Chapter 6
Stan dropped his sketching pencil into the drawer and switched off the fluorescent light above his desk. The dimness of the atmosphere told him that it must be growing dark outside. He wondered what Toni was doing.
The urge to call her quickly disappeared when he glanced at her picture. There was something about his wife, of late, that he didn't understand-something he sensed, rather than knew, that upset him and seemed to warn that something was wrong. Very wrong. And it took all the self-control he possessed not to pay attention.
The sound of high heels clicking along the hall reached his ears. Stan looked up and felt the smile appear, even before she walked through the office door.
"How's the midnight shift?"
Eileen's voice seemed to lighten up the whole room. "What are you doing here?" Stan asked, suddenly and acutely aware that they were all alone in the office. He watched her come closer.
"I just thought I'd knock myself out too, so you shouldn't feel sorry for yourself tomorrow." Eileen winked and pushed the button on his drawing lamp. "Any objections?"
"None at all." Stan felt the color creeping up his neck because of what he had been thinking while Eileen spoke.
"You look like you're just about finished," Eileen glanced down at his clean desk-top and nodded approvingly.
"You're right, I am." Stan hoped he knew what was coming next.
"Good." Eileen leaned against the front of his desk and lit a cigarette. "Then how would you like to accompany a starving illustrator to dinner?"
"Love to." He'd been right. And he was glad.
"Just let me get my pocketbook." Eileen turned and walked back out into the hall.
Stan kept her hips in view until she was out of the room. Then a sudden tickle of guilt raced through him. With great difficulty he looked back toward Toni's picture. "What the hell," he told himself, averting his eyes from her liquid smile. She wasn't going to be home for supper anyway. There was no law that said he had to eat alone.
Automatically, from seven years of practice, Stan looked down at his watch and decided to call Toni first. He practically held his breath while the phone in the house rang. Once ... twice ... three times, with no answer. Stan slammed the receiver down. No sense in pushing his luck, he thought. He'd done his duty. He'd called first. It was reasonable to assume that Toni wasn't at home. Now he could have dinner with Eileen with no cause for a guilty conscience. Or could he?
"All ready?" The cheerful voice beckoned from the doorway.
"Sure am." Stan forced all negative thoughts from his mind, pulled on his suit jacket and hurried toward the door. He could wrestle with his conscience on the long train ride that awaited him after dinner. For now, all he wanted was to enjoy himself.
The small Italian restaurant was almost empty when they arrived. He followed Eileen, as she made her way down a table-lined aisle toward the back. A tentative smile crossed his face and he felt his knees tremble slightly. This was the first time he'd been out with another woman in seven years. He had to admit that it felt good.
"Decided what you want yet?" Eileen asked. "Or are you going to pore over this menu with me?" She lifted a huge double-leafed folder from the table.
"Just order one more of whatever you're having," Stan said, trying not to stare at her flawless skin and sparkling green eyes.
"Come on now." Eileen shook her head scornfully. "That's not fair. The menu's in English. And nothing on it is deadly."
"Well, if you say so." Stan picked up his menu and seized the opportunity to hide behind the list of Entrees. He practically knew that menu by heart. Nero's was one of his favorite restaurants, and he made it a point to eat there regularly. But now, in Eileen's company, he felt like he was playing hookey. And it was a nice sensation.
"I think I'll have the veal," Eileen seemed to be thinking out loud.
Stan's smile of relief was instantaneous as the waiter approached their table. "Bring me a double bourbon and water," he told the man. "We'll order the food later." Eileen said nothing. Stan assumed that she wasn't going to drink.
"You're damned right," she said, when he mentioned it. "If I got polluted on our first date, what kind of a girl would you think I am?"
Stan hid behind the fifth amendment and tried not to let his reaction to Eileen's choice of the word date show.
The liquor was beginning to relax him. Stan felt it in the restored calmness of his hands ... his legs ... his thoughts. And now, he could look at Eileen without fear of communicating anything he didn't want to-or something he didn't yet understand.
She leaned forward to reach for the salt, and he saw her breasts strain against her blouse. He tried to tear his eyes away, but he couldn't. Firm. Round. The girl was beautiful ... and built like a....
"Waiter!" Stan quickly ordered another double bourbon.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Eileen looked up over her veal milanese and pointed to Stan's untouched plate. "Maybe we should have gone someplace else?"
"No, this is just fine." He was worried about offending her. "I was just thinking how hectic the office has been this week. I guess I didn't know when I was well off."
"That's for sure." The rest of Eileen's thought was interrupted by the waiter's arrival with Stan's drink.
Eileen started talking again. Stan wasn't quite sure about what, because he wasn't paying close attention to the words. Instead, he found himself able to sip his bourbon and absorb only the timbre of her voice-as if she were on the other side of a closed door. The sound was even ... smooth ... strangely comforting. The words, he knew, must be right. But they weren't important. It was her presence that he cared about-plus the fact that she was glad to be with him. He ordered another drink.
And then, he found himself starting on dessert. He glanced guiltily up at Eileen, aware that he hadn't been listening to a word all through dinner. Her ready smile relieved his conscience.
A throbbing, queasy sensation rocked back and forth in his brain. Stan tried to get up. His knees rebelled. He knew he was tight.
"How about some coffee first?" Eileen suggested, somewhere on the other side of a twenty-foot-long table.
Stan blinked and tried to focus, but his eyes weren't anxious to work. "Sure ... if you say so." He managed the answer and slumped back into his chair.
The coffee was awful. Stan winced and heard Eileen laugh. Then he winced again because he wanted to make her laugh again.
"What's your wife going to say when she gets a look at you?" Eileen's voice was still smiling, despite the subject.
