Carla (15 page)

“You're pretty fine yourself.”

“I think I'm just a selfish old man,” he said. “I'm afraid of losing you.” He stood up awkwardly and walked away from the table and into the living-room. She heard him put a record on the phonograph and listened to the opening notes of a Beethoven symphony. Closing her eyes, she could picture him sitting in his easy chair listening to the music.

She had not lied. She did love Ronald, not in the same way that she loved Danny but in a true fashion nonetheless. She loved him more like an uncle than like a husband, but she loved him because he was such a good man and because he cared so deeply for her.

The full weight of his words was beginning to hit her. He didn't mind whether or not she slept with Danny; in fact, he was in favor of it. Now they wouldn't have to rush their time together, and they could meet at night so that Danny could keep the gas station open. And they could spend a night together now and then without worrying about Ronald discovering them.

In short, the furtiveness was now a thing of the past. They could love openly, and she would never again have to be ashamed of being unfaithful to Ronald.

Marriage now seemed rather foolish. Why should she give up her home when she could have it and Danny at the same time? Why should Danny have to support her when he was making little enough money as it was? Marriage was little more than a formality anyway, and one she could well do without.

She was in an enviable position. Ronald was an ideal husband, Danny a perfect lover. And she could have them both with no difficulty.

She could, in fact, both have and eat her cake.

Lizzie had the night off.

It was, she decided, an excellent night to have off. She never expected to get the night off, but Mrs. Macon was in an exceptionally good humour and Lizzie thus got the night off as a sort of bonus.

Evidently Mrs. Macon had had a particularly enjoyable hour or two in somebody's bed. Lizzie pictured her mistress in bed with a man and giggled softly to herself. It didn't seem possible for a rich woman like Mrs. Macon to crawl in bed with anybody. For some reason it was hard to think of rich people bothering with sex or enjoying it if they did.

Lizzie silently thanked whoever had coaxed Mrs. Macon into the sack that afternoon, because this was definitely a good night to have off. If she hadn't gotten the night for herself, she'd be home in the stuffy house on Nottingham Terrace. Besides, she would never have met Lou.

Lou was an experience; Lizzie had to admit that. And there was no sense turning down an experience, no sense at all.

Lou picked her up neatly enough, picked her up right off the street, and Lizzie wasn't that easy a girl to pick up. So that was a feather in Lou's little cap right at the start.

And Lou's apartment—why, that was just the end of the world. It was in the Tiffany, the same hotel where Lizzie had spent a most enjoyable evening with Mr. Butler not long ago, but Lou's apartment was far more exciting. The furniture was delightfully extreme—it seemed to be all angles and wrought iron and sharp corners—and the colour scheme was almost shocking—pinks and loud greens and yellow and god knew what else. The pictures on the walls were loud abstracts in ornate frames, and the books in the shelves were forbidding things with esoteric titles.

And Lou was so funny, so methodical. The performance was a ritual, a regular rigamarole as spooky as a KKK meeting. First they both undressed slowly and languorously, but Lou didn't touch her or even try to kiss her. Then Lou had her take a bath in a perfumed tub. When she came out, Lou gave her perfumes to rub into her skin, and while she did this Lou filled the tub again and took a bath.

Lizzie sat nude on the edge of the bed. Her chocolate skin felt luxuriously smooth and clean from the perfumes. The bed had silk sheets—bright green silk sheets—and they were slippery under her bare skin. She waited patiently, and after a few moments Lou appeared from the bathroom and walked to a record player in the corner. The music that played was strange but pleasant, and it fit the room and the mood. Lizzie couldn't recognize it, but it seemed vaguely oriental.

Lizzie stretched out on the bed. It was a remarkable bed, round rather than rectangular, and a good eight feet across. Would it be different to make love in a round bed? It would be interesting to find out.

“You're lovely,” Lou said, sitting down beside her on the bed.

“Thank you.”

“Lovely,” Lou repeated. “Fragile and doll-like, more or less.”

