It was uncanny. She had begun stripping, feeling not at all sexy, feeling not remotely passionate. But the simple act of removing the dress, of submitting to this sandy-haired man’s strong will, had an aphrodisiacal effect upon her. Her whole body was tingling with sexual excitement now. She was in her own living room, standing near-nude before another woman’s husband, about to commit the first act of infidelity of her life. And she was not scared, was not guilt-ridden, was not disturbed.
She was excited.
“More,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse. “God, you’ve got big ones, Nan-O. Take the bra off.
She took the bra off. Her breasts sprang out, free and unbound, and his eyes feasted upon them. He walked toward her, eyes bright, and reached out a hand. He flicked the nipple of one proud breast with his forefinger and she drew in her breath sharply.
“Nice, Nan-O. Let’s see what else you got. Get your pants off. I want to see all of you.”
She stepped out of her panties. He came still closer and caressed her momentarily again. She quivered with intense excitement. Howard hadn’t made her feel like this in years. She’d had sex and had enjoyed it, had achieved content time and time again. But now the half-caresses Ted was giving her were working her to peaks of pleasure she’d never known.
“You’d better take your shoes off,” he said. “You look funny as hell.”
She kicked off the house slippers. He was still fully dressed, wearing a foulard tie and a brown herringbone tweed suit, and the incongruity of standing stark naked in front of this fully dressed man should have been something to laugh at. With the proper caption, the tableau of which she was a part could have appeared as a cartoon in
Playboy,
maybe in the
New Yorker.
And yet she found nothing to laugh at.
He took off his clothes, hanging tie and jacket over a doorknob, folding his trousers very neatly and placing them on a chair, putting his cashmere-and-nylon socks in his brown pebble-grain loafers. Now he, too, was naked. He placed his hands on his hips and leered at her. His eyes traveled from her face to her feet, making a slow journey with several side trips along the way. His glance set her on fire. She could feel his eyes on her skin and they made her tingle.
“Let your hair down, Nan-O.”
It was in a bun. “Don’t you like it this way?”
“One bun is enough. Let it down, Nan-O.”
She let her hair down. It came cascading over her bare shoulders, soft and golden, framing her flushed face. He moved closer to her now and she could feel body heat. He reached out, touched her face.
“You want it,” he said. “Don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You want it badly.”
“Yes!”
“Tell me about it. Tell me how much you want it, Nan-O. Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
She told him.
He reached for her breasts and gripped firmly. “Not like that,” he said. “Get down on your knees. And tell me dirty, Nan-O. Use nasty words.”
She sank to her knees and looked up at him. She told him the things he wanted to hear and used the words he wanted her to use. She watched the visible evidence of his passion mount with lust. Then his hands were on her shoulders, shoving her backwards. She fell down on the floor and he was advancing on her, his eyes wild.
“Not here,” she whispered. “Upstairs, in bed. Not here—”
He took her there, on the living room floor. He surged into her like waves piling up on a rocky coast, plummeted into her, stabbed wildly at her. He hurt her but she did not mind the pain, and he made her feel like a woman being taken, made her feel fully alive for the first time in far too long.
The peak, when she reached it, was strange and wonderful. At apex she shrieked loud and long, squealing like a virgin impaled upon a fiery sword.
And then it was over.
He left her without a word. He stood up and got dressed while she lay upon the floor, eyes closed, breathing shallow. He walked out and she remained there, alone in space and time. She was an adulteress now. She had sinned. She had betrayed her husband.
She felt wonderful.
“I’ve got some eggs for you,” Roz Barclay said. “Scrambled, the way you like them. And crisp bacon, and more coffee. And toast with jam. You must be starving.”
Linc looked up from the typewriter, smiled. “You’re an angel,” he said. “And your halo makes a lovely symbol.”
“Save the line,” she suggested.
“I used it in the last chapter. Pass the food, angel.”
He attacked the eggs and bacon almost viciously, shoveling food into his mouth and down his throat. “I’m really cooking now,” he said between bites. “Thirty-five pages already. The book is rolling along and gathering no moss.”
“And you’re enjoying it?”
