Chapter 6
ALTHOUGH HE HAD STEELED HIMSELF TO FACE the ordeal of having to see the beautiful Elizabeth Hanover on a regular basis-and thus perhaps have his passions aroused again-Eddie was spared. Elizabeth had begun to be bored by her studies for the moment, and had left on a trip to the Caribbean. He was happy about that, and now he could give his full attention to his studies.
That is, as full as he could, considering that he had to always have an outside job in order to get the cash for his tuition, rent, meals and other necessities.
From then on, he just had to take part-time chores to get a little extra spending money. He didn't need much of that because he had little outside life, beyond his studies. If he had a beer once in a while, that was about it. He never splurged at this point in his life, because he kept his eye on the future, when he'd have all the luxuries he wanted. With such self-discipline, he was able to fill up on watery soup, knowing some day he'd have steaks up to his armpits if he wanted them.
He had little time for socializing, even with fellow law-students, much less with dates. Dates cost money ... except....
Except that Eddie had an angle here also. If he really needed sex badly, he seemed forever able to get hold of some homely girl in the neighborhood who would to it just for the sake of his company. Eddie was good-looking and he had a certain grace that passed for gentlemanliness and shyness. He never revealed his inner self to any of them-his thoughts or dreams or ambitions-and they were content with the nice, smooth surface he presented.
At first, Eddie was a bit ashamed at how he was treating these girls, but after a while he came to justify it by saying, What the hell, I'm giving them something too.
So it didn't batter his conscience much as he gradually took more from them, not just their love portions in bed. He let them buy the liquor, instead of his sometimes bringing a six-pack or even a pint of whiskey; he let them prepare meals in their apartments, and they'd watch television afterward; gradually he let some of them slip him a few bucks so he could take them out to dinner and a show. Some of them weren't even so homely that he had to be ashamed to be seen with them, although he had a few dogs on the string that he used in desperation at times.
The thought of marriage was the furtherest thing from Eddie's mind. This was because he took a normal, provincial attitude toward the institution. In the first place, he was still very much a country boy to whom matrimony was "the big step". And somehow a sacred one. A man married to settle down-and he married the girl he loved so much he couldn't exist without her.
That's how Eddie, felt about the wedded union ... until he met Marion. No, it was not when he met her, but slowly, gradually as he got to know her. Because Marion wasn't the type of female that he'd fall head-over-heels for. To be honest with himself, Eddie had to remind himself that she wasn't even the type for whom an appreciation and an appetite grew on one as he got to know her-not a physical appreciation or appetite.
But she had other qualities. Mostly, these were material objects.
Not that Eddie had gone out selfishly seeking such a woman. No, indeed. Marriage meant too much responsibility and too much commitment, he would have told himself. Furthermore, he had a slim, remaining store of pride and of shame that would have kept him from entering into any sort of alliance in which the bride was the major source of income.
It was Marion herself who gradually converted him. Maybe he didn't take much persuasion, but she won him over. Perhaps he even hypnotized himself into thinking he cared for her-not with love, but at least some sort of warmth and affection.
Marion worked in a downtown office of a big manufacturing concern, as a market analyst. The job required a brain-a person who could handle a lot of statistics and make sense out of them, and then put the results into readable form for booklets that were issued within the vast network of the company; in other words, a combination of mathematical skills and some literary talent. It wasn't a routine combination, and she was a desirable employee, and consequently, excellently paid.
Eddie met Marion at a party that was given by a friend of one of the law students. Extra males were needed at the social function, and Eddie was talked into going along, since it meant free food, saving him the price of a meal that evening.
Marion was also an unattached guest, having come without an escort. She was several years older than Eddie-maybe even twenty-five-and she had nondescript brown hair pulled severely back. She wore spectacles which had thick lenses, and they were always slipping down her nose and she was always shoving them back into place. She always had a tiny, bemused smile, and with the glasses, she looked like a sweet little near-sighted mouse. That was, in fact, what gave her the nickname used behind-her back-Mousey-because who'd want to use it to her face and hurt her feelings? She brought out that kind of feeling; not exactly protective of her ... just that people avoided doing anything that would upset the harmless creature.
