Chapter 4
EDDIE WAS IN PARADISE. HERE HE WAS, A TEENager hardly one step above destitution, yet he was making out with a gorgeous woman who obviously had years of erotic, exotic experience behind her. And he was pleasing her.
It was an adventure not without its material rewards, either. She kept her word about the suit-a tailored job. And she gave him a couple of sweaters, and slipped him some cash for some new shoes.
But the real beauty of the whole affair was that he was falling in love with this doll. What had started as a weird experience with a kooky dame had developed into a real thing with Eddie. He thoroughly enjoyed the way she turned him and herself on in bed, but he just liked being with her and talking to her. She was a charmer.
Yet, if he had ever paused to take stock of what she had said in all those conversations, he would have found that she didn't tell him a thing about her personal life. On, there were opinions and feelings and ideas, but nothing concrete about Elizabeth Hanover.
Then one night, he was at her place for dinner, and was making himself very much at home. He had his coat off, his tie loosened. Elizabeth was cooking that night-Eddie was always there for a session in bed on the housekeeper's night off-and she hurried Tommy through the meal. Eddie didn't even bother to ask why.
The doorbell rang and she went to answer it. She returned moments later with a man of about forty-five, well and expensively dressed. The man looked at Eddie, and it wasn't a baleful look, but Eddie sensed the unfriendliness there.
"Oh, Eddie," Elizabeth said blithely, "this is my ex-husband, George. George, Eddie Kilby."
Eddie stopped eating in mid-bite. He was so surprised that he couldn't say a thing in acknowledgement; he just nodded dumbly at the man.
Elizabeth continued airily. "George is taking our son to the circus tonight. He should take him Saturday, but George has to be out of town. So I let him change his visitation day." The mockery in her voice was very, very concealed, but there was no doubt it was there. She was making fun of busy George who had to fly off to some business conference or other-busy, important George, the slightly sarcastic tone intimated-and also making fun of her own tiny gesture of generosity about letting him get to see his own son and take him to the circus.
After George left with his son, Eddie quickly went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a sturdy swig of brandy. He had been taught now to sip, but he needed the solid snort.
"Whoa, lover," Elizabeth chided. "You have a long evening ahead of you and you'll need a clear head."
"For what?" he asked stupidly.
"For what?" Elizabeth echoed. "For the reason you come here,"
"I come here because-because I like you."
"Sweet," she answered. Could he detect a slight tinge of irony and sarcasm in that? Or was he getting too sensitive, looking deep into everything for hidden meanings?
He knew she was talking about making love, but it seemed out of the question tonight. Somehow it seemed inappropriate. He couldn't have expressed what he felt, but it was somehow unseemingly that they should be enjoying sex while the ex-husband was getting the son out of the way for a few hours.
As if reading his thoughts, she moved right on: "We can start early tonight. We won't have to wait until Tommy is in bed." She laughed.
He was puzzled by so many mysterious things about the situation. Almost in a daze, he blindly followed her into the bedroom. He wanted to say many things and ask many questions, but all that dissolved as she turned her back to him and asked him to unzip her dress.
He was lost in the aura of her magnetism. It was a treat to help undress her. His fingers fumbled' at her brassiere hooks. "Your fingers are so cold," she squealed. They were cold, because he was shivering in anticipation. His mouth literally watered for her, and all his warmth was flowing downwardwhere it would count in a few minutes.
Elizabeth pulled the dress and loose bra up over her head in one quick movement, letting the things drop from her fingers. She kept her arms high in the air, which made her lovely breasts stand out startlingly.
With trembling hands, Eddie peeled down her pantie-girdle, with her nylons attached. He sank to his knees beside her as he did so, and as she gently kicked the stockings from her feet, he embraced her and kissed her thigh.
The lovely nude wanted to play turnabout and strip him down, but Eddie slapped her playfully on the butt, telling her to climb into bed, that she'd be too slow undressing him.
She had hardly gotten between the sheets when he proved how fast he could strip for action-he was right there practically attacking her.
After their first furious bout of lust, she whooped once in exuberant spirits, as he rolled off exhausted, and she flailed one bare arm against the rumpled sheets. "The night is young," she exclaimed, "and we can do it over and over and over."
