Chapter 12
To ingratiate herself with Deeana Mason, Eleanor Landers had made one other purchase at Allied Radio this past Saturday: the best pocket transistorized radio that money could buy, and she had had it neatly wrapped with a gushingly written card of appreciation. On Thursday afternoon, she waited to see Mark Torrance again after class. He had again read one of Kathy's essays on 19th-century English poets, and commended Kathy's logic and clarity of writing style, much to Eleanor's disgust. Her own composition had, she knew, been quite skimpy, because she hadn't devoted much time to it over the weekend; the Chicago trip had taken up most of Saturday, and then she'd had that run-in with Kathy on Sunday. But it didn't matter; she was doing at least B work in Mark's class, and it wasn't grades she wanted to discuss with him this rainy afternoon.
"Something I can do for you today, Miss Landers?" he impersonally inquired, sorting a sheaf of student papers before him on the desk.
"Not today, tomorrow evening, Mark," she said in a husky low voice. "Haven't I behaved nicely all this week?"
"Very nicely. And you haven't crossed those lovely legs once, I'll give you credit."
"Uh huh. Because you asked me not to. So I thought you might like to get a better look at them tomorrow night. Couldn't we have dinner at that nice restaurant in Hanneford?"
"We could, if you'd like. Only this time, why don't you skip driving your car and walk to the garage and I'll pick you up there about six?"
"Wonderful!"
"I wouldn't recommend that slinky dress again. I might just take you back to Old Man Crozier's farm."
"Is that a promise or a threat?"
"A little of both, my girl. I've got to find out if you're just trifling with my attentions, or if you're being honest for once."
"Now that's a fine romantic thing to say!" she flashed indignantly.
"I've got plenty of romantic things to say if I feel the mood is right and the girl is, too," he chuckled. "Oh, by the way, are you sure it's all right to have a date with me? Seems to me I heard that sorority pledges aren't allowed to date till after initiation, just the same as frat men can't take a girl out till they've been officially taken into the house."
"That's true, but it applies only to students on campus. You aren't a student, so it's all right."
"I'm a student of Eleanor Landers, though, and finding her a very interesting study."
"I hope to keep you properly engrossed tomorrow night. And I'll wear something very casual. I only hope it doesn't rain."
"If it does, we can always sit it out in the farmhouse. By the way, I talked to Mr. Crozier the other evening. Drove down to where he's staying. He's not asking as much for the place as I figured. More and more, the idea appeals to me. But I'll know better once I finish this novel and see what sort of financial future I can make with my offbeat writing."
She put her hand over his and looked down at him, her lips parted and very soft, her green eyes luminous. "I hope maybe that future will include me, Mark. That's what I want to talk about tomorrow night, darling. Don't be embarrassed-I never saw a man blush before! Good!" she laughed delightedly. "I'll go now. Meet you tomorrow night at six at the garage."
It was cold and rainy again most of Friday afternoon, much to Eleanor's vexation. But she was quickly adaptable to circumstance. It didn't take long to visit Dave Vandenburg where he worked out at handball in the big gym, and to have one of the fellows call him to come out to the door and see her. And a provocative smile and a few soft endearments, with the dangled promise of a "real nice date" as soon as she became a DGT, made him ardently agree to call for her in the blue Nash about quarter of six. Only this time, she'd walk over to Sneed Road where the mailbox was, so the other girls wouldn't see him call for her. The restrictions.
"Sure," Dave agreed. He was in shorts and T-shirt and sneakers, panting from the energetic workout in the handball court. He was quite a brawny specimen, and really quite homely. Those big hands and those hairy, sturdily muscled thighs could really overpower a girl. She didn't ever want to cross him, because she suspected he had a temper. Right now, though, he was still on the upbeat of his almost drooling admiration for her, and she knew, as she sweetly thanked him and turned to walk away, that he was still standing in the doorway staring at her legs and hips. Well, let him stare. It didn't really take much to lead a man on, when all was said and done. And she'd never actually promised him anything. A date, maybe. Sure-a malt or coke date at the sweet shop, after she was officially engaged to Mark Torrance. Then Dave couldn't get ugly.
