Chapter 5

Max Flagg, Audrey reflected as she swung about in his arm, was as attractive as ever. No better a dancer, and perhaps not as good as he had once been, but attractive. Funny how the cards fell. Doris had cut her out with ftaax, and now it looked as if Max were cutting her out with Leslie. Not that she had proof positive, but it certainly looked that way.

Well, to hell with them all. Our little Audrey was getting a mite tired of getting the short end of the stick. If she couldn't get the long one for a change, no one was going to.

Mix well, condition fuse, and light. She felt for the rhythm of the music, swayed with t, and tried to stay in step with Max.

Damn Faculty Town Club parties, anyway. Why couldn't they have had this one out at the Cabana Club where there was a bar? The dance was being held in the Student Union Building and, like most other American institutions of higher learning, this one had a regulation forbidding anything stronger than dishwater on campus. Therefore you had to cross Kennedy Avenue and go down the block to the Faculty Town Club proper to get a drink. Unless you wanted to carry a flask like some silly undergraduate, drunk on F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Could you go a drink, Max?" she asked.

"I could go a couple of them."

"What say we make the long trek over to the club?"

Max glanced about the dimly lighted dance floor. Looking for Les, no doubt.

"She isn't here."

"What?"

"Never mind. Come on, Strongheart."

She led him through the too many corridors and down the too many steps it took just to get started toward the Faculy Town Club. What lousy planning.

Once on the night-lit street, she asked him, "Now that you've been here for a few days, how're you enjoying yourself?"

"Having a great time, Audrey."

"You don't keep much of an eye on Doris, do you?"

"Of course not. Why should I?"

Audrey shrugged, wondering if she were getting into water that was deeper than she had calculated. "No reason, but old stamping grounds, old boy friends, old lovers, all that jazz."

If Max had a little jealousy aroused, she thought, he might head toward his own reservation and leave Leslie alone. And surely he had noticed that Doris was spending quite a bit of time with Jack.

"Old lovers?" he said. "Were we ever really lovers, Audrey?"

The bumpkin had read her wrong. "I wasn't referring to us."

"To whom?"

"To Jack, who else." She halted under a street lamp and looked at him. "My God, don't tell me you don't know about Jack!"

Audrey walked on. "Never mind."

She waited to get a rise from Max, some insistance that she clarify what she had said. It never came. Maybe the guy was indifferent, though that was doubtful.

At length she continued without waiting for coaxing. "You must know that Doris and Jack had a big thing together before you came along-"

"Audrey, I don't give a damn about Doris' history before I met her. It never occurred to me to question her. Her past is her own business. It's not mine."

Oh, come on, now!" she teased. And yet she knew that he was sincere from the trace of boredom in his voice. But there was another card she could play. "Max, I agree with you completely in what you say, as far as it goes. But what if the past intrudes on the present? What if it affects the future?"

"How, specifically? And don't clam up on me the way you did a moment ago. Are you trying to tell me that something's going on between my wife and Jack?"

"I'm only trying to tell you that if I were you I'd keep an eye on her under the circumstances."

"You're quite the little Miss Fix It, aren't you?

You don't mind throwing your weight around." Max grinned at her. "Are you sure you're not just a little jealous of Jack?"

The suggestion, completely unexpected, shocked her. After a dozen heart beats, she burst out laughing. "Yes, I'll bet that's it! I'm sure that's it!"

They crossed the avenue and headed toward the club.

Audrey wondered how things would have gone if Max had never met Doris. She and Max had gotten along pretty well in those days. He had wanted her and she had wanted him. And if only she had given in before Doris, if only she hadn't beat her to the prize.

But that was water under the bridge. Now there was the matter of hanging onto Leslie, or rather of getting her back. It wasn't that she actually preferred a woman, she told herself, but the men around here didn't appeal to her. Oh, some were all right. Jack was all right physically, but he was a crumb.