“I always enjoy it when it goes like this. Hell, I’ve got to make up for lost time.”
“I know.”
“And I just got a hell of a notion,” he went on, pausing to sip coffee from the cap of the thermos jug. “Make a good slick yarn, probably go to the Post or McCall’s. As soon as I get this damn book out of the way I’ll run it through the typewriter and see what comes out. I’m glad you brought me a plate of food, honey. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a long siege. I may be going all night.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Well,” he said, “maybe not
all
night.”
She grinned.
“Because,” he said, “when I’m in a slump, I’m in all the way. And when I come out of a slump—”
Her grin widened. “I’ll get back to the house now, Linc. I’m keeping you from your work. When should I … expect you?”
“Any time.”
“No idea when?”
“No idea,” he said. “But don’t wear anything under your dress. That way we’ll save a little time.”
Elly and Maggie ate lunch at the top of the Tishman Building, the glass and steel skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue.
They had dinner in a cellar restaurant on Bleecker Street.
The decision to stay for dinner had been a pleasant one, suggested by Maggie and agreed to readily enough by Elly. They had had lunch, had shopped for awhile on Fifth Avenue without buying anything, then headed west to Broadway.
A Sound Of Distant Drums,
the hit drama based on the Westlake kidnaping, was playing at the Cort; for the hell of it, Maggie went to the box office to see if any tickets were available for that evening. There was a pair on hand, front and center in the orchestra.
“Let’s take them,” Maggie said.
“But—”
“Dave won’t mind if I stay in town. Neither will Ted—just give him a ring and ask him to take Pam out for dinner. It’ll be a treat for the kid and a treat for us.”
Ted wasn’t there, which made it that much simpler. She left a message with his secretary, then waited while Maggie put a call through to Dave Whitcomb. Then more shopping, and a stop for drinks, and a cab down to the simply wonderful little Italian restaurant that Maggie liked, and plates of lasagna with icy chianti. Elly couldn’t remember feeling so completely at ease. Yes, she thought, Maggie’s friendship was going to prove valuable. If anything would ever control her sexual excesses, Maggie would. Now, with Maggie, she felt no need for a phantom lover, no need for a deliveryman or a door-to-door salesman. She was at ease, relaxed, completely at peace with the world and with herself.
They caught a cab and rode to the Cort. “This is funny,” Elly said. “It feels like … like a date. Do you know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Of course we’re hardly dressed for the occasion.”
“You look fine, Ell.”
“Thanks. But I look fine for a shopping splurge at Saks, not for an evening on the town. Everybody will stare at us.”
“They won’t,” Maggie said. “They may think we’re tourists from Peoria, but they won’t stare at us. Besides, who cares if they do?”
“Not I,” Elly said gaily. “They can stare until their eyes bulge. Whee! We’re on a date, Mag.”
“Uh-huh. Maybe we should neck in the back seat of the cab.”
“Wonderful,” Elly said. “After the show we’ll have our cabby drive through Central Park. And we’ll neck like high school kids. Okay?”
“Fine with me.”
A Sound Of Distant Drums
turned out to be all the critics had said it was. Elly let herself get lost in the play, let herself become absorbed by characters and dialogue. When the final curtain fell she had to shake herself in order to remind herself that she was in a theatre, that the action which had transpired was action on a stage and not the real thing.
Then they were outside, in the middle of after-the-theatre pedestrian traffic on Broadway. They ducked into a bar for drinks and had two each, enough to get Elly a little bit high again.
“This is fun,” she said earnestly. “So much fun.”
“I know it is.”
“You want to know something? I don’t even want to go home. I want to stay here in Manhattan until hell freezes. Maybe even longer.”
“That’s a long time.”
“I know it. Maggie, I don’t even want to call Ted. I just want to stay.”
“We could stay the night, you know. We could go to a hotel.”
“Let’s! Oh, it’s an adventure, Mag. I need an adventure.”
“Well have one,” Maggie promised, her eyes gleaming strangely. “But first call Ted so he doesn’t worry. Then we’ll have our adventure. We’ll go to a night club or two and get stinking drunk and stay over at a hotel. Sound like fun?”
