Chapter 3
It was nearly six in the evening before Frieta returned to the apartment heavily laden with packages, consisting of hat boxes, shoe boxes, underclothing, hose, a green purse, another brown one and a purple handbag.
Rain was still falling, but not quite as hard as it had been. She came into the front room and dumped all her new things upon the empty divan, because Eddie had moved. He was in the kitchen, not so drunk as he had been before she had left for town. He was cooking meat balls and spaghetti, his special dish. The pleasant aroma reminded Frieta that she hadn't eaten since breakfast.
Before she could reach the kitchen door he was blocking her path, dressed in trousers, wearing one of Alice's tie aprons. He grinned, very handsome, he took her into his arms. They kissed. Her own hands clawed at his shoulders. She felt that special part of him again, growing rigid, stiffly against her body. She wanted to pull him into the bedroom this time, but fearful that Alice might not work the second shift, after all, quenched the idea, and also, made a sense of dread overwhelm her pending desires.
"Gee," she sighed, brushing him aside, "that smells delicious, Eddie." She looked over at the kitchen table. Plates had been set, knives and forks and spoons. For three. He didn't know that Alice wouldn't be there. Perhaps his idea was to tell her about them after they had eaten. Alice would be able to digest their guilt much better on a full stomach.
He was looking back towards the divan where she had placed all her purchases. Then he turned back to her, somewhat pleased at her buying spree. It gave him a lift to be able to make such a pretty young girl happy.
She was washing her hands at the sink, now, readying herself to eat. He was still watching her, his dark eyes glued to the curves of her hips, the slant of her complete figure. He was gloating at her as if he could not believe he had seen her without any clothes on, and not to speak of having pleasured her.
When she turned back to the table and pulled back a chair to sit down he was still standing at the door wearing a nervous expression. Their eyes met, and she giggled, because he looked so funny, as if he was completely lost.
"What's th' matter, Eddie?" she asked. "Are you sick?"
"Hardly, sugar. I was thinkin'. I got to think right good, now for sure. Don't you reckon?"
She sat down at the table and placed the knife on the right side; he had been careless.
"I don't know," she said. "What's so deep that you can't figure out?"
"Us."
"You can skip it, honey," she told him. "If your food's ready, give a starved gal something to eat. Alice phoned to say that she wouldn't be coming home until morning."
His face lifted. He was relieved, somewhat. "How come?" he asked.
She giggled again. "She's working another shift. Rose, the other waitress, never showed up. Come on, honey. Let's eat"
After they had eaten, they washed dishes together and cleaned up the kitchen. Later they retired into the front room.
Frieta spent the next hour opening her new things and putting them on for him to see and comment on how she looked in them. She modeled for him, and was flattered by his constant praise in her taste and her preference to women's wear.
When he was tired of watching her display, he mentioned for her to hide everything from Alice until they could think of a plan to tell her just how they felt towards each other. Frieta gathered all her things, replacing them into their respective boxes, and concealed them under the bed, out of Alice's eyesight.
At a quarter to eight, she had shed her clothes and donned a lavender nylon robe of her own, which she had just purchased. Eddie was outstretched on the divan. He was drinking again.
She dropped down across his lap, embracing his shoulders, kissing him deeply, while his tapering fingers crawled along her left thigh and felt like crabs along her naked flesh.
"Do you really love me, Eddie?" she asked spitefully. "I'm thinking that you just bought me this afternoon."
"I'm mad after you, Frieta, Plain mad. No dame's worth a thousand bucks. Don't you know that. When I give that much to a skirt, well, she's got me by the neck. I'm under her yoke. I'll bleed and sweat for her. Maybe, even, die."
She giggled from his words, which seemed more poetic than plain reasoning. She kissed him, and pressed her tongue between his lips and caused them to part so she could tongue him, a little. Most teenagers kissed that way. It made the feeling come. Made her giddy, almost squirm in his lap. She loved it and needed it. She felt herself wasted so many days, here alone with nothing to do. Now this was living. She must not louse up such rewarding sweetness. Here was something which pleased her, made time stop, or slip past faster. She didn't care which. In a man's arms, a big man's arms.
"When you gonna tell Alice?" she inquired. "Tonight? Or tomorrow, or when?"