She wondered if Jack really was loving Doris once again. It was an interesting thought. Jack's apartment was right across the corridor from hers in the new staff apartment building, and more than once she had seen a woman visit Jack and leave hours later, even as late as the next morning. She hadn't seen Doris there in the few days she had been in town, but of course Audrey could hardly detect every coming and going. The only real evidence, such as it was, was that so often Audrey saw the two of them together. At a couple of recent parties, at the Faculty Town Club, once at lunch and, not surprisingly, at the Cabana Club almost every day.

And counter to recent pattern, she rarely saw Jack with Leslie any more.

Yes, it would seem that Jack might well be trying to corner the Doris market.

Let him. And let friend Max, here, do a bit of sweating about that.

Max conducted Audrey into the Town Club building and down steps to the basement bar. He ordered Four Roses and soda and looked around the room. It was decorated with the not-unexpected knotty pine and low beamed ceilings, but the booths and chairs were comfortable, and it was a pleasant place to shake dice for drinks, trade gossip, and talk shop.

At any other time, Max might have enjoyed getting back to the casual chatter about "and have you met that new English instructor, Tracey what's-her-name" and "the new language lab is almost completed." But Audrey had put thoughts into his mind which he would never have confessed aloud.

He had never known that Doris had had a lover before him. Max had never given the matter more than a few random thoughts.

He had never known that Doris had not had an earlier lover. For all he knew or cared, and he was quite honest about this, she might have had half a dozen lovers before he came along. That was strictly her business, as he told Audrey, and none of his. If she had been a streetwalker, a call girl, or even a party girl, it probably would have made a difference to Max, but such was not the case.

And who could really tell? Loving her, he might have ben able to overlook even a truly bad background.

No, he was damned if he was going to develop a sweat or faint dead away simply because Doris had, years ago, loved Jack Home.

He caught himself up short. He mustn't let Audrey introduce any wild assumptions into his thinking. He still didn't know if Doris had had a previous lover and, if she had, he didn't know that was Jack Home.

He did know that she had gone around with him. Come to think of it "it had slipped his mind, since it was ancient history, Doris had been engaged to Jack when they first met.

As he automatically traded social cliches with Audrey, Max looked around the room. In a round corner booth, he spotted Doris.

Alone with Tack.

Doris had been seeing an awful lot of Jack. Until now. Max had hardly noticed. His own attention had been pretty insistantly fastened on Leslie. Such being the case, there was no reason why Doris shouldn't find some agreeable man to squire her around.

But, damn it, Max and Leslie hadn't been lovers and never would be, while Doris and Jack....

But he didn't know it had been Jack! He didn't know if it had been Jack Home or anybody else.

"Let's sit down," he said to Audrey, and she followed him as he went toward the other couple's booth.

Max uttered a conventional "May we?" and slid to the seat beside Doris . ithout waiting for a reply. Audrey took the seat on his other side.

There was a moment of silence, an awkward moment.

Like lovers interrupted in the midst of an intimate conversation. Max thought. He immediately resented himself for having such a thought, and shame brought heat to his face.

"How goes it in the great field of sociology, Jack?" No doubt Jack had a glib answer for a layman's glib question.

He had it: "It our neck of the woods, social relativism continues to rule the day. Some of the boys are doing great things with mathematical analysis, but in my view they should examine their philosophical presuppositions more closely. There has in the past been made a great effort to separate sociology from individual psychology, and yet, it seems to me, the psychology of the sociologist himself tends to influence his methodology and his conclusions, which in turn lead him to conclusions in the realms of individual psychology and philosophy."

On and on. Pat, fluent, authorative. The young schoolmaster in perfect command of his subject. Erecting an effective barrier to communication on a personal level.

"There you are." It was Leslie, standing by the booth table. "I was beginning to think I'd lost all of you."

She started to sit down beside Jack, but at that moment the jukebox made a few grating noises and started humming a tune. Leslie stood up again and faced Doris.

"Oh, good, may I borrow one of your men, darling?"

Audrey quickly stood up and drew at Max's arm. Max cursed her silently. At this moment, he wanted to remain with Doris.