“Sounds heavenly,” Elly said. “Whee! An adventure!”
R
OZ
Barclay sat reading in a comfortable chair. The book in her hand had been written by a fellow with whom Linc had been friendly years ago. When they all lived in Manhattan, the writer and his wife and Linc and Roz were a frequent foursome. Now, while Linc and Roz had moved to northern Westchester, the other writer and his wife had wound up in Bucks County, in Pennsylvania. Both families lived within commuting distance of New York, but in opposite directions. They never saw each other any more.
The book was a rather moody novel about a disturbed teenager, and only loyalty to a writer who had been a close friend kept Roz from putting the book down unfinished. She plowed onward, hoping at least to be able to save Linc the monumental chore of reading the thing. This way she would finish it herself and tuck it away in the bookcase, and if he ever asked about it, she would tell him how rotten it was.
Because, for the time being, Linc did not have time to waste reading lousy books. He had his own lousy books to write.
And he would be coming to her soon. She shuddered in delighted anticipation, knowing that soon he would come to her, taking a break from the book to bring another slump to its end. He had told her not to wear anything under her dress, saying it would save time. And she was not wearing anything under her dress. When he came she could throw the dress over her head and be naked for him, nude for him, ready for him. Then he could take her, quickly and passionately and breathlessly, and the world could pour itself into a deep pit and dash itself to fragments.
Her eyes were busy with the bad book about a disturbed adolescent. But her mind and her body waited for Linc.
Elly was having a wonderful time.
She and Maggie were at a front table in Endsville, a progressive jazz club on the East Side. On the stand, an instrumental quartet was working wild changes on
I’ve Got Rhythm.
The original melody had disappeared, and the four Negroes were swinging with the basic chord structure, twisting the song through new and wonderful channels.
Elly listened to the drums, to the bass. The drummer worked the top cymbal, keeping the beat steady, playing on top of the beat. The bassist moved up and down the chord patterns, backing the group. She looked at the pianist, then at the tenor sax. The music was wild and her ears and brain were filled with it.
“Maggie,” she said, “this is fun.”
“You’re enjoying yourself?”
“I’m having a ball.”
“You like the music?”
“I love the music. I haven’t had this much fun in … in years. I’m glad we decided to stay in the city. This beats the damn train home and quitting early.”
Maggie smiled, and Elly noticed again just how beautiful the redhaired girl was. So beautiful, and so good to her, and so good for her, and so much fun to be with.
“When you’re having a good time,” Maggie said, “there’s no point in stopping early.”
“I know.”
“We’ll stay here for another drink or two. Then we’ll find someplace else to go. I already made reservations at the Hasbrouck House. Our room is waiting for us any time we want to go there. So we don’t have to worry about finding a place to stay. We can paint the town scarlet all night long.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It is fun, Ell.”
She got lost in the music again. The tenor man unwound with a long solo, gutty and bluesy, and she let her mind float along on the ribbon of pure melody, let herself get immersed in the music. When the solo ended she saw Maggie ordering another round of drinks.
“Not for me, Mag.”
“Of course for you. I can’t drink them both all by myself, Ell. One’s for me and one’s for you.”
“I’m pretty well stoned already, Maggie. I don’t want to pass out. I’d make a fool of myself.”
“No fool like a pretty fool, Ell.”
“I’m tipsy, Mag—”
Maggie’s hand moved across the table, caught Elly’s wrist, held it. “Don’t you worry,” she said. “We’re out on the town, sweetie. We’ve got a perfectly good right to get stoned.”
“I suppose so.”
“So you just drink your drink, Ell. We’ll stay here until the band takes a break. Then maybe we’ll take a hansom ride through Central Park. You know, one of the old horse cabs.”
“I’ve never been in one of those, Mag.”
“They’re fun.”
She looked at Maggie. Her eyes were bright now, alive. She sipped her drink and studied the redhaired girl over the brim of her glass. She was all keyed up, all excited.
“And we can neck in the back,” she said, giggling a little. “Like on a date. Can’t we, Maggie?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
Something was a little funny, she thought. Something was a little bit out of the ordinary.
She pushed the thought from her mind and finished her drink.