Chapter 6
Recriminations, conscience, the cold, ugly fact-after-the-matter. Sheila hadn't fallen in love and married Scott Baines lightheartedly. Conscience, guilt, anxiety, something made Sheila Baines wake up in the middle of the night and look around.
Her head was splitting and her stomach felt like it was ready to curdle and she was so exhausted that all her limbs felt as heavy as lead. She raised herself up with a little sick moan and looked around her with puffy eyes. Marsha and Mike lay sleeping as if they had been thrown down off a truck. Sheila squinted her eyes and saw that it was a quarter after four in the morning.
She collapsed quietly, barely stifling a sob. She looked up at the ceiling through tear-misted eyes. An image of Scott danced in her head. He was square but he was honest. He was insensitive and pompous at times, yet he was good to her and he was honest with her. Scott was like a rock, an anchor, a haven. Although he was masculine-a man's man-she knew he was capable of great tenderness and consideration.
So, lying in bed at a quarter after four in the morning with two fellow debauchers, Sheila began to cry. What would he-Scott-say if he knew how she had behaved? Could she look him in the face?
Slowly, Sheila got off the bed, and slowly, as quietly as possible, she crawled around and found her clothing. Her shoes were by the chair, her panties flung across the floor. Near the bed was her wrinkled and inside-out dress which she didn't even remember taking off. Perhaps it had been torn from her body or she herself had ripped it away. She didn't remember or care ... all she could think about was how terribly she had behaved and all because Scott wasn't understanding enough.
The wee small hours are a bad time to be depressed. Sheila felt mean and petty and dishonest and perverted and immoral. She felt everything bad she could think about herself and she cried softly as she dressed, glancing furtively at Mike and Marsha, sound asleep and naked.
At the door, she looked back once more, taking the whole scene in so she wouldn't forget it for the rest of her life. It was a familiar scene, one she had seen so many times before. Once it had been her whole life. Last night she had reverted, fallen back. Now it was in her past again. Grimly, tears welling again in her eyes, she resolved it would stay in her past.
She closed the door and walked down the hall to the elevator. In the elevator as it gently took her down to the red plush lobby of the old inn, she thought of Mike and Marsha. What, was she going to do about them? How could she explain them to Scott? Desperately, she knew she had to get them out of her life, remove them so that Scott would never meet them.
Down in the lobby with its red plush carpet and white painted walls, the desk clerk nodded and smiled sleepily, barely noticing her as she walked quickly by. Outside, it was dark and still. Carmel, in many ways, is a small town and, at four-thirty in the morning, the streets were absolutely silent. Nothing moved, and the sound of her heels clicking on the sidewalk seemed to echo for blocks. Her car was parked where she left it, the only one on the block. She drove home slowly, her pretty face grave, solemn.
She parked the car and let herself into their cottage as quietly as possible. Inside, the curtains drawn, a low light on to see by, she stripped naked and padded to the bathroom after putting away all her clothes. Scott would never notice that the dress was slightly torn, and if he did, she was already thinking of an alibi.
She snapped the lights on and stepped in front of the full-length mirror, examining her body with an apprehensive and critical eye. She heaved a sigh of relief ... there were no telltale bruises or black-and-blue marks. She turned the shower on full-blast and as hot as she could stand it, stepping under it and feeling the fine hard needle-points of water striking her body.
She soaped herself completely, shampooing her hair and smearing suds all over her body, all over, soaping her legs and thighs and stomach and breasts. Against all her fatigue, against all logic, she felt herself becoming lewdly excited as she soaped her breasts and her nipples that were slippery and impossible to hold. Her hands flew to her cunt and she soaped it and stroked it with her fingers, feeling wanton squirming excitement spreading through her loins.
With a little cry, she broke it off, rinsing her body completely and stepping out of the shower. No, she resolved, that life is behind me.
She toweled herself dry, used a drier on her hair, took two aspirin for her headache, and forced herself to go to bed, setting the alarm for eight-thirty. At nine-thirty, Scott would be landing at the airport, home from L.A. She snapped off the light and pulled the covers up. Survival, instinct, told her she had best get some sleep. Later she would deal with problems. She fell asleep as early morning birds fussed and chirped excitedly in the trees.
She awoke to the shattering clang of the alarm clock and hurriedly dressed for the drive to the airport.
On the way, she thought of Mike and Marsha and what she had done with them. She felt she could never permit herself to do such a thing again. If she did, she was afraid that she might go off the deep end and go back to that wild, debauched part of her life. Silently, she despaired that she was that way, that she loved and gloated over scenes of depravity. Try as she might, she knew she couldn't change her basic nature. No matter what, scenes like the night before were continually exciting her. Even if she simply remembered, in detail, what she did with Mike and Marsha, she knew she could and would get so aroused and insanely horny that she would take the first turn off the freeway and head back to the Pine Inn to find Mike and Marsha.