She'd heard from Sue Kalish, one of the girls she'd been on good terms with at Comstock Hall, that Dave had been going steady last term with a Kappa Rho Phi who had pretended he was the light of her life and then given him back his pin and announced she was going to date one of Dave's fraternity brothers. Sue had said that Dave had slapped the girl's face so hard he'd nearly broken her jaw. So he could be an ugly customer. And it was a cinch that he didn't want an intellectual friendship with her. Eleanor prided herself at being at least discriminating with her selection of male suitors. Henri had been suave and handsome, maybe a bit too oily by American standards. But Mark was really an elegant specimen. Tonight she was going to find out just how far she could get him to go with her-especially verbally. If she had to dole out her virtue in the process, it wouldn't hurt any. Not if she could get him to incriminate himself on that tiny spool of magnetic recording tape...
The rain had continued into the early evening, so Eleanor had worn a two-piece coat-skirt combination, sheer off-black nylons and black leather pumps, and garter belt and slip, as well as her heaviest cloth coat with the thin plastic raincoat drawn over it. She quivered with anticipation as she sat beside Dave Vandenburg in the narrow front seat of the old Nash. The thought of going to that deserted farmhouse with Mark Torrance was intensely exciting. He might think it would be a casual one-night stand, but he would be oh so very wrong. The little recorder was in her alligator-skin purse, primed and ready.
"Well, here we are, Princess," Dave drawled as he slowed the car. "You sure you'll be okay? Pretty lousy night."
"I'll be fine, Dave. like I told you, one of my relatives is driving in from Chicago to pick me up, and we'll go on maybe to Galesburg or Springfield."
"Okay, okay, whatever you say, Elly." She winced at the diminutive; she was remembering Tom Jenkins again. One of the girls had told her that Elly Douglas and Tom Jenkins seemed to be having a cooling-off period; they hadn't been seen together as often as usual. Well, that wasn't her fault. Tom was the one who wanted to cheat on his vapid little girlfriend, and, after all, she'd kept him from doing it. "Say, Elly."
"What is it, Dave?"
He grinned oafishly. "I hope you're gonna be nice to me one of these days after you get 'nishiated. Remember, you owe me a date for doin' you these favors. I know the rules too. No pledge's is s'posed to date any guy till after she's a reg'lar member of the sorority house, same as us frat men when we're on probation."
"I told you it was one of my relatives, just like last week. I know the rules, too, Dave."
"Just wanted to tip you off, Elly baby. You know, I go for you in a big way. I haven't had much chance to say nuttin', but when we have that date, I will, you watch'n see."
"I'm very flattered. Thanks for the ride, Dave, and I'll be perfectly all right." She started to get out of the car, but he put his big hand on her thigh, then grabbed her by a wrist with his other hand and crushed his mouth on hers. "There," he triumphantly panted, "I been wantin' to do that since the first time I saw you, Elly baby. Don't forget, we got a date, a real date comin' up, huh?"
"S-sure," she stammered nervously as she got out of the car. The big brute had sunk his fingers into her thigh so hard she was sure there'd be black and blue marks the next morning. She watched him drive away, waving his hand at her, a grin on his homely face. She grimaced as he disappeared. It would be a long, long time before Dave Vandenburg even got that malt or coke date...
The steaks were every bit as good as last week's, and they seemed to taste better because of the bitingly cold weather. Mark Torrance was in a buoyant mood. He had had a long-distance phone call just after Eleanor had left his classroom, from the New York editor who had read the first five chapters of his novel, and the verdict was highly favorable. There would be a contract and a sizable advance in the mail.
"I'm so glad for you, Mark. It's like starting a brand-new life, isn't it?" she leaned forward across the narrow table of the booth to smile at him. She wanted to be more alluring than ever. She had a hunch that latching onto Mark Torrance was going to be the smartest thing she had ever done in her whole life. Look at James Jones-an unknown till he wrote that "From Here to Eternity." Well, Mark could make it big too, and to be the wife of a famous and money-making author would suit her just fine. As for the gentleman farmer business, she could talk him out of that easily enough. Oh, he could buy the place if he wanted to, but if he got famous, he could afford to take her to Paris and Rome and the Riviera. She reached into her purse for a pack of cigarettes, her slim fingers brushing the concealed little rectangular shape of the transistorized recorder.
"Yes, it is, Eleanor. Maybe you've brought me luck. One of my characters-almost the heroine, I'd say-is something like you. Beautiful and seductive and intelligent."
Eleanor Landers almost purred with delight. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, darling," she murmured huskily. "Why don't we go for that drive while we're both in such a congenial mood?"
