Melanie found herself being treated like royalty. It was as if she really counted for something. After the bitter cuts and snubs of Freshwater when Paul had ditched her, it was truly an alien feeling.
There was nothing impulsive in anything Hillman did. As he talked to her, danced with her, took her arm to lead her from the night club, there was no sign of familiarity. He was respectful and gentlemanly at every turn. Careful honey, Melanie cautioned herself silently. Don't let all this la-de-da turn your head. He's a man. He's only after the same thing all men want. A quick toss somewhere, and then adios.
And still, she hoped she was wrong. She hoped he'd be different at the end, when the chips were down.
He was. As he saw Melanie to the door, he asked simply, "How about an encore, Melanie? That was fun. I'd like very much to see you again. How about next Wednesday evening."
Sudden elation rushing in her ears, Melanie let the words rush out, perhaps too eagerly. "I'd love it, Nick. What do you have in mind?"
"Maybe a movie. A few drinks and some dancing afterward. How does that sound to you?"
"Fine. What time?"
"Is eight too early?"
"Not at all."
Then he looked deep into her eyes, made a slight movement toward her. Melanie tensed. "All right, Melanie," he smiled with boyish charm. "It's been a ball. Thanks loads. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Nick. And thank you."
The car roared off, and Melanie let herself into the apartment building. Her legs felt as if they were hollow, a giddy ringing was sounding in her head. He hadn't tried anything. He hadn't even attempted to kiss her. Except for the times he'd courteously taken her elbow, when he'd held her as they danced, he hadn't laid a finger on her! And she found herself oddly thrilled, already looking forward to Wednesday.
, And so it went for the next three weeks, and now it was August, Chicago hot and sultry. They'd had perhaps eight dates in the interim, and not once during all that time had Hillman made any untoward advances toward her. Not once had he tried to kiss her. And Melanie, enjoying herself immediately, happy with her work and her newfound, fascinating social life, coming to trust Nick implicitly, began to wonder. About Nick. About herself.
Could it be? she thought, her heart stampeding, ignoring the cautions transmitted by her brain. If she were to judge from the covert, hidden looks of yearning Nick sent her in those rare, off guard moments, it might just well be happening.
In silly, heady moments, when she'd had a mite too much to drink, Melanie sometimes caught herself imagining what it would be like to be Mrs. Nick Hillman. Ridiculous, she charged, brushing away the thoughts. And then the defensive side of her nature would take over. And why not? Wouldn't we be good for each other? Wouldn't I make him a wonderful wife?
What a combination we'd make. The jaded, world-weary sophisticate and the starstruck kid.
He'd certainly become the doting, devoted husband if she were to go by the courtly manner he'd exhibited ever since their first date. One slip, she recalled. Two nights ago, as they'd revisited the same steak house for dinner. Almost unconsciously, as if not actually willing the gesture, he'd taken her hand softly in his. And just as abruptly had released it. When Melanie had looked at him, he'd smiled a distant, wistful smile and had said nothing.
It was much too soon to be sure, she mused. Give it time. After all he is forty-four, and I'm only twenty-three. But it certainly wouldn't be hard to fall in love with a man as charming, as masterful as Nick Hillman. Silly, she raged. Now who's talking like a fish?
Give it time. Give it time.
Then an unsettling, jarring realization struck her. She hadn't thought about Paul Kenyon in over two weeks now.
CHAPTER NINE
August bore down, steaming hot. Thought there was air conditioning in the salon, the management of Pelletier's still hadn't gotten around to installing same in the dressing room. As a result, the girls sweltered miserably between showings, mourning over their health, their chances of catching cold from the constant variance of temperatures as they flitted between the cool salon and the hot dressing room. To wear the tight, constricting garments, the sticky clinging hose, was pure agony.
"They treat us like goddamn dogs," Gina cursed one day as they sat in the muggy waiting room, dressed in only panties and brassiere. There were no robes, no stockings, no shoes now. Only bare-skinned, uncomfortable females.
"But the pay is nice," Bettina smiled wanly. "We can buy lots of nice dog-food..."
"So? What's money?" Gina retorted. "I've got the next three week's salary spent already. Make it, spend it. Anyway you look at it, life's a blasted rat-race."
"And what's with you?" Gina had to spill her venom somewhere. "Sitting there so damn calm and making like a smiling Buddha? You in some kind of trance?"
"Lay off, Gina," Bettina said. "You blind or something? The kid's got a case on somebody. She's in love."
"Love?" Gina snarled. "That's a dirty word, far's I'm concerned." She turned to Melanie. "Is that the straight scoop, hon? Some guy mainlining you?"
Melanie smiled imperturbably. Even the heat didn't seem to faze her. "Mainlining?"
"You know. On the stuff. Love, I mean. Who's the guy?"
"That'd be telling, wouldn't it?"
Gina became more agitated at being put off. "Yes or no, Melanie. Are you in love with some jerk of a man?"
Again the inscrutable expression. "Could be," she said softly.
* * *
But if Melanie sensed a fleeting, wishful presentiment of love, her deluded dreams were devastatingly shattered that Tuesday night during the third week in August.
Things had been going swimmingly between Melanie and Hillman. They were still proceeding under the same strict, tacitly understood code, neither of them indicating their inner feelings, making no gestures of affection. Melanie only knew she was happy and at ease, she felt exalted, confident when she was with him. Beyond that she didn't dare think. And still there had been no kiss, no ardent, impulsive embrace. They were playing it real cool.
On that Thursday night they had been to the Starlight Roof of the St. George hotel, where they'd luxuriated in the slight, cool breeze drifting in from Lake Michigan, danced to music provided by a three piece combo, their bodies tucked closer that night than at any time since they'd begun dating. Interspersed with the dancing Was sporadic, lazy chatter, Nick smiling at Melanie with indulgent patience as she rattled on, detailing a peculiar, crotchety customer who'd visited the salon that day. And when the throat became dry, there were the delicious martinis the St. George's bartender so expertly mixed.
Despite inner warnings, Melanie had two, then three martinis. A wonderful gaiety possessed her that night, a joyful sense of buoyancy. Nothing could go wrong on a beautiful night like this. Remember what happened the last time you drank too many martinis, the voice came. But she disregarded the nagging thought, blissfully happy, finding herself talking and laughing overloudly, looking up to see patrons at other tables regarding her with amused smiles. Only then did she decline another drink.
Then it was eleven-thirty, time to call it a night. Melanie felt bubbly and mushy inside as Nick led her from the hotel towards his car. She felt expansive and in love with the whole world. Especially Nick. He treats me so nice -- the thick thoughts came.
Even now Hillman did not take advantage of the tipsy girl beside him in his automobile. Perhaps his smile was a little more patronizing than it had ever been before, but after all, what's a smile? Out of the blue, he said, "I wonder, Melanie', if you'd mind stopping at my place for a minute. I'm completely out of cigarettes . .
Instantly Melanie, despite her near intoxication, was on guard. "Cigarettes? Can't you pick some up at a store or a gas station on our way out?"
"Well, no... You see, I smoke an imported brand. But it's all right. Skip it. I'll do without tonight."
Then Melanie sensed shame. Don't be such a stiff-necked prig, she scolded. After all, has he ever given you cause to mistrust his motives? "I'm sorry, Nick. Of course we can stop. I didn't mean it that way."
"Good girl," he smiled. Then he turned left at the next corner, took Melanie into an exclusive, restricted district, a development consisting of row upon row of ultra-modern apartment houses. Moments later, they pulled up before one of the buildings.
"I'd let you wait in the car," he said, "but there have been some serious muggings in the neighborhood lately. I don't think I should leave you alone."
"Don't give it another thought," Melanie said, dismounting from the car quickly.
A silent, efficient elevator took them to the third floor of Hillman's apartment building. He led her down a carpeted, beautifully decorated hallway. Finally he stopped. "Here we are." He looked at her seriously as he fitted his key into the lock. "If you prefer, you could wait in the hall. It's just that I don't want to put yon in any compromising situation..." All at once, Melanie was irritated. She was tired of being carried around on a feather, of being treated like an infant. How blasted provincial could she be? "Well, really, Nick. I am a big girl now. Maybe I'd like to see the place you call home."
"Why, of course, Melanie. Come in. I just don't want you taking me for a roue. I'm sure all the girls nowadays know the 'May I show you my Currier and Ives?' bit."
His apartment was modern to the ultimate degree, epitome of all the glamorous movie apartments Melanie had idealized all her life. Tastefully elegant in every respect, it boasted low, severe furniture, contemporary lamps and tables, a low key Mondrian on the wall facing the door. Shelves crammed with books of every description, most of them current, indicated Nick's cultured interests. The expensively cabineted hi-fi unit was further proof. A thick, soft, cream-colored carpet covered the floor, a window air-conditioner hummed softly somewhere.
"What a lovely place," she said, "You have such beautiful things."
"Would you care to see everything?"
"I'd love to," Melanie said, carried away by her enthusiasm, awed by her dazzling surroundings.
"Sit down," he smiled suavely, lighting a cigarette. "Ill put some music on, fix us a nightcap."
"That's not necessary, really, Nick." The panic rose within her again. Had she been tricked? But wouldn't she make a gauche spectacle of herself if she jumped up and forced her way out now? She was sure of Nick.
"Just one won't hurt. Another martini?"
"Yes," Melanie said softly. "That would be fine."
But it wasn't just one. By the time Nick had showed her his diggings, pointing out the decorating features, some of his prize curios, they were into their second. And then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Melanie had kicked off her shoes, and they were dancing slowly in the spacious living room. The mood was soothing and quiet, and Melanie found herself lulled into a sense of false security. Then still another martini.
Melanie was quite drunk, forcing herself to talk slowly, so her words wouldn't slur. She should ask Nick to take her home. It was twelve-thirty already. But another part of her mind resisted. This was so nice. The mood was too beautiful to break. And she was happy.
"Oh," Hillman said, rising abruptly from the low-slung davenport upon which they sat. "I forgot. I didn't show you the most important thing of all. To me anyway." And he crossed the room, entered a closet, coming back with a glittering, devilishly complicated 35 mm. camera.
"Oh, a camera," Melanie said, visibly disappointed. "Yes, a camera. But what a camera. It's a magnificent piece of equipment. Does everything but talk."
"You like photography?"
"Like it? I'm the original camera bug. I'm absolutely nutty about it. Every spare moment I have, I'm snapping pictures. Would you like to see some of my prize shots?"
More out of courtesy than real interest, Melanie said, "Why yes, I'd love it. But only a few. Then I've got to go." Somehow Nick's infantile enthusiasm had broken the spell they'd worked hard to weave.
He returned from the closet with a large album. Slowly, they leafed through it, Melanie becoming more bored by the minute. Hillman was an expert photographer, and his pictures were admittedly good. Children's faces, landscapes, street scenes, studies of textural patterns. Suddenly Melanie froze, her body going stiff in startled shock. For now Nick had opened a section of the album that was composed of nothing but blown-up, beautifully composed photographs of nude women.
She forced herself to hold back the words of censure that were on the tip of her tongue. Don't be a bluenose, she raged. Try for once to be broad-minded, will you?
"Oh," she said softly, her voice uncertain. "You take that kind of picture too..."
"Please, Melanie," he said, twinges of anger in his voice. "Don't say it that way. 'That kind of picture .' I'm rather proud of these shots. I don't think there's anything evil about taking pictures of nude females. The nude figure is the ultimate art form. It's nothing dirty, to be snickered at by small boys pawing through old National Geographies." He paused.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," he quoted. "And so is filth. You demean yourself when you take a small, shallow attitude toward things like this..." Then he saw the look of affront on Melanie's face. "Oh, I'm sorry, Melanie. I didn't mean it that way. I'm certainly not criticizing you. It's just that sometimes I get sort of militant about this thing. Forgive it, please."
"It's all right," she smiled, feeling suddenly very knowing and worldly. He was right, of course. It was the intellectual way to evaluate the photographs before her. "You forgive me. It's just my small town upbringing, I guess."
And then suddenly, before she had time to regain her composure, the startling, whipcrack of a question came: "Have you ever posed nude, Melanie? I'm not referring to your modeling at the store. I mean nude."
The audacity of the query stunned her, she had no time to become angry. "No, Nick, I haven't. Never."
"Would you like to?"
A swift, convulsive shudder streaked through Melanie. Was she hearing right? Was this actually happening? She caught herself sipping thirstily at her drink. The shudder was transplanted by a hot glow that began in her thighs, progressed upward to her brain, inflaming, her. "I... I don't know, Nick..." Then the corroding, searing condemnation: Damn you, Melanie, what's got into you? Why don't you say no? Suddenly she felt quite dizzy. The mixture of gin and shock.
Like posing nude was the next expected, logical step in every woman's social development -- Did she see contempt in Nick's eyes, anticipation of a negative reply to his question as he spoke again? "I'm asking you, Melanie," he said in a level, calm voice. "Will you pose for me? Nude? Tonight? Right now?"
The answer should have been swift, clear cut. It should have been a vicious "No!" But Melanie said nothing. Only averted her eyes, fought to control the raging, incomprehensible fever within her. But why? she thought. Why did she hesitate? Did she want to do this immoral, wanton thing?
"I'm waiting for your answer."
Still she didn't speak, her blurred mind stricken with baffled confusion. Were these the standards the sophisticated, realistic city girls accepted? Or was she being conned? Goaded to see just how far she would go? Then, from the very depths of her innermost being, a wild, pagan realization came. She had a lovely body. Everyone said so. What was the harm?
