Chapter 7
Charlie Aiken came home out of the snow. Upstairs, he noted with interest the light under the bathroom door. Helen was still awake. There could be only one reason.
He considered running out and staying elsewhere for the rest of the night, but suddenly there she was, her hair and the light streaming about her shoulders, the honey of her perfume floating toward him, the familiar but infrequent cat-like gleam in her eyes.
"Hello, dearest," she murmured. She clicked off the bathroom light and they were in darkness.
What could he do? He wondered if she could guess when he had been with another woman. Her amative moments were fiendishly timed for his time of depletion, he thought. It had been weeks since she had had anything to do with him physically. But now she was ready, primed like a cannon for the touch of flame to powder. And never a question as to where he had been, never a reproach-just love, overwhelming, welcoming love. That was his punishment.
He tried to distract her by asking, "What's wrong, darling? I thought you'd be asleep by now." He mumbled something further about the political meeting he had attended. Did she know he was lying?
She moved to him in the dark. A strand of chestnut hair fell against his face. "Missed you," she said simply. Her perfume covered him and he felt like a damned fool-because in the final analysis, he wanted her.
Sometimes he forgot that she still had need for his body, of course. Who else was there for Helen when her infrequent times of passion came upon her? She was a civilized lady who could no more betray a husband than she could eat peas with a knife.
She helped him off with his coat. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Her fingers moved on the buttons of his shirt. The shirt opened and she let it fall to the floor. He felt tenderness and a terrible panic. Rita Grimek had had him for all he was worth. There was nothing left for Helen. Nothing.
She caressed him, her fingertips trailing across his chest, her mouth touching every sensitive inch. At the room's window, the snow was pale and constant. The winter world outside was dead but bright-here in the dark there was life and warmth. He had betrayed the living darkness, squandered himself for tinsel. He tried to find words to explain what could not be explained, to beg pardon for what could never be pardoned. "Helen, dear...."
"Hush, darling." She brought her arm around his neck, her lips against his. Her tongue traced the contours of his mouth. She pushed down his trousers and unloosened his belt. Suddenly she alerted. "What's wrong? What's the matter?"
"Nothing, Helen. It's just that ... well, it's been a long day and I'm cold and tired."
Her laughter was velvet-soft. "Come on, we'll try again. Just let me help you." She pushed him toward the bed. He sat on the edge, half-resigned, half-fearful. If he failed her now, would he lose her forever, even for the few times a month that he had counted on? He had to try-but whenever she touched him, the touch he remembered was Rita's.
"Let me help you." She began to kiss him, expert kisses designed to inflame and backed by the knowingness of marriage. He struggled to regain the old desire. It was hopeless. He spoke aloud in agony and shame, "Helen, I want to love you. Helen, I'm sorry. Forgive me."
Suddenly she stopped trying and whispered in a dead voice, "We're lost. We've lost each other." She left their bed and ran out of the room.
Charlie rushed to the door, calling her name. His last incredible glimpse was of her cloaked figure hurrying outdoors into the snow. She had put on boots and thrown a long mink coat over her negligee.
She had to come back quickly-for how could he call for help? What a scandal this could be, ruining them both. He turned back to the darkened bedroom, watched a fresh onslaught of snow against the window. The cold outside had come indoors to him.
Helen Aiken ran through the snow sobbing, her chestnut hair loose in the wind. With some immune part of her mind, she was shocked at herself, at her actions, at her behavior, at the fury within her.
She saw the lights of a crossroad corners at the end of the dim suburban road. The gas station and the antique shop were closed but the diner was always open. She ran toward it and went inside.
What was she looking for? A man? Any man? The flattery of being wanted?
Clutching her fur close, she walked into the diner and took a stool at the counter. There was someone in a booth, otherwise she was the only customer. The place felt unusually warm and friendly.
"What'll it be, ma'am?" the counterman asked. He was young, she noticed. Too young?
"Whatever you want," she said.
He looked confused. "Pardon me, ma'am? You want coffee?" He was a tall boy with a trace of southern accent and he assumed, as so many did, that she was a lady.
She caught her breath. She had walked nearly a mile in the cold and was now beginning to feel it. "All right. Coffee."
He placed cream and a spoon before her and poured coffee from an urn. "Would you like something with it?" he asked.
Her mink coat slipped open. The boy's eyes widened at the barely-covered flesh beneath. She realized he was staring and she spoke tiredly. "You. I'd like you with it. Are you interested?"
The cup fell from his hands. Helen uttered a brief little scream as drops of the scalding liquid spattered in her direction. The diner's other customer stood up in his booth.
"What's going on here?" he asked. He was tall and roughly-handsome. With a surge of sanity and embarrassment, Helen recognized him as the police officer who had brought Kathy home one night during the fall.
"She must be drunk," the counterboy stammered.
Argon took the stool beside her. "Are you drunk?" he asked calmly.
She shook her head, speechless with surprise at herself. The boy poured another cup of coffee for her and she raised it to her lips, as though to prove the steadiness of her hand.
Argon said, "You're shivering. What're you doing out dressed that way?"
"I'm not at all sure," she said. "I think I must have lost my temper. Until tonight I didn't know I had one." He was frowning at her appraisingly. She pulled up the fur collar against his stare and the diner's warmth threatened to become intolerable.