Lizzie didn't answer.

“Do you like it here?”

“Yes—very much.”

“I like it,” Lou said. “I like an apartment to have some individuality, so that it's more than just a place to live in. It should reflect the personality of the occupant, don't you think?”

Lizzie nodded.

“But we don't want to talk about the apartment, do we? There are better things to do.”

“All right.”

Lou's lips were very soft. Lou's hands were soft, too, as they held her breasts and stroked her thighs. Lou's body was soft, and Lou's body was delicious against hers with the perfume all around her and the sheets all silky and the weird music playing in the background.

Lou was an expert.

Lizzie opened her eyes and noticed the ceiling for the first time. It was painted blue and spangled with little dots of white, so that it resembled a starry sky. Then she closed her eyes and listened to the oriental music growing louder and more penetrating.

“Kiss me,” Lou commanded.

Lizzie fastened her mouth on Lou's soft lips and probed the mouth with her tongue. “All over,” Lou said.

Lizzie did as she was told, and a wave of pleasure ran through her as Lou turned to a thing of fire and crystal beneath her lips.

Then Lou was caught up in a wave of passion. Lizzie was held up in two firm but soft arms and pressed between silk sheets and silken skin. The stars on the ceiling seemed to wink at her and the music grew louder and louder, wailing in her ears like a Chinese banshee. It became impossible for her to lie still. She moaned and twisted and made strange sounds deep in her throat, and the world swelled up and let her sail at the very top of it, higher and higher to a wickedly sensual climax …

Lou's arms still held her and Lou's mouth was still soft against hers. Lizzie felt very sleepy, sleepy from the perfume and the music and the bath and the love-making. She wanted to go to sleep, and she wanted to go to sleep right there where it was so warm and sweet-smelling. She snuggled her head to Lou's shoulder and shut her eyes tight.

Lou kissed her ear, and the sound was very loud. Then Lou nibbled gently at her ear lobe.

Lizzie purred like a kitten.

“Are you happy, dear?”

Lizzie purred again.

“I'm glad,” Lou said. “I'm happy, too.”

Lizzie flicked her pink tongue against the smooth skin of Lou's neck.

“You know,” Lou whispered, “this is the first time I've ever slept with a girl who wasn't white.”

“That makes us even,” Lizzie murmured sleepily. “This is the first time I ever slept with a woman.”

Chapter Fifteen

THE DAYS PASSED RAPIDLY
for Carla. Danny was everything to her and she found a new world in his arms, a world rich in gratification and contentment. It seemed to her that her life was as perfect as it could possibly be.

The only problem she had were minor ones. Danny was a bit touchy at times, a slight bit irritable for a few minutes every once in a while. It was nothing to worry about but she found herself increasingly annoyed at his outbursts.

One evening, for example, they went to dinner at an expensive restaurant a few miles outside of town near the airport. The food was delicious, the music danceably pleasant, and the prices rather steep. Carla let him pay the check, but on the way home she offered to pay him back.

“Don't be silly,” he snapped.

“Why not? It was expensive and—”

“I pay my own way, Carla.”

“That's silly,” she said. “I can afford it and you can't, so why don't you let me take care of it? You have to save up for the station, and—”

“Dammit,” he cut in, “can't you understand that I don't want to be a stinking gigolo? I know you can afford to keep me but I sure as hell don't feel like being kept!”

After that she didn't offer to pick up a tab again. Instead, she tried to keep him from taking her to the more expensive places. And he seemed to resent this, too, as if he wanted to prove that the fact that he was not rich didn't make any difference. He brought her presents which she knew he couldn't afford, yet refused to accept gifts from her. He seemed to brag how little money he had, and when she made the mistake of offering a loan, he blew up in her face.

“No!” he had shouted. His face was taut with anger and she saw the muscle in his left cheek throb. “Get this through your pretty little head, Carla:
I don't want your money.”

