Chapter 15
Elaine sat nervously in the reception room of the big hospital until the nurse finally came and motioned to her with a nod of her head. "You may go in now-"
"Which room is he in?" Elaine said excitedly, jumping up from the hard wooden chair.
"It's just up the hall," the nurse said, smiling. "I'll take you there."
She followed the nurse down the hall, through the open doorway and into the room where Kenny lay smiling in the gleaming white bed.
"Hello, darling," he called gaily. "Kenny-"
She ran to him and felt a tender warmth spring alive inside her as his arms clung to her back, pulled her down close where his lips were waiting.
"Are you all right?" she gasped.
"Sure," he said with a grin. "This was nothing compared to that airplane I got scrambled up in. Just a little bullet they dug out of my leg."
"How's your head?" she asked anxiously, glancing at the bandage that nearly covered his scalp.
"I'll have a headache for a couple of days," Kenny said gaily. "Nothing else-"
Elaine sat down on a chair beside the bed and held his hand in hers.
"How soon will you be out?"
"Couple of days." He grinned and gave her hand a squeeze. "Meanwhile, I want you to stay with a friend. A girl. I've written her address on a piece of paper. It's there on the table."
"And then?" Elaine said hesitantly.
"Then we find a cold-water flat somewhere. It's about all I can afford until I get a steady job. That pension check isn't very big when it comes to supporting two of us."
Elaine caught her breath and blinked to hold the tears back. Kenny had said two of us. She didn't even know what he meant by it, exactly. Whether it was just to be temporary or for life. But right then she didn't care, so long as they would be together in a place of their own.
It was all she dared hope for right now. Good things just didn't come to anybody all at once. And she was content to wait, so long as she knew that he was all right. That he would soon be out of the hospital.
"Where's Brenda?" Kenny asked somberly.
"She's here in the hospital," Elaine replied with a forced smile. "Sleeping it off...."
"They can cure her," Kenny said sympathetically. "If she wants to be cured. And I'm sure she will once she's tapered off. Lucky for her she'd only been hooked a few weeks. That can mean a lot...."
"I know," Elaine said. "I talked to the doctor about her. He says there are several places she can go for a cure, if they can't get her into Lexington."
"We'll do everything we can," Kenny assured her.
The nurse appeared in the doorway carrying a tray piled with covered dishes.
"Dinner time," she said cheerily. "You'll have to leave now, miss."
Elaine squeezed Kenny's hand, kissed him quickly on the lips before she went to the door.
"Bye, darling," she called. "I'll be back as soon as they let me in-"
"Good-bye, Elaine," Kenny called.
And then she was walking lightly down the hallway to the elevators. When she got to the street below she looked at the address of the girl Kenny had given her. The address meant nothing to her, but with the help of a policeman she got on the right subway.
Three days later they moved into the cold-water flat Kenny had promised her. It wasn't the most sumptuous place in the world, but it seemed more like home than any place Elaine had lived in a long, long time.
They carried the suitcases three flights up from the car. Or rather Elaine carried them while Kenny struggled with the lighter items, still limping slightly from the wound in his leg.
It took them only a few minutes to move in, since they had both been traveling light.
Then they stood in the center of the tiny living room and Kenny took her in his arms. She felt a tender glow begin in her stomach and creep through her body.
"You're sweet, Elaine," Kenny whispered against her ear with his warm lips.
"So are you, darling," she murmured.
Her eyes were closed. She felt the caress of his mouth as it touched lightly to hers. Then he was kissing her warmly, with growing intensity.
Her passion leaped up as his hands moved along her back, pressed gently into the soft flesh of her buttocks.
She sighed and ground her hips against him, clinging with her arms around his neck. The kiss went on for nearly a minute, his tongue pushing through her lips, searching for her tongue, mingling with it.
Then his fingers began fumbling with the zipper at the back of her dress, caught hold and pulled. The cloth parted, the dress slid loosely down and circled her feet.
He smiled as he looked down at her.
"Dig the crazy underwear."
"Something new, darling," she murmured. "I put them on especially for you. So you could have the pleasure of taking them off."
"It will be a pleasure indeed," he said grinning.
His hands moved along her spine, stopped at the place where her bra fastened together. Quickly his fingers pulled at the catches, loosened them. The bra fell away, her breasts tumbled out and swung pendulously, awaiting the tender caress of his hands, his lips.
"They're lovely," he said with a deep sigh.
"I'm glad you like them, darling," she replied. "Would you like to kiss them?"
"More than anything else in the world...."
Slowly he lowered his head and pressed his lips against her right breast. She gave a sigh as her desire leaped within her.
Slowly, Elaine began to twist her body as his caress raised her to a peak of emotion. Her hands clung to his head, pressing him against her trembling breasts.
She arched her body. "Don't stop, darling," she sighed. "I love what you're doing. It feels so good-"
At last he pulled his lips away and looked up into her face, his eyes glowing with a warm tenderness.
Then he picked her up without a word and carried her to the bed, where he laid her down gently. She looked up at him, her head on the pillow.
"Quickly, darling," she murmured. "Take off your clothes and make love to me."
Pulling at his clothes, Kenny soon tossed them away. He dropped to the bed beside her and his nearness sent a thrill through her at the first contact, left her trembling with expectation. "Hurry," she breathed.
And for a moment she remembered Brenda's words as she begged Warren Lasswell to stick the needle into her arm. In a way it was the same kind of craving, yet this was natural and that was evil. This was right, so very right, and that was terribly wrong.
That was hell, but this was heaven.
She reached her arms up to Kenny and gathered him to her breast, feeling the warmth of his face upon her soft, heaving body.
"Love me, darling," she whispered feverishly.
"Yes, Elaine."
Together they lay on the bed, clinging to each other, murmuring unintelligible sounds of joy. In each other's arms they became one, climbed to the very peak of passion. And she held him to her with a smile of contentment on her lips.
Perhaps it wouldn't work out forever. Maybe it would. But at least at that moment they were together, and she had something finer than she had ever known before. Something good and wonderful and worth hanging onto. She would work to make it last, and somehow deep in her heart she knew that it would....