Chapter 5
"Come on, Rene baby! Lay down!"
Rene stared at Oscar in shock, disbelief and horror. She clutched the ripped dress at the shoulders but one billowy boob rose from the torn silk, its red nozzle flushed with the fever in the heart and soul of Rene Clark.
"Oscar!" she cried. "What's the matter with you?"
They were in Oscar's hotel room after an evening of night clubs and dining. Rene had enjoyed herself thoroughly with her childhood crush. They had talked over old times and old friends and he had told her about his work that took him all over the country.
Neither one, they told each other, had changed a bit in all the years. Never had Rene known such a good time, certainly not with the local wolves she had dated. There was nothing as good, as sincere, as warm and as honest as someone from home, she told Oscar as she squeezed his hand during dinner.
"Every guy in town must be after you, Rene," he had whispered to her while they were dancing. He didn't hold her too close, either. He was just a nice guy from home.
Rene thrilled to his soft touch and she began to have dreams of giving up modeling and going back home to Easton and marrying Oscar. But the dreams were shattered rudely and abruptly when he invited her to his room.
She had accepted the invitation without concern, something she would never have done with any other man. But then, the instant they were alone, Oscar had locked the door and attacked her, his hands pawing, grasping, his breath deep and heavy, his body pressed hard against hers.
For a moment she thought he was joking and she laughed, pushing him gently away. But it was no joke to Oscar. He grasped the shoulder of her dress and pulled, crying out his demand in a choking whisper. "C'mon baby-put out!"
When Rene protested, he shoved her back onto the bed.
"Don't give me that crap! I know what you are! Why do you think I called you for a date? Now give me some of that stuff you've been peddling around town!"
He bruised her mouth with his teeth as his hands lifted her dress. She twisted, trying to get away from him, feeling his hot hands over all parts of her at once, his legs jamming between hers, forcing himself upon her.
"Please, Oscar!" she gasped weakly. "You've got me all wrong! I'm not like that at all! Oh, let me go, please!"
His lips were on the rise of her boob, his hard chin digging in. "Don't hand me that! Maybe you've got the folks back home fooled, but not me! I know all about you!"
"Wait! Please wait a moment! Let's talk for just a little while, Oscar!"
"Then will you screw?" he mumbled against her flesh. "Will you if we talk a little?"
"Yes!" she consented.
Oscar fell away from her, panting, his chest heaving, his eyes glazed, his mouth open. "All right. Go ahead-talk. But make it fast. I want to get into you, Rene."
Rene drew away, shivering, her teeth chattering, as she pulled the torn dresstop about her shoulders. She needed a moment to think, to get her mind working and get this awful nightmare out of her mind and over with. Because that was all it was-a nightmare. This couldn't be Oscar acting like a hard-up guy attacking a girl like any homey wiseacre. This was Oscar, the boy from back home, the kid she went to school with, the boy who knew her folks, the fellow she was having wedding dreams about. This couldn't be happening to him and to her.
But it was happening. Looking at this stranger lying on the bed, waiting for her, his fingers clutching his legs twitching, the signs of desire obvious on him, she could not recognize him as Oscar. He was a barbarian, as all men were barbarians.
She had to play it smart, however. She had always known how to handle the hot bang guys and she had managed to keep away from those she didn't want. And now she knew she didn't want Oscar; not unless she understood that what he had tried was a mistake and that he was sorry.
"We had a lot to drink tonight," she whispered. "You ... you're not used to it, are you Oscar?"
"The hell with that!" Oscar barked. "Is that all you want to talk about?"
His fingers, alive and writhing like snakes, reached for her but she drew further back. "No, wait This is what I want to ask you, Oscar-why do you think I'd give in to you like this? What gave you the idea I was easy?"
He laughed but there was no humor in it. It was dirty and low. "You're kidding, baby! Why are you trying to kid me?"
"I'm not trying anything of the kind. I want to know."
"You put out for any man who wants it...."
"No!" Rene cried in protest. "That's not true! I'm not a-I'm not a-"
"Say it! A gal like you shouldn't be too touchy about a word like that! Say it! Whore!"
She covered her face in shock and anguish, wishing she could blot out the sight of him, shut out the sound of the word he had hurled at her through gnashed teeth.
"That's all you are, isn't it?" he raved on. "That's why you left home and came out here to this dung heap, isn't it? Too many people know you back home! Well, that's right, baby! A lot of people know you for what you are! Now I want to eat some of that hot flesh of yours! Why not Rene? Why not me?"
Her face was tear-streaked, the mascara running down her cheeks. She looked like a doll left too long out in the rain.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" she wept. "All I know is that I was so happy to see you!"
"Tired of the old regular stuff?" he sneered.
