Chapter 2
Sheila drove home slowly, carefully. Carmel streets turn and wind and there are many intersections with blind approaches. Even when sober, it is wise to drive through Carmel carefully. Little old ladies with gimlet eyes pilot big cars as if they were driving tanks, as if their very age and meanness made them impervious to accidents. Carmel is a small town where old men and women ruthlessly crush fenders and blame one another.
Sheila drove slowly, carefully, conscious of the drinks she had consumed. She planned on taking a good shower, drinking some black coffee, and brushing her teeth, making herself presentable before Scott came home.
She caught her breath with a quick gasp as she saw Scott's car standing outside their attractive little cottage. She ran into the house and straight into Scott's strong arms, which closed like bands of steel around her slender waist. He kissed her, laughing. "Hey, guess who had a drink for lunch?"
"Why are you home so early?" Sheila pulled away, looking at her husband with a slightly drunken concern.
"I've got to be in L.A. by eight tonight." He shot a cuff out and narrowed his eyes at his watch. "Got to get to the airport. Listen, remember my telling you about Bartman? Abe Bartman? Well, he's going to be in L.A. overnight and it's my one chance to meet him and talk to him. It's all arranged. We're having dinner tonight." He hurried into their bedroom where he was packing an overnight bag. His manner was quick and sure and his face serious as he looked up at Sheila. "You've had a few, don't you think?"
Sheila folded her hands properly, trying to hide just how much she had to drink. "Two," she lied. "I met some old friends."
"Oh?" Scott cocked an eyebrow, and Sheila disliked him when he did that. He looked so coldly superior.
"Some people I knew in San Francisco." Sheila felt guilty and ill at ease under his cold stare.
"Uh huh. Where did you have the drinks?"
"The El Matador."
"The Matador! That dump. Don't you hear the talk about that place?"
Sheila shook her head. Scott's voice was taking on the cold scolding tone he got into whenever he talked of politics or got mad at her.
"The Matador is rumored to be the place to get dope in town. Sheila, I'd be very happy if you never went in that place again."
"Well, I won't." There was an edge to her voice because Scott was talking down to her, and because it had been a rotten day in which she had insulted old friends. And why? For Scott's sake.
"I don't think it does our image any good for you to be seen in places like that."
Sheila forced a smile but clenched her fists. He had a way of humoring her, treating her as if she were a fool or a stupid teenager. She looked at him, trying hard to be pleasant, thinking to herself: if he only knew.
She drove him out to the MPC airport with him lecturing her all the way. "Did anyone see you at the Matador? You know what a little town this is and how people love to talk. I don't know why you picked a spot like that. Who are these friends and are they the type to go to the Matador?"
Sheila gripped the wheel until her knuckles were tight. She fought to control her voice. "All I did was have a couple of drinks. I didn't spit on anyone or strip naked on Ocean Avenue, all I did was have some drinks with old friends."
"Yes, at the Matador."
Wearily, she felt the flow of events. Once an emotion or feeling is started, it is difficult to stop it until it has fulfilled itself. At least, Sheila believed this was true. It had been a bad day for her. She had needlessly hurt old friends. They were wild, but they wouldn't hurt her, and she had hurt them for the sake of her marriage and Scott's spotless reputation. Spotless, pure, and dull. She made a face as she drove, admitting to herself that, wonderful as he was, Scott could sometimes be a pious thundering bore.
He lectured her as they stood in the lobby waiting for the plane. On an impulse, Sheila put her hand on his arm, silencing him. "Could I go with you?"
"What? To L.A.?"
"Why not? We could pick up a toothbrush and a change of underwear. Please let me go with you. I'd love to be with you in L.A."
With just a trace of impatience, Scott explained, "I thought I told you that if I ever got a chance to meet Bartman it would be all business unless wives were specifically invited along."
"Let me go. I won't be any trouble. I'll stay in the hotel room all the time."
"Darling, have you even the foggiest notion of what it would mean if I landed any one of several Bartman accounts?"
