It was a Monday night, of course. And, since it was a Monday night, Howard Haskell had brought work home from the office. He’d taken a later train than usual from New York, and he’d hardly said a word through dinner, and now he was locked up in his den with the tentative plans for some advertising campaign or other.
And Nan was alone.
The boys were sleeping. Nan ate in front of the television set, which was not even turned on, and felt lonely. Lonely and wretched and unhappy. And, at the same time, alive.
Ted Carr.
Ted Carr, and the sordid and cheap affair in which he was her partner, was making a monumental difference in her life. Already, after one horrible and yet somehow wonderful love-bout in the middle of her own living room floor in the middle of the afternoon, the monotony had fled from her existence like bugs from a room sprayed with DDT. She was not just a wife, not just a mother.
She was a mistress.
A mistress. The word had a strange and unfamiliar ring to it. It didn’t seem possible that such a word could be properly applied to solid citizen Nan Haskell, mother of two, pillar of Cheshire Point. And yet it was true. She had given herself to Ted, had begged him on her knees to take her, had asked for him in vulgar words, had made a slave out of herself, a slave to his whims and passions.
And it was not a one-shot arrangement. She knew this, knew it for a fact, knew it as well as she knew her own name. It was autumn in Cheshire Point and she was somewhere in the middle of an illicit affair. In the fall a young wife’s fancies lightly turn to thoughts of sex, she thought. In the fall a young wife starts putting out for a neighbor.
In the fall—
It might have been different if Howard had not had a satchel full of work that night. Maybe that was just an excuse, maybe the affair with Ted was destined to run its course no matter what, but she somehow could not help feeling that if Howard had been able to spend time with her that very evening, if he had been more talkative and more … loving, she might have been able to get back on the right track.
It was a moot point now. She who had been so one-hundred per cent faithful was now unfaithful, and the act of infidelity would be repeated as long as it was valuable to her. She had been bored; she was bored no longer. She had been in a rut; the rut had now turned into a groove. She had been tired, miserable, plodding along without any interruption of what had developed into a less-than-bear-able routine.
Now all that was changed.
Ted Carr, sandy-haired, smiling, determined. Not so handsome as Howard, not at all as nice as Howard, not as desirable a mate as Howard, but somehow far more important than Howard could ever be, far more essential to her well-being.
And she would let the affair run its course. In time it would burn itself out, and she would be Howard Haskell’s faithful wife once more, and everything would be hunky-dory again. But for the time being she would be everything Ted Carr wanted her to be, would do everything he wanted her to do, would lower herself into muck and make herself worse than a whore if he ordered her to do so. He was her excitement, her dynamism, almost her whole life.
This is wrong, she thought. This is all very wrong, and I should be heartily ashamed of myself. I should hate myself.
I do hate myself.
But that was immaterial. She had a need for Ted which she could not deny. She was in a flimsy canoe in rocky waters, but she was also on one hell of a wild boatride.
T
HEY
found the old-fashioned cab at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, at the eastern foot of Central Park. The driver, all decked out in livery, spoke softly and charmingly in a mild British accent. His horse was something of a glue factory candidate, but in the moon and star light he was magically transformed into something dashing, into a sleek black stallion with hooves of steel and fiery eyes.
The same black stallion, Elly thought fleetingly, on which her phantom lover always rode.
She put the thought out of her mind. The night was young and she felt very beautiful, and now she was sitting beside Maggie Whitcomb in the old hansom while the horse was clip-clopping through pathways in Central Park, while the old liveried driver dozed with the reins in his hands. She smelled the good healthy horse smell, inhaled with it the country fragrance of Central Park. She heard muted traffic sounds in the distance, the sounds of New York by night, sounds which suggested home to her much more strongly and much more convincingly than the cricket chirping you heard in bed at Cheshire Point.
“Happy, Ell?”
“Completely happy.”
“I like Central Park, Ell. An oasis in the middle of the Manhattan desert. It’s peaceful.”
“Uh-huh.” She leaned back, closing her eyes. Maggie was wearing perfume and the smell was strong now, strong but subtle. She let her head loll back on Maggie’s shoulder. “I lived near the park,” she said. “When I was a kid we lived in the West Seventies just a block from the park. I used to play here all the time.”