Eddie was introduced to her and he talked vaguely with her, but as he sipped the free liquor and gobbled the free food, he moved back and forth in the crowd looking at the females with bright eyes, sparkling laughs and big bosoms.
He got away from Marion as soon as he reasonably could that evening, and tried to make contact with some of the other girls. He hadn't been laid for some time and the liquor worked at him, arousing him. He found he was getting nowhere with the others-mostly because he couldn't offer them anything: he couldn't take them for a ride in a car he didn't have or offer to take them to a show or dinner or any kind of date. So he went back to Marion. She appeared to be the type he'd been sponging off of in a mild sort of way. She was not good-looking, a bit older, lonely. He, on the other hand, was young, vibrant, a charmer when he wanted to be.
She lived in her own apartment within walking distance of the party scene, and he offered to escort her there. On the way, he found out a lot of things. Such as the fact that she was very well educated, came from a well-to-do home, and was indeed lonely.
He thought he had it made, and within fifteen 'minutes he'd be helping her assuage her loneliness "by affection-in bed.
It was with some surprise that Eddie found himself getting no further than the hallway outside her place. .She gave him some smilingly prim line about it being "too late" to invite him in, and asked him to lunch there the following Sunday at noon. She said good night, and was gone.
Eddie stomped on back to his room, feeling deceived and awfully horny and there was nothing he could do about it. He was mad as hell at Marion. Here he'd been ready to service her but good in bed and she didn't even let him in to try to fight him off. He told himself he'd be damned if he'd go over there Sunday. He had mumbled to her that he would, but that was only because he had been caught off-guard and he had still thought he'd end up pumping her that night when he had said yes.
However, by the time Sunday rolled around, he had changed his mind. In the first place, he'd become greedy about getting every free feed he could. And he too could be lonely once in a while, and wouldn't mind a little companionship. Especially as he convinced himself that if he just turned on the ol' charm, he'd have her in the sack that afternoon.
When he arrived at her apartment, Eddie was flabbergasted to discover that she had another young couple there, also for luncheon. He had thought it would be just the two of them-like with the others he'd been fed by-and rolled afterward.
By this time, since he still hadn't had any sex since some time before the party, he was pretty edgy about trying to get his gun off. And there was nothing he could do now.
This put him in a bad mood anyway, and the conversation wasn't calculated to make him feel any better: it involved all sorts of subjects he knew nothing whatsoever about. The three others rambled on about art and literature and poetry and architecture and politics. To Eddie, ignorant in all these fields as he was, it sounded supercilious, as if they were deliberately trying to put him down. He left soon after lunch, mad as a hornet. This was the second time he'd left Marion that way, and he swore again to stay away. What'd he need an anemic, sexless mouse like that for?
It bugged him, that luncheon. Now, with a cooler head, he had to face the fact that it was not they, it was he. They hadn't gone out of their way to show him up, how little he knew about anything besides his law studies. It was he who was shallow. He'd heard how professional men get lopsided in their knowledge. A doctor or lawyer will have to concentrate so hard on learning his trade that he has time for absorbing nothing else. For example, he had heard of medics who finally came through their, poverty-stricken internship, got a lucrative practice going, and then when they had the money to afford the finer things of life, they had no notion of how to appreciate them.
Well, this wouldn't happen to him, Eddie vowed. And if he needed a Marion to help him in this regard, he'd see to it that he got a Marion.
Thus began the secondary education of Edward Kilby ... the artistic education at the hands of Marion, When he started spending so much time with her, Eddie hoped that, as a side attraction, he'd be jumping into bed with her with regularity. Not only was he not getting there with regularity, he wasn't getting there at all. But after a while, it didn't matter that much to him. He had adjusted his scheduling of dates so that he was picking up a little sex from the other nonentities, just as he had in the past. Besides, he realized that he was getting a lot more from Marion than any other girl he knew could provide. In fact, he came to see that perhaps this mental relationship, with no bodily contact, was better. It would mean no permanent entanglement.
