Chapter 2
Janet Markell was two miles away at the moment when Jack Donovan was making love to his secretary. Janet was in an office in the mid-Eighties, just to the east of Madison Avenue. She was visiting her psychoanalyst.
The analyst's name was Myron Gerber He was 45, and had been healing the suffering souls of over-privileged men and women for twelve years He was a lean, owlish-looking man who wore horn-rimmed glasses chewed unlit cigars without ever lighting them, and worried mightily about his own troubles most of the time. His troubles were not sexual, as were those of most of his clients, but financial. It cost him $60 a month to rent his office, and $550 a month more to rent his nearby apartment Even though he extracted $20 to $30 an hour from the women who consulted him, and even though he was very much in demand and rarely earned less than $500 a week from his practice, he was hard put to keep up with his own overhead.
But Dr. Gerber managed to keep his own troubles out of sight while listening to those of his clients. Most of his clients were women. Most of them had sex troubles.
Most of them, as a matter-of-fact, were very much like Janet Markell. So much like her, indeed, that Dr. Gerber sometimes had trouble remembering whose symptoms were whose from one session to the next. That was why he took such copious notes.
Janet looked like so many of the others-young, though not too young, and chic, though no fashion plate of the Duchess of Windsor school, and elegant, and pretty, and not visibly unhappy, but oh-so-sad down below the surface.
They sat facing each other. There was a couch in the room, a fine nine-foot couch that Freud himself would have been proud of. But Dr. Gerber did not believe in imposing his own rules on the patient. If the patient did not care to use the couch, the patient did not have to. The patient could assume any position she pleased.
Janet didn't like to use the couch. "It makes me feel so stereotyped," she told Dr. Gerber on her first visit "Like somebody in a New Yorker cartoon, you know? Do T have to use the couch?"
"Not if you don't want to," Dr. Gerber told her, his voice a soft, reassuring baritone.
"Do you want me to?"
"I'd prefer it," he admitted. "But T won't compel you The time will come when you trust me enough to take the couch voluntarily. Until then, sit where you like."
That was six months ago, and Janet had still not come to the point where she cared to use the couch Dr. Gerber had not pressured the issue, of course And so Janet went on facing him across his desk She wanted to see his facial reactions as she talked to him.
Not that they were very revealing Half the time, at least, Dr Gerber did not react at all-hardly seemed to be listening to her The rest of the time, he chewed furiously on the soggy stump of his cigar, but his expression was never a readable one.
He said little. He listened, and nodded sometimes, and chewed.
"I wonder if it's because I never had any children," she said. "Maybe that's the reason I've lost interest in sleeping with Fred. A denial of the maternal instinct leading to a denial of the sexual impulse. Would you say there's any truth to that?"
"Could be."
"You don't sound like you think there is."
"It's hard to say, Mrs. Markell It's an interesting theory. But I wish you wouldn't sit there theorizing You do too damn much theorizing as it is. T wish you'd get past the intellectual layer to the emotional."
"I try, Dr. Gerber. God knows I try! But I can't get there! I think too much!"
"Mmm."
"Maybe that's the source of my trouble. Thinking. I'm in a rut. I sit here going back and forth over the same old things. But maybe what I need is to shake myself up a little. To do something wild, something spontaneous and unpredictable, like-like taking a lover."
She stopped, shocked at herself.
"Go on," Dr. Gerber prompted. "Follow that line of thought. Don't just let it dry up and die there."
"Maybe-maybe-" she faltered. "Maybe a lover would help. To rekindle the spark of excitement in me. To get me going again. Maybe even making Fred a little jealous, maybe that would help-" She was silent a long moment. Dr. Gerber chewed thoughtfully on his cigar. He never broke a silence. He collected his fee whether or not anyone said anything at all the whole session, and he could make out a case for fifty minutes of silence as being meaningful and revelatory.
She looked at him. "What do you think, Dr. Gerber? Do you think I ought to take a lover?"
He never, never gave a direct answer to a leading question like that. Never. Janet knew it, even as she asked.