“It must have been fun.”
“It was.”
Silence, broken by traffic in the distance, horse hooves in front. Maggie’s arm went around her shoulder, holding her.
“We’re on a heavy date,” Maggie whispered. “Now we have to neck.”
“I almost forgot.”
“Kiss me, Ell.”
“I’ve never kissed a girl before.”
“Then let me be the first.”
Maggie’s lips were wonderfully soft. The kiss started as a peck but grew into something a little more. Elly felt Maggie’s arms around her, holding her close. She tasted the incomparable sweetness of Maggie’s warm mouth.
“That was … nice, Maggie.”
“You must have been a wonderful date. I bet all the boys liked to neck with you, Ell.”
“They did more than that. I was a very easy lay.”
“You were?”
Something made her go on. “I would put out for any boy who asked me. I was a tramp, I guess.”
“Boys take advantage of a girl, Ell.”
“I know. Oh, I’m tipsy, Maggie. I’m drunk.”
“You won’t be sick, will you?”
“No, but I’m drunk. Why don’t you kiss me again, Maggie? I want to be kissed now. I feel all funny inside. Please kiss me.”
Maggie’s mouth came to hers. Maggie’s arms were firmer around her now, and she felt Maggie’s breasts press in close against her own breasts. She opened her mouth automatically and Maggie’s warm tongue stole inside, caressing her lips, making her whole mouth tingle. She suddenly remembered the way Maggie’s bare breasts had looked Friday afternoon, remembered the way the two of them had sat around drinking Scotch with their bosoms showing.
The memory sent a jolt of inexplicable passion racing through her. She was warm all over, her cheeks warm from all the drinks and her loins warm with rising lust. She tightened her own grip around Maggie, ran her fingers through Maggie’s long red hair. The hair was the texture of spun silk, good to touch, good to run your fingers through. Her own tongue darted forward to meet Maggie’s tongue and the contact was purely electric in its intensity. She was charged up now, stimulated.
“Maggie—”
“Hold me, Ell. Hold me close.”
“This is silly, isn’t it? We’re both girls and we’re necking and kissing and hugging. I like this, though, even if we are silly. I like the way you feel, Maggie. You have the most wonderful breasts.”
“Do you like them?”
“I’m going to touch them to show you how much I love them, Maggie. Oh, God, they feel so nice! Is it wrong to touch another woman’s breasts? I never did anything like this before.”
“It’s not wrong.”
“Because they feel so
nice!
I wish I had breasts like yours, Maggie. Big and firm.”
“Yours are lovely, Ell.”
“Do you think so?”
She felt Maggie’s hands moving, finding her own breasts and holding them tenderly. The touch excited Elly. She began to tremble. She did not know what was happening to her but it was something phenomenal, something wonderful. Her body was on fire.
“When I saw you Friday,” Maggie was saying, “Your breasts. I wanted you to touch me and I wanted to touch you.”
“Why, Maggie?”
“I don’t know why. Hold me close, Elly. Kiss me.”
A kiss that made her head swim. Maggie’s hands, active, clever, one hand toying tenderly with her breasts, the other stroking her legs.
“Maggie—”
“What, Ell? What, my darling?”
“Is it wrong, Maggie?”
A pause.
Then: “Do you like this, Ell?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And this? Do you like what I’m doing to you now, my darling? Do you like the way it makes you feel?”
“Yes!”
“And this?”
“Oh, yes! Yes, God, yes, yes, yes!”
“Then it can’t be wrong, Ell. It can’t be wrong.”
The door opened. Linc Barclay came through the door, his shirt unbuttoned, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles. He came through the door in a hurry, and he reached Roz just as she rose to meet him, and his arms encircled her and drew her so close to him that she gasped. He kissed her, his mouth sure and demanding, and she returned his kiss with all the passion she felt for him.
His hands roamed her body. She quivered with delight, and she went limp with lust, and his hands were clever.
He said: “Good girl. Nothing under your dress, is there?”
“Just me, Linc.”
“That’s all I’m interested in. Bed, Roz.”
