Chapter 11
Jo Ann slammed her fist against the wall and gave way to the rush of tears that rose in her throat and choked off her breath. Damn that woman, she thought, realizing the impotence of her anger, but hoping its release would restore control to her trembling body. The day had been a total fiasco. Everything that had happened was bad. And now, not only had Laura made a scene in front of all those people, but she had gone off, god only knew where, with Leslie. And again, Jo Ann was left alone.
The sound of shuffling footsteps closing up behind her reached her ears, but Jo Ann didn't turn around. Whoever it was, she wasn't interested. She had had enough of people for one day ... enough of the wrong kind of people to last her for a lifetime.
"What's all the big fuss about?" Cooky's voice boomed down the hall. "That dame hit you or something?"
"Forget it, please." Jo Ann hurriedly brushed her palms across her eyes. "Nothing's happened. Nothing at all."
"Sure, sure." Cooky sidled up to Jo Ann and leaned against the wall. "You go ahead and play the brave, understanding wife. See how far it'll get you."
"I'm not playing anything." Jo Ann resented the inference and its possibility of truth. "I just didn't want her to run off, that's all."
"What difference does it make?" Cooky reached into her pocket and casually pulled out a package of cigarettes. "So she goes off, so another dame walks in. That's life. Take it or leave it."
"Very funny." Jo Ann accepted a cigarette without smiling and waited for a light.
"You wanna go back to the party with me?" Cooky's voice retained a nonchalance which conceded nothing in the way of serious concern for Jo Ann's state of dismay.
"No thanks." Jo Ann shook her head and winced at the thought of facing all those people after what they had seen and heard.
"Good, then I'll get your coat." Cooky disappeared into the apartment before Jo Ann had a chance to refuse the offer. "You and I can have a better party all by ourselves," she said a few moments later, returning with Jo Ann's coat draped over her arm.
"If you don't mind, I think I've had quite enough party for one night." Jo Ann took her coat and started to put it on.
"Okay, have it your way." Cooky's voice was suddenly razor sharp. "You wanna mope? So mope. Carry on like a sixteen-year-old brat. Why the hell should I give a damn?" She turned and walked back toward Leslie's open door.
"Wait a minute, Cooky," Jo Ann called after her, feeling trapped at having to be polite to a girl she hardly knew and didn't care for at all, but unable to think of a graceful way to give her the brush. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"I'll live." Cooky turned around, her expression sour. "You go ahead and run after your girl. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll catch her before she fills up your side of the bed with that other dame."
The possible accuracy of Cooky's words stopped Jo Ann short in the middle of what would have been an angry retort. She had just about decided to go back to the apartment alone, to wait for Laura. But the possibility of finding Laura already there with Leslie seemed to put going home out of the question.
"Well, are you staying or going?"
"I guess I'm staying." Jo Ann heard herself pronouncing her own doom, but there was nothing she could do. If Cooky had planned it that way, the situation couldn't have been more disadvantageous for Jo Ann. Now, she had no place to go ... and if Cooky was right about Laura, nothing to lose.
"That's much better, kid." Cooky walked back down the hall toward Jo Ann, extracting a key chain from her pocket as she moved.
"Where are we going?" Jo Ann asked, falling reluctantly into step beside her.
"Not too far." Cooky grinned slyly and led Jo Ann down to the other end of the hall. "Here we are," she said, slipping a key into the lock.
"You live here, too?" Jo Ann blurted.
"No, I'm the French maid." Cooky chuckled at her own humor and nipped on a light switch. "Come on," she beckoned from inside the doorway. "Nobody's going to bite you."
Jo Ann smiled stiffly and walked into the living room. The layout of the apartment was the same as Leslie's. And the surroundings were just as shabby.
"Don't mind the condition of the place." Cooky seemed to read the thought that passed across Jo Ann's mind at the sight of the unkempt apartment. "I haven't had the dough to fix it up yet. But it'll be nice, one of these days."
"Oh, I'm sure it will." Jo Ann strongly hoped she sounded sincere. The awareness of having been caught being judgmental embarrassed her and knotted her tongue. "How are you going to decorate?"
"Oh, I don't know." Cooky shrugged and walked over toward a small kitchen area. "Early Salvation Army, I guess. Depends on whether or not I inherit my million." She glanced back over her shoulder at Jo Ann, still standing sheepishly inside the doorway. "Come on in and make yourself at home."
"Thank you." Jo Ann glanced across the living room to an over-stuffed chair on the far side. Anxious to escape Cooky's disquieting invitation, she hurried toward the chair. A minute later, a spring pinched her painfully.
"You gotta watch out for that one," Cooky said, laughing loudly at the sight of Jo Ann's upward leap.
"So I see." Jo Ann rubbed the sore spot and walked back to the stained porcelain sink where Cooky was standing.