Dr. Gerber's eyes flickered opaquely. He shifted the cigar from one corner of his wide mouth to the other and delivered the answer she knew was coming:
"What I think about your taking a lover doesn't matter, Mrs. Markell. What do you think about the idea?"
Fred Markell gripped the receiver tightly and listened to the ringing of the phone. There were three rings. Then a professional operator-voice said crisply, "Whom Ho you wish to speak to, please?"
Markell hesitated a moment, half tempted to hang up and forget the whole crazy idea. "A-Anita," he said.
"Yes, sir. Certainly, sir." Strict mechanical properness, though the answering service operator almost certainly knew she was working for a whore. "She is not available at the moment, sir. May I have your number and the time you would prefer to be called back, please?"
"Yes," Markell said He moistened his lips, squeezed the receiver tensely, gave the operator his number "Have her call me before half past five. That's my business number, you understand."
"Certainly, sir And the name?"
He paused a moment, wondering. "Fred," he said. "Just Fred"
"Thank you, sir."
There was a click Markell put the receiver down slowly, with something of a sense of anticlimax So that was all there was to it, he thought, if you wanted the services of a beautiful and passionate wench just call up and leave your telephone number. And then wait. Wait and wait and wait.
He tried to do his regular afternoon work There were important papers to sign, urgent phone calls to return, complex documents to draft He worked with only half his mind. His concentration centered on this girl, this Anita.
What would she be like?
A tall stacked blonde half his age. That was what Jack Donovan had told him. A knockout.
He wondered. If she was really as beautiful as all that, he considered, why would she be in that sort of business? Why not be a movie star, a model, or even some executive's wife? Why should a really good-looking top-notch girl become a call girl?
Markell knew he was being naive. Obviously she was good-looking, or Donovan would never have recommended her in the first place. After all, Donovan had his own reputation as a connoisseur of woman-flesh to maintain and uphold.
So maybe the girl just liked being what she was. Or found that she made more money that way than any other. Who knew the reason? Who could ever understand the first little thing about what made a woman tick?
Not me, Markell admitted bleakly.
As the afternoon wore along, he grew more and more impatient. Most likely she slept late, till two or three or maybe even four in the afternoon, he figured. And then she woke, and phoned her answering service, and got the list of the new clients and their numbers. And started calling them.
He had left his personal phone number. It was a direct wire from the outside. It didn't go through the switchboard, or even through his secretary's desk. Markell had set up the phone that way so he could be sure not to have eavesdroppers on important business calls. He had never dreamed that one day he would be waiting for word from a call girl on that same telephone.
Around a quarter to four, the phone finally rang. Markell snatched it up with feverish impatience.
"Hello, is this Fred?"
The voice was soft, husky, sensual-everything that a woman's voice had to be in order to embody the essence of sex.
"Y-yes."
"Hello, Fred. This is Anita. You called me?"
"That's right. A friend of mine gave me your number at lunch today. He-"
"All right," she broke in brusquely. "What kind of arrangements would you like to make, Fred?"
She was really down-to-Earth, Markell thought. No time wasted in idle chit-chat with this chick, obviously. Strictly business.
He said, "I thought maybe we could get together for an hour this evening-"
"Sorry, Fred. I've already got two other engagements for tonight. I could see you around two in the morning tomorrow, I guess-"
"No, that wouldn't do. I'd have to be home by then, and I live outside the city."
"What about Friday night at nine?" she suggested Obligingly.
It's just like making an appointment with your dentist, Markell thought. Only the treatment is more fun. He checked his engagement book, riffling through it with his left hand. "Friday night at nine-mmm-yes, that's okay," he said.
"You have any place special you want me to meet you?" she asked.
"I thought we'd go to a hotel."
"Okay," she said. "You take care of the booking, then. My stop just before you is at Third Avenue and 51st Street, so get a hotel room somewhere in that general vicinity. After you've booked the room, phone my answering service just like before, tell them the name of the hotel, the number of the room. I'll be there at nine o'clock sharp, Friday night. Okay?"