So, with a firm resolve, she gripped the wheel and used all her strength and character not to think about them and to concentrate instead on her relationship with Scott. She couldn't undo what she had done ... it was over, past. But she could change her ways ... she could make it up to him.
Why ... she wondered ... why? ... oh, why couldn't Scott be more sensual ... why couldn't he be more passionate?
Scott Baines was a little surprised at the ferocity with which his wife greeted him at the passengers' unloading gate. He spotted her looking like a wild flamenco dancer in the crowd and she ran to him, embracing him fiercely, kissing him and holding him with a feral intensity. "I'm so glad you're back!"
"So am I. Hey," he laughed, "take it easy, I was only gone overnight."
"I missed you so. Oh, how I wished you were here."
"Well, I'm home now," he said in that tone of voice that made her feel he was patting her on the head. "And I have news for you."
Sheila saw in an instant that he was excited and preoccupied with what he had been through in L.A. and she decided to take advantage of it, to urge him to talk about it. "Tell me everything."
They got his luggage and headed for the car with Scott looking smug and excited. "Well, in a nutshell, I've got the Bateman account."
"Honey! No! Really?"
"Well, only a portion of it. I'm to handle securities exchanges that happen through the Carmel offices. It doesn't mean a lot of money right away, but I've got my foot in the door. Honey, old man Bateman liked me. You know what he said?"
He told her in detail as she drove the car just what old Bateman had said to him. He talked excitedly all the way to Carmel, suddenly looking out the window and saying, "Hey, where are you going?"
"Home. Why?"
Scott looked at her as if she was an idiot for not understanding. "Home? I can't go home yet. I've got to go to the office."
"Why?"
"Why? Because I've got a lot to do. Tell you what, to celebrate, we'll go out to dinner tonight. We'll live it up and go to the Outrigger down on Cannery Row."
"Fine," Sheila said. Everything was working out. She felt that the Outrigger was a good place, the kind of place that Mike and Marsha wouldn't go to. Also, Scott's going to the office gave her a chance to call up Mike and Marsha and try to explain why she couldn't have them in her life any longer.
She kissed him goodbye at the office and drove home with his overnight bag. She was barely in the house before the phone rang, making her jump. It rang insistently while she stood over it, gathering her will and concentration in case it was Mike. She picked the phone up as if it might explode in her hand. "Hello?"
"What a sap I am. Listen, I really want to celebrate. Let's have lunch together. I hardly feel I've seen you."
"Fine. Where?"
"At the Pine Inn. See you there at noon."
-"Ah ... Scott?"
"Yes?"
"Not there. Let's make it a real celebration. How about Gallatin's for lunch?"
"Say, not a bad idea. Lots of lawyers and judges lunch there. Hey, I kind of like that, maybe even have a martini for lunch."
"Yes." Sheila's stomach lurched and turned sour at the thought. "I'll pick you up at the office."
She hung up and spent the rest of the morning trying to get herself ready for lunch. She had a seltzer and black coffee and looked at her features carefully in the mirror. She looked tired, and there were puffy circles under the eyes. A little eye makeup might hide them. She sat in front of her mirror, thinking only of her appearance and what lunch would be like. She rationalized that it was too early to call Mike and Marsha, that they wouldn't be up before one or two. Besides, she mused, they might be heading back up to San Francisco. She had forgotten to ask them how long they were staying. Perhaps it was only for overnight, Perhaps, she hoped and wished, they would leave today and she would never see or hear from them again. She concentrated on making her wild looks more sedately appealing and forgot about the pair, promising herself she would call them after lunch.
She didn't. She got through lunch with her confidence growing with every minute she spent in Scott's presence. With all his square qualities, with all his solid conservative thought and manner, she felt safe and secure. She was proud to be seen with some one so handsome and solid. He looked like a winner. They made an attractive and contrasting couple as they sat at lunch. Men at the bar stared at Sheila, at her brooding, thick-lipped, dark-eyed, gypsy good looks. They stared at her over their drinks or while their friends talked at their elbows. Men at the bar jockeyed and shifted for position so they could see her eating with her husband. Men stared until they caught her eye and Sheila would look and see the masked sexual hunger, the wild desire they would like to let loose on her if they had the chance. She saw the lusting dreams in their coveting stares and knew what they wanted. She would return their stares pretending, looking away, never letting them see that she understood and knew.
She made it through lunch, and by the time she got home she was exhausted and half sick from the martini she had drunk. She collapsed on the bed, telling herself she was too tired, that she would contact Mike and Marsha tonight. If they should call, she would be out. She barely felt she had strength to get some aspirin and take them and set the clock before she collapsed on the bed and slept.