"Drinks'll be out in a minute," Cooky said, holding a glass under the running tap. "Scotch, wasn't it?"
Jo Ann merely nodded and remained silent. Suddenly the dingy apartment, the whole situation in which she found herself, seemed unreal. Laura ... a momentary step in the wrong direction. Cooky and all those other women like her ... a desperate, pathetic imitation of life. And yet, there she was, caught right in the middle of the sad, pointless fantasy, with no foreseeable means of escape.
How had she wound up there, Jo Ann asked herself, without finding any answer. How had she managed to exist for the past week without any need or sense of free will? Was she merely a puppet to be moved from setting to setting for the entertainment of others?
And where, when it was over, would the chaos end?
The feel of a cold glass pressed into her damp palm chilled the thoughts from Jo Ann's brain. Muttering a dull thank you, she gulped the stiff shot of scotch and let it burn through her stomach. To hell with sobriety and common sense, she told herself glumly. It didn't pay to make plans anyhow. They never worked out.
"Now, where was I?" Cooky began again, beer can in hand.
"I was just wondering the same thing," Jo Ann commented, knowing she wouldn't find the answer tonight, possibly never. Chances were, she would stay until morning with Cooky. And after that, she didn't know ... and wasn't sure she really cared.
"Come on," Cooky perked up. "No more of this depressed nonsense. Let's dance."
"Suits me." Jo Ann smiled limply and watched Cooky fumble with a knob on a cracked plastic radio.
The music blasted through the room and Jo Ann shrank from the brashness of the sound. A moment later, Cooky found a soft instrumental number and an atmosphere of bleak calm returned to the room.
Without feeling or enthusiasm, Jo Ann moved into Cooky's embrace and followed her sluggish footsteps around the wooden floor. The liquor inside her was making Jo Ann's stomach churn and she worked to concentrate on other things, pleasant things like daytime and fresh air, to keep from being nauseous. And when Cooky coaxed Jo Ann's head down onto her shoulder, she didn't have the energy to resist.
Thin lips kissed the lobe of Jo Ann's ear in an attempt to arouse her. Jo Ann remained politely still, vaguely willing to be excited if such a thing were possible in her frame of mind. Anything, to distract her from the mood of hopelessness that had settled around her outlook and dragged her down toward apathy.
"You still worried about your girl?" Cooky asked without breaking the tempo of the dance.
"Nope." Jo Ann's answer was immediate and sincere. "I'm not worried about anything."
"Good."
The sound of the music was all she heard for a long while. With more of a feeling of fatigue than pleasure, Jo Ann closed her eyes and tried to subordinate her misery to the music's gentle invitation to happiness. There was a time, she remembered, when a tinkling piano and the warmth of an embrace was enough to blot out anything bad. Why couldn't she react the same way now? Maybe she wasn't trying hard enough.
Pulling herself a little closer against Cooky's body, Jo Ann revolved her hips and hoped for something resembling excitement. If she could only lose herself in physical arousal, she thought ... if she could just trade the chaos in her mind for the more pleasurable chaos of the body ... then, perhaps, with the arrival of physical fulfillment, she could find an inner peace.
As though in answer to the unspoken plea, Cooky raised her hand and began gently to stroke Jo Ann's hair. Jo Ann remained nestled against the woman's shoulder, eager to be swept away, desperate to feel loved.
The hardness of the wall pressed flat against Jo Ann's back as Cooky danced her over to the side of the room. Jo Ann kept her eyes closed, not wanting to see the hunger she knew would shine on the woman's face, but eager, rather, to have that desire communicated and to share in its pleasure.
Cooky's hands slid silently up the sides of Jo Ann's sweater and stopped at the bottom of her brassiere. Jo Ann stood, waiting for the touch that she knew must follow, waiting for the thrill she hoped would accompany the caress.
Trembling fingers plied the softness of Jo Ann's willing breasts, caressing, fondling, seeking to excite response.
Jo Ann took a deep breath and wondered why she remained so numb. Was she already past the point of feeling, past the stage of seeking pleasure in the nearness of another body? She must try harder, for a second chance might never come.
Jo Ann reached for the belt of Cooky's slacks and tugged at her shirttails. Neither woman spoke as Jo Ann's hands crept beneath the folds of material and came to rest on naked flesh.
The feel of Cooky's eager mouth, hovering on the edge of a kiss, reached Jo Ann. Instinctively, she parted her lips and leaned forward. Her tongue darted out, inviting Cooky's passion, begging for it to be contagious.
The kiss was hard. Jo Ann felt her lips pressed painfully against her teeth. For a moment, Stan's face flashed through her brain, but the last remains of the instinct of self-preservation forced it away, beyond the realm of consciousness. A warmth born of closeness began to envelop her body. Jo Ann let her tongue revolve inside Cooky's mouth. It was working ... the need had returned. Now, it must be nurtured and used.