"Okay," Markell said.
"See you Friday, Freddy."
She hung up.
Everything cool, calm, and collected, Markell thought. A real businesswoman. A pro. He could appreciate efficiency. He liked the way she had everything organized. If she turned out to be half as good in bed as she seemed to be in running her business, Friday was going to be a memorable evening indeed.
Janet Markell got home at half past four that afternoon. She had left the analyst's office at three, and had browsed through a couple of the interesting little shops along Madison Avenue in the Eighties, looking for porcelain. Janet collected Chinese porcelains. She had filled a couple of cabinets with rare old pieces. She stopped into one store that had a nice pair of peach bloom bottle-vases; the proprietor tried to tell her that they were Kang Hsi, but Janet knew better than to believe him-they couldn't be more than a hundred years old, at the outside. Not that it mattered. At $25 apiece, she could buy them for their beauty alone, and not worry about their authenticity.
She bought them. Why not? About the only pleasure she had in life was spending her husband's money, and Fred would never notice another few dollars here or there.
"A very wise purchase, madame. Very wise."
Janet nodded. "They're beauties, all right."
She carried them out to the car. The car was another of her pleasures, her prides and joys. It was a trim little Lancia that Fred had bought for her on their last trip to Europe. It had seemed like a bargain at the price-$2,000 less than the New York price-and Fred never had been able to resist a bargain.
In Italy, where there are no speed limits on the new superhighways, Janet had gloried in driving the car at 100, 120 miles an hour, hardly even caring. The fact that the speedometer was calibrated in kilometers per hour made everything seem unreal, anyway. But now, back Stateside, she was much more cautious. She hardly ever drove above 75, even on turnpikes.
She shot northward now, across Westchester into Scarsdale, off the highway and into the quiet, leafy lanes where the houses started at $50,000 and went up, up. up. The car purred along, and she came to the intersection of Chestnut and Maple, and turned onto Maple, and thence to Harcourt Crescent, and to her house.
Her mansion.
It was an imposing two-story Tudor house, with leaded windows and half-timbered walls, standing majestically in the center of a two-acre plot. The lawn gleamed like green velvet. The house itself was spotless, inside and out. Janet pulled into the driveway, pebbles spinning under her wheels, and went into the house. Half past four.
Time for a shower and a cocktail. Then she had work to do-typing addresses for the P.T.A. Anything to keep back the terrifying realization that she was really useless to the world, to her husband, to herself.
She went upstairs, into the bedroom. She could hear the maid downstairs, whistling as she vacuumed. Janet threw her purse on the bed, carefully set the package containing the new vases on the window sill without opening it. She began to undress.
She was quickly nude. She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror inside the closet door. She liked to keep close watch on herself, in fear that one day age would descend on her abruptly.
Age had been kind so far.
She could pass for a girl in her mid-twenties. Her hair was dark and lustrous, her face unlined, waist flat and taut. Her breasts had always been small, but in maturity they had rounded and firmed, so that they were lovely to look at, little pink apples of flesh. Her waist was narrow, her hips slim, her buttocks lean, almost boyish. She had good legs and an alert, intelligent face. Perhaps she was a little on the thin side, but nobody could have reason to complain about her looks.
She started to go into the bathroom.
The telephone rang.
Janet picked it up quickly, frowning. "Hello?"
"Jan? Jack Donovan here."
"Oh Hello, Jack. Is something the matter? You were supposed to see Fred today for lunch-"
"Yes Yes, T saw him He's okay We had a nice little talk And then I figured I'd call you up and have a nice little talk too."
"I was just going into the shower-"
"I won't keep you long," Donovan said "T just wanted to let you know something that I've been meaning to tell you for a long time, Janet."
"And that is?"
"That I want you in bed, Janet, I just thought I'd let you know. I didn't feel like keeping it to myself any more."
Fred Markell left his office at twenty after five that night, walked briskly over to Grand Central Station and just barely made the 5:31. Seventy minutes later, he was home. It was a pleasant early-autumn evening, cool and clear.