No words. They raced up the stairs, and they tore off their clothes, and they were together. And the slump was over, the slump was most assuredly over, the slump was magnificently banished. He took her, needing her, wanting her, possessing her, and the world was aflame with beauty.
This made everything, all of it, worthwhile. It was the whole world, and Roz felt herself submerged in boiling waters, tossed here and there, exploding in passion that was unlike anything that had ever happened. She was with her man, the only man she had ever loved, the only man she could ever possibly love. She was with her man, and this was the way it ought to be, this was the way it had to be, this was in fact the only way it could ever be.
This justified everything. This made the world worthwhile, and it made the hard times worthwhile, and it made the dry periods and the slump bearable. This was everything, the total experience of humanity, and it was nothing short of perfect.
It lasted almost forever.
Then the end came. The end, with the world going up in bloody smoke, with bodies rising and falling, tempos increasing, everything emphatically right for once and for all. The end, and an end so perfect it was also a beginning, an end which was a promise.
They stayed in bed for a few minutes. They shared a single cigarette in the darkness, and they said no words because no words were necessary. They had no need for words; words were a commodity of Linc’s, a marketplace item which he sold at so much a throw. Words were unnecessary between lovers, between man and wife. They were unimportant.
And then he got up, finally, and dressed. He was going back to work; she knew this without having to ask. She waited while he left the house and returned to the studio. Then she went downstairs to get a fresh pot of coffee ready. He would be working all night, and he would need plenty of black coffee to keep him going.
When she paused at the door of the study she heard the typewriter going a mile a minute.
The Hasbrouck House was not far from Central Park, not far from where their driver let them out. Maggie paid him ten dollars, led Elly along the few blocks to the hotel. It was a primarily residential hotel, its prices moderate, its service quietly elegant, its rooms pleasant. Maggie had been there before, with a lesbian lover. The hotel, while not by any means specifically catering to the gay trade, cast a tolerant eye on homosexual love affairs. As such it was an obvious choice of a place to spend the evening.
Because, Maggie knew, the seduction of Elly Carr was no long-range proposition, not now. It was something to be accomplished as quickly as possible, something to be attended to that very night. Elly was drunk enough so that her inhibitions did not stand in her way, and she was hot enough so that she would love what Maggie was going to do to her. And she was beautiful and desirable and sweet, so much so that Maggie had to have her or drop dead of desire.
A bellhop showed them to their room. Maggie locked the door, and she turned to Elly, and the little brunette came into her arms at once, nuzzling her sweet face against Maggie’s big breasts.
“Let’s get out of our clothes, my darling.”
“Yes, Maggie. Oh, yes.”
“I want to see your bare breasts again. I want to touch them this time, Ell. I want to kiss them.”
“Oh, God.”
She unzipped Elly’s dress and helped her out of it. She unclasped Elly’s bra, then took off her own clothing. She watched Elly peel down her underpants and caught her breath at the sight of Elly’s beautiful naked body. The girl, stark naked, was even more lovely than Maggie had dared to imagine.
“Kiss me, Maggie.”
Maggie did not need an invitation. She took the girl close, held Elly in her arms and when their bare breasts came together both girls moaned as if they had touched a live wire. Maggie’s nipples were firm little jewels now that drilled fiery holes in Elly’s breasts. They stood up, and they drank each other in deep kisses, and then they were on the bed and in each other’s arms.
“Lie still,” Maggie whispered. “I’m going to make you feel like an angel, Elly. Ell, Ell, Ell—I’m going to make you see the other side of the moon. Hold onto your hat, darling!”
Her mouth touched Elly’s mouth. Her tongue sank in, kissing with passion. Then her lips brushed Elly’s closed eyes, nuzzled her throat. Elly was in the grip of passion. Maggie could take her time, could do everything as she wanted it to be done. There was no question of seduction. The seduction such as it was had been accomplished.
She kissed Elly’s breasts.
Maggie was a woman, and she knew what a woman’s body was, knew how to excite it, knew how to make it respond. She kissed Elly’s breasts with her lips and tongue, let her hot tongue glide over skin that was silk-soft, sucked the sweet nipples until they throbbed with passion.