He smiled tiredly. "Well, maybe not that often."
She closed her eyes, smiling contentedly. "When I was in college, one of the girls I knew went with a boy they called Seven-Up. That wasn't because of what he drank," she laughed wickedly, "but because he could pop seven times in one night."
"I don't believe it," Eddie commented.
"They swear it's true. Why not? Couldn't you?"
He turned his face. It wasn't so much embarrassment at the conversation being directed his way, but because it sank in that she'd had so much more experience than he did.
Eddie had come to care so much for Elizabeth that he resented any prior events in her life. It was this that kept him from asking questions. He was jealous of anything that had to do with her that he hadn't shared in. That was idiotic, he knew that in his rational mind. But then love was idiotic in many ways. Love? Was that it? he asked himself. Was he in love? What else?
And it was that love that made him jealous and angry about her past. He didn't want Elizabeth to have been so experienced. He didn't want her to laugh intimately about some kid nicknamed Seven-Up. At the same time it nagged Eddie: was Elizabeth telling the truth when she said that this sexual superman was the boy friend of her friend ... or was she perhaps concealing from him, through that guise, the fact that she knew him-knew him intimately? And if not that guy, what others? Just her husband? It could be, perhaps-yet what he knew of her gluttonous appetite for sex ... he wondered.
He didn't make seven in the one evening. But then, Eddie wasn't trying for any records. In fact, he thought the three times they coupled in close fury was pretty fair, especially considering the short time in which he accomplished the job. He hurried because he wanted to get out of there.
But. Elizabeth said, "Oh, no, don't run off. You've got to stay until they get back."
That's just what he didn't want to do. He hoped to be off and away. He asked, "Why? Are you afraid of him?"
Elizabeth burst out laughing in reply, practically choking as she said, "No!" But she would give no explanation, say anything more to shed some light for Eddie's benefit.
So he stayed, nervously. He had taken up smoking and now he chain-smoked cigarettes while they waited. Eddie tried to make himself as presentable as possible. Not Elizabeth. In fact, just the opposite. She put on a short, thin negligee. It left no doubt that she hadn't a stitch on underneath. Eddie wanted to tell her to put something more appropriate on, but he didn't; he also wanted to know why she was doing this but he couldn't quite work up to making a bald demand for an explanation.
So that's how they were when George Hanover brought Tommy home from the circus: Elizabeth looking exactly like a woman would after tumbling in bed for a couple of hours, and Eddie trying to disguise the fact that he'd been part of the tumbling-so neat that it appeared as patently phony as he felt.
Tommy was so excited by his evening out that he didn't notice the strained air between the two men. The boy jabbered about the elephants and about the food he'd been stuffed with. Elizabeth made some none-too-subtle remark about George's purchasing affection. She sent their son off to get into his pajamas and then blithely dismissed George with a flip, "Night."
He left, very ungraciously, glaring at Eddie.
And Eddie didn't stay very long after that. At the door, he wanted to embrace Elizabeth and get one of those hot, tonguey kisses. But she moved out of his reach and when he said, "Good night," she reached out, patted his cheek gingerly and said matter-of-factly, "Good-bye."
In his mind Eddie dismissed Elizabeth's "Goodbye" as a slip of the tongue. And yet ... It bothered him when he got outside the apartment house and on the street.
But his thoughts along that line were interrupted by George Hanover's emerging from the front door behind him, hurrying along until he almost ran into Eddie before recognizing him.
George was putting away what was obviously his checkbook. He looked Eddie up and down in utter hatred and disgust. He spit out, "When will you be able to pay $600 a month rent?" Then he attempted to brush by Eddie to get to his car. But Eddie put his hand up to the other man's shoulder to stop him.
"What do you. mean by that?" He was determined not to take any guff from this middle-aged guy who had possessed his beloved.
George hit the hand aside, and shot back, "Who do you suppose pays the rent on that place? How much do you contribute?"
Eddie began, "Well, someday...."
George interrupted, scoffing, "Someday! Someday you may be able to afford the toilet paper for her three bathrooms."
"Well, she won't be taking anything from you when I marry her."