However, no graceful excuse came to his lips, and he was forced to go to Leslie's inviting arms. They danced away from the table toward the other end of the room. The volume of the jukebox was held down to a civilized level and the music wasn't bad. Max thanked God for small favors.

Leslie smiled. "Unhappy with me, darling?"

"I'm sorry." Max forced a grin. "I feel good, but I sometimes think my frown is built in. When other people light up a smile, I light up a frown."

Leslie laughed and said, "Nonsense."

They danced together smoothly, comfortably. Leslie's russet dress didn't make any secret of the perfect hang of her superb breasts, but at the moment Max thought that there was something rather bovine about the woman. He thought of Doris's sleek trimness of figure.

He turned Leslie so that he could look toward the booth they had just left. Audrey, too, had gone. Doris and Jack sat together, alone once more, neither of them looking toward Max and Leslie. Both of them, somber faced, focused their attention on a single spot near the edge of the table.

God, Max thought, I have been ignoring Doris lately, ever since that night ... They had even gone to parties separately and met there, and gone their differing ways afterward.

It was a hell of a way to run a marriage, a pretty good way to ruin what was left of one.

"What's the matter, Max?" Leslie asked anxiously.

"Oh, nothing. I guess I'm not the best company. Doris and I have been pretty active during this vacation, and I guess the strain is telling on me."

"Better get a good night's sleep, no?"

"Yeah. The legs go first, they say."

They both laughed.

When Max looked at the corner booth again, it was empty.

They walked together through the summer night. They walked together and they hardly said a word. It wasn't necessary.

Odd, Doris thought, how comfortably she and Jack got along together, considering the past. Odd how they gravitated toward one another.

Or perhaps not so odd. Max had been so distant lately, so taken up with that Stanton woman. And Jack gave Doris a feeling of reassurance.

Like tonight. Supposedly Doris had been with her husband and Jack with Leslie Stanton, but when Max and Leslie had drifted off to dance together early in the evening, Jack had seemed pleased to be left alone with Doris.

They came to the Union Building and walked slowly up the driveway to the main entrance.

"Shall we go in?" Jack asked. "Dance to real live music?" it's not true," she said gently. "I'm afraid it's a sentimental old-wives' tale, Jack. What's past is past and generally best forgotten."

"I can't believe that. I can't believe there isn't something, some spark."

"No spark."

"But it isn't as if we had parted enemies. You never hated me, did you?"

"Certainly not!"

"Then, as a friend, let me speak freely-"

"Oh, Jack-"

But he wouldn't be stopped. "I've always wondered if you didn't leave me for Max because we failed in one important respect-"

"Oh, no!"

"And I've wondered if we wouldn't have been all right, if we wouldn't have stayed together, if it weren't for that one thing."

"You shouldn't be talking like this!" He was bringing to mind things she hadn't thought about since her therapy; the nights in his bed, the look of him as he made love to her.

She tried to replace the images of Jack with images of Max. But that didn't help matters any because, quick to ignite, the blue flames at her body flickered even faster and higher.

"Maybe I shouldn't talk like this, but I repeat; things aren't altogether right between you and Max-"

"And I repeat that they're fine in every way that counts-"

"And you're completely and absolutely happy?" dark. Then he looked away. He took out two cigarettes, gave her one, and lit them.

"Have you completely forgotten me, Doris?"

She fumbled for an answer and had to say, "I'm not quite sure what you mean."

"I was in love with you. I have never been in love with anyone else."

She hesitated. She didn't want to speak of certain things. "We were no good together, Jack."

"You know better. We were good together in almost every way.

"But not quite every way."

"And you and Max are?"

"In every way that counts."

She felt that intense stare on her again, even as she failed to meet it.

"I see. Forgive me, but that wasn't the impression I got-"

"Jack, you have no right-"

"No, but I'm going to say it anyway. You two don't strike me as a pair of lovebirds."

"We've been married four years."

"Which explains nothing."

If Jack thought that, she saw no point fn arguing with him. At this moment, she didn't have the strength to attempt to alter his opinion.