The rain had pelted her face as Mark led her through the abandoned cornfield towards the farmhouse, but she'd never felt so alive and eager. Mark's arm was round her waist, and they'd kissed passionately as they walked under the viaduct. She felt her thigh trembling with sharpened anticipation. It had been a long time since a virile man had made love to her. But tonight was all that Mark was going to get till he put a ring on her finger. She would let him find out just how exciting and seductive she could be-and then he wouldn't be able to get her out of his system.
"Are you sure it'll be all right to go into Mr. Crozier's house, dear?" she murmured as they approached the weather-beaten door. Flaked white paint had peeled off in desultory streaks, and the wood was a dirty gray. The dark panes of window glass had yellowing shades halfway down, and seemed to stare gloomily at her with their lower halves.
"Of course it will. And much less compromising to us both than some motel. Here, the door isn't locked. And there's a kerosene lamp in the living room. I know because I've already taken the inspection tour this summer, when I first thought of the idea of buying it. Oh, the place has electricity and water, but of course they're turned off. We'll manage tonight."
"I know we will, darling," she whispered evocatively, tightening her arm round his waist and turning her face up to be kissed.
The door creaked open, and Eleanor shivered. What ghosts lurked in the shadows, she wondered. And then the flare of the kerosene lamp drove them away, and she saw him bending over the lamp, his face taut and absorbed, and her vitals seemed to churn with longing for him...a longing in which gloating triumph at her own ingenuity was merged so keenly that it was hard to differentiate the one from the other.
"It wouldn't take much to turn this into a very comfortable house, Eleanor," he told her as he came towards her. "Here, let me take your coat."
"You see, I didn't wear the silver dress. See how I'm taking instruction from you, darling?"
"Yes, I do. I rather enjoy it. Not that I want a submissive girl, you understand, just a reasonably cooperative one."
"Why do you think I'm here, Mark?" she whispered, and as he took her in his arms, she looked over his shoulder, smiling with secret pleasure. It was unfolding just as she had planned. And she knew that he could smell the fragrance of her hair and skin; she had used plenty of Chanel Number Five.
"I'm hoping it's because you're meeting me on my own terms, Eleanor. No angles, no gimmicks, no twists. Just boy meets girl. Hackneyed but unbeatable-any novelist will tell you that."
"I don't want to hear what any novelist can tell me-only what you want to, darling."
Her arms went round his neck as she arched on tiptoe to him, pressing herself tightly against his sinewy male body, her mouth already moist and open to his ardent kiss. She felt his hands slide down from her waist, over her hips, and she knew that he must be discovering that only a single veil hid her tingling flesh beneath the skirt.
The kerosene lamp cast eerie, flickering shadows on the wall of the large living room. Gargoyles and imps and leprechauns seemed to dance over the faded blue and white floral-designed wallpaper, and she smiled back at them as she rested her chin on his shoulder. She felt his lips brush her hair, then her forehead, and she turned her face so that he could find her lips ready and eager for him once again.
"Oh, Mark, Mark, it's so thrilling being with you this way," she breathed.
"I think maybe the girl is for real tonight," he said aloud, as if communing with himself.
"Try her and see," she whispered, tantalizing him with the flick of her tongue against his upper lip.
He picked her up in his arms and strode out of the living room down the dark hall. "Wait-my purse, darling," she whispered, biting at his earlobe.
"Of all things, at a time like this," he grumbled. "Well, I suppose I might as well show you I'm still athletic enough to carry you about in my arms."
"And how I love it, and how I've dreamed of being there, Mark, you don't know how much." She clung to him protectively as he walked back into the living room, and she reached down to the round wicker table where she had left her purse. "There. Now you can carry me back wherever you meant to carry me."
Deftly she reached into the purse, touched the little switch which turned on the recorder, and clutched the purse against her swelling bosom as he carried her into the big bedroom at the end of the hall on the first floor of the old house. "I'll get the lamp," he muttered hoarsely as he laid her down on the big old-fashioned brass-frame bed.
"No, darling, don't leave me alone, even for a minute," she whispered fiercely. "Make love to me before I get afraid of the dark-please, Mark?"
"I haven't asked you, Eleanor, and maybe I've taken too much for granted-"
"Silly darling-I'm not a virgin, if that's what you're hinting at. But there was only one man before you, Mark, and he's in Europe and it was a mistake-when I was young and very foolish. I'm all yours now."