Then she knew: She actually wanted to show her body to this man -- to the man she believed she loved. Drunkenly she rationalized that it would make him want her all the more. Suddenly a hot flash suffused her limbs, her body, her brain.
She looked at Nick. "Do you want me to?"
"I wouldn't be asking, would I?" His tone was persuasive and gentle.
"What about us?" she said plaintively. "If I did?"
"What do you mean, Melanie?"
"Would things still be the same between us? Would you have any respect for me?"
"Melanie, don't talk like that. It wouldn't change things in the least. Believe me, dear. This isn't an evil thing. In a way it's homage to your beauty. I wouldn't ask if I thought it would alter our relationship in the least."
Then the resolve hardened. It would be a chic, daring thing to do. She would, with a single stroke, achieve a definitive break with her petty, narrow past, she would at last be independent, transformed to the hard, blase" realist she'd always wanted to be. Again the dizziness interrupted. It was hard to formulate further thoughts. The pounding realization crowded them out. She wanted to do this. She wanted to show herself to Nick.
Finally she spoke, giggling in her nervousness. "I... all right, Nick. If it's what you want... Ill do it..."
"Fine, Melanie, fine." Relief, hidden triumph, was in his tone. "Please don't worry about this. I won't abuse you in any way. Just the pictures. To show my intentions are honorable, I'll give you what I paid these other girls." He indicated the album that lay over their knees. "Twenty-five dollars an hour." He reached for his wallet. "A strictly professional bargain."
"No, Nick," she said, smiling at him, gathering courage. "I don't want the money. I'll do it... for you..." She wanted to do something for him, to repay him for the inner peace he'd conferred upon her these past weeks.
"Well discuss it later. Now, if you'd like to go into the bedroom and undress, I'll get the tripod and the lights set up..." Woodenly, Melanie rose, stood unsteadily. Then she started across the room, her heart hammering painfully in her chest. She was actually going to do this thing An evil lurch made itself known in her stomach and she smiled lasciviously. It would be fun -- But in the bedroom, as she pulled her gown over her head, she sensed qualms. Now her slip, her stockings. Whispering softly in the darkness, her brassiere, her girdle and panties joined the rest of the garments on the bed. A wracking spasm shook her as she heard Nick call. "I'm ready any time you are, Melanie."
As she crossed the living room she picked up her drink, drained it. Now she felt absolutely numb. She began to giggle for no reason at all. Naked, her breasts glowing luminously in the reflected glare of the floods she felt all inhibitions lifted from her. She was going to enjoy this. Wickedly enjoy it!
Hillman had prepared a place at the room's far end, his spots directed upon a low, backless and armless couch, upon which he'd scattered small throw pillows. The wall behind was plainly anonymous. Unashamedly Melanie pulled her shoulders back, flexed her shapely waist. Then she strode before the lights, sat on the couch with her knees and feet together, her hands braced on the cushions, smiling charmingly. "Like me?" she said playfully.
For long moments Hillman studied her without speaking. "God, woman, but you do have a magnificent body . . His eyes clung hotly to her high, proud breasts. There's more that's Melanie to you than your name," he quipped.
She could not help laughing. "Stop now, Nick! Just take your pictures. How would you like me?"
"Just like that for a starter. Here, I'll move back a little. There. Put your hands on your knees. Kind of squeeze your breasts together with your arms. Tilt your head. Now, give me a pixie smile. There."
For the next hour Melanie was like so much putty in Hillman's hands, allowing him to pose her in countless, arty, alluring poses. Any small shred of reticence still remaining in her was rapidly dissipated. It was just like modeling lingerie, she thought furrily. At first you're scared, but after that it means nothing. And through her alcoholic trance she noticed that the feverish, liquid sensation in her belly had not diminished in the least. It was growing, if anything. There was a wildness, a pagan evilness to her now, almost as if she was eager to assume any pose Hillman might suggest.
They began with conventional shots, Hillman requesting her to sit, to kneel, to stand, to give him profile, then full face exposures, having her twist her body in graceful curving lines, accenting the glorious swell of her creamy breasts, the lithe, tigress line of her belly and hips. One pose stood out in Melanie's mind. In this one she stood at one corner of the couch, one knee on the cushions, her head thrown back in abandon, her hands holding her breasts, the vivid red nipples peeking from between her fingers, almost as if she were offering them to someone.
Later he moved the camera up, took shots from an elevated angle, instructing Melanie to lie out full length on the couch, positioning her legs himself in a promiscuous tangle. Then he had her curl in a tight ball, his hands touching her breasts, so they showed from beneath her arms. She felt a hot thrill pierce her as his fingers grazed her nipples.
And on and on. Picture after picture. Now Melanie was becoming tired, the novelty of her submission wearing off, the effects of the gin fading likewise.
And then suddenly a staggering realization struck Melanie. Hillman's hands were touching her more often, lingering longer, becoming more and more familiar, brushing the soft flesh of her breasts, of her hips and buttocks, her stomach, even her inner thighs. His comments were becoming more insinuating, innuendo-clogged. More and more he commented on her physical attributes, complimenting them extravagantly, his voice becoming ragged.
"How do you want me now?" she asked as they finished a pose wherein she was required to lean forward from a sitting position, her hands on the couch beside her knees, her breasts hanging heavily beneath her, like opulent, ripe fruit.
"On toast," he'd smiled, "with lots of sugar and cream."
And then she knew. She wasn't going to escape Nick's apartment after he was finished with the photography. If she'd gone so far as to disrobe, to pose naked before him, there was an ultimate pleasure he was saving for later. And though she prayed she was wrong, she knew her hopes were futile. Nick wanted her. And since she'd compromised herself this far, he was quite certain he'd have her.
Oh, God, she thought painfully, her thoughts a muddled jumble. I've been suckered again. Little Melanie's been taken once more. I'm so much delicious flesh for him to paw over, to use as he sees fit, whenever and wherever he wants.
Fool, she screamed inwardly. Drunken trusting fool!
And she cringed inwardly, feeling a wave of helpless fear possess her, tensing for the moment when Nick would make his first advance. "Just a couple more, Melanie," he smiled, his gaze twisted and sick all at once. "Then we'll be done."
He advanced. "Here, let me move that leg just a trifle." He looked at Melanie in surprise. "What is it, dear? Your eyes... Why, you're trembling." His tone became mawkish. "You've got nothing to be afraid of dear..." Then he was leaning over her, his face only inches from hers. In that last instant Melanie saw the lustful light glittering in the depths of his eyes. "Melanie," he groaned, and dropped over her body like so much dead weight, his lips coming down on hers, suffocating her with their intense hunger. "Baby, baby," he gasped, coming to kiss her again. Limply, hoping that this was all, that he would soon regain control of himself, beg forgiveness for his outburst, Melanie fell back, allowed him to grind his lips passionately into hers.
Then a spasm transfixed Hillman. and he clenched her painfully to him. Abruptly he broke away, lowered his head to her bosom. "These glorious, beautiful breasts," he groaned, and immediately his lips closed on one of them. A darting, delightful pain suffused Melanie, and for a moment she allowed the caress, the heat growing inside her body suddenly, like a roaring blowtorch. For that brief instant she hovered on the verge of ultimate submission.
All at once her desire was transformed, negated. She knew only corroding, transforming rage. Rage at herself, for being so easy, at Hillman, for leading her on so long, for thinking she was a lead-pipe cinch. God, she thought, her brain a screaming, agonized ball of bitterness, in another second I'd have given him everything-- Now, he'll get nothing. He'll have to rape me first. Viciously, vengefully she dug her nails into Nick's shoulders, tearing at the tendons there, through the material of his light summer shirt. "No, Nick," she snarled through clenched teeth. "Not tonight. You don't get any. No, Nick I" He loosed a curse, twisted away from Melanie, pinning her arms to the cushions of the couch. "Yes, Melanie," he gritted. "Yes. You're not turning me off right now. You're mine. And I'm going to have you. If you value your precious job you'll simmer down, you'll give me that beautiful body of yours..." Many psychologists claim that in the subconscious of every human being, no matter what cultural strata they occupy, there is a stored supply of gutter language. And that, when pressured by moments of inordinate stress, all persons, preacher and prostitute alike, will trot them out, use them, scream then with frightening vehemence. So it was with Melanie at that moment, as she thought about how she'd been so easily gulled, about the ultimatum Nick had just delivered.
Job be damned! she thought. No job on earth is worth an indignity like this. He's primed me with liquor, with exotic, arousing sexual byplay, playing me for a sucker, taking me for a bumpkin. A greenhorn to be used like so much merchandise, then discarded. And when that won't work he pulls his rank, he threatens me on a different level.
But this was one time he'd get come up with. Here was one gal who wasn't giving out tonight. Not to the likes of this crawly, creepy thing. She felt his hot breath on her face, the material of his trousers scraping her legs. Suddenly she drew back, spat directly into his face. He loosed his grip, clawed for his handkerchief. "Goddamn you I" he rasped.
"Bastard, bastard! Lecherous, filthy-minded bastard!" Melanie cursed. "I'll lose my job will I? Well, I don't care! Do you hear me, I don't care! Take your job and shove it! If I have to let a pig like you make me to keep my job it isn't worth it."
"You cheap little bitch!" he raged, closing in on her again. "Nobody turns me down. Nobody! Do you hear?"
"Not until tonight, you son-of-a-bitch! Stay away from me, I'll scratch you eyes out! I'll spit in your face again!"
His hand lashed out, caught her flush on the cheek.
"Bitch!" His voice was guttural, almost pleading in his need. "Give in! Unless you want more of the same."
Melanie struggled to a sitting position, still stunned from the slap. "You do that again, Nick, and I'll scream. Ill raise such hell before I'm done that there won't be a single person on this whole floor still asleep."
She stood, her voice shaky, uncertain, yet revealing undreamed of strength and determination. "Get out of my way. I'm getting dressed and clearing out of this hellhole. And you won't stop me. Unless..."
Stunned by the unexpected reversal, Hillman stepped back two steps. Then a vengeful, ugly grimace contorted his face. "You'll pay for this, you hicky slut. I swear you'll pay. Ill have your job for this . . ."
"Try it, Nick. Ill spread the whole story around Pelletier's so fast, you'll never know what hit you." Her voice cracked, turned abject. "I've got nothing to lose anyway..." She disappeared into the bedroom. Hillman did not follow. With trembling hands Melanie dressed as carefully as she could. She couldn't appear on the street in a disheveled condition. Even at two A. M. Finally she was ready.
Hillman sat on the couch, his fists clenched, his eyes wild with hate, watching Melanie as she stepped into her pumps. "Are you going to take me home?" she said coldly.
"Get out of here! Walk!"
"What kind of filth are you?" she demanded, hate and terror in her voice she had never known before. "What kind of a sick little man are you -- that you have to get a girl drunk, dupe her, before you can get her to sleep with you? What kind of a rotten, twisted little pipsqueak are you --" She would have gone on, but he started to rise from the couch, his face almost purple with rage. His fists clenched spastically at his sides. It was almost as though he would explode with the constrained fury of his pierced ego.
"Get out of here, you easy-lay tramp! Get your backside out of here before I tear your lousy teasing body in half!"
She laughed then, lightly, with the ultimate insult no man could bear. "You stink, little man," she threw at him.
The last thing she saw was Hillman starting toward her, robot-like in his fury.
Then the door was slammed behind her, and Melanie was running down the hall in stricken, humiliated panic.
Love, she'd thought...
CHAPTER TEN
It was almost three o'clock before the cab driver dropped Melanie off at the Chelsea Apartments. Drained, her head spinning from the cataclysmic happenings of the night, her legs wobbly, the effects of the martinis she'd drunk still in marked evidence, she started up the stairs. She wanted to sleep, to forget, to wipe the ugly memories from her mind. But she knew she could not. They would be there to taunt her for a long time to come.
And what good would sleep do, anyway? Besides dissipate the alcoholic fog clouding her mind. It would only mean awaking in the morning, crawling dispiritedly through the day, consumed by self-loathing and remorse. Better she should remain awake, not be forced to face the brain splitting mental hangover of her awakening. Maybe then she could endure the soul-cauterizing despair.
Now her key was in the lock, the door swung slowly open. With sagging shoulders she entered. She seemed to move in a trance. She was surprised to find herself emerging from the elevator on the sixth floor. She couldn't even recall entering it. Fully she turned away from the elevator, started toward her own apartment. She hoped Dierdre was sleeping soundly. If she had to explain to her, to anyone, she would go out of her mind.
She halted momentarily, standing stock still. It was strange, that anywhere in the brooding, somnolent building there was someone who was not sleeping at this late hour. Yet there it was, coming from the rectangle of Val Tallant's door, a patch of light falling on the hall floor, the sound of his typewriter seeming overloud in the silent hall. Gingerly, wanting to approach the door unheard, she moved forward.
It was still a blistering night, the air in the halls stifling, and yet, in an effort to catch any stray breeze, Tallant had left his door open, and light sleepers be damned. Reaching the door, Melanie looked around the door frame cautiously. There, at a battered table, a dark, oak-stained monstrosity, seated in a straight-backed kitchen chair, his back to the door, was Val Tallant.