"I'm goin' for a walk tonight," he said. "Can't see her before tomorrow. Won't that be time enough, sugar?"
"Sure. I reckon. Only, where're you goin'? I thought we could ... oh, please, Eddie!"
His fingers were between her thighs, making her twist, tremble and squirm on his lap. Fire leaped into the pit of her stomach. Her lips parted. She thrust her mouth to his. Madly her fingers clawed at his hair.
"Please, Eddie . ... please!"
He got the message. He picked her up and carried her through the doorway into the bedroom. There he placed her gently on the bed. He stood back and smiled at her. His dark eyes were devilish, somewhat bloodstained. He managed to get his trousers off, while she found her own fingers fumbling with the nylon robe to remove it from her body. He turned out the fight. Thoughts of darkness stimulated the thrill in her, created a savage lust in her which she had never felt before.
As she felt him beside her, she quickly parted her legs and felt her flesh grow numb as he contacted her. Sweetness poured through her veins. Her flanks quivered, and she lifted herself more, eager. Her buttocks flattened against his hands, and her hips raced with incredible energy as he matched her wild pace.
At two-thirty a.m. he was gone. He had left two hours before, stating he had to get in a card game somewhere near Fifth and Osage. She didn't question him. He had worn her out, given her a sound working over. She felt gentle and possessed. Her fire had smouldered. Her demanding thirst was quenched, well satisfied.
Frieta lay wide awake. It was hardly possible for her to sleep, knowing that she was too madly in love with Eddie to live. She had begged him to take her with him but he had refused. There was no need to make matters any worse than they already were. After all, Alice at least deserved a break.
Alice came home at two-forty. Frieta heard her slow footsteps on the stairs, and in order to pretend she was asleep, she turned her head to the wall and covered her head with the covers. She was in her own room, and Alice wouldn't bother to wake her. Her guilt was too compelling to confront her mother. It was better for her to pretend sleep.
Alice unlocked the door, turned on the front room light and flung her handbag on the divan. She gave a tired sigh, as if the sixteen hours of drudgery she had put in at Smiley's had just about murdered her. The detective had not picked her up at six because she had to work the second shift, so Smiley had driven her home after the joint had closed.
Alice shed her rain cape, shoes and skirt. Then she walked over to Frieta's room door, opened it, turned on the light to see if her daughter was in.
Indeed Frieta was home. The covers were tucked snugly about her shoulders, and Alice assumed she was sound asleep. So she turned out the light and closed the door.
Back in the front room again, she flung herself on the divan and lit a cigarette. She wondered if Eddie had showed up, and since there was nothing to give her a cue that he had, she assumed that he hadn't. Frieta had made certain that all his cigarette butts and his whisky bottle were thrown in the trash out of her mother's eyesight.
When Alice had finished smoking the cigarette, she undressed right in the front parlor. She wished for a drink, and was angry at herself for refusing a bottle of gin which the cook had offered to buy for her to take home. She had refused that fat sonofabitch on purpose, she thought. He was always feeling her tits, and brushing against her rear as if she was a whore. She knew well enough what he was after, without all his shimming round and pestering her like a goof. She had a better set-up than that bastard, she imagined. Eddie was young, not in his fifties like the old cook. She wanted a young man who didn't have to plead with himself when the time was ripe.
Alice gave a hard sigh, discontented, of course. Then she peeled off the last of her garments, leaving them lay, on the divan. She was nude when she crossed the room to the light switch. She turned out the light and entered her own bedroom. She turned on a light, saw that Frieta had done nothing to her bed, nor the room, and with a disgusted sigh, turned the light back out and crawled into the bed with the sickening thought of having to get back up at eight to return to work again.
"Goddamn my life," she swore. She wanted to feel sorry for herself, but she dare not become so feeble-minded. She had tried time after time to meet some guy who would be decent enough to marry her and give her a nice home. That was all she wanted out of life, a decent guy to be true and honest to her. Always, despite how nice and kind she was to her lovers, she seemed to get the raw deal. How was she to ever break such ugly vicissitudes of life which always plunged her welfare and desires into such defeatism?
Alice was exhaustedly tired, having been on her feet all through the day. She had hardly lain down before she was sound asleep.