"Please take me with you." At that moment Sheila wanted him to say that she was more important than any Bartman account, more important than money. He didn't. He couldn't. He couldn't know what she had done for him earlier in the day. She listened to him talk on while trying to conceal her anger. The day had been a total loss and she could have done without it.
She kissed him goodbye and watched him climb the ramp to the plane, then watched it taxi away and, engines racing, scream down the runway, tilt, and take off, the powerful jet engines whining high and hard as the ship aimed, like an arrow, for the low-hanging cloud cover.
Then it was gone. And Scott was gone. She stood in the middle of the terminal, alone, angry, frustrated. She had known what Scott was like when she married him and she loved him and was determined to stay with him and be a good wife, but ... sometimes he could drive her up the wall.
She drove home angry, wondering is he would ever take the time to listen to her, if he would ever regard her as anything more than another nice ornament to possess. She drove straight home and, tight-lipped, in spiteful defiance, she poured herself a good stiff drink.
It wasn't until the third drink that she suddenly gave out with a mischievous little giggle. She was sitting watching TV while a light, prepared dinner baked in the oven. She suddenly realized that she had the evening free, that she was her own keeper. With a smirk, she decided that she might as well be hanged for a horse thief and made up her mind she would just drive downtown. If she could find a place to park, if it was convenient, she just might go by the Pine Inn. And, if Marsha and Mike were in, if they were in the mood, if it was convenient, she just might go up to their room and see that picture.
"Why not?" she said out loud. She got up and looked for her purse. She could apologize and explain. Besides-her grin was loose and depraved, a kind of grin Scott had never seen-it would be like old times.
As it turned out, there was a parking space available on the little-used street behind the Pine Inn. Several parking spaces, in fact. Sheila went unsteadily into the old dignified inn telling herself she would leave immediately if she met anyone she knew or even if the lobby was busy.
It wasn't. It was deserted. She asked at the desk for Mike, hoping he would be out. She told herself that Mike was the type to dine out, to go out all dressed up and hit the bars before and after dinner.
He wasn't out. He picked up the phone and sounded genuinely delighted to hear Sheila's voice. He insisted that she come up to the room and Sheila finally said, "All right," in a tiny little voice. She hung up the lobby receiver with a little lewd tremor running through her body. She caught her breath, realizing it had been a long time since she had allowed herself to feel that way. She knew what it was like to revel in lewd, uninhibited behavior. She knew her own capacity for such feelings: a capacity that frightened her into leaving San Francisco because she had acquired the reputation and name of nymphomaniac. Once triggered and released, there wasn't anything she wouldn't do. In fact, there wasn't anything sexual that she hadn't already done.
She walked across the plush carpeted lobby with the tall grandfather clock ticking loudly and grandly, like some courtly guardian of eternity, measuring out the time. She walked with a loose wanton stride, her gypsy face dark, her nostrils flaring, her breasts jouncing and quivering ever so gently.
She rode the elevator up to their floor, found their room, and knocked boldly on the door.
Mike threw the door open as if he had been waiting. His legs and feet were bare and he wore an oriental-style robe. "Come on in and have a drink." It was obvious to Sheila by the way he moved and the way the robe fit him that he didn't have anything on underneath.
Sheila walked in and Mike shut the door as she looked at the sullen, hurt gaze of Marsha. She, too, was wearing a robe and little else, because Sheila could see an ample amount of her deep and fleshy cleavage. She sauntered across the room, one hand on her hip, glaring at Sheila. She sat down on the bed and crossed her legs while the robe slipped silken and silent off her knee, revealing once again Marsha's firm and curved leg and thigh, her skin bare and tanned. Sheila had forgotten how beautifully formed Marsha's legs and thighs were. A lubricious thrill swept, like rippling warm water, through her own thighs, and she felt lewd and slightly sluttish. Somehow, she was getting back at Scott. If he was going to be mad at her for having a lousy drink or two in some bar, she was really going to give him something to bitch about. She was going to so amaze him that his eyebrow would be permanently cocked; she was going to so startle him he would never forget it.