"Doris, please don't be angry. I beg you. But is it true," his voice in the dark was completely forlorn, "that a woman never forgets her first love, or lover?"

She wasn't angry. She felt only pity for him. But it was best not to let any illusions spring up. "I'm afraid

"Not yet. I'd rather walk a little longer. It's a lovely night."

"With you, that it is...."

They walked around the building to the interior of the quadrangle, trading lazy monosyllables. When they reached the back, they turned and followed the concrete walk toward darkness.

The quadrangle was like a small park, it was so large. Leslie took off her shoes and walked on the grass. The green of the bushes was fresh in her nostrils and when she looked up, the stars were bright through the tops of the elms.

"Lovely," Jack said.

"Lovely night," Doris repeated.

"Lovely you."

Doris smiled. Jack leaned over her, the white blur of his jacket coming ever closer but never touching. He placed a gentle kiss upon her smile.

"A man's not supposed to admit it," he said, "but it took a certain amount of courage to do that."

"You shouldn't have."

"Why not?"

"For your own sake. And Max's."

"And yours?"

He didn't give her a chance to answer. His arms came around her, his lips met hers again, and this time he held her close.

In spite of herself, she felt a response welling up.

"And for my sake," she said breathlessly as she broke away from him.

He stared at her and she could feel his gaze in the

"Yes! Yes!"

She knew her tone had been too vehement. She wasn't surprised at the note of reluctant triumph in Jack's voice as he said, "Sweetheart, nobody is ever completely and absolutely happy."

"Max and I have had our moments," she said weak-ly.

"Moments...."

The images of Max-or of Jack-or perhaps they were simply images of any excited male, wouldn't leave her mind. Damn Jack for turning her on like this! He had no right! Come hell or high water, she was Max's woman and his only.

"We had our moments, too," he said softly, "even if they weren't complete...."

Why was she so easy, so especially easy, to arouse this evening? Because it had been so long since the last time she and Max had tried? Because she was jealous of Max and Leslie Stanton?

Because she was with her ex-lover?

Two cigarettes flew into the darkness.

His arms were around her again and he held her closer than ever. She couldn't resist him but she tried to conceal her response.

It was impossible. When his lips found her mouth, she couldn't keep hers from moving over his.

"So you do have some feeling for me," he whispered breathlessly.

"I have feeling. It's not for you, it's simply feeling.

"Right now it's for me. Doris, you can't be too happy with him-"

"I'm not. I mean I'm not unhappy!"

"But not happy, and you and I, we're a little older now, more mature, more experienced. We could be a success now, Doris, you know we could-"

"Oh, don't say that!" She had to shut him up!

"Please don't be angry with me, sweetheart, but think about this. We could at least try-"

"No!" She strained against his arms, knowing she wasn't trying hard enough to escape from him, not truly wanting to escape. "No!"

"You don't know how much I still want you, Doris. I love you, I want you. I want to do the things we used to do! Darling, that's all I ask-"

"Phase!"

With a great effort, she tore herself from his embrace. They stood motionless, panting, staring at one another in the darkness.

"If you're waiting for an apology, you won't get it." His voice was hoarse, tortured. "I meant every word I said, and I won't apologize for wanting you, and for wanting to make you far happier than you are now. If you want to be angry with me, that's your privilege."

"I'm not angry with you, Jack." How could she be angry with him for lacking control when she herself could hardly exercise it? How could she be angry when she had come to welcome his attentions?

"Then think over what I've said. I want you, darling, I'll always want you."

She slipped her shoes back on and hurried away from him, hurried through the darkness back toward the light.

He caught up to her but stayed half a pace behind all the way to the Faculty Town Club. There he caught her arm and, under the light of the front door, turned her to face him.

"Maybe you're not angry," he said, "but we're still friends?"

"Good friends." Goodness knew she needed a friend, and if only Jack wouldn't get too close to her. "You'd better wipe your mouth," she said, "and how is my lipstick?"

"Fine."

They found Max and Leslie in the booth where they were earlier. Doris said she was tired and Max tossed off the last of his drink and stood up to leave.