Yes, there was a table near the bed, and quickly she stretched out her arm and laid the open purse atop it. There. Now the hidden recorder would faithfully perpetuate whatever was said in this dark room. The bed was enormously wide. Outside, she could hear the sudden northeast wind driving the rain against the windows. She felt him beside her, beginning to unfasten the buttons of the suit coat, and she sat up to help him take it off. His hands brushed the round solidity of her swelling breasts through the thin white silk shirtwaist-blouse, and she moaned with the intensity of longing that was throbbing in her.
"I don't want this to be just an incident, darling," he said hoarsely as his palms gently pressed over the peaks of her quivering bosom, his lips brushing her chin and nose. "And I don't want to make any problems for you."
Her lips pressed against his ear, her tongue flicked out in a delicate swirl, and then she whispered, "I was a forward, shameless hussy, dearest. You needn't worry about a thing-I won't give you a baby till you marry me."
"Eleanor! You mean you'd actually be content to be a professor's wife?"
"Uh huh. If you were the professor, my darling." She was smiling in the darkness as her own fingers reached for the buttons on the shirtwaist-blouse, because what he had just said was as binding as any formal proposal. And it was all down on tape.
"And maybe live in this old house once I got it remodeled and renovated?"
"I think it could be arranged, if you asked me properly, Mark dearest. But for now, why don't you find out my grades in this particular department? Ohh-yes-yes-darling!" For now his hands, groping for hers, had encountered the satiny warmth of her palpitating naked skin as the blouse yawned and the hemispheres of her firm thrusting breasts jutted out against the thin slip as if yearning for tactual and lingual adoration. His mouth came down on hers, and her arms folded round him as she sank willingly back onto the thick, comfortable mattress of the old bed. His left hand moved under her head, began to fumble at the prim coil of coppery hair. "Let me let it down, darling. like Rapunzel's in the fairy tale," he muttered thickly, his lips nuzzling at her creamy throat where the pulse throbbed furiously now, his other hand cupping the resilient, satiny-textured cone of one gloriously proffered breast. "Anything you want of me, Mark...anything-oh darling, darling, listen to the rain outside. I'm scared in the dark. Did you know that? That's why I need you so now...oh, yes, hurry...take it off."
She arched and turned so that the white slip slithered readily off her voluptuous body, kicking off her pumps to hear them fall with a sharp clatter on the bare floor. She felt his lips move here and there over her quivering body, brushing the deep dimple of the belly, the exquisite curve of the haunch, the gracefully narrowing pastureland of her supple waist, and then avowing amorous adoration to the tumultuously heaving love-globes of her sensitized and shivering breasts.
"Take me, take me, dearest-oh, Mark-hurry, come to me," she moaned, stretching out her creamy arms to him. She heard him undress, and then she almost cried out with the frenzy of skin against skin, of feeling his wiry, trim, virile body adjoining and abetting hers.
She was on fire with her self-sacrifice. Nor did she yield grudgingly to Mark Torrance. There was no need to be stingy with the gifts of love-not for this one magical night. He had already paid her coveted price, and the recorder in the purse would keep that coin in rare premium till she was ready to use it to barter for the conquest and position that would so easily be hers. She had won him, and beyond Kathy Edwards' wildest hope of winning him. Here and now, on this bed in the deserted farmhouse, she was binding him to her with infrangible bonds of sensual sorcery and wanton surrender. After tonight, he couldn't possibly want a milksop like little Kathy. Even if he did, it wouldn't do him any good; he had as much as proposed marriage to her, and if he reneged, she had only to let the dean of women hear this recording and denounce him for having taken her to bed under fraudulent pretenses. It would destroy his career, not only as a teacher, but as a publicized writer. Oh, no, he wouldn't get away from her.
So now she could relax that cunning vigilance of hers and just for once succumb to passion. For he was more competent than even Henri. She writhed beneath him, her nails scoring his shoulders, her teeth chattering against his in the savage fury of their mating kiss. The rain-driving wind that howled outside against the rattling window panes was echoed inwardly by the tempest of desire that the two of them were summoning up.
And even as her senses reeled at the moment of cataclysmic achievement, she could hear him gasp, "Oh, Eleanor-yes-I love you-God, what a woman you are!"
And a tiny part of her mind could still recollect that this supreme avowal was being saved for posterity too, thanks to her own foresight and to the advance of modern science which reposed in the yawningly open alligator-skin purse which lay only a few feet away from this altar of hymeneal and carnal unison. It was a vasdy comforting thought even in the midst of her own surprisingly genuine physical surrender. And in the darkness there, his arms steely vises round her writhing satiny body, knowing her unstinted response, how could he possibly divine what motivation had prompted the generous abandon of her senses!