Melanie expelled the held breath softly, then took a step into the room, leaning against the door jamb, curious to see how long it would take Val to discover her presence. She could tell by the droop of his shoulders, by the listless, weary way he picked words from the keys, that he was bone weary. And yet he would not give up.
For a moment the shoulders seemed encouraged, the posture became slightly more erect, and his fingers danced in a quick spurt over the typewriter keyboard. Then just as suddenly they stopped, poised as if frozen. Then with a low growl the paper was torn from the machine, rolled into a ball, and savagely thrown to the floor. In that moment Melanie found herself strangely moved. His struggle to find the right words, the right phrase, his struggle to create seemed so futile, so puny, and in the end -- so meaningless. A hundred years from now, what would it matter? Who would remember that an aspiring author named Val Tallant had ever existed? Or for that matter, an aspiring lingerie model? An aspiring anything?
Val still wasn't aware of Melanie, standing only a few feet away, a pitying, lost expression on her face. A new sheet of paper was rolled into the platen and once more the typewriter began its fitful rhythm. For a full minute or so a stream of words stretched themselves across the page, and then expired. With a heavy sigh, Val leaned on the typewriter, his head on his arms.
Sympathy and heartfelt compassion swept over Melanie and for a moment she forgot her own terrifying problems. Now she surveyed the shabby, inadequate furnishings of what she could see of the cheap, cramped apartment. It was obvious that Tallant's rooms had come unfurnished; the scabrous chairs and davenport were second-hand, mismatched and faded. Yet the apartment was clean. Tallant might have been down and out, but he still had his pride. Momentarily the sickening comparison between this apartment and the one she'd just left came to mind. Bitterly she thought: And the meek shall inherit the earth -- Then she could not hold, her silence any longer. She had to speak to him. "Val?" she said softly.
The effect upon him was startling. He jerked in his chair, as if someone had just stuck him with a pin. His head swiveled swiftly to confront Melanie. "Jesus Christ!" he snapped. "Don't you ever do that again!"
"I'm sorry. I just wanted to talk to you a little. You looked kind of lonesome sitting there like that."
"Jeez," he said, an exasperated expression on his face. "Three o'clock in the morning and Little Mary Sunshine wants to talk. How long have you been standing there?"
"Just a few minutes."
"What are you doing up this late? What happened? Did your coach turn back into a pumpkin right in the middle of the Loop?"
Melanie ignored the question. "I might ask the same thing. Don't you get enough of this during the day?"
He smiled wryly, seeming pleased that she was interested in his work. "I thought I had an idea. I went to bed with it. But it bothered me so that I decided we'd better get up and have it out."
"And?"
"I should have stayed in bed." He was smiling now, genuinely delighted to have someone share his pre-dawn vigil with him.
"What are you working on? A story?"
"No. Not this one. I had my quota of stories today."
-Quota?"
"I whipped out three today. Detective stuff..."
"You're kidding. You mean you wrote three stories today? I didn't believe it was possible..."
"It is, when you need the dough as much as I do."
"Then why knock yourself out on this novel?"
"I want to do this. I think it'll turn out to be something worthwhile."
"How far have you gone with it?"
"I'm on chapter ten now. The first five chapters and the outline are making the rounds now."
"Aren't you afraid it won't sell? After all, it's quite a long shot, isn't it?"
"Live dangerously, I always say." He pulled up a battered chair. "Here. You want to sit down?"
"It's kind of rough, isn't it?" Melanie said, sitting, her eyes surveying the room significantly. "Why do you keep it up? Seems to me like so much battering your head against a stone wall. Why don't you look for some other line of work?"
"Maybe I don't enjoy any other line of work," he said curtly, plainly irritated. "Besides, I'm getting closer to it all the time. One of these days I'll hit the jackpot. Then I can skip this dump, this cheesy city for good..."
Melanie was momentarily embarrassed as she looked at Val to find him staring at her intently, almost as if he were trying to see inside of her, to read her thoughts. She flushed. Then in a swift-changing mood, he smiled, said, "How you getting along in the big town? I haven't seen you for a month or so. No more scrapes?"
"No," Melanie lied as a sharp pain stabbed her heart. "Everything's like okay."
"Then how come you're bumming the streets at three in the morning?"
"Maybe I went to bed and couldn't sleep, too. Maybe I came up with an idea."
"Yeah. Clue me, kid. What kind of an idea?"
"Skip it"
"Okay. How about some coffee? It'll take only a minute. So long's neither of us is thinking of sleeping anyway. I got some stale rolls around here somewhere..." He rose. "Anyway you look like you could use some coffee. Been drinking, haven't you?"
"No analysis, please. Just coffee."
"Sure thing, kid."
And while Val disappeared into the kitchen to stir up the coffee, Melanie lapsed into a reverie of the bitterest sort, thinking about herself almost abstractedly, as if the bestial scene in Hillman's apartment had happened years ago, not an hour ago. In a way, she mused, she and Val were alike. Both of them striving to achieve something, neither knowing exactly what, throwing themselves pleadingly against the door of an indifferent world. And in the end, what would they get for all their pains?
All this, while avaricious, unfeeling animals like Nick Hillman went blissfully through life, talking whatever they wanted, forcing, threatening, brutalizing. The little people, like Val and me, getting caught in the squeeze. We attain nothing. At that moment, enveloping waves of self-pity came over her, and she found her eyes glazed with tears. Where does any of it end up? What's the point? She sensed the anguished sorrow and disappointment flooding up, seemingly spilling over, its lapping flow heavy enough to encompass Val Suddenly she felt a peculiar warmth balloon within her, an unsettling yearning. She couldn't bear the thought of being alone tonight, of waiting for dawn in her dark bed. She had to have someone. Desperately she longed to have someone really care about her. she longed to reciprocate that love. Then she knew what it was: she realized that despite Val's feigned hardness and cynicism, he was still an idealist at heart; he was seeking the same thing from life that she was. Warmth, love -- an untroubled trust.
Near hysteria descended upon her. Desire compounded in her body, making her blood hammer in her head. She wanted Val. An instinctive, primal urge demanded it. In bed. Tonight. In her bitterness and despair over the degradation Nick had conferred upon her, she wanted to avenge herself in this sacrificial way. She and Val. The meek who were promised the world-- She would give herself to Val, freely and eagerly. She would deliver to him the most intimate knowledge of herself, a knowledge that for all his cunning, all his power and position, Nick Hillman had not been able to wrest from her tonight.
I will -- I will -- she thought, the riot in her blood clanging in her head like a million wild bells. To Val-- But quickly, she urged herself as Val returned with two cups and a steaming pot of coffee. Before this clawing, wild impatience dies.
"Here's the coffee," Val said, smiling self-consciously. "Excuse the beat-up cups. They're clean..." Melanie's voice was hollow, distant. "I don't want any coffee, Val..." - He looked confused. "You don't? But I thought you said..." Now disappointment fled across his features. Melanie was going to leave. She would desert him. Just when he was getting to know her.
"I've changed my mind. I want... something eke."
"Something else? What, for Christ's sake?"
The words seemed to hang in an eerie wail on the still, sultry air. "I want you..." For a moment he stood frozen, disbelief twisting his mouth. Then he forced up a stiff smile. "Hey, Melanie. Kid. Wake up, you don't know what you're saying." He inclined his head, looked into her eyes intently. "You have had too much to drink. Take some of this..." Then Melanie was upon him, moving dreamily, her eyes clouded, her lips half-parted, her breath coming in soft, rapid puffs. Then the eyes closed, and with a sibilant, weird sigh, she brought her lips within two inches of his, poised them tantalizingly.
She heard Val gasp loudly. Then his strong, hard arms were around her, he was crushing her soft, pliant, willing body to his. In a frantic fury he drove his lips to hers, his kiss famished. Then suddenly he broke, held her trembling body away with both hands.
"But this is crazy," he rasped. "You... we don't know what we're doing..."
"I do, Val," she sighed huskily. "Believe me, I do. Kiss me again, Val. Please..."
"No, Melanie. I can't. You're playing with fire. I want to." His tone grew ragged. "God, you don't know how much I want to..."
"Then go ahead, Val."
"I can't, don't you understand that? If I took advantage of some kid who'd had too much to drink, I'd never..." But the desire was a glowing, expanding, red hot ball in her stomach. It could not be denied now. She'd die. Woodenly Melanie turned, closed the door. Then she snapped the lock.
"Melanie, don't You don't know what you're doing."
Her smile was possessive. "Don't I, Val?" Slowly she stepped out of her pumps, her hands tugging at the zipper along the waist of her gown. Then with an angry, darting movement she leaned, grasped the hem of her skirt, catching her slip at the same time, and pulled both garments over her head with a single, liquid motion. She breathed deeply, shaking her head to rearrange her hair, dropped the clothing to the floor beside her. She stood proudly for a moment, dressed in only her undies, garter belt and stockings. Then she began to tremble uncontrollably.
"Val..." she moaned.
"My God!" he gasped, helpless longing in his eyes.
Melanie stepped to one side, flipped the light switch, plunged the apartment into thick darkness.
They came together in the darkness, the only sounds being their sighs, the whisper of their bodies clutching, of Val's hands sliding and catching on her skin. Their kiss was scorching, perpetual. The touch of his soft, careful hands was maddening.
"Val," she quaked. "I'm yours. All yours. Take me to bed with you. Please. Now."
Wordlessly Val led her through the darkness. Then she was on a bed, the sheets comparatively cool against her scorching skin, and Val was kissing her again, his lips, his hands everywhere. A convulsive twisting of desire gripped her, causing goosebumps to ripple her back and arms.
She couldn't wait much longer. Suddenly she pulled away, got out of the bed.
"Melanie!" he called, frightened.
"Undress me, Val," she whispered, standing beside the bed in docile surrender.
"Melanie, listen, please," he spoke tensely, tightly, in the dark. It was a phantom lover, whispering to her. "I'm warning you, Melanie... I'm only a guy, like any other guy... I'm only as good as I can afford to be, and I know you're doing something you don't want to do... I don't know why... or why you picked me to do it with, but I'm warning you, Melanie, another minute and you won't have to ask..." Her belly was filled with lava. She could feel the volcanic pressure in her thighs, surging against either side, hot and moist, wanting to burst free, seeking a quenching something. "Stop talking, Val. Please. Please, stop talking and... and undress me, dear God, undress me already!"
Val sat up, put his feet on the floor. And then, turning Melanie carefully, he unsnapped her brassiere. Instantly his fingertips found her swollen nipples, caressed them tenderly. Melanie was transfigured, awed by the beautiful, pagan pain.
Now he withdrew his hands, slipped down her panties. Then her garter belt and stockings. A breathless, incoherent sob escaped his lips as he pulled her close, held her between his knees, burying his head in the luxurious flesh of her breasts. "Melanie..." The way he uttered her name, it was the most soothing word in the whole world.
"It's going to be beautiful," Melanie chanted as Val pulled her down onto the bed beside him. Then the rapturous thrilling pain crushed her. making her want to scream deliriously with its sweetness. The rhythms of love commenced.
And as she answered Val's movements, she was filled with an unholy joy. This was right, she thought This was right. She knew it was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For Melanie the next two days dragged by in tortuous slowness. Wednesday she'd called in sick, and had spent the whole day recovering from a surfeit of alcohol -- and of emotion. But on Thursday she forced herself to return to Pelletier's, to sleepwalk through her modeling paces. She moved in a daze, barely hearing what Gina or Bettina said to her, going onto the showing floor with icy precision and poise, unable to remember afterward anything of the showings.
The ominous threat of Nick Hillman was foremost in her mind; not for a second was she able to crowd his dark, glowering face from her thoughts. His threats, his promises of retaliation nagged her incessantly. Would he actually attempt to have her fired? And on what trumped up charge? Certainly her work had been more than satisfactory in the lingerie salon. Even finicky Miss Fenlon would be forced to admit that. And if she were fired from Pelletier's, would she have the courage to go to Mr. Blake, to tell her side of the story, to inform him of the crude fiasco that had occurred in Hillman's apartment just the other night?
Then the most bitter, hopeless consideration of all: even if she went to Mr. Blake, what chance, really, would she have? What good was the word of a mere employee against the insidious machinations of a Nick Hillman?
When she was able to close her mind to the fearsome, sneering image of Hillman, his face was replaced with that of Val Tallant. Now, two days later, it was hard to believe that their interlude of compulsive, sacrificial love had really happened. What had possessed her? Had it been merely the effects of too many martinis, or was there a deeper significance to her willful and desperate surrender?
Dear Lord, she wailed through her torment, why can't I find Peace? Why doesn't anything seem to turn out right for me?
Gina, Bettina, and especially Dierdre noted the enervating lethargy which possessed Melanie through those days. But try as they might, they couldn't get her to discuss it with them. They were genuinely moved, knowing that somehow Melanie had made a fatal mistake, an error which could alter the course of her life immediately. But Melanie had shut them out; she would let none of them help.
"For crying out loud," Dierdre had confronted her roommate on Wednesday morning, knowing full well that Melanie had been gone all night, pretending to be sound asleep when the wan, tired faced girl had crept to her bed an hour past dawn. "You can't go on moping like this the rest of your life. Tell me what's happened. What did that bastardly Hillman do to you?"
Then seeing the stricken, confused light In Melanie's eyes, she softened, sat beside her on the davenport, hugging her. "Honey, you remember what I said when you first came here? That if you ever needed a shoulder to cry on, I was the gal to look up. Well, here I am. Tell me what's happened. Maybe I can help you. After all, I've been around a little longer than you. I know the score . .