Doris still simmered with the feeling Jack had brought to life for her, and all the way back to the hotel she wondered how he would be. Not like the last time, she prayed, please, not like the last time.

Perhaps Max wouldn't want her.

He had to. Because she at least had to make the attempt.

And no matter how badly that may turn out for me, she swore, I'll make that good for him. I'll smile. I'll make him happy.

The moment the door of the hotel room was closed and one light was on, she whispered, "Max...."

Her whisper of his name brought a new light to his eyes, and she knew it was a reflection of the light in her own. After four years of marriage, even such a marriage as theirs, there were many things that didn't have to be put into words.

He tossed aside his suit jacket and yanked off his tie before taking her into his arms. She found herself in a firm, inescapable cage, and when his lips sought hers, she didn't have to hold back her responses. He held her, followed the serpentine curve of her slim back and firm buttocks.

Between their warm, eager kisses she reached for his shirt buttons and the white fabric came off his bare chest. He reached down to rid himself of his shoes and socks.

"Undress me, darling," she said.

His arms came around her again as he reached for the zipper at the back of her dress and pulled it down. He released her enough to allow her to pull the dress over her head: first she removed the dress and then her slip.

She rolled her panties down to make a band at mid-hip, a band that hardly covered her, and pressed herself against him once more. She was a furnace now.

The band of her brassiere tightened for a few seconds as Max pulled at the fasteners, and her breasts were released. She pulled the bra away, embraced his shoulders, and returned her kiss to his. Through the long twisting and turning kiss, she swiveled, pushing her soft breasts against him.

He shoved her backward. Her hips hit a small telephone table, her shoulders hit the wall.

"Oh, Max, Max...."

He held her against the wall, a hand to each breast, twisting and lifting, drawing and pinching, and the thermostat of pleasure rocketed.

"Oh, Max, say you love me...."

"I love you, darling, how I love you. How I'm going to love you. I love you and all that is you."

One hand followed the molding of her torso, massaging as she tried to kiss Max again. Her breath was coming in short rasping pants and gulps.

His hand dived under the band of her panties.

"Oh, Max!"

She pulled his belt buckle loose and then his zipper. She clawed at him. Then she threw herself to her knees and tugged away his last clothing, and kissed him.

But not for long. He seized her under the arms and lifted her. He picked her up like a baby and carried her toward the bed as she kicked one foot free from her panties.

He laid her down and moved to her like a hungry bear. "Love me! Love me!" she moaned as she reached for him.

She took him.

Then she remembered; she must make this good for him. This once she must forget about herself if at all possible to be good for Max.

She tried. Despite all the incentive to toil simply for her own satisfaction, she made a determined effort to arrange every movement for his pleasure.

After a moment she realized that he was doing the same thing for her. Every moment was planned and intellectualized. She wanted to say, "Oh, don't! Be yourself! Enjoy my love!" but she knew that if she did, she might make matters even worse.

So she bit her tongue and tried all the harder to give joy to him. She found herself approaching an unknown peak.

And he cried out as he struck fulfillment that boosted her up, up, up to where she could almost touch the unknown peak.

But not quite.

He relaxed. He fell away. "You're so good," he murmured, "so lovely, so good."

He sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. Looking around at her, he said, "I hope you found some satisfaction."

Tell him that was good, she thought. One of the best yet. Tell him that he's wonderful.

Instead, her throat was blocked by a strangling sob. Tears blinded her and flowed down her face. Involuntarily, both her hands went to her ravenous, unsatisfied desire. Knowing he was watching her and not caring.

He groaned, "Oh, God!" and he reached out, trying to help her.

But she had lost the battle once again.

Before Jack could leave, Leslie asked him to bring her a fresh drink and to join her in the booth for a few minutes. Jack got two whiskey-and-sodas from the bar and rejoined her.

"Enjoy yourself?" she asked.

"Sure, why not? And you?"

"Why not? Tell me something, Jack, is it your impression that there's something wrong there?"

"How do you mean?"

Leslie shook her shoulders impatiently. She hated this sparring around. "It's my impression that there's something kaput between them."