She slept all afternoon and awoke with the alarm, washed her face, and drove to the office and picked up Scott. It was so good to see him and know she was going to be with him for the rest of the night.
Dinner was delicious, and she surprised herself by how hungry she was, realizing it had been a long while since she had a meal other than lunch. Her head was clear now and her stomach feeling good. Scott looked elegant in his best suit and she felt good in her newest dress. They ate steaks and then had an after-dinner drink while listening to the live entertainment.
They had several more drinks and then drove back to Carmel with Scott in an unusually genial mood. He didn't approve of being seen in bars at night. "I don't think it does us any good if it gets around town that we like to go to bars at night. I don't want anyone to think that Scott and Sheila Baines are part of the drinking crowd. You know," he would go on, lecturing, "that Carmel crowd drinks hard. How would it look to potential investors if it was known that Scott Baines ran around boozing every night?"
Sheila was amused. There was something so endearing in the way he moralized, something so American and decent and small-town. She loved him for it and the sober, wacky way he could contradict himself. After sermonizing some more and then recounting once again what old man Bateman had said, he announced. "I really feel like celebrating. Let's have a night cap, a little drink at the Mission Ranch."
Sheila smiled to herself. The Mission Ranch was one place where all the hard-core Carmel drinking crowd went. Situated in a quiet end of Carmel with a spectacular view of the ocean and the mountains, it sat on an edge of a marsh and bird sanctuary where the Carmel River flowed into the Pacific Ocean. A grouping of old white barn-like structures, it looked unpromising to the few tourists who strayed into that end of town. Old and established, out of the way, easy to get to, it was a perfect place for Carmelites to meet and let down their hair. It was said that more broken marriages and blasted reputations started at the Mission Ranch than at anyone's home. It was also known by locals as a good place to pick up attractive girls looking for a one-night stand. Sheila masked her amusement, thinking: just like him to want to go there.
There were two bars in two separate buildings and they choose the piano bar and found it full of singing, drinking, laughing men and women. They squeezed their way to the bar and Scott ordered drinks from the small dark Filipino behind the bar. They got their drinks and stood looking at the crowd. Sheila watched her husband, knowing he seldom drank, that he was excited and elated, that the trip had been a success, that he was having more to drink tonight then he ordinarily had in a week.
She watched him get a little tipsy and mellow and saw him eyeing other women. She smiled to herself, thinking that his idea of a wild time was tame compared to what she had been through. She knew, when they finally got home, he was going to be amorous and make a pass.
He did. Sheila had to steel herself against his advances, being deliberate in her actions. It was too soon after Mike and Marsha, but she mustn't give herself away. They had sex in bed, under the covers, with the lights turned out. She close her eyes tight and tried to think of other things while he grunted and fucked her. She used all her willpower and physical strength to do it, never allowing herself to give in to her instincts and lewd, insane desires. The Pine Inn would always remain in her mind as a symbol of her lust, but all that was behind her now.
She got through the sex, the lovemaking. She pretended to her husband that she liked it and they both fell asleep and didn't wake until the alarm went off and they got up to face a routine day.
The days after Scott came back raced by. Suddenly, he had been home for three days and Sheila hadn't had the time or chance to call the Pine Inn. Each time the phone rang, she cringed inside and a cold numbing feeling gripped her insides. Each time it was a routine call. She didn't hear from Mike and Marsha and always found something else that she had to do when it came time to call them.
The evenings whirled by. They went out every night, once even driving all the way down to Big Sur to Nepenthe's where they had dinner and Scott finally, irritably, complained about the hippies. "I mean this is a beautiful place, but, for my money, I'd rather be someplace else. The food's good, the view is magnificent, but the place is full of phonies running around with long hair and faggot jeans. Everybody is posing and looking arty and the windows are dirty."
Each evening was different. They drove to Lover's Point restaurant in Pacific Grove and had a quiet dinner without drinks and watched a long rosy sunset. The next night they drove down to Fisherman's Wharf and had dinner at the Ginza, eating Japanese-style in their stocking feet.
The days simply went by with Sheila postponing the inevitable. The time with Scott was precious. She had a sense of urgency about her, like a person who had been told she only had so long to live and wanted the remaining time to count for something, like a guilty felon who knew she was going to be found out and wanted something good to remember after she was sentenced. She would think of Mike and Marsha in fleeting moments and hope for the best, that they would leave her alone, that the night at the Pine Inn had been enough.
Yet, deep down, she knew it hadn't been enough. Deep down she knew she would see them again, that the evening had only served to whet their appetites and imaginations. Instinctively, dreading, resigned, deep down, she knew she would see them again, that they were far from through with her. They knew they could get her to do anything they wanted.