"I remember you," he said finally. "I brought your daughter home one night. You're Judge Aiken's wife." He turned to the young counterman. "I'll have another coffee, Clem. Make it black."
She was a mess, Argon thought, or at least as much of a mess as a beautiful woman could be. The melting snow had streaked her make-up and spoiled her hairdo. When he had last seen her, he had given her little thought, dismissing her as only another well-groomed and attractive suburban matron. But her eyes tonight showed the misery and wonder that could only have come from wild inner warfare.
"You're Ben Argon," she said.
"Yes."
"I'll call you Ben and you can call me Helen." She sipped her coffee moodily. "What do you think of my stepdaughter? She's pretty, isn't she?"
"She's a kid." Argon was unable to account for the irritation that rose in him. "Lot of half-baked ideas."
"What difference do her ideas make? She's young and beautiful and men are going to love her for a while." Helen Aiken paused and in the mirror behind the counter, her reflection showed tears. "I'm talking crazy," she muttered. "People my age ought to forget about love. All they really need is a place that's warm and comfortable. Is your place warm, Ben?"
"No," Argon replied. "I live in a drafty furnished flat."
She touched his wrist. "Would you take me there?" She dropped her gaze. "I mean it. There's a cold inside me worse than any snow storm. I'm going to die of it soon, if someone doesn't warm me."
He felt his heart pound wildly. "Okay. Let's go."
She was silent during the short drive and after he parked, they walked through the snow without conversation. Finally he followed his impulse and lifted her into his arms. Her body was light in the mink wrap. Her face came close to his as her arms went around his neck. She was arousing a frightening emotion in him, a want to make her happy and at the same time, a want to possess for an utterly selfish reason. Was it that thing in him that demanded that Judge Aiken be punished in whatever way possible for his sins? He tried to stop analyzing and concentrate solely on lust.
Once upstairs in his flat, he dropped her on his bed. The mink fell open, revealing the filmy nightgown. It was very quiet, the only sounds being the sounds of their breathing, and it seemed to him that they had succeeded in shutting out the rest of the world.
"Do you like what you see?" she asked throatily, softly.
He nodded and watched her wriggle out of the mink and stretch both her arms outward so that every line of her splendid body became outlined for his eyes. Her breasts rose like ripe melons and strained the fabric and the dark-tinted nipples were hard and thick. He began to undress as he stood by the side of the bed and she lay watching him, her dark eyes glowing in the shadows.
"Do you know my husband?" she murmured.
"Yes."
"Good. I'm glad."
"Is this to spite him?"
She writhed subtly. "Not now. It started that way but ... not now. This is for me. Just me." She shivered convulsively as he stripped away his final garment. "You're a brute. A brute," she whispered heatedly, passion slurring her words.
He knelt beside her and pulled the single garment up her generously curved body and over her head. He tossed it to the foot of the bed and ran his palm over the smooth line of her womanly thigh. She moaned and moved wantonly. "You act like you're in heat," he growled, speaking his mind without care.
Helen Aiken laughed and reached up to him. "That's it. That's my problem. Treat me that way. Treat me like a bitch in heat. No one has ever treated me that way. Never."
Their lips met in a brutal kiss and he claimed her without preliminaries or tenderness or consideration. He let loose of all inhibition and restraint as their bodies clashed together in agony and savage seeking. He knew he was acting more like some ferocious wild animal than a man but he also knew, she was letting him know, that it was what she wanted and needed and had never known before. And when it ended, she clung to him, quaking, her teeth fastened in his shoulder and he could feel her tears wetting his flesh.
"What can I say?" she whispered. "How can I tell you?"
"Say nothing."
She moved still closer against him. "Don't make me leave you yet. Not yet. I want to stay a bitch in heat a while longer."
She was lying, to a degree. Argon was sure of it. She wanted more than just sex. She wanted companionship and protection and domination. She was love-starved. He could tell it from the way she nestled against him, from the way she pushed her heavy breasts against his chest from time to time, from the way she moved her hand over his nakedness. Hungrily, like a starved woman.
"There's something I want you to know," she murmured, her open mouth sliding across his shoulder. "I wanted you the first time I saw you. I wanted you that night you brought Kathy home. I was jealous that you met her before you met me. That's strange, isn't it? I wanted you then and I'm with you now."
Argon felt her teeth nipping his body back to a state of awareness. She was handling him harshly, as though determined to hurry his return to desire. Once again she was acting the part of the wanton, a role he suspected she had never allowed herself to play in her marriage. He wondered if she had ever been unfaithful to her husband before and if she knew or suspected Charles Aiken's infidelity. Was that what had brought her out into the snow? Had she found out?
He turned her over, once again feeling the need to strike out at something nameless, once again feeling the rush of savage desire. She cried out softly as he took control of her musky ripeness, hurting her, ignoring the rhythm of her pleasure, and his inexplicable bitterness turned to a kind of cruel joy when she matched his aggressiveness with total acceptance.
And when dawn threaded through his window, he shook her awake and kissed her bruised mouth and found he was without a single regret. "Here," he murmured sleepily, handing her the gown and mink coat. "It's time for you to go home."
"Yes," she stated hollowly. "Yes, I know."