"The hell with my wife." Stan felt suddenly brave. Free ... liberated from all onerous responsibilities and obligations. Free enough to get still drunker if he wanted to. Maybe even free enough to paint.
He heard himself talking. He thought he was talking about Toni. But the words were muddled and he couldn't be sure.
"Have another cup ... please?"
Eileen's voice filtered through the screen behind which his brain seemed to be hiding. Stan nodded dully. Whatever she wanted was okay with him. Eileen was a doll. A live, beautiful, honest-to-goodness doll. She didn't care how much money he made. She didn't care if he never got to be president of Stillwell. She didn't care if he never saw the inside of the executive washroom.
"Stan, what are you mumbling about?"
"Huh?"
"Come on. Have one more cup."
He did as he was told. Over and over again, until the liquor was chased out of his head. And then he sat, dejected and nauseous. "I'm sorry." His voice was low, ashamed.
"For what?" Eileen dismissed his guilt with a disdainful grin. "Forget it and let's get out of here."
"You're not mad, are you?" Stan didn't know why he should be so concerned, but something inside of him insisted that he keep her liking him ... on his side ... for that inevitable moment when he would need her....
"Of course not, you dope." She stood up and smoothed her skirt.
Stan ripped his eyes away from the curve of her hips ... the flowing outline of her thighs....
"You going to be able to make it to the train?" Eileen looked concerned, when Stan returned to her from the cash register.
"Absolutely." Stan fought the reluctance he felt at leaving her. "How are you going to get home?"
"Crosstown bus. It'll take me all of fifteen minutes."
They were standing at the corner, each looking for a comfortable way of saying good-bye. "You forget whatever I was mumbling in there, okay?" Stan smiled weakly.
"It's already forgotten." Eileen smiled. He knew she was lying.
The train ride home was unbearable. Stan did his best to ignore the monotonous drone of the wheels and concentrate on something pleasant. Eileen. Her body kept reappearing to his mind's eye. How would she look without those well-chosen office clothes? How would she look in Toni's pink nightgown....
The bringing together of thoughts about the two women seemed to get something off inside of Stan's head-something explosive, something protesting the blasphemy. Stan felt his insides lurch with each movement of the train. The combination of too much liquor and awakening desire made his nerves raw. He looked down at his watch. How long would it take for him to get home, he wondered. How long for him to be able to get his hands on Toni?
Somehow, the idea wasn't as appealing tonight as it had always been in the past. He forced himself to conjure up his accustomed fantasies-the ones that had always aroused him when he was stuck in the office....
He thought of her again, young and willing in their apartment. Through his liquor-addled brain, the memory of their first time together returned ... to make a mockery of their present relationship.
He lit a cigarette and sneered at the foul taste. All of a sudden, everything seemed to be working against him ... Again, there was no place that he fit in.
A fighting sense of self-preservation rumbled up inside hrm and impelled him toward anger. He wasn't going to just lie there and hear himself counted out. It was time for him to do something. Something to prove to himself that he was a man-and that Toni was his woman, completely.
The disquieting vision of Eileen in his bed, instead of Toni, popped into Stan's mind and made him shake his head, disbelievingly. It must be the liquor, he assured himself. That had to be the reason for his sudden preoccupation with Eileen's body.
But what, then, explained the times when he wasn't drunk?
He forced himself to get off that channel of thought and concentrate positively on his wife. Any minute now, the train would bring him into the station. He'd be the first one into a cab. And then....
The house was pitch black when he walked in. Shutting the front door softly behind him, he took off his shoes and tiptoed down the hall toward the bedroom. Disappointment pressed heavily at his shoulders.
The hum of steady, even breathing told him that Toni was there. Using only the light from the hall, he slipped out of his clothes. Then, just before he was about to crawl into bed, he remembered and hurried to brush his teeth.
The awareness of her warm body beside him made his flesh pulsate with sudden life. Their bodies were only separated by the sheer material of her nightgown. How easy it would be to just slip his hand under....
A lack of courage kept him motionless. What if she should wake up angry? What if she should be frightened in her sleep?
A greater need than the one for safety inched his right hand across the sheet and onto her knee. Toni sighed in the darkness. Encouraged, he let his fingers trail over her soft flesh.
She stirred. He pulled his hand back and waited until he was sure she slept deeply, again. Then he inched his palm toward the warm mounds of flesh that pushed up at the sheet above her....
Her breasts yielded to the pressure of his hand. He played with the hardening points, aware of his own body's simultaneous reaction to the contact. If only he had the nerve, he told himself. How nice it would be to just grab her and....
A soft purring sound in her throat distracted him. He slid his hand below the neckline of her nightgown, and waited to make sure he hadn't disturbed her sleep. She started to roll over. He withdrew his hand and cursed under his breath. But then she stopped moving and lay quietly again on her back.
Silent fingers crept up under the hem of her gown and came to rest on the softness of her thigh. The room was starting to pitch along with his insides. He pressed his lips together, aware of the rasping sounds he had been making. Slowly, gently, he lowered his head, until his mouth came to rest on the heaving swell of her breasts.
Toni bolted upright.
"What the hell are you doing?" Her voice was husky, sleep-filled, hostile. "Nothing, honey. I only wanted to...." He stopped talking in the middle of his sentence. She had already fallen back to sleep.
He lay back down in the darkness and fought to control the violence that ripped through his body. Every muscle, every nerve was alive and crying for revenge. How could she do this to him? Why wasn't he man enough to force her? Why did he let Eileen go home alone?
The awareness of his own, confusing desires would not fade, despite his conscious will. Angrily, he reached over for the cigarette box on the night table. Tonight, he knew, there would be no sleep.