But Melanie's face had only hardened all the more, she'd closed herself off stubbornly. "It's nothing, Dierdre," she said. "Just quit worrying about me. I'm all right. Everything's just fine." But she'd almost broken into tears as she'd spoken the words.
"Baby, don't shut me out. I want to help. I know you're in trouble. Maybe big trouble. You're in over your head. Let me help you before you go under for good."
Help, Melanie thought. Everyone wanting to help. But no one really helping. The word was a meaningless abstraction. "I don't want any help," she'd snapped angrily. "Just leave me alone. I can take care of myself."
"Can you?" Dierdre had said pityingly, and then subsided into silence.
* * *
It was on Thursday that Nick Hillman made his move. Melanie, Gina and Bettina had just finished a showing and were in their dressing room catching their breath when Miss Fenlon appeared with an anxious expression on her face. "Melanie," she said. "Mr. Hillman just called. He'd like to see you in his office this afternoon. Three o'clock."
Gina couldn't help seeing the terror that filled Melanie's eyes, the way her jaw tensed to conceal the effect the unsettling news was having upon her. "What's wrong, doll? Got troubles? What is it with you two?"
The panic flared to fiery brightness in Melanie's cheeks. She fought for control. "N... nothing, Gina. He just wants to see me about something . .
"Yeah, I know. But what?"
Melanie didn't answer. With nervous, darting strokes she was brushing at her make-up, staring stonily into the mirror. Looking at her wonderingly, exchanging glances between themselves, the other girls let the matter drop.
* * *
Summoning bravado, Melanie turned the knob and let herself into Mr. Hillman's office. Then she breathed deeply, her back to the door, her hands clutching the knob on the inside, and forced her eyes up to meet him Instantly, she was swamped with revulsion. The ugly, domineering sneer, the arrogant, contemptuous gleam in his eyes, made her suddenly feel mean, dirty and cheap inside.
"Ah, Melanie," he smiled suavely. "It's so nice to see you again. Will you snap that lock behind you, please? I don't particularly care to have our little conversation interrupted."
"No!" she started, her color rising. "Not here!" Anger exploded in his gaze. "Conversation, I said, Melanie. Lock that door I" Docilely Melanie obeyed. "What... ?" she murmured, her voice barely audible.
"Come over here, dear. Don't be afraid. Let's act civilized about this." He pointed to the chair. "Sit down, please."
Sitting primly erect, Melanie looked down at her hands. Don't crawl before him, she adjured herself. Don't act like a terrified child. Still the words were futile. She was very plainly scared. There was no way she could conceal her apprehension.
"You're looking very lovely today, Melanie," he said softly. "A trifle peaked perhaps, but..."
"What do you want?" Melanie broke in.
"I wanted to apologize for my outrageous performance the other night I was quite irresponsible, I fear." Traces of mockery crept into his tone. "I am wondering if perhaps you'll give me opportunity to make amends. Say tonight, for instance."
"You know the answer to that before you ask," Melanie said icily.
"Ah, yes. That's what I was afraid of. I thought you'd be unreasonable." He reached into a desk drawer and brought out a large manila envelope. "That's why I took the liberty of bringing these along."
Painstakingly he opened the envelope, and, one by one, began arranging a series of perhaps thirty enlarged photographs upon his desk. With a sickening, humiliated lurch in her stomach Melanie saw that they were the shots he'd taken of her in his apartment on Tuesday night. "Oh no..." she gasped, feeling her face suddenly hot with renewed shame and humiliation. "You couldn't do this..."
"I thought you'd like to see the handiwork of our intimate little session the other night. Lovely photography, don't you think? Although you must admit my gorgeous model had something to do with it also . .
"You filthy animal..." she spat.
"Careful, Melanie," he warned. "Don't get carried away."
They were all there, every picture perfect and glistening, posed for inflaming, sexy effect. The shot with Melanie offering her breasts, with her curled in a writhing ball, with her kneeling on the couch with her breasts hanging heavily. Seemingly they had captured her innermost, secret spirit, her latent sexuality. Ugly, ugly -- they taunted her. And in each photograph the drunken smear of a smile, the empty, glassy stare of intoxication. Dear God, she seethed, how could I have done this?
A smile on his lips, Hillman slowly looked over the photographs, finally choosing one, a shot of Melanie with her head thrown back in wanton abandon, her body arched at an extreme angle, her breasts strained to their utmost voluptuousness. "This is my particular favorite," he said softly.
"Put them away," Melanie begged, looking down at her hands, consumed with shame and disgust. "Please put them away."
"Anything you say, my dear." She heard the sound of the photographs being gathered, being slid into their envelope. When she looked up again, Hillman's desk was bare. Except for one thing.
A white card, with three typewritten lines on it.
Now he pushed the card calmly toward Melanie. "Read it," he ordered.
Then the entire perverted picture fell into place.
She was a helpless captive to her monstrous stupidity. "Mrs. Doris Mitchell," the card read. "Bruce Street, Freshwater, Indiana." Her body rigid, numb, Melanie stared at Hillman. "What...?" she whispered.
"I'm not altogether pleased with these pictures, Melanie. They're not up to my usual standards. I'd like to try again. If you're willing. Tonight, perhaps?"
"No... you can't mean it. You wouldn't stoop so low..."
"Wouldn't I? Come now, dear. You didn't really think you were going to get away with what you pulled the other night, did you?"
Melanie didn't answer.
"Either you cooperate, or one Mrs. Mitchell, down Indiana way, will receive an unsavory little package in the mail one of these days. You wouldn't want that, would you? Surely you'd want to spare her that disgrace. I can imagine what a shock like that would do to an elderly woman." A long pause followed.
"You filth..." she seethed, feeling a cold wave of helpless dread drench her. She would rather die than have mother see those photographs.
He ignored the epithet. "You realize of course, that tonight we don't refuse our host anything?"
"Please, Nick," Melanie pleaded. "Don't make me do this. I'll leave the store. I won't cause any trouble. But please... don't force me to..."
"Cut the dramatics, Melanie. I'm not such a monster in bed. It won't be half as bad as you imagine. In fact, you might even find it pleasant..." Melanie grimaced, feeling suddenly sick to her stomach. How could she? With this foul, perverted -- ? The sickness closed in more intensely as she realized that she must. There was no way out, if she was going to keep the pictures from Mother. She must submit to Hillman, she must let him have his depraved way with her. Anything he wanted --
"And if everything proves satisfactory . . she emerged from her daze to hear Hillman saying, "then I'll give you the negatives, the shots I just showed you. You can keep your job here at Pelletier's. That'll be the end of the matter. So really it's not too high a price to pay, when you consider what your refusal will cost you."
Her voice was thick, dead. "You promise? You swear this will be all? You'll give me the pictures? The negatives?"
"That's a promise, Melanie." His eyes were wet, glistening with lust. "Is it agreed then?"
The words came from a far-off place, echoing faintly in her ears. "Yes... tonight..."
"Good girl," he smirked, standing behind his desk. He started toward her. Melanie shrunk back. "Now you're being smart." His hands were on her arms. He was raising her up from the chair. "How's about a kiss on the bargain?"
Then his wet lips were grinding into hers; he was trying to pull her closer to him. She tore away savagely, backed toward the door. "Damn you!" she snarled, her lips trembling. "Can't you wait until tonight?"
"I guess I can," he sneered. "Be ready at nine. I'll come by for you. And, Melanie..."
"Yes?"
"Pack something frilly and feminine in your bag. A nightie I mean. You might want to stay late..." Then she was fumbling at the door lock, wild to escape the office. She was walking hurriedly down the corridor. She would get her bag and go home. She couldn't bear this place one minute longer.
She was sick, sick. Her legs felt like so much limp, wet straw. If she didn't get some air soon she would surely vomit.
Then the harsh, defeated words scoured her brain: How did a simpleton like you ever expect to beat a world as ugly as this?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Once she was out in the air, she felt better. Physically anyway. She would never be able to cure the sickness of her mind. It would sour her life from this day forth. Hailing a cruising taxi, she gave the driver the Taravel Street address, and sat back, fighting the hot, scalding tears dammed behind her eyelids. But finally the sadness became overpowering. Huddled in one corner of the cab, her face buried in her hands, she let the tears come. The driver, lustily cursing traffic, paid her no heed.
She was cried out by the time she reached home. Composing herself, she wiped her eyes, paid the driver, then emerged from the taxi with her body erect, her eyes defiant. From now on she'd hate the whole, stinking world. After tonight, no one could ever hurt her again.
It was unfortunate that one of the first persons she should encounter, while still under the influence of this newfound, heady hatred, was Val Tallant. It seemed prophetic that at that moment of extreme crisis in Melanie's life he should suddenly appear.
She was just approaching his door when it opened, and Val started out, a fresh batch of manuscripts, enclosed in brown envelopes, under his arm, ready to be sent to his New York agent. Melanie noticed that he was smiling happily and confidently to himself as he locked his door. A fleeting stab of emotion went through her. He looked so vulnerable, so ready to have life shove another grievous disappointment down his throat. Momentarily her heart went out to him. Then just as suddenly it went cold again. Here was another man who had taken advantage of her.
"Melanie!" he exclaimed delightedly when he saw her. "Talk about luck! I've been waiting for you all day." He grabbed her shoulders excitedly, pinned her playfully to the wall. "Hey, girl. Don't rush off. I've got things to tell you. I wanted you to be the first to know."
He placed the envelopes between his knees, dug into his shirt pocket, pulled out a letter that had once been crisp, but was now creased and recreated from being read so many times. "Read this, kiddo," he smiled. Melanie was reminded of a small boy on Christmas morning.
She opened the paper, tried to read it. But the words blurred before her eyes. She handed it back. "You tell me what's in it"
"My novel!" he exulted. "It's been sold. The editors are keen about it. They think it'll hit the big time. There's a $2000 check in the works. An advance. Isn't that the greatest?"
He was oblivious to the pained expression on Melanie's face, his minor triumph turning his world topsy-turvy. "How about it, Melanie? Isn't that the best news ever? Melanie? Are you listening? Isn't it wonderful?"
"Yeah," Melanie said acidly, for some strange reason wanting to hurt Val. "Like hooray."
Then she struggled to break free of Val's touch. "Let me go, Val. Let me get past."
"Well, for Christ's sake! Is that the only reaction I'm gonna get from you? I've been saving it all day. Just for you. I wanted you to go out with me tonight, have dinner, celebrate with an up-and-coming best seller author..."
"Like I said, bully for you. And have dinner alone. Celebrate alone. I've got other plans..." Then she turned and ran, the tears blinding her. It would have been such fun. She would have been so happy to help Val celebrate. If only --
"Melanie," he called, entirely confused. "Wait!" She ignored him, reaching her door, opening it swiftly, then slamming it behind her loudly.
* * *
It was lucky that Dierdre wouldn't return to the apartment until late that night. A dinner date with a man, she'd informed Melanie that morning. Melanie shouldn't wait up for her. Don't worry, Melanie seethed, as she emerged from the shower, as she viciously toweled the pink, fragrant body that would be offered up to Hillman's lecherous appetites only an hour hence, like so much whore bought and paid for, I won't wait up. You'll be tucked in long before I ever see these four walls again.
Nick Hillman was punctual that night. It was nine sharp when Melanie looked down to see his Lincoln ease up to the curb. Heartsick, she checked her bag. Yes, the prescribed nightie, a pink, lacy thing, was crammed inside. Dully, she locked the door and started down. She gazed guiltily at Val's closed door as she passed it Then she was in Hillman's car; they were underway. "Well, how are you tonight, Melanie?" he said jovially. "Feeling better? Reconciled? Yon certainly look pretty."
Melanie's mood for the evening was pre-set. Her tone was venomous as she replied. "Skip the small talk, Nick. If I have to go through with this... okay, I'm ready. But I don't have to be gay and charming about R."
"Better," he mocked, chuckling, "remember what I said this afternoon. Cooperation, that's the ticket. Customer satisfaction. Otherwise..."
"Never mind," she said. "Ill cooperate. I want to get out from under this thing the worst way. You'll be satisfied."
"Melanie. You make it sound so vulgar. So un-feminine. Don't talk like that..."
"Don't talk, period." And she fell into a sullen silence.
Hillman drove in leisurely, careful fashion, as if wishing to prolong the humiliation he was inflicting upon Melanie, and it was almost ten before he unlocked his apartment door and let her precede him into the living room. "Here," he smiled smugly. "Let me put your bag away for you."
Docilely, Melanie surrendered it. Immediately he opened it, groped inside for the nightgown. Then he withdrew it, let it unroll to its full length. "Nice," he leered. "Very nice indeed." Melanie cringed inside.
Moments later he reappeared from the bedroom, approached the small bar at the end of the living room. "What'll it be, honey? Martini again?"
"Martinis will be fine," Melanie said. She wanted to be very drunk when he finally took her into the bedroom. Drunk and unfeeling. So the wounds of her submission wouldn't be on her conscience. Perhaps she'd remember none of it if she drank enough.
"Good for you. That's the spirit. It's been my experience that women are at their best bedroom-wise if they have a few drinks beforehand. Helps them forget any nasty little inhibitions they might have."
"Leave it to you to figure something like that out"
"Now, Melanie, let's not be unpleasant."