She seemed serene and content with this arrangement, and enjoyed conduction her little cultural classes for a class of one. They necked politely a little at art movies, and he kissed her good night on the lips, but not forcefully.
One Sunday night, they took in an Italian movie at the local art-film theater. It was pretty hot stuff, with bare-bosomed actresses and lots of bed scenes. Eddie was ready to be heated anyway, since he hadn't had a woman for weeks. On the way back to her place, he stopped at his room and got a fifth of cheap wine that he had there.
Marion wasn't much of a drinker at all. Mostly she took nothing, and tonight she was just going to toy with her glass of wine. But Eddie was persistent in trying to jolly her along, talking about vine and making suggestive remarks inspired by the movie they'd seen. He got quite a few glasses of wine into her.
Marion was pretty giddy when he started necking with her on the sofa. He slid his hand down on her breast, and she laughingly pushed it away.
But Eddie wasn't playing. He needed it-badly. This time he firmly put his hand over her breast, which was covered by a thick, knit sweater. She got serious then and said, "Please, Eddie, don't do that."
Eddie kissed her, his hand squeezing at her soft breast. She moved her head and said, "No, Eddie, please."
His hand ran up her leg. She exclaimed, "No," and moved away. "Eddie, this isn't like you."
Eddie thought to himself, The hell it isn't like me. It's exactly like me. He looked at her sincerely and said, "I can't help it. You're so-so beautiful."
"Eddie, that's for married people."
"I love you," he stressed. He hadn't meant to say anything like that, but he needed it, and he'd do anything to get it.
"We've got to wait."
Eddie had put his arms around her. His hand moved down her back. He kissed her face all over, and her neck. He had maneuvered his hand under her skirt again. She pushed it away, but he got it back as he distracted her with soft words of love and sighs and moan's of endearment and passion.
She kept saying, "No, no," but he was overpowering her with sheer physical force and a flood of soft words of love. Soon his fingers had passed the tight outline of' her panties and were at the pit of love. She jerked instinctively away, but he followed through.
He slipped his hand around her back, under the skirt and half-slip, and put it down through the elastic of her panties, which he tried to force down. He forced his weight against her until she was down on the sofa. Then he had her skirt and slip up over her waist. He took off her underwear. She turned her face away in humiliation and shame as her nakedness was ex posed, still moaning, "No, no, Eddie. Wait, Eddie. We should wait."
He didn't want to take the time to take his trousers off-it would have been psychologically bad anyway, giving her time to think-so he just opened the fly. As he tried to force himself into her, she put her arms around his neck. She was sobbing, "Say you love me, Eddie, say you love me."
"I love you," he panted, as he tore into her soft parts, tearing them. For Eddie, it was a satisfying cry of pain as he took her.
"Say it, Eddie," she managed to say again, crying.
"I love you," he gasped, having gotten what he wanted.
Afterward, she went flying into the bathroom, There was certainly no doubt she had been a virgin. There was a big spot of blood on the sofa pillow. Eddie went to the kitchen to get a paper towel, which he wet, and went back to try to sponge it off.
Marion stayed in the bathroom for at least half an hour. Eddie was fidgety, and he thought of going to knock on. the door, to see if everything was all right. But he didn't have nerve enough. He became a little irritated. Big deal, he sneered. It hadn't, of course, been much of a piece of action.
But, he supposed, perhaps it did upset a girl to lose her maidenhead.
She finally emerged, still emotional and very red-eyed.
He tried various soothing things to say, and finally said, "Honey, it's not the end of the world." He wanted to add that it was only the beginning, but he thought she'd interpret that wrong. He would mean "only the beginning of having sex regularly together", but she might think he meant the beginning of their lives joined together.
Marion cried a lot, and Eddie had to stay far longer then he wished. He was tired and he was especially weary of her carrying on so.
He soothed her with words and with embraces. Un-likely as it would have seemed just an hour before-when she was giving out with a deluge of tear-she was able to get into her again. She was sore down there, of course, from her first ravagement, but she merely whispered tearfully, stoically, "What does it matter now?" He liked it a lot.