But the irritations were minor ones, and she decided that it was only a question of adjustment. Right now Danny felt guilty about his lack of money and thus inadequate to be her lover. But he would grow out of that stage in time. He would adjust to the situation and she would be more able to know how to avoid offending him, and all the wrinkles would smooth out before long.

Otherwise everything was as good as she could possibly have wished it to be. As she had suspected, the physical side of their relationship improved continually to unbelievable perfection. Danny made her feel like a combination of Greek goddess and alley-cat, and it was a pleasant feeling. His passion was equal to hers and their bodies were completely attuned to one another.

For awhile she worried that his landlady might bother them, but this didn't prove to be the case. Mrs. Smithers, Danny told her, was an old hag who guzzled sherry every afternoon and didn't care if the house burned down around her as long as there was a bottle of wine on the table. The other tenants minded their own business and the pair had as much privacy as they could want.

Strangely enough, her relationship with Ronald was much better than it had ever been before. Now that she did not feel that she was cheating him or pulling the wool over his eyes, she felt much closer to him. He was working hard every day on the case, and she could see in his eyes he came home tired and not wanting to talk; other times he would be brimming, over with news and anxious to share it with her.

She listened to him carefully, happy when he was happy and sad when his spirits lagged. The emotions were not forced on her part either. She wanted him to win the case, wanted him to have the pleasure that victory would bring him.

“It's funny,” he said one evening. “You share my joys and sorrows even if you don't share my bed.”

The words brought a lump to her throat and she walked quickly around the table. She kissed him gently on the forehead, thinking what a kind and wonderful man she had married.

Danny sat up on the bed and began dressing. “I hate this place,” he said. “I didn't mind it so much before, but now every day I hate it a little bit more.”

Carla hadn't moved. She was still lying face down on the bed, her eyes closed and all the muscles in her body pleasantly relaxed. “I don't see why,” she said. “I'm beginning to get quite fond of it.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I like what goes on here.”

“So do I,” he said. “But that's not what I mean. I
hate
this room.”

“Why?”

“Because it's cheap. Because it's cheap and crummy, and I don't want to make love to you in a place like this. Before it was different. Hell, I don't mind sleeping in a doorway if I have to—but you deserve more than this.”

“I don't mind.”

He stooped over to tie his shoelaces. “It will be different,” he promised. “We'll take a little place out in the suburbs, maybe near the station. I can swing a GI loan for the downpayment and—”

“A house?”

He laughed. “Of course a house. You don't want to bring up kids in a flat, do you? And sure as hell not in this room!”

She realized abruptly that he still thought she was going to marry him. But what was the point of that? Their relationship was perfectly satisfactory as it stood, and marriage would mean the end of the house on Nottingham Terrace and the MG and everything else she had. And children—she had always wanted children, but in a vague and unreal sort of a way. The thought of walking around with her belly sticking out and getting up in the middle of the night to change diapers or give a baby his bottle was not at all attractive.

How could she tell him that she had no intention of marrying him? He would have to find out eventually, but she couldn't just say “You jerk, I don't want to marry you.”

“That's right,” she said finally. “We'll have to have a house, but not for awhile.”

“I guess not,” he said. “Christ, I wish that case of his would end already!”

“Those things take a long time.”

He nodded. Then he turned around, resting his weight on one arm, and looked down at her thoughtfully.

“Carla,” he said slowly, “don't you want to marry me?”

She was so startled by his question that she almost blurted out the truth. Then she collected herself and said, “Of course I do, darling. What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “You don't seem to care much one way or the other, that's all. Whenever I talk about it or start making plans you act as though nothing could interest you less. You never talk about children or a house or what kind of wedding we'll have or anything. I just don't understand it.”

“I'm sorry,” she said.

He waited for her to go on.

“Danny,” she said, “it's hard for me. You're not married and you never have been married, so you don't know exactly what it's like. Being married to Ronald and talking about marrying you—well, it's hard for me to do it. I want to marry you. You know that, Danny. But I don't want to talk about it until we can do it, without worrying about the case or anything else. Do you see what I mean?”