"Ill try," she said, draining her drink swiftly, immediately offering it for a refill.
"Mmm," he smiled in an oily way. "You are determined to satisfy, aren't you?"
Gradually the gin got to Melanie, and her senses became dulled as she'd hoped they would. The liquor seemingly burned a hole in her stomach, loosing waves of warm, lazy indolence, making the upcoming degradation somewhat bearable. If the world was forcing her to this supreme indignity -- rape by consent -- then she might as well enjoy it. If such a thing was possible. No amount of alcohol could make it enjoyable. Dull her conscience to the nagging pains of self loathing, perhaps. But that was all.
By eleven-fifteen Melanie was quite drunk, in a stupor almost, her revulsion dead now when Hillman took her in his arms and kissed her. She hung limply in his grasp, a faint smile on her lips, as he caressed her breasts with his free hand, making no protest when he unbuttoned the top of her gown, slid his hands inside her brassiere, fingered the rosettes of her breasts.
But there was none of the excitement, none of the ecstasy of the times when Paul, or even Val, had caressed her body. Only mute, cow-like permissiveness, a placid acquiescence which angered and frustrated Hillman. "Damn you, baby," he rasped. "Come on, will you? Get with it. It's like I'm making love to a statue or something."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Nick," she feigned passion, drawing his head down to hers, working her lips unfeelingly against his. "I want to please you. Really I do. Do you want to go to the bedroom now?"
"No." His eyes narrowed speculatively. "Not yet. I've got other plans first." And then he kissed her hungrily again, trying to inflame her anew. Now he tired of her breasts. With deft, quick motions, he reached down, pulled up her skirt, arranged it around her waist, so he could see the full length of Melanie's legs, the trim, line of her hips and stomach. Then his hands commenced to wander along her thighs. Momentarily Melanie sensed slow fires of arousal. Then swiftly they guttered out as Hillman began to pinch her legs cruelly.
Indolently she reached for her martini. And while she sipped it, lying half across Nick's lap, his hands continued their feverish exploration of her body. She was surprised to see beads of sweat forming on his forehead. If I'm not getting a charge out of this, she thought blurrily, I know someone who is.
Abruptly Hillman stopped his caressing and fondling, and raised Melanie up from her reclining position. "Oh," she smiled, very drunk now, "you're ready now, huh?"
"Yeah, honey. You know it."
Melanie rose, staggering slightly. "Ill go into the bedroom and get ready."
"No, not just yet." His eyes were now slightly glazed also. The drink was getting to him. A dark, hard glitter shone in his stare, wild, depraved. "I've got something even better on the agenda. Stand over there where I can see all of you."
Melanie moved backward. "Here, you mean?" What was he up to now?
"Yeah, that's fine."
"So?"
"I want you to undress for me. Put on a little strip show."
"What?" Chagrin and disbelief pierced the alcoholic insulation of her brain. Was there no end to the indignities he would force upon her?
"You heard me. Undress. I want to watch."
"God," she groaned. "You think of everything, don't you?"
"Don't talk, you bitch. Just do as you're told." And then, while Hillman sat on the couch only five feet from her, idly sipping a martini, Melanie was forced to strip before him. The loathing she'd thought -he'd subjugated with liquor broke through, and momentarily she felt queasy in her stomach. Maybe there was hope yet. If she could still sense revulsion -- The dress came off first, an easy thing since it had a long row of buttons down the front which she could open, and let the dress fall to the floor at her feet. And then her slip, a white, shimmering thing, trimmed heavily at the hem and bodice with satin and lace.
"Oh, Christ, kid," Hillman groaned. "You undress Eke a goddamn old woman. Give us a little style, huh? Show a little imagination. You're about as sexy as a loaf of bread."
"You bastard," Melanie said levelly, her eyes afire with hate. "You sure are hard to satisfy."
"Watch it, kid," he shot. "Be nice, or you won't get those pictures."
Shame gradually reclaiming her, Melanie stood before him in confusion, dressed in a white, satin brassiere, girdle, stockings and rapier-toed black patent leather pumps. She had never felt so cheap in all her life. Even when she'd been nude. Compared to this tawdry parody, that had been a decent, honest thing.
"Okay, honey. Move it around. Show me how you do it when you're modeling at Pelletier's. Make like I'm an important customer."
Melanie froze, humiliation crumbling her intoxicated indifference. "No, Nick," she begged. "Don't make me. Take me to bed, but not this..."
"Goddamn you!" he hissed, his face twisting into a grotesque grimace. "Do as I say. Model that rear of yours!"
Hatred gathering in her throat, causing a burning, raw pain there, Melanie put her arms up in what passed for grace in her bleary condition, and began to walk slowly back and forth across the room, coming close to Hillman, pausing, as if to display the detail on her brassiere and girdle. Seeing his sick, sweating face she was reminded of the first day she'd ever modeled. Hadn't that pig's name been Vernelli? She sensed the same revulsion now that she had then.
"Baby," Hillman was hissing, "that's more like it. Oh, what that goddamn shape of yours does to me. Wow! Turn around like that again."
Minutes later Hillman was tired of this segment of the evening's entertainment. "Okay, baby," he ordered curtly. "That'll do. Start stripping the rest of it off. The bra first."
Doggedly, her mind sickened, Melanie reached behind her, unfastened the band at her back, let the brassiere slide down her arms and fall to the floor. "Please, Nick," she wailed, wanting to avoid the rest of the ugly travesty. "Take me to bed. I want to now."
He was not deceived. "Come here, doll." Stiff-legged she advanced, her mind beginning to blank out. She didn't want to remember the rest. Then she stood before him, permitting his hot, moist hands to cup and squeeze her breasts, his fingers to roughly brush the nipples. "Closer, Melanie," he sighed. "Man, what a gorgeous set." And then the nauseating hotness of his lips.
Finally he stopped, and the dizzy spinning in her head slowed down. The cool air rushed at her breasts, puckering the abused nipples. "The rest, sweetie..." he gritted, an insane, dreamy smile on his lips.
Melanie remembered very little of the rest. She tugged at her girdle, bringing her stockings down with it. He ordered her to put her spike-heeled pumps back on. "The pants, honey," he said. Then she was dully pulling down her panties, stepping out of them clumsily, almost falling. She felt nothing now, as she stood in mute confusion, her body naked.
Hillman made strange little sounds in his throat as he looked at the lovely girl standing helplessly before him. His eyes seemed to burn as they roved over the beautiful, voluptuous body, as they caressed the long, sexy line of her legs and hips, the firm, yet ripe ebullience of the magnificent breasts, her fine, flaring buttocks. "Pose, Melanie," he said thickly. "Pose, damn you!" Slowly her arms came up behind her head; she awkwardly put one foot before the other. Now she commenced to turn slowly before him. A maddening sense of power possessed Hillman. This part of it -- the subjugation and defilement of the woman -- was almost better than the end product. He liked this best.
"Come here, sweetie..." he said.
Then Melanie recalled the moments she'd submitted to him, standing paralyzed before him, staring emptily into space, while all the while his hands were caressing and holding her body, sliding along her back, along her legs, touching her breasts, her belly. And the continuing, quick animal gasps in the man's throat.
"Walk around again, baby. Just you and those sexy black shoes..." And finally: "In the bedroom. Get into that nightie and get in bed."
In the darkness she heard him enter the bedroom. From a great distance she heard the soft rise and fall of some exotic-sounding music. Suddenly a glaring bedside lamp was clicked on. Unabashedly Hillman began to undress before her. Then he stood naked beside the bed, a tormented grin on his lips. With a sudden, violent gesture he threw back the sheet, exposing her body, dad in pink nylon.
"The pictures, Nick..." she moaned. "Give me the pictures. You promised..."
"Later. After you've delivered. And I mean delivered!"
His breath coming thickly through clenched teeth, he hovered over her, studying her body, her face, as if unable to get enough of her. Then deliberately, methodically, he gripped the pretty nightie at the throat, wrenched it. Melanie heard the sharp, ripping sound as the material gave. He tore the nylon gown its full length, from neckline to hem, threw back its ragged panels to expose Melanie's quivering body.
"The light," she wailed as Hillman fell upon her body, his eyes demented. "Turn out the light."
"I want the light on," he breathed. "It makes it better that way." Then his evil hands were on her again, inflicting incredible pain, exploring and touching unashamedly, plainly intending ultimate humiliation. Now the sickening hotness of his mouth again. Finally he could wait no longer. Melanie went dead and cold as he forced her legs, as he drove himself to her. And while his body moved jarringly, she sensed nothing. Only the supreme emptiness and despair.
"Damn you," he groaned, "I'm warning you. Make it good, or you won't get the pictures."
And through the depths of despair and humiliation, Melanie summoned up a surge of strength. She forced her arms to encircle his back, she ground herself to him, answering his movements, feigning passion, gasping and sighing as though achieving release from the cowardly act And above the revulsed pounding in her brain, over the wailing strains of music from the living room, she beard the guttural, sobbing, sick animal noises Hillman made in his throat.
Finally a blazing stab of light bathed her brain, a scintillating pain ran the length of her body. And despite the unbounded abhorrence she felt for what she was doing, she found herself clutching Hillman tighter, tighter. The pure mechanics of the act had done this thing to her. She was no longer pretending. Melanie screamed hoarsely.
Then for a long moment afterward the room was still. The paralyzing realization hit her. My God! What have I done?
Then, her body, her spirit humbled and fouled, she could bear no more. She fainted.
The room was dark when she awoke. It seemed it must have been hours later. Then she felt the hot hands on her breasts, their frenzied clutch and draw. "What is it?" she called, forgetting in that instant where she was. "Who...?"
"Relax, Melanie," Hillman chuckled softly. "It's okay. One more and you're through for the night."
Before she was fully conscious, she felt the pain of him, the hot, suffocating weight. The bed commenced to tremble.
"Please, Nick," she gasped. "Not again . . "Oh yes, baby," he laughed. "Of course again." This time she had no reserve of strength, but lay impassive, yielding, enduring Hillman's brutalization, strangely unmoved by the string of evil, cursing outcries that he released as his moment of deliverance drew near.
It was two o'clock, Melanie noticed as she mechanically dressed, Hillman standing across the room smiling broadly as he watched. She was somewhat more clear-headed. The alcoholic effects were dissipating. And though tired and degraded, there was some small triumph in her grasp. She had achieved her purpose in coming, in letting Hillman foul her. For on the coffee table, beneath her bag, was the envelope containing the prints, the negatives. She'd inspected them as carefully as her blurred mind would allow. She was sure they were all there. Now it was finished. She was free of Hillman for good.
Nick tooled the Lincoln through the deserted, echoing streets rapidly, making good time. It was 2:40, Melanie noted, as they drew up before the Chelsea Apartments. The ride, the wash of cool, fresh air through the windows of the car had helped. She felt a trifle better now.
"Here we are," he smiled ,his expression cunning. "Safe and sound. Now that wasn't so bad after all was it?"
Melanie stared straight ahead, not answering. "You got your envelope?"
Dumbly, without turning, Melanie held up the envelope. She moved toward the door. "Goodnight," she murmured, her eyes vacant, her voice lifeless.
"Wait, baby," he chuckled, reached for her arm, holding it in a hard grip. "How about Saturday night?"
"Saturday night? What are you talking about?"
Casually he reached beneath the seat. Melanie's heart constricted in agonized terror as she saw him withdraw another thick envelope, exact duplicate of the one in her hand. Dear God, no -- she choked. Please -- it can't be --
Smiling smugly, Hillman opened the envelope, let the sheaf of photographs slide out. She saw the nude bodies, the drunken smile. No --
"Like I said, honey," he sneered. "Saturday night." He flipped the pictures menacingly. "I've got a dozen sets of these. You get one a night. I figure by the time you work your way through these, I'll be plenty tired of you."
Melanie's mind was stunned. There was no hate, no anger. Only cold, tragic despair. God -- the ragged, incoherent thought floated up -- I've been had again --
"I'm planning a little stag Saturday night," Hillman continued. "Some poker for the boys. Afterward I'd imagine they'd enjoy a little strip show. So wear your prettiest underwear. Pick some up at the store tomorrow. Ill square it for you. Are you listening?"
Melanie nodded slowly.
"Don't take it so hard, honey. You'll have to learn sooner or later. It's a hard, cruel world. Saturday night?"
Again Melanie nodded, her brain numb, her face strained in a white, stricken mask. Dispiritedly she pushed the door handle, let herself out of the car.
"Hey, kid," Nick called after her, "no hard feelings?"
"No," she replied in a toneless voice. "No hard feelings."
The car roared away. Clutching her purse, the hard-won envelope against her chest, Melanie turned toward the apartment.
Her body bent forward in an awkward, tired stance, she started up the stairs. Now she could barely see for the tears that flooded her eyes. A loud buzzing began in her brain. She staggered, almost fell as she started up the steps.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Melanie let herself into the apartment as quietly as she could. Once the door was closed behind her, she fell against it, fighting to still the sobs that shook her. And still no thought could pierce the mounting hysteria within her. For long moments she stood with her back pressed to the door's solid, comforting surface, breathing deeply, battling the tears. It wasn't worth tears, she maundered. None of it Now she pushed away from the door, stepped out of her shoes, started for the bedroom. She was so tired. She wanted to sleep so badly. But first she must undress. She must shower, she must attempt to wash Hillman's stench from her body. Desperately she desired to be clean, virginal again. Only now it was too late.