"No! That's not it at all! Oscar!" She rose weakly to her feet, her heart seeming to echo only faintly in her breast. "Oscar, I thought I loved you! I was hoping you'd ask me to marry you...."
"You want to hear a bigger laugh than that?" Oscar sprawled on his stomach, leering up at her. "I once thought I did want to marry you! But that was a long time ago, baby!"
"Oh, Oscar! Did you?" Rene saw a whole world falling down about her ears, castles crumbling, stars fading.
"That's right! Now wasn't that a joke? Why don't you laugh, baby? It's the funniest joke since the invention of the atom bomb!"
"Don't be so cruel, Oscar!"
"I'm not being cruel! You're the one who's cruel! Why, you're vicious Rene Clark! You're evil! You're foul!"
Oscar jumped to his feet. Frightened, she backed off, but he moved just past her and to the bureau. He threw open a drawer, took out a pile of clippings and threw them at her feet. "There you are, baby doll!" he snarled. "You want to know how I know what you are? There's the evidence-in pictures, too!"
Rene reeled as she stared down at the pictures through the blur of her tears. And there she saw them-cut out of magazines, pictures of her in semi-nude and nude shots, posed archly, seductively, inviting the viewer to come into her arms and share her bed, her mouth open sensuously, her eyes drooped, telling all men with her mouth and her eyes and with every part of her body that she was available and ready and eager....
"Great, aren't they?" raved Oscar. "Is that why you left home, Rene? Is that why you came here? Is that how you earn your bread?"
"Oscar, please," begged Rene. "Those are just poses, that's all! There's no harm in it! I'm not a lowly whore!"
"Your father's a preacher. What would he think if he saw these pictures?"
Rene turned away but Oscar seized her chin and twisted her head around to face him. His face was red with fury, his eyes blazed.
"Answer me, whore!" he mocked her. "What would your father think?"
"The same as you do, I guess! But, Oscar, he's an old-fashioned man...."
"So am I!" And a stinging slap jarred her, bringing up stars out of the depths of her numbed brain. Rene reeled and staggered, the room whirling about her. Oscar's face appearing in waves before her, bloated with hatred, rage and disgust.
"Now get the hell out of here!" he roared. "I wouldn't lay you if you came crawling to me and begging me for it! You're nothing but a slut, baby!"
His curses followed her as she staggered out into the hall, wrapped her light coat about herself to hide the torn dress. It was a fiendish nightmare, she thought to herself, plunging down the stairs to avoid taking the elevator. This didn't happen to me. Things like this just don't happen. Oscar's a good boy ... and I'm a good girl.
He didn't call me the dirty names he did and he didn't hit me.
But then as she stepped out into the night to look for a cab, she remembered. Oscar, all the while he cursed her and accused her and slapped her ... had been crying, the tears streaking down his face without control, just as he had cried when he had been hurt as a small boy, and couldn't understand how he could be hurt....
Oscar stood staring at the door that he had slammed after Rene. It was the closed door to all the dreams and ideas of happiness he had ever known, and it was closed forever. A lifetime of hopes was locked beyond that door, locked to him for all time, sealed with disillusionment and despair.
He brought his hands to his face and was startled to find he had been crying. He hadn't cried since he was a child, and then only for good reason. Well, damn it all to hell and gone, he had good reason now.
He picked up the phone. "This is Oscar Valley," he said. "I'm checking out right now. Prepare my bill, please."
"But you have a reservation till tomorrow, sir."
"Cancel it. And see if you can get me a plane to New York out of here tonight. If not, get me a berth on a train."
He hung up, his body shaking. Looking at the bed, he saw the rumpled sheets, the cast-aside pillows where he had wrestled with Rene.
"The damned tramp!" he said aloud to himself. "Making me have all those ideas about her and then turning out to be nothing but a two bit whore! He shook his head. "It's hard to believe; very hard!"
Then his eyes fell upon the cut-out photos on the floor. Cursing, he tore them into small pieces and flushed them down the toilet Then in a fury, he started to pack. He tried to concentrate on what he was doing and not on Rene. There was something in all this that disturbed him and he didn't know what it was. Discovering that she was nothing but a girl who exposed her body for pay was bad enough. But there was something else, something that gnawed at him, turned his stomach and made him even sicker. And it make him sicker still not to know what it was.
"The hell with it," he dismissed it.
The phone rang. It was the desk to tell him that there was a cancellation on the New York jet and he had just time to make it.
"Send up a boy for my bags and have a taxi ready," he said. "I want to get out of this town as fast as possible."
The desk clerk snickered. "I don't blame you, sir. I wish I could go back home myself. But we're not all that lucky."
"No. We're not all that lucky."