She knew she would see them again and yet was thrown completely off guard when someone knocked on the front door while she was doing housework. She didn't think they would come to her house. In Carmel, there are no street addresses. Carmelites like their privacy and, if they wish, they are hard to find. Unless a visitor has a description of the house and a cross street for reference, it is virtually impossible to find a particular residence. So Sheila really was amazed when she opened the door and saw Mike and Marsha standing at her door.
"How did you find me?" She couldn't help but blurt it out.
Mike looked a little bored. "The phone book says what street you're on." He ticked facts off on his fingers. "You said your husband was in investments. There's only one brokerage in Carmel and all we did was park across the street and follow home the likeliest candidate. We hit it right on the button the first try. So, we waited until your husband went to work and then we came here with just one question." He stood looking at Sheila with a disgusted kind of patience. Marsha was looking around with an air of contempt for the house, the cottage and the garden.
"What?" Sheila asked in a little voice.
"Just what the hell is going on with you?"
"Who," Marsha asked in a husky voice with one hand on her hip, "who the hell do you think you are?"
Hurriedly, she led them into the house, hoping the neighbors hadn't seen them. Mike's hair was too long and Marsha looked too exotic, too heavily made up and sexual for Carmel. In downtown Carmel, men would stare. In front of their cottage, she would attract more attention.
They came in and Marsha walked around the living room with her hands on her hips, defiant, taking the place in with a bored look. She looked at Sheila and said, "How cute."
Mike looked around and whistled. "Hey, Sheila, this isn't you."
"No, Mike," Marsha corrected in her throaty voice, "This is Sheila. This is the real Sheila. The itsy-poo Sheila, the Sheila who pretends she's a good little girl playing with dolls and having tea."
Sheila closed her eyes and fought for control. "All right, I'm sorry. I should have called you."
"Sheila." Mike stood in front of her. "You don't owe us a thing. No strings. We're your friends. We know you. We know what you're like, and believe me, all this lace curtains and cottage crap ain't you."
Tears welled in her eyes. They weren't being fair. "How do you know? How can you judge me?"
Mike looked serious. "Because you judge us. Now you listen." He pointed a finger at her. "We're good enough for you when you want us. Rest of the time, you don't want to know us."
"That's not true!"
"No?" Mike swaggered in front of her while Marsha draped herself on the couch and casually lit a cigarette. "Okay. I'll take you at your word. How about all of us getting together for dinner tonight at the Hog's Breath Inn? Huh?"
"Yes," Marsha intoned. "I'd love to meet that cute husband of yours."
Sheila raked her hand through her thick mane of hair and looked around desperately as if the answer was in the air or lying somewhere in the room. "Look, I've got to explain."
"You sure do," Marsha said, casually flicking ashes on the rug.
"You see ... my life ... well ... my life is different now ... I'm not the same person...." She stood before them full of guilt and anxiety. She didn't like them being in her home, she didn't like them knowing where she lived. Scott was a fanatic on smoking, and no matter how much she aired the house out he might smell smoke.
"I'll say," Marsha blew out a cloud of smoke and looked at Sheila with scorn. "A hypocrite. God, I never had you figured that way."
Mike shook his head in disbelief. "I never did, either. I never figured you to sell out so cheap. I never figured you to use your friends. I never figured you to be ashamed of your friends and what you did. Tell me something." Mike stepped closer and his voice was low. "Are you using your husband for what you want? Will you be ashamed of him if you find something better?"
The words stung and seemed to sink home like acid scalding through her skin. She saw their hostile, contemptuous looks and didn't know what to say.
Sheila sat down, almost falling into the chair. She took a deep breath. "It isn't that way at all. The other night was a mistake. I'm sorry. I should have called you and said so. I didn't have the courage. I was just weak that night. I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Mike and Marsha exchanged a look. "You sure as hell didn't act sorry."
"You acted real." Marsha threw back her head. Her face looked wicked and oddly attractive to Sheila as she laughed in her raucous throaty way.
"I slipped. I ... went back." Sheila couldn't look at them.
"Hey, dig this." Mike was contemptuous. "Sounds like a revival meeting confession. Sheila's admitting her sins."
Shame mingled with indignation and the two melded into a frustrated rage. Her fists clenched, she got to her feet. "I've heard enough! I don't have to take this! I hate you! I hate you both! Get out, get out, both of you, and don't ever come back!"
To Sheila, it seemed as if they all stood and sat like statues for a space of a second or two, then Mike broke the spell by turning to Marsha. They exchanged a look. Mike looked back at Sheila for a long moment until he saw her voluptuously curved lower lip quiver and he slowly, shook his head. "No," he whispered. "No, we won't get out ... not until we've taught you a lesson."