Silently, inch by inch, she swung the door open. She was relieved to see that Dierdre was sleeping soundly. She moved to the dresser at the foot of her bed, braced herself with one hand. Carefully she began to unbutton her dress. Rustling, it flowered at her feet. She lifted her slip, began working at her garters. Impatiently, dead tired, she pulled at the stockings. Only the snap on the right side was hopelessly jammed. She couldn't get it without tearing the stocking: All at once the minor problem assumed tragic proportions, and as it so often happens to people on the verge of monumental hysteria, Melanie became instantly enraged. "Damn!" she cursed softly. "Damn damn..." She applied furious pressure. A stabbing pain exploded in her finger. In her haste she'd broken a nail.
It was the most intolerable of burdens. Did everything have to happen to her? she raged irrationally. Would this horrible night never end? And then she went completely to pieces, throwing herself on the bed, twisting and writhing in uncontrollable anguish. "Oooh..." she wailed, and then the sobs returned, she surrendered to them in wracking, delicious abandon. "Oh, oh, oh," she cried.
Immediately Dierdre came awake, and hurried to her, sitting beside her on the bed. "My God, Melanie, what is it? What's happened? We've been worried sick about you. Do you realize what time it is? What happened?"
"I... can't get... my stockings off..." Melanie sobbed, her voice choking with shattering desolation.
"I broke my fingernail..."
"Well, for Christ's sake," Dierdre sniffed in extreme exasperation. "All this fuss over a broken nail?" And suddenly her heart melted, and she swept Melanie op in her arms, pressed her head to her breasts, feeling the hot tears slide on her own bare flesh. "Melanie, Melanie," she crooned. "Don't cry. Please don't cry. Tell me all about it I want to help you..." And slowly she began to rock the stricken girl in her arms. "Melanie, Melanie..." Gradually Melanie calmed, the flood of tears lessened. For the moment she felt safe, secure, warm and loved here in Dierdre's arms. The sensation was strangely soothing and she felt herself drifting into a lazy, self-pitying torpor. It reminded her of when she'd been home, of the times when her mother had held her when she'd hurt herself as a child. Then the gentle, soft hands stroking her hair, the sweet fragrance of Dierdre's body.
"Tell me, baby," Dierdre pleaded. "What happened? Where have you been?"
"It was horrible," Melanie choked suddenly wanting to unburden herself, to relate her perverted misadventure with Hillman to someone. It seemed that she must. If she didn't --
"He made me do terrible things. If I didn't he was going to send the pictures home. To my mother. It would have killed her..."
"What are you talking about? What pictures? And "ho are you talking about?"
"Nick... He got me drunk one night and...
-Nick Hillman?"
"Yes." Melanie pushed herself erect "And now I cant get away from him. He wants me tomorrow night. I have to undress for him... Then he'll use me like an animal. He'll let the others use me too. I know he will..." Now she was babbling brokenly.
"Slow down, honey," Dierdre said, holding her close again, her eyes wide in shocked incredulity, her mouth tightening into a grim, vengeful line. "Start all over. What pictures are you talking about?"
"There on the dresser. Get them," Melanie said, her voice choking again. "See the dirty things I did . . -" With seeming reluctance Dierdre released her hold on Melanie, laid her head on the pillow. She snapped on a lamp atop the dresser, opened the envelope. Her eyes burned with unholy rage as she looked at the pictures. "You were drunk" she seethed. "He got you drunk and did this to you..."
"I didn't know what I was doing..." Melanie said softly. "Now I do... after tonight, I do..."
"Oh, you poor kid," Dierdre sighed, dropping the pictures to the floor. Then she returned to the bed embraced Melanie, comforted her again. "And now he's using the pictures to blackmail you."
"Yes. Tonight I was supposed to get the pictures and the negatives. If I let him..." Her body stiffened. "It was horrible. He made me do the most degrading things..."
"The pig," Dierdre's voice was heavy with loathing, "the foul, perverted pig..." Melanie was sobbing brokenly again. "It's all right, honey. It's all right," Dierdre murmured, holding her unbearably close, a sudden pounding beginning in her head, unbidden desires coming to life within her. "Tell me all about it... don't cry, Melanie."
Brokenly, in a prolonged series of fitful, interrupted stops and starts, Melanie detailed the depraved degradation to which Hillman had subjected her. And all the while Dierdre held her tightly, her free hand stroking Melanie's head incessantly, lulling her.
"And then he showed me the other pictures; he said I had to come Saturday night. He wants me to undress in front of a bunch of men. Oh, Dierdre! I can't! I can't do it!"
"I know, Melanie. Of course you can't."
"But I must. I have to. If I don't, hell..."
"Forget it for now, baby. We'll see to it that Hillman is taken care of."
"But how?" Melanie asked, new hope surging to life within her. "What can we do?"
"I don't know. But I'll think of something."
The sudden hope died an aborted death. Dierdre was only talking bravely. She could do nothing to help. There was no one to help her now. She was alone. Lost.
Melanie stirred in Dierdre's arms. "Let me up," she said. "I have to get undressed. I have to shower, to wash Hillman's filth off me..." Again she struggled with the garter snap, her head reeling.
"Lay still, Melanie," Dierdre said, pushing her back. "Let me do that. Ill get you ready for your shower."
In a blissful daze, Melanie fell back, allowed herself the lazy luxury of having Dierdre undress her. Again fitting thought of her mother passed through her mind. Dierdre's hands were gentle, careful, as she peeled the remaining stocking down. A timid smile flickered at her lips as she slid her hands under Melanie's buttocks, gripped the waist of her girdle, slowly pulled it down. It seemed Dierdre's fingers lingered overlong on her hips before she stripped her panties off her, but Melanie couldn't be sure. She was delightfully woozy, on the verge of sleep.
"Sit up, honey," Dierdre said, "and well get that slip off." Now the filmy garment was being pulled over her head, was flung aside. Then Dierdre's hands were sliding along her back, she felt her undoing her brassiere snaps. The nylon was pulled languorously from her arms. A rash of goose bumps erupted on Melanie's flesh as disquieting presentiment fled through her. But before she could identify it, it was gone.
Briskly Dierdre drew away from Melanie, went to the closet for her robe. "Pajamas, Melanie?"
"In the second drawer."
Dierdre turned from the closet, let her eyes flicker over Melanie's nude body. At the last instant her eyes turned oddly dark. Then abruptly her tone became matter-of-fact. "Say, Melanie, what's with this Val Tallant? You aren't mixed up with him, too, are you?"
Melanie's body became tense. A clutch of panic gathered in her chest. "Tallant? No, why do you ask?"
"He was here tonight. Barged in about midnight, looking for you. Looked to me like he'd been drinking. Said something about some novel, and he'd wanted you to celebrate with him or something. I couldn't make much out of it."
"I stopped by and talked to him one day. He got to telling me about his writing. He's a nice boy."
"Yeah?" Dierdre regarded her suspiciously. "Is that all? The guy looked to me like he was gone on you. All worked up. You'd acted so strange when he talked to you this afternoon..."
"Now you know why."
"Yeah. Now, Melanie, don't start crying again.
Try not to think about it."
"I'm trying," Melanie sniffed. For a moment thought of Val blotted out the ugly remembrance. She compared the idyllic beauty of their love affair with the demented sordidness of her session with Hillman. It was true, then. Val was genuinely interested in her. He really liked her. But then her reverie soured. He'd been drunk. He'd been looking for sex. That was the only reason he'd come searching her. That was all any man wanted from her.
Dierdre's arms were under Melanie's back. She was helping Melanie from the bed. "C'mon, kiddo. Well get you in that shower. You'll feel better after that."
She helped Melanie into the tub, adjusted the water for her. "Enjoy yourself. Steam all the ugliness away. Then you'll get some rest and everything will be okay."
"Will it, Dierdre? No. I don't think so. Never..."
"Soak it out, Melanie. Take your time. Ill get things straightened around out here."
The shower did help. Melanie stayed beneath its hot, stinging spray for fifteen minutes, feeling the water wash the sweat and grime of the night from her skin. If only, she thought bitterly, it could reach the inside of her brain, wash that clean also. The hot water helped drive away the fumes of gin that still drifted through the corridors of her mind, and she felt calmer, steadier.
Dierdre was waiting for her as she stepped out of the shower, towel in hand. "Hell, doll," she said, "you look better already. A new woman." Then she advanced with a no-nonsense air, and began to towel Melanie down.
"Really, Dierdre," Melanie protested, feeling embarrassment at the intimacy, "there's no need for you to..."
"It's okay, Melanie. If I want to baby you, let me. God knows, you've got it coming..." Obediently Melanie stood while Dierdre dried her entire body, crouching before her to wipe her legs and feet. The lazy, delicious warmth was beginning to rise inside her again. Tiredly she lifted her arms, and Dierdre helped her into the light, cotton pajamas. Now her legs, one at a time, as Dierdre pulled up the cute, puff-legged shorty pants.
The bed was open, waiting for her, when she came into the bedroom. Then she laid down, the thick drowsiness closing in on her almost at once. "Want something to eat before you go to sleep?" Dierdre asked.
"No. Nothing. Just sleep. I'm so tired."
"Okay." Dierdre clicked off the lights. She started toward her own bed.
"Dierdre?"
"Yes, what is it, honey?"
"Come stay with me. I'm afraid. Will you sleep with me?"
Compassion choked Dierdre's voice. "Oh, God. You poor kid. Of course I will." Then she was crawling in beside Melanie. "Shove over just a little, will you, 'baby?"
Melanie snuggled up to Dierdre, luxuriated in the sympathy she expended so lavishly upon her, allowed her to put her arm around her. As she dozed off, she felt the slow, even stroke of Dierdre's fingers as they brushed through her hair. For a moment she felt a spasm of shudders possess Dierdre. Then they stopped. But she paid no heed. She was so sleepy. So tired. Finally Melanie slept.
* * *
She was having a nightmare. It seemed she was back in Nick Hillman's bed once more, that his hot, animal body was pressed up against her. Now the heat became unbearable, as his lips covered hers, as his hands closed on her breasts again. She writhed, twisted. There. The hot touch was gone. She fell asleep again.
Hours later it seemed, Melanie drifted up from the subterranean depths of a stultifying, dreamless sleep. And then, like a long-submerged cork she hit the surface, bobbed there for a moment. Suddenly Melanie was awake, her body limp, her senses acutely aware of her surroundings. She was not in Hillman's apartment; she was at home, in her own bed. Only something was terribly wrong.
Her pajama top was unbuttoned, she could feel a cool current of air playing upon her flesh. And then a startling realization, a stunning, paralyzing awareness swept her. Dierdre's arms were no longer around her, her fingers were no longer in her hair. Instead the hot hands were delicately caressing the naked globes of Melanie's breasts.
Melanie heard Dierdre's heavy, rapid breathing coming from a distance. Now she fought to remain silent and unmoving as she felt the warmth suddenly brand her left breast, as she felt Dierdre's mouth close on the nipple. Gently, so as not to awaken Melanie, the lips compressed the soft button. Now it was gone. And Dierdre's head was above hers, the eyes glazed in the half light. Now the lips, half parted, descended upon her own. Lightly, yearningly.
Suddenly Melanie broke from her self-imposed trance, her body shuddering in overwhelming revulsion. "Dierdre!" she gasped. "What are you doing?"
Immediately Dierdre broke into tears. "Oh, God, Melanie. You're awake." Her arms closed on Melanie again. "I'm sorry, honey. Truly I am. I wouldn't hurt you for the world."
"What is it, Dierdre? What's wrong?" But Melanie didn't need an answer. For in that heart-stopping instant she knew. She recalled Miss Fenlon at the store, instantly she saw the similarities between her and Dierdre. It seemed she must have sensed it from the very first. But why had it taken her this long to realize the hard truth? Dierdre was a lesbian!
"I'm sorry, Melanie," Dierdre cried. "Don't be angry, I don't know what came over me. It's just that I've wanted you for so long. I've loved you for so long that I can't . .
Love, Melanie raged inwardly, the full impact of Dierdre's admission hitting her like a thunderbolt. Is this the only kind of love I can inspire? The perverted, the bestial, the lost? Is my whole life to be composed of such freak encounters? Will I never discover natural, pure love? Love, Gina had sneered. A dirty word "No, Dierdre," she quailed. "Stay away from me. Leave me alone. I don't want this..."
"Forgive me, Melanie. I couldn't help myself. Not tonight. You needed me so. I needed you. And when we were in bed together, I lost my head. I've tried so hard all three months to control myself. But tonight, I couldn't help myself any more. I'm crazy about you, Melanie. I... I love you." The terrible depths of longing and intensity she gave the words shook Melanie strangely.
"I don't want it, Dierdre," she wailed hollowly. "I don't want your love."
"No, Melanie. Don't say it. Don't hate me. Please don't hate me. I couldn't bear it."
"I don't hate you, Dierdre. No! Stay away, Dierdre!"
But Dierdre was in a trance of her own, and would not be denied. Her arms came around Melanie, she held her close, her tears sliding on Melanie's face. Now her lips, soft, warm, lush, crushed down upon Melanie's, and she ground them relentlessly into hers. "I want you," she groaned.