Being driven to the airport, he stared at the neon signs of the gambling joints, trying to lose himself in the wonder of the vast fortunes that were determined by a roll of the dice.
And then he saw Rene's face, her eyes incredulous as she stared at him in shock, her tears real, her body racked with sobs as he hit her again and again, reliving the horror of that hotel room.
And then he knew what had been bothering him.
It came to him with a shock that vibrated his entire body.
"If ... if she is a slut," he whispered harshly to himself, "if she is everything I called her ... then why did she turn me down when I wanted to stick it to her...?"
But there was no answer in the bleakness of the interior of the cab, none in the empty, sad and bitter heart and soul of Oscar Valley.
"Driver," he said suddenly. "Turn around. I'm going back."
"Forget something sir?" asked the driver.
"I certainly did. I forgot my destiny ... almost."
He had to find the answer the only place he could find it....
Dale, lounging, watching television, turned as she heard the key in the door and sat up with a start when she saw Rene. The blonde was haggard. Her hair was a mess, her makeup a ruin, her dress torn and she was crying.
"Rene!" Dale cried, moving quickly to her. "My gosh, baby, what happened?"
Rene choked on her sobs. "He's a dog, Dale! He's like all the other dogs we know!"
Dale led her roommate to a chair and sat her down. "Did he hurt you baby? Did he rape you, or what?"
Rene shook her head, the tears spraying on her boobs. "He tried to and he hit me. But that wasn't the worst of it. It's what he said. Oh, Dale, it was awful!"
She cried out the story of the things that had taken place, the charges Oscar had made-based on the pictures of her that he had seen-the claim that he had been in love with her and wanted to marry her until he had found out, as he said, about her, his demand that she give him what she had given other men. . and the story all out, Rene broke down, her body shaking with taut nerves suddenly exploding.
Dale mixed a stiff double scotch and held it to Rene's lips, forcing the fluid down her throat. Rene choked but she got it down and after a while there were no more tears in her, no more bitterness, only emptiness.
"I was wrong about you, dear," Dale said softly. "I thought that nothing could ever hurt you. I thought your spirit was so strong, you were above being hurt."
"Gosh, I'm only human," said Rene, slipping into the way of speech that people found amusing.
"You certainly are, honey. Now let's get that ruined dress off you and get you into a hot tub."
As Dale undressed her and prepared her for the bath, Rene said, "It could have been so wonderful Dale, I know I love him and he said he was in love with me. And now it's all spoiled."
"Listen, baby, it's not spoiled. Oscar, no matter how much you loved him, is not the right guy for you. He doesn't really dig you. If he did, he'd know that modeling isn't being a whore."
"But that's the type of man he is." Rene was standing now in the nude and Dale took her hand to lead her to the bathroom.
"He's the type of man that accuses first and doesn't even bother to ask questions later," said Dale. "No, Rene. I think you ought to thank heaven for what happened tonight. Now you know the kind of man he is, and he's not your kind."
It was when Rene was in the tub, relaxed in the warmth and the perfume of the bath oil that Dale remembered about the call from the agency and told her about it
"Thanks, Dale. I'll make sure I keep tomorrow night's date with that photographer. The only important thing is work, after all."
Dale smiled to herself. This was the Rene she knew, mouthing inantities, perking herself up, forgetting the evil parts of life.
"What was he like?" Rene asked. "Who?"
"The photographer."
"I don't know. I didn't meet him."
Rene stepped out of the shower, the water gleaming on her tanned skin, dripping from the points of her breasts. "Then how did he know I wasn't here to meet him, since he called the agency and said I didn't keep my appointment?"
She didn't see Dale's brow wrinkle in wonder and worry. Whatever it was, whatever the reason for the photographer acting as he did, this was not the time to discuss such things with Rene. The girl needed her rest after such a harrowing experience.
"Oh, I don't know," she said lightly. "Maybe he couldn't keep the date himself and tried to pass the duck off on you."
Rene reached for the robe and wrapped it snugly about herself, shivering in contentment, the vicious scene in Oscar's room already gone from her mind.
"Men are sure nutty, aren't they?" she said.
The phone rang just as they were getting into bed. Dale answered it, listened for a moment and then held the phone toward Rene, whispering. "It's Oscar. He wants to talk to you."
"I don't want to hear anything. He wants to tell me more nasty things. I don't want to hear them."
Into the phone, Dale said. "I'm sorry," and hung up.
Oscar stared at the phone in his hand, hung up, and then started to dial again. Halfway through, he changed his mind and hung up for good.
When he checked into the small hotel near Rene's apartment, he asked the desk clerk to awaken him at seven in the morning, early enough, he told himself, to catch Rene before she left for the day so that he could beg her forgiveness, and, like a man, listen to her story before he tried to judge her.