Marsha sat slouched on the bed, her knees crossed, showing lots of leg and jiggling cleavage. Her face looked debauched, with circles under her eyes, yet still wickedly attractive. Her breasts were big, nearly as big as Sheila's, and firm and jutting out at an enticing angle with her nipples tipping upward in a lewd, inviting way.
Languidly, she dragged on a homemade cigarette that was obviously marijuana, and looked sullenly at Sheila, a wet, hurt, look in her eyes.
Sheila stepped farther into the room. Mike stood by a small wet bar. The silence in the room was heavy and oppressive. Sheila smiled at Marsha and said, "Marsha, I'm a terrible bitch and I'm sorry."
Marsha relaxed on the bed, falling back on the bed on one elbow. She smiled absently as her gown fell open and both her breasts were completely exposed to view. Sheila saw that they were still firm and shapely, with the nipples visibly hardening. Marsha waved the cigarette. "Shit, I'm so stoned, I couldn't be mad at you."
Both of them laughed and Mike clapped his hands and said, "What will it be? Come on, let's have a drink."
Sheila settled into a big stuffed chair. "Make it a good Scotch for me."
"Me too." Marsha sat up, covering herself and offering the marijuana cigarette. Sheila took it without hesitation. "It's been a long time."
"Mmmmmm." Her eyes half closed, Marsha looked at Sheila's opulent body hidden beneath so much clothing. Naked, Sheila looked like some wild gypsy who should be in a harem. When Sheila was naked and moving sensuously, undulating, unashamed, brazen, lewd, she made men think of a Turkish whorehouse with all sorts of exotic and erotic pleasures. Once past a certain point, Marsha knew that Sheila was a panting, licking, sucking, caressing, undulating animal. "Yes," Marsha said in a smoky, throaty way, "It's been a long time."
Mike brought the drinks and they silently, looking at each other with knowing smirks, toasted one another. They drank and Mike slouched down on the bed next to Marsha and said, "So? Now are we friends?"
"Friends," Marsha said in her alcoholic whisper, smiling at Sheila.
"Friends," Sheila said, smiling at them both. "And I'm sorry for the way I treated you both."
"Forget it," Mike said, draining his glass and getting up and taking Marsha's from her and walking to the bar for quick refills. "Look," he said over his shoulder, "you're here. You came up here. Hell, forget it, we knew you didn't mean it. Hey, didn't we know she didn't mean it, Marsha?"
Marsha looked at Sheila from under her long false eyelashes and slowly smiled. "Mmmmmmmmmmm."
Mike came back and handed Marsha her fresh drink. Sheila couldn't help noticing it was straight whiskey. Mike took her glass from her hand without a word and walked back to the bar. "Something you could do for us...." His voice trailed off as he poured the drink.
"What's that?"
He came back with a deep drink, grinning. "Tell us where the action is."
"Huh?" Sheila grinned. "You're kidding. Action? Well, you could drive around the point and look at the surf. You could go for a walk on the beach. That's always fun. Or you could go shopping at the supermarket or you could go to the bars."
"Mmmmmmm. What happens in the bars?" Marsha asked.
Sheila smiled to herself. It had been a long time since she had talked in this way. With Scott, it wasn't the same. A different reality, he was as solid as a rock ... and about as funny as one, too. He probably wouldn't be able to understand the conversation she was having now. "Nothing happens in the bars. Too many well-heeled tourists. All that happens is that someone gets smashed, that's all. Lots of polite drunks, that's all."
Mike drank and asked, "No action, no kind?"
Sheila shook her head. "None that I know of. May be something happening in Monterey. Sometimes the paper talks about arresting a prostitute, but, outside of that, nothing else that I know of."
Mike grinned and said, "Not true."
Sheila took a drink of the smoky liquid that smoldered deep in her hips and thighs, then fused and smoked in her brain in such an enticing and teasing way. Already she was feeling horny. "Oh? What? And where?"
Mike drank while Marsha let out a throaty chuckle. Mike squinted one eye and pointed a finger. "You are the action in town and you're happening here. Now."