"Get away!" Melanie shrieked, breaking her grip, pushing her from her viciously. "Get out of this bed." And now the hate, corroding, insane, welled up within her again. "Want, want, want! That's the story of this whole stinking world. Everybody wanting, everybody taking. But nobody giving. Get away from me, Dierdre! I don't want you. I don't want anyone. I just want everybody in this filthy, slimy universe to leave me alone. Stay away from me. If you touch me again, I'll claw your eyes out!"
Dierdre collapsed on the bed, burying her face in the covers. "Please, Melanie," she begged desperately. "Forgive me. I don't want to be this way. But I can't help it. I didn't want to hurt you, darling. Believe me, I don't."
Momentarily, Melanie relented. She looked down at the weeping, grief-stricken, mixed-up woman. Only an hour ago that had been her, wailing her helpless frustration, asking for someone to help, someone to understand. Now it was turnabout. "It's all right, Dierdre," she said thickly, on the verge of tears again herself. "I forgive you. But I can't return your love. It's against my nature. I... I want a man..."
"Men!" Dierdre spat. "Foul, bestial animals! What have they ever given you, besides humiliation and pain? I could be so gentle to you. I could love you as you've never been loved before..."
"No!" Melanie cried. "No, Dierdre. I'm not angry. I don't hate you. In your own way you're trying to be kind. But I'm all confused. I want to think things out by myself. Please go back to your own bed."
"It isn't as if I haven't tried. I've had lots of men. I've gone to bed with them, gone the limit. God, how I've tried to find myself. But it's no good. It always turns into something sickening..."
"Please, Dierdre. Go back to your bed. I have to think..."
"Don't hate me, Melanie. Don't hate me. I couldn't bear that." She rose on her arms, looked beseechingly at Melanie. "Please forgive me. I promise I'll never touch you again."
Melanie went to Dierdre at that moment, sorrow, compassion, confusion intermixed in her mind. With shaking arms she pulled Dierdre to her, held her in a tight embrace. "I forgive you," she sighed. "It's all right. It won't change anything."
"I love you, Melanie..."
"Don't say it, Dierdre. Go away now. God, I have to think..." Slowly Dierdre slid from the bed. Melanie heard her soft footsteps in the darkness as she went to her own bed.
Trembling convulsively, shaken to the roots of her soul, Melanie fell back upon her pillows, tried to compose herself once more. But the sibilant, hissing, screeching thoughts, like darting, criss-crossing, soaring bats, refused to be silenced. And now the clawing, furry things flung themselves at the wall of her mind, clutching the white flesh, burrowing into it with razor-sharp talons. Panic, a maniacal breathlessness, crushed Melanie.
Paul -- her mind screamed. Bill Compton, Val Tallant, Nick Hillman -- and now Dierdre. She had come to Chicago to escape her tormented life, to begin a new one, to reclaim her birthright, her identity as a human. And her dream -- the bright promise of her future -- had been dirtied, defiled beyond repair. Instead of escape she had fallen into a snake-pit of degradation a hundred times worse than that which she'd fled.
The sucking, shrieking, ugly birds were fluttering their evil wings again, pecking at the rancid, rotting meat of her brain. She had to get away from them -- Suddenly she slid from beneath the covers, put her bare feet on the floor. She rose and ran from the room as though all the demons of hell were at her heels.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A slight snicker sounded in the murky darkness of the apartment, and Dierdre was suddenly aroused from her restless sleep. What was it? She strained up from her bed, looked over to Melanie. Only something was wrong. She darted up swiftly, ran to the bed. It was empty, the covers torn back in disarray.
Melanie! she thought, terror searing her consciousness. Where was she? In the state the child had been in, anguished and tormented, indignity piled on top of indignity, there was no telling what she might do. She leaped to her bed, slipped on her robe. God, Melanie, wait! A chill shudder of ominous premonition swept down her spine.
She checked the apartment swiftly. The kitchen, the bath, the living room. Instinct guiding her, as if Dierdre knew how she herself would react to similar pressures, she checked the windows. They were all in order. None stood agape. But what to do?
She switched on the bedroom lights. Melanie's clothing was untouched. Nothing was gone. She must have left the apartment in her pajamas. Back in the Irving room she saw the door ajar. Her suspicions were confirmed. God, she charged, if anything happens to her, it's all my fault. If I hadn't tried to make love to her, she'd still be asleep.
Rushing to the hall she looked up and down, listened. She heard nothing. But this was hopeless, she conceded. She couldn't look alone. Melanie would have made her desperate move by then. She needed help? But who?
Val Tallant was the first name to come to mind. Beside herself, he was the only other person in Chicago who really cared anything about Melanie. He would help. She ran toward his door.
Tallant was sleeping a drugged sleep, compounded of too much excitement, too much liquor. For a long time the distant ringing blended into his dreams. Suddenly he started, lifted his head. Damn! he groaned, looking at his clock. Four-fifteen. Now, who in the hell? Dazedly he arose, struggled into a pair of wrinkled sun-tans. In his drunken fog, he'd gone to bed in his underwear.
Instantly, as he opened the door, as he saw the distraught, hysterical expression on Dierdre's face, he was jarred from hazy sleepiness. He was alert, apprehensive.
"It's Melanie!" Dierdre gasped. "She's gone! She's in trouble, bad trouble. I'm afraid she'll do something to herself. You've got to help me, Val!"
"Where?" he said stupidly. "What's this all about?"
"There's no time to explain. We've got to find her. She's in the building someplace. She came home in hysterics. Some man had mistreated her. And now..." Tallant's face hardened, became angry. "He hurt Melanie? Ill kill the filthy bastard..."
"Please, Val. Don't talk. Help me find her."
"Maybe she's just shook. Maybe she's just wandering the halls. You start looking around, I'm going upstairs. If she was thinking of jumping, that's where she'd go."
"Oh, Val. You don't think..."
"It's hard telling," he said, voice choked with urgency. "Now get going."
His heart heavy with dread, Val started up the steps at breakneck speed. Dear God--he couldn't be too late.
He didn't have to go far. The seventh floor yielded nothing. But on the eighth floor, as he darted down the main corridor, happened to glance down a side hallway-- The window was open, a slight breeze off the lake riffling the grimy curtains. The half-screen was removed, lying on the floor in mute testimony of what had happened. Tallant's heart constricted in acute agony. Oh, Sweet Jesus-- No. Melanie-- He flung himself down the hallway, fell to his knees before the low window. Then he took three deep, rasping breaths, steeling himself to look. Finally he pushed his head forth, stared down at the pavement below. Instantly he was transfixed by a triumphant surge of relief. The pavement was empty! Melanie hadn't jumped! She was still alive somewhere in the sprawling apartment building!
At that moment he heard a thin, wavering sob. His glance darted to the right, and there on the ledge, approximately fifteen feet from the window, he saw a faded, huddled figure, clad in pale pink and white polka-dotted pajamas. Melanie. A terrorized light glowed in her eyes, and she seemingly tried to push herself into the wall behind her.
The ledge was roughly two feet wide, gritty, pitted concrete. Beneath it, as Tallant remembered, there was an ornamental facade, running the perimeter of the building. And above: the ninth floor. Swiftly he was able to imagine what had happened. Melanie, hysteria-ridden, had torn out the screen, firmly intending to jump, to end what remained of her pitiful life. Then for some unknown reason she'd climbed onto the ledge. Only she'd got just so far. An abutment, its ledge too narrow to afford a. foothold, had blocked her passage. And there, her shoulders pressed between the right angles of the two walls, she'd fallen back to gather her courage. Now she was frozen, paralyzed with fright, unable to go through with it.
And in another second her terror would completely dominate her. Helplessly she would stiffen, her brain going blank, and she'd falter, lose her balance, plunge to her death "Melanie," he called softly, trying not to startle her.
Slowly, dazedly her head lifted and she looked at him with blank uncomprehending eyes. "Who is it?" she said.
"It's me, Val," he murmured. "Come back, Melanie."
"Go away, Val. Go away. I don't want you. I don't want anybody." An eerie, piercing gasp broke from her throat. "I just want to die..."
"No, Melanie!" he rasped. "Melanie, I'm coming out there to help you."
"Stay away, Val. Stay away. I'll jump..."
"Please, Melanie. Listen to me." Then patiently, as if talking to a tiny child, he said, "It's all right. It's going to be all right. I'll take care of you." An intense, thin yearning formed in his voice. "Melanie, I want to take care of you. Always..."
"No, you're just saying those things. You're just talking. Like the rest of them. You don't want me. You only want..." Val's heart wedged violently in his throat as Melanie's body stiffened, as she seemingly moved to push herself away from the wall.
"Melanie, darling," he groaned. "Wait..." Then he was crawling gingerly out onto the ledge, the rough, coarse grit and dirt accumulated there through the years cutting his knees and fingers. "I'm coming after you, Melanie," he muttered softly. For an instant he glanced to the street below him. saw the sidewalk, the cars parked at the curb. Unconcernedly, unaware of the desperate drama being enacted above his head, a solitary man, on his way to work, walked beneath them. A sickening feeling of fear and dizziness gripped Val. He forced his eyes away from the concrete, focused them on Melanie. She cringed deeper into the shadowed alcove.
"Stay back, Val," she chanted in a thin voice. "I'll jump. T want to jump. No Val. Ill jump."
"If you do, Melanie," he said breathlessly, "then I will too. We'll both go together."
"Stay back, Val. Please..."
"I love you, Melanie. Do you hear me? I love you." The words were no by-product of crisis, of over-dramatization. They were words that had formed of days of solitary reflection. They were the words he'd intended to tell her last night as they'd celebrated. They were words he'd been wild to tell her ever since that night when she'd come to him, when she'd given herself to him. It was true--he loved her. She had given his life new, vital meaning. His outlook had been cataclysmically altered since that night. "If you die," he gritted, drawing closer. Now he could almost touch her, "then I want to die, too. I love you, darling. I want to marry you. Melanie, listen..." Again his heart rampaged as she moved suddenly on the ledge.
" I don't... Val, please let me die. I want to die..." And yet, when he touched her, her body went limp, her resistance swiftly guttered out. Grateful relief shone through her fear. "Val..." she quaked, her eyes wild.
He could try crawling her back, Val thought. But it was too awkward, too risky. They'd have a better chance on their feet. "Can you stand up, darling?"
"I'm afraid, Val... I can't." The wildest sort of terror erupted in her gaze. "I'll die. I'll have to stay here..." Decisively, caught up in a daze of determination the like of which he'd never experienced before, Tallant crowded past her, stood with a foot planted on each angle of the ledge, his fingers precariously clawing the mortar of the bricks, his body hanging over empty space. He wavered for a brief, heart-stopping second. There. He was steady once more.
"Stand up, Melanie," he said evenly. As carefully as you can. Don't make a sudden move." He was a hollow, frozen husk as inch-by-inch Melanie raised herself, put her back tight to the wall. If she lost her balance, if she fainted, they would both go over. Lightly, his heart hammering violently in his chest, he stepped over Melanie, steadied himself again. "Don't look down, baby," he hissed. "Take my hand. Little steps. No sudden movements. Tell me if you feel weak and we'll stop and wait."
Melanie looked at him with horror-glazed eyes, her fingers wound painfully around his. He wouldn't have believed a woman could be so strong. Step by tiny step, his fingers tender, sensitively probing every cranny of the mortar seams, he led her on, closer and closer to the window.
At the last second she swayed, would have swung away from the wall. But Val's fingers clutched the window framework, drove his fingers into a soft, rotted pit, clawed frantically. There was enough firmness in his grip to bolster Melanie. An instant later she was hugging the brickwork again, her feet shuffling along the ledge.
Then he was reaching for her, his knees tight against the inside of the window frame, he was swinging her into the deserted, silent hall. In the distance he saw Dierdre, frozen in an awkward stance, terror engraved on her face. She opened her mouth as if to scream.
"Val," Melanie moaned tiredly, throwing herself into his arms. At that moment she fainted, hung like so much dead weight on his shoulders. Easily he swung her up, and with shaking legs, started down the hall.
* * *
Melanie was asleep. And now, as the sun fingered its hot way into the small kitchen, shone glossily on the photographs protruding from the mouth of the envelope, reflected on the threatening, insane rage of Val Tallant's face, the whole ugly story finally finished. At last he stood, his shoulders inclined purposefully, his eyes dark. "You know where this Hillman creep lives?"
"No," Dierdre said. "But it must be in the book."
* * *
There was no difficulty getting into the apartment building. It was six-thirty when Tallant arrived, and in the confused outflux of people heading bleary-eyed to their jobs, he was able to slip in through the front door unnoticed. Apartment 45, the card beneath Hillman's name had read.
He rang for four minutes before Hillman appeared, tying his robe as he opened the door. "What is it?" he snapped angrily. "What do you want?" Seeing the insane anger in Tallant's eyes, he started to close the door.
But Val was too fast for him. With a bull-like thrust he shouldered his way in, flung the thin, soft man back. "What the hell?" Hillman rasped.
"Melanie sent me," Val choked, stalking the man.
"Melanie?" Instantly his face blanched, the eyes became frightened.
"She sent this." The words nose-dived into an animal snarl, as Tallant suddenly brought up his right, speared Hillman in the stomach with a fantastic, vengeful blow.
"Aaagh!" Hillman screamed and crumpled. Methodically Tallant picked him up, delivered three more crashing slams to Hillman's head before he collapsed again.