Jack looked away, his expression sour. "Hell, a four-year-married couple doesn't have to hang on one another at all times. Within ten minutes of now they'll probably be back in their hotel room, loving like mad, if you'll pardon the expression."

"Then you did notice something."

"I took liberties as the phrase goes, and all that I noticed then was that she seemed eager as hell to hop into bed with Daddy."

Leslie issued half a laugh. "The prospect of our friends having a perfectly legal love life doesn't seem to charm you."

Jack shrugged. He looked as if the taste in his mouth were bitter.

Leslie decided to go to the heart of the matter. She leaned toward Jack and she lowered and softened her voice. "Listen, old friend. We can level with one another, can't we? I mean, we aren't a couple of kids."

"So level."

"Do you want her, Jack? Do you still want her after all this time? After meeting her again?"

Jack didn't answer immediately. He scratched at a puddle on the table with a blue plastic swizzle stick.

"Well, Jack?"

"Leslie, you make love sound like nothing more than the damn hunting season."

"Lets face it-there is a connection. One more direct than the answer von just gave me."

"Yeah, I guess I still love her and I want her...."But what?"

"But I have an idea that whatever may or may not be wrong between those two, they still love one another."

Leslie felt the anger of frustration. Hadn't Audrey said much the same thing? And I can make you a guarantee. Those two are in love. I mean really in love. But they couldn't be right. Max had been a little cool and distant this evening, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was as drawn toward her as she was toward him. She couldn't be wrong about that.

She hunched still further toward Jack, and her voice grated. "You're wrong. If Doris isn't available, she soon will be."

Now Jack looked at her, his face impassive.

"Take her, Jack. If you want her, take her to bed and keep her there. You haven't lost the game yet, and you're not going to."

He didn't blink. "I knew you went for Max, but I didn't know it was like ihis."

A flush heated her face and chest. Her jaw muscles were taut. "I'm only giving you some good advice."

"You're intent on splitting Max and Doris right down the middle, aren't you?"

"They're already split-I'm positive of it-"

"You just want to help the process along-"

"And pick up a few pieces."

Jack said, "Leslie, I've never seen you like this before. You're the kindest woman in the world. You wouldn't hurt a fly-"

"I don't want to hurt anybody!" she said angrily. "I only want.. "Him."

She nodded miserably. She might as well say ft: she had been aching to say it aloud to someone: "I want him. I want him in the worst way-and the best. I want him for always."

"And you want me to help you."

She nodded again. "And I'll help you."

He kept her waiting a long minute.

"All right," he said.

She laughed. It was a relieved laugh, as if everything had been solved. "Let me freshen up," she said, "and then take me home."

As Leslie headed toward the women's room, Audrey turned from the bar and came toward Jack. Until that moment, he had hardly noticed her.

"Secrets?" she said in a poisonously sweet voice.

"Only from you, sweetheart, only from you."

"Now, is that nice!"

She slid into the booth beside him and wiggled up dose, her opulent breasts performing a little dance and threatening to escape their confinement.

"Les and Max are getting pretty thick, aren't they!" she said. "How does it feel to lose twice to the same man, lover?"

At no other moment had he disliked her as much as then. He couldn't have stopped his words if he had want ed to. "Speaking of losers, how does it feel to lose to men and women both?"

He felt her go rigid in the seat beside him. "What do you mean?"

"Oh honey child! Do you think it's any secret around here that you only go for broads? Hell, everybody knows about you-the Midwest's Champion Tease. Too damned scared of a man be interested in him-"

"You rat! Now I'm glad you lost your play for Doris-"

"Don't be too sure."

He had gone too far and he knew it.

"Oh?" she said after a minute.

"Okay, I lost," he tried to make amendment. "Forgive a bitter old man's ungallant statement."

A smile appeared on her face and slowly widened, "I heard what you said. And I think you meant it."

"Go to hell."

"I won't ask for a ride home, darling. I'll leave you to brood on your love life. Ta-ta."

She left, looking much happier than Jack felt.