Janet didn't come out to greet him. Markell walked inside and found his wife in the study just off the hall from the master bedroom. She was diligently typing out envelopes.
She looked up at him. It seemed to him that she looked a little thinner, a little more tired and drawn than usual He wished she would gain about ten pounds Particularly in front. Markell liked breasts. He had hoped, when he married Janet, that her bosom would fill out a little when she had some children. But there hadn't been any children, never would be, and she still wore a padded bra. Otherwise, she was a good-looking woman in every way. But tonight she seemed tense and preoccupied.
"Evening, Fred."
He glanced at the envelopes on the desk. "What are you so busy with?"
"I volunteered to type the addresses for the P.T.A.'s meeting notices," she said. "Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. I've been typing since I got home from Gerber. God, am I beat!"
So it was going to be another one of those days, Markell thought grimly.
"I don't suppose you've been able to steal any time from the P.T.A. to prepare dinner," he said. "And this is Ethel's night off."
Janet gasped. "I forgot all about what time it was! I got so wrapped up in all this typing-"
"That's all right," he said easily, keeping his annoyance in check. He didn't want to pick a fight with her, not now, when his mind was full of the sweet promise of Anita's as yet unseen body. "I had a big lunch today anyway. Jack Donovan wanted to sell me some parcels in New Jersey. Strictly swampland."
"You didn't buy?"
"No," Markell said. "But it wasn't a completely wasted lunch after all." No indeed, he thought. "No deal, but at least I had a damned good filet mignon at Brother Donovan's expense. And I'm still a little full. So if you'll just put together some kind of salad, that'll be enough dinner for me-"
Janet nodded and headed into the kitchen. He watched her buttocks moving against the taut fabric of her slacks. It's always this way, he thought. She got so damned busy with her community activities that she never had any time for him. Almost deliberately, she drainer! her energies into ridiculous, meaningless things, and then was too exhausted to perform any of the duties of a wife.
The least she could have done was mixed a few drinks when he came in, he thought. Even if she didn't want to bother with fixing supper.
But she didn't do anything She was strictly a parasite, he figured. She lived off him, and served no purpose at all in the household. The P.T.A. probably appreciated her services deeply, he thought. But what the hell kind of marriage was that?
Janet scraped together a sort of dinner. Then it was back to the envelope-addressing for her, while Markell, fuming inwardly, watched television, paid a few bills, answered a couple of letters. The dull evening dragged away. He wondered who Anita was with, now What she was doing. She had said she was busy tonight.
Quarter to eleven.
Bedtime in Suburbia, Janet had finished with her envelopes, it seemed. Markell walked into their bedroom and there she was, nude before her mirror, combing out her dark hair with short, stiff strokes that made her breasts jiggle. He came up behind her and looked at her.
I'll give her another chance, he thought. She doesn't have to drive me to call girls. I'll be faithful if she'll only have a heart.
He ran his hands over her small round breasts, over the smooth curve of her buttocks. There was a time when her nipples would get hard if he as much as looked at her, but now, as he cupped her breasts, he could feel the little buttons of flesh still soft, soft, soft.
"Hurry up and finish with your hair," he muttered. "Let's go to bed."
She looked at him glumly. "Not tonight, Fred. I'm just not in the mood. I'm so tired."
"Sure. All those envelopes to address-"
"Fred, please."
"Okay. Okay. Consider the subject dropped."
Any other night, he might have started a bitter argument, might have haggled with her and disputed with her until she finally gave in and let him, passively and coldly, have what he wanted. But tonight he had the promise of Anita to comfort him.
He got into bed, and threw a sour look at his wife's nude, inaccessible body.
Go on, he thought. Keep on being a cold witch, Janet. One of these fine days you may find yourself tossed out of here on that sexy pink backside of yours. I've tolerated your antics too long, girlie. You'd better watch your step. Anita is only the beginning. The natives are getting restless.
He rolled over on his side and waited tensely for sleep to take him.