"Did you know?" Tallant said slowly, deliberately, as he leaned for Hillman. He didn't finish the words, waiting until the man was upright again. He wound his fingers in Hillman's pajamas, held him steady. Open-handed, he began to slap him. "That..." Slap. "The..." Slap. "Poor..." Slap. "Kid..." Slap. "Tried to..." Slap. "Kill..." Slap. "Herself..." Slap. "this morning...?"
Now the fingers closed, formed a cast-iron fist. The fist bombed Hillman's jaw with a stunning, ox-felling jolt. "Just because of what you did to her last night?"
"Stop, stop," Hillman groaned incoherently. "Don't hit me again. Please..." He tried to cling to the carpet as Tallant fought to pick him up again.
Tallant kicked him in the ribs. "The prints," he spat through clenched teeth. "Where are they? I want all of them!"
Now Hillman was up again, Tallant was slapping him again, the blood from his mouth and nose smearing on his hand, being spotted all over his face with a sticky splat. "The prints, Hillman. Where are they? Or do I have to kill you?"
"Over there," Hillman gasped, through his screams. Ill get them. I'll give them to you. Only don't hit me again!" he staggered to the wall, pressed a concealed button behind a painting. Noiselessly, a panel slid open to reveal hidden shelves upon which were piled count less stacks of brown envelopes. He reached for a cluster of envelopes, handed them to Tallant.
"Here they are," he rasped through blood-clotted teeth.
"Are you sure these are all of them? Are you positive?" Val hit him again, spun him halfway across the room. He fell in a huddled heap, surprise in his eyes. "Yes," he said. "That's all of them."
A wave of nausea swept over Tallant as he looked at the envelopes in his hands. "Melanie Mitchell," Hillman had neatly inscribed on each envelope. "August, 1961." There were an even dozen.
He turned back to the concealed shelves. "And the rest of these?"
Hillman was on his feet, rushing at him. "Leave those alone!" he shrieked, his voice almost feminine. "They don't concern you!"
Tallant stiff-armed him, sat him roughly upon the floor again. "Please," Hillman pleaded. Val took the single envelopes down one by one, read the labels on each. Dawn Taylor, June, 1960. Helen Marshall, December, 1959, Paula Ormsby, October, 1959. Jeannette Ballister, May, 1958. Carla Parker, May, 1958. Dully he let the envelopes drop. He could not force himself to read any more. One of the envelopes slid along the floor, disgorging its contents, revealing a beautiful blonde, naked, posed in inflaming stance, her smile and eyes drunken. Some souvenirs--
"Oh, my God... no..." Val groaned, his voice clogged with raging hate. And as he looked down at the groveling Hillman, trying to regain his feet, he heeled him in the side viciously. "You filthy, perverted bastard!" he rasped. "You degenerate scum..." He turned, regarded the frightening array of envelopes he had not taken down. How many broken, shattered lives did that bestial collection represent? How many women turned to hopeless sluts, to prostitution, to desperate despair? How many, like Melanie, had attempted--had achieved -- the wished-for suicide?
I've got to get out of here, Tallant thought, his stomach doing quick flips, his brain seemingly melting beneath the torch of his fury. I'll kill him if I don't. I'll kill him.
Again Hillman struggled to his feet, made a break for the shelves. And again Tallant felled him with a loud, cracking blow. Then he saw the envelope, a white one, standing out in obvious contrast to the others. It was fingermarked, soiled, Tallant noticed as he drew it down. "Connie Warren, January, 1961," it was inscribed. Wild, erratic stars, in green ink, were scattered across its surface, "No," Hillman gagged from the floor. "Leave that alone. Please! Don't open that envelope!"
The moment Tallant did, he wished he hadn't. For here were delayed-shutter shots of Hillman and the sloe-eyed brunette together, their bodies entangled in depraved, unnatural design. Every sexual aberration known to man was registered here. Swiftly Tallant slid the photographs into the envelope, gulped hard several times to fight back the sickness in his stomach.
Then he turned to Hillman waved the envelope before his clouded eyes. "You'd better leave town, Hillman," he gritted in animalistic, choking attempts at self-restraint. "You'd better get out of Chicago for good. You'd better change your name too. Because if I ever see or hear of you again... then these perverted pictures are going to be passed around. Do yon hear? I'll give you four days to clear this town. And if I check back and find you're still here, you'll be sorry."
Hillman crouched on his knees, his eyes insane, defeated. It was the end of the line, and he knew it. "Give them to me," he pleaded. "Please. I'll pay you anything you ask. Only give them to me."
"Nothing doing. This'll repay you for what you did to Melanie."
Finally, remembering that this man had touched Melanie, that he had forced her to do his obscene bidding, Tallant went berserk. He pulled Hillman up, beat at his face ruthlessly, without pause. Finally Hillman mercifully lost consciousness. Tallant let him fall to the floor, watched his face streak the cream-colored carpet, watched the pool of blood slowly widen, sink into the thick nap.
Carried along on the tide of his rage, Tallant couldn't control the retributive destructive rage rampaging in his brain. He tore open all the envelopes, scattered the pictures all over the apartment, until the floor was a virtual sea of naked women. Then he found Hillman's photography equipment, smashed the tripod and camera against the fireplace. Hillman's hi-fi, his records, the television set followed. He tore the paintings from the wall, overturned the bar, exulted in the sound of breaking bottles, the sour, rank smell of the liquor as it soaked into the rug.
Finally he was calmer, he regained control of himself. He ran his fingers through his hair, wiped the blood from his hands on the upholstered chair near the overturned desk. Then picking up the stack of envelopes he'd set aside, he staggered out the door. Melanie was still sleeping when he returned. Val was momentarily disappointed. He'd wanted badly to tell her of the carnage at Hillman's apartment, to tell her that she'd never have cause to fear him again.
And also, to reiterate his love. Mutely he waved the envelopes at Dierdre as she sat in patient vigil beside Melanie's bed. Then he took the one from the kitchen table, and started downstairs.
In the service court at the rear of the apartment building, he stoked a fire in the incinerator. One by one he fed the tragic prints of Melanie into the fire working methodically stirring the black ashes constantly, so that no trace of this nightmare could ever reappear, to haunt Melanie again. And at last the final print was destroyed. All except those in the white envelope. Those he'd keep. As insurance.
He was sweating profusely as he turned from the incinerator. It was eight-thirty. The sun was already blasting down in the bake-oven canyon of buildings. Another sultry day in Chicago was underway.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was late October. Standing at the window, looking out across the wide, winding expanse of the Wisconsin River, Melanie sighed heavily. Chicago--with all its ugly memories -- seemingly had faded off the face of the earth. It had been a bad dream, it had never existed. And neither had Freshwater, Indiana--and Paul Kenyon.
Luxuriously Melanie stretched her arms over her head, feeling the warmth flood her body. It was as if she could hug the whole world. Across the brackish, dark water of the river, silhouetted against the dazzling blue sky, were the tangled, bare branches of the trees. In one of the maples a small cluster of rust-colored leaves still clung bravely to its branch, defying the steady wind, daring the oncoming winter to dislodge it.
From the room which Val had requisitioned for his workshop, she heard the steady tapping of his typewriter. It was going well today. Their small cabin always seemed more snug, more happy on days like this. But on days when the words would not come, watch out. Those times she took to the woods, enjoying long walks along the riverbank, or spending her time in the boat, rowing, drifting, sometimes casting lethargically for the big northerns that lurked in the swirling waters.
Yes, she conceded drowsily. None of it had ever happened. Only that most wonderful, most blessed encounter. Val--her husband--she blushed fiercely for the sudden thought that had come to her mind, the sudden hot weakness in her legs.
Then she chastised herself. And what if she did want him? Was there anything wrong with it? After all, they were married, he was her husband, And love did make the difference, she mused. Val brought ecstatic delight to the act--left her with a delicious completeness and sense of fulfillment afterward. It gave her constant reassurance as to her purpose in life. To love Val-- forever and ever. To make him happy--the very act of self-sacrifice to his replenishing of her own reserve of happiness.
The mid-afternoon sun was hot, and as she turned her body before the window, to toast the other side, she was suddenly aware of a raucous noise in the sky. Looking up, she saw a flock of honkers passing overhead, their V-formation wavering gracefully against the crisp sky. A shudder pressed upon her back. Could any sight be lovelier?
Forerunners of winter, signal of an impending season of solitude and peace. A winter wherein Val would definitely find himself as an author, wherein his novel would be finished. A winter in which Melanie could further brush the haunting memories of Chicago, the depravities of the fugitive Hillman from her mind. A winter which would see a baby begin to grow within her body, to become living testament to the love she lavished on Val--the ultimate offering of self.
Yes. She was looking forward to this winter as she had never anticipated anything in her life before.
Looking down, she saw two chipmunks skittering along the porch rail, roguish, arrogant beggars, awaiting their afternoon hand-out. Smiling, she took the bag of bread crumbs and the box of corn out onto the porch, determined that today she would lure Oscar (as she called the larger of the pair) to her hand, a confidence which Bessie (the other chipmunk) had bestowed on Melanie a week ago.
The weather was brisk, yet pleasant. The air was clean, fragrant of pine and running water. A far cry from the sooty, smokey smell of Chicago. "Here, Oscar," she clicked, rattling the box of corn. "Come here, yon little rascal."
It was pleasant sitting here, making friends with the chipmunks, having time to think things through. Almost as if, for the first time in her life, she was getting to know herself. What beautiful surroundings in which to bring up her children. Wouldn't her baby love to sit here with her and feed the chipmunks, wouldn't they revel in the abundant beauty of their northwoods hideaway? A fresh stab of gratitude stung her, and she felt herself consumed with fresh love for Val. For after all, wasn't he and he alone, responsible for this awesome happiness?
She had nearly died of loneliness the week that Val had deserted her to come North, to seek out the dream spot he'd idealized and longed for all his life. And finally, after their marriage, after they'd been ready to make the trek northward, how perfectly the cabin had fulfilled the requirements for his idyll, how happy and pleased she'd been with it. It was rustic, and isolated enough, and yet modern enough for her. A perfect combination of primitive and civilized existence.
The cabin was ten miles from the nearest village, two miles from a main road. Anyone who came to intrude on their monastic life would risk life and limb coming along the rutted road which led back into the woods to the cabin. Something about the life appealed to her pioneer spirit. Maybe someday she'd tire of it, but for now, she could ask for nothing more beautiful.
Another happy thought came to her mind. Despite Val's grumblings, they were having visitors in two weeks. Dierdre was coming with Gregg Quention, her current "experimental" flame. "It's the strangest thing in the world, Melanie," she'd written in her last letter. "Like the first time the blindfold's been taken from my eyes. Gregg is so patient and understanding with me. My feelings of revulsion for men are almost nonexistent now. I think I'm coming along fine, and given time and sympathy I know I'll become a full-blooded woman some day soon. Gregg wants to marry me. But I'm putting it off, until I can see you and Val again, until I can compare your happiness with mine, and see whether this reticent love I feel for Gregg is valid. Pray for me, baby..." Melanie smiled at the remembrance. If she wants to see happy people--really happy people--then it's a sure bet that she and Gregg will eventually be able to find the normal life she yearns for. Who could be happier?
Abruptly she looked up in surprise. "Oscar," she called. "What's wrong with you?" Then she sensed a movement behind her, looked up to see Val standing in the doorway, regarding her with a devoted expression.
"What a picture you make," he said reverently. "Just you and your little groundhog friends."
Don't Val, she pleaded inwardly, melting. Don't look at me like that. It turns me to mush.
He advanced, sat beside her on the rude, log bench. His arm was strong and hard as it closed on her shoulder. "Happy, baby?" he asked.
"Mmmm."
"Bored? I guess it must get dull for you sometimes. Anyway for a gal who wanted to be a city slicker so badly."
"I've changed my mind. I realize now I was never cut out for the hectic life of the sophisticate. I'll settle for the simple life. I'm just a rube at heart."
"A beautiful rube. Anyway, I'm glad you're content." He brought his lips down, brushed her forehead lightly. "Love me?"
"Like sin..."
"Oh, you like sin?" he joked.
"Only with you..." His hand closed on her breast, caressed it affectionately. "Care to indulge? I happen to have a loose letch handy."
"Val, don't talk so naughty. You know what that does to me."
"Uh-huh. That's why I do it. Care to match letches?"
"I thought you had a chapter to finish."
"It's done. Just now. And remember what you said. Whenever I finish a chapter..."
"Aren't you kind of overworking that angle? I only said it in a weak moment."
"That's the way I like you, weak. The weaker the better. And Melanie...?"
"Um?"
"My next novel is already stirring in my brain. One thing for sure..."
"What's that?"
"It's going to be 154 chapters long."
Now Melanie felt the heat generate within her, the indolent, sensuous torpor that always signalled her compulsive need. "Why 154?"
"I don't know. Seemed like a nice figure." He pulled down the zipper of her slacks. "Like yours."
"You devil," she sighed huskily. "Is that all you ever think about?"
"Mostly. Aren't you glad?"
"Mmmmm." Limply, sensing the quick drumming of her pulse, she let Val pull her to her feet. Bending her back, he kissed her lingeringly on the lips. Her ears commenced to become very warm.
"Okay," she breathed languorously when they broke. "But let's go see that chapter."
He unbuttoned the waist of her slacks, slid his hand along her silky panties. "Mmmm." He kissed her eye playfully. "How much you want to bet we don't make it to the den?"
Melanie giggled softly, and held his hand tight against herself. "How much do you want to bet?"