"You want to go into the bedroom?" Jo Ann asked matter-of-factly when she could speak again.
"No, not yet." Cooky's voice was thick with desire.
Have it your way, Jo Ann thought, sighing as Cooky's fingers squeezed the hardened tip of one breast and then the other. As the waistband of her sweater was pulled up, Jo Ann felt the coldness of the wall on her bare back. So what, she told herself as the momentary shock began to subside. Soon, she wouldn't think about cold ... or anything, except her body's pleasure.
The clasps on her bra gave way quickly beneath Cooky's expert touch. Tingling mounds of flesh fell into view and Jo Ann smiled as Cooky's mouth descended. The moist, satisfying contact thrilled her and she pressed herself to Cooky's lips. It was good. And quickly getting better.
The grating sound of the zipper on Jo Ann's slacks went practically unheard as the flesh beneath quivered with expectant awareness. Jo Ann pulled in her stomach while Cooky ripped open a button and tugged at the black material. The slacks slid down until they were bunched around Jo Ann's ankles.
Jo Ann stood very still, enjoying a trail of tingling kisses across her naked belly. She felt her knees go weak and quickly stiffened. She wanted to remain standing. She wanted to enjoy the ecstasy yet to come. But standing still, she knew, was going to be difficult.
"Let's get rid of this," Cooky rasped, pulling the wrinkled slacks over Jo Ann's sneakers and tossing them aside.
Jo Ann yearned to remove the rest of her clothing, but she didn't dare move. She was happily aware of her body, delicately suspended at the edge of violent arousal. She fought not to give way to a need to sink to the floor and pull Cooky down with her. It would be so easy, she knew, to lose herself within a frenetic circus of flailing limbs. But she also knew that it was better to wait and take the most pleasure from each moment. To rush back to reason would be to defeat the entire purpose of the act.
The elastic band at the top of her panties stretched willingly over Jo Ann's hips and then slipped down to her thighs. Jo Ann pressed her knees together as a sudden, momentary fear overwhelmed her. Then she remembered that she was safe and allowed Cooky to remove the garment.
A muffled gasp of delight escaped Cooky's lips as she pressed them against smooth, willing flesh. Jo Ann moaned r once with delicious frustration as those lips teased and played around the creaminess of her thighs and then trailed back up to her stomach.
Pulsating breasts yielded to the explorations of searching fingers. Jo Ann hunched her shoulders as Cooky rubbed her palms against the hardened points of dark nipples and pressed them inward. Her whole body was alive now, ready to receive Cooky's attentions, frantic to know complete satisfaction.
"More ... more..." Jo Ann begged as Cooky's mouth returned to the throbbing flesh.
Unable to control herself a moment longer, Jo Ann reached down until she had found Cooky's bobbing head and made it a prisoner between her hands. Holding it tightly, she pulled it close, pressing against the temples as a fire bolt of contact spread its hot tentacles of sensation around every pore of her body.
The hard wooden floor softened beneath the soles of her feet and Jo Ann felt herself sinking downward. Pressing her palms flat against the wall behind her, she slowed her descent until she traveled the endless distance to a sitting position.
The scraping sound of Cooky's heels lasted only a moment. Jo Ann raised her hips and rocked slowly back and forth as a renewed excitement thrilled her body. She didn't have to coax Cooky anymore. The woman went willingly and skillfully to her flesh and soon, it was throbbing through the final moments...
Jo Ann felt her being soar through the blackness around her and revel in the fury of completion. She heard the loud gasping sound of her own voice, testifying without words to the totality of her body's joy. But she didn't try to silence herself. The moment was perfect in its success, but even as Jo Ann experienced it, she felt the intensity begin to wane and she couldn't help but sob. The end had come and its aftermath could only be sadness.
The coldness slowly returned to her body and Jo Ann reached for her underwear. Beside her, she knew that Cooky was resting, waiting perhaps to receive some of the same pleasure she had given to Jo Ann. It would be hard to face the woman, once she knew her cause was hopeless. The sooner Jo Ann could leave, the better.
"Can I see you again sometime?" Cooky asked meekly when Jo Ann had finished dressing.
Jo Ann just smiled. It was kinder than saying no and it served the same purpose.
A hand closed softly, pleading, around Jo Ann's knee. Without looking around, she gently extricated herself from Cooky's grasp and walked toward the door, picking up her coat on the way out.
A silence from the direction of Leslie's apartment drifted down the hall to confirm Jo Ann's suspicions. It was time to go. She turned around in the hallway, but only in time to see Cooky's apartment door close behind her. A lock clicked.
Now, she had no choice. Aching legs carried Jo Ann toward the staircase. She didn't know yet what was in store for her, but she knew that she must go home. Home ... to Laura. The party was over.