"Marry her?" George laughed sardonically. "I wonder how many of you hot-pants kids thought they were going to marry that bitch?"
The anger flared up in Eddie and he tried to grab this man who had insulted his girl. But that very anger made him a poor fighter, and George whirled, his fist connecting with the side of Eddie's face. Eddie went down, and George went to his car. A moment later, he had zoomed off into the dark.
The blow had stunned Eddie, of course-George was strong for a middle-aged man, he noted wryly-but it was more than that.
First there had been her "good-bye," and now this terrible insinuation from her ex-husband about other hot-pants boys. Just what the hell was it all about?
The next evening that she should have been at law school, she wasn't there. And then when she was, the following night, he only saw her at a distance. He had gone into their favorite meeting place at the coffee break, that empty classroom where she'd first approached him, but she didn't come in. He could hardly believe it. This was almost a shrine to him now, having initially becoming acquainted with her there. And she was ignoring his shrine. She was avoiding him, he had to conclude. But why?
The very next night, he tried to talk to her in the hall. She was cordial but hurried, breezing right on by. Afterward he tried to catch her before she left the main doorway, but she scooted on ahead. He spotted her car, and then, with a sinking heart, he saw that beside her as she sped off, there was a young man, a fellow student.
Eddie was so ill at this sight that he had to grasp the iron railing.
He pondered and brooded about all this the entire night and the next day. By this time, he was as angry as he was heart-sick. That damn minx! He'd go out there and have the whole mess brought into the open.
He knew if he went later, she might be gone, or-worse-entertaining some guy like that young law student she rode off with. And entertaining him regally-in the sack!
So he went to Elizabeth's apartment at about 4:30. She seemed surprised to see him, but not perturbed. It was that that really made him. mad. It was frustrating that she wasn't even emotional enough about the situation to be frightened of his glare. He'd hoped she was going to be angry herself-it was useless and maddening to attempt to have a war of words if one party is just calm and aloof.
In his up-tight condition-and meeting coolness instead of a blazing opponent-Eddie stammered out all that had happened. He told Elizabeth about being hit by her ex-husband and of what George had insinuated about her love life with other men. And he accused her of seeing that other young law student.
But her only reply after a deafening pause was "So?"
So? So?
He was furious, but he was also very hurt. She calmly lit a cigarette and said, "Why are you so upset?"
He could only stupidly echo, "Why am I so upset? Because I love you and want to marry you."
"I'm touched, baby," she said in a level tone, "but, honey, I get almost fifty thousand dollars a year in alimony and child support. Didn't you know that George Hanover is a millionaire? Many times over. How many centuries before you could afford that kind of support?"
"What does it matter? I love you."
"Oh, come off it, lover." She rolled her eyes up in exasperation at his melodramatic words. "You enjoyed a few of the fruits of that cash. The suit, the sweaters, like that. You enjoyed me, a million-dollar lay. But how would you like it living in a tenement with cockroaches-and me in a dirty wash dress instead of a black negligee?"
"I love you. The rest doesn't matter."
She laughed, loud and even vulgarly. "Oh, Eddie, honey, you're so incredibly young!"
Eddie lashed back, "What are you-some kind of a monster that you can treat me like this T
"I'm a woman who's got many of the best things in life, Eddie. And I got all of it by my lonesome-me alone going out and getting it. And I'm going to keep it. I'm not giving up anything for you and the thousand next youngest, handsomest studs in the universe. I was poor, Eddie-dirt poor-when I was young, and I like what I got. I appreciate it!"
"I've got money coming out of my ears. I've got all the male companions I want. And I'm improving myself. I mean, glimpsing the world George is in, I saw how ignorant I was. That's why I do things like go to law school, take art lessons, go to concerts. Someday, Eddie, I'll have the taste of poverty out of my mouth."
Eddie got up. He felt faint and sick. "I'll be going. I'll use your bathroom first," he said.
But Elizabeth guided him to the door. "I've got to hurry, Eddie. I'm very rushed. There's a gas station down around the corner. Go there."
And except for seeing her occasionally, that's the last contact Eddie had with his lovely lover, Elizabeth Hanover.