Chapter 11

"That's the last one," Windsor said.

Laurel, looking achingly attractive in a tweed suit and a brown slouch hat, answered quietly. "I'm glad."

They'd met on a corner near Blueside Park and the shadows around them were as deep as the shadows she sensed in his mind.

"Would you like to go somewhere for a drink."

"I'd rather walk."

They moved off down the street walking slowly and for a time there was silence.

Laurel used the time to examine herself; to look at the new Laurel. There definitely was a new Laurel, no doubt about that. A woman whose thoughts and actions were totally centered on one man.

And that left a single, undisputable answer.

She was in love with Lee.

She thought back to when she'd known him in Ludlow. There had been no indication then of her present feeling. She'd scarcely thought of him since.

But here it was and what was the best thing to do about it?

I could forget about him, she told herself. At least, I could turn away from him and make it stick. There would be some bad nights, but I'd get over them.

But was that a good idea? From a practical standpoint, it was the best of possible ideas. Why involve herself with a man who was mentally unsettled at the very best; possibly a man who could conceivably fly to pieces and land in an asylum over night?

That wouldn't happen, she thought fiercely. And even as she realized her conviction was terribly subjective, she pursued it. He'd had ample reason to do what he'd done. In fact, it took a remarkably strong mind to stand up under what he'd been through. So the truth lay in the opposite direction. He was stable and solid. But on the other hand Oh, what was the truth?

So she arrived at no conclusion, for fear, she realized, that it would be the wrong one that she would walk away from Lee.

But the casual manner in which she reached out and found his hand belied this last fear. She was not going to walk away. At least, not tonight.

"What now?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"You said something about wanting them to know who you are."

"That's the final act."

"Why do you want to put yourself into their power?"

"I didn't say that I. did."

"You give me that impression."

"That's not quite the way it is. In fact, I'm debating the finale that I planned. I'm wondering if another wouldn't be more appropriate."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"It would consist of doing nothing at all. That would leave them to wonder. They would not know. I'm finished. Then they would spend a long time fearing. Every time they came home they would wonder what they were going to find."

"I hate to hear you say that."

"Why? Do you have sympathy for them?"

"No. I have sympathy only for their wives."

"But that's all over."

"What I'm thinking about mainly, though, is you, Lee. Your hatred for them from now on won't be really hurting them at all. But it will eat at you, corrode you. Hate is the most destructive of emotions."

"I know."

"And after more than eight years-"

"You forget. It hasn't been eight years with me. So far as my reactions are concerned, the tragedy could have happened only a year ago."

"Do you think time will help?"

"I'm sure it will."

She squeezed his hand. "I'd like to help too."

"You've been a great help. At first you only confused me. but now."

"Now, what?"

"I'm in love with you, Laurel."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

"What is your answer?"

"I think you know. I'm in love with you, too. Haven't you seen the change?"

"I haven't known you very long."

"But do you see the same woman you whipped naked through the woods?"

"No. I think not."

"I think the change is permanent."

"We're discussing this as though there were no problems We seem to have forgotten your husband."

Laurel's answer to that was silence until Lee glanced across at her.

"I actually don't have much to recommend me," she said. "My marriage hasn't been ideal from a moral standpoint. It's been more of a convenient arrangement than anything else."

"I don't come too highly recommended myself."

"Are we proposing to each other?"

"I'm not sure, but we do seem to have more than a passing interest in one another."

"As I said, my present marriage is an arrangement. I don't quite know how it worked into that. It started well enough; I mean we both expected to make it work. But I guess there wasn't enough mutual interest. When Jim started engaging in extramarital activities, I knew about him but I didn't care. In fact I think I welcomed them because they relieved me of obligations."

"I suppose modern marriages sometimes work out that way "

"Except for a couple of affairs that died at birth, I've never taken advantage of my freedom," Laurel said "It just seemed too much trouble. I don't know whether that makes me a better prospect for the role of faithful wife or not. I hope it does."

"I think you have more cause to doubt me than the other way around. I certainly haven't presented an image of a potentially satisfactory husband."

Laurel reached out and again found the hand she had dropped at the beginning of her confession. "I think we're talking about non-essentials," she said as she felt Lee's quick grip. "We've had no control over what's happened to us. Intellectually, neither of us wanted it. But emotionally that's another matter."

"What about your husband? Would he give you a divorce?" I

"There's little he could do about it. I don't think he'd dare to contest it."

They moved into the park, strongly conscious of each other, their talk so much camouflage for what was really in their minds.

They walked toward the most deserted section, but not commenting on that, either strolling casually along as though nothing pressed them.

But their thinking was as of one mind. This was brought forth only when Lee said, "We should go home, to my room. This isn't "

"No," Laurel whispered huskily. "I can't wait. Here just as we were in the woods."

He broke pace and stopped.

"Lee," Laurel said, "Put your arms around me. I want to have your arms around me."

If he wanted to object, if he wanted her in a more civilized manner, he was unable to voice his objections. They moved together and their mouths met there in the darkness: one dim shadow blending. Laurel's mouth moved hungrily and her words were lost in mumbled entreaties as they caressed each other and made feverish love there in the park they shared.

His hands searched for what he knew awaited them. Whimpering against his throat, she accepted the touch, bracing her body against him and standing in what would have been regarded by an observer as the clumsiest of positions. Leaning against him, braced as he groped under and around her clothing, her breath came in quick, spasmodic jerks as though she were being splashed with cold water.

"I'm sorry-I could have made this easier, worn only my dress."

"That's all right." There was an immediacy, a reflection of need in his voice.

"Rip them off-as you did in the woods!" she demanded.

"No, not here."

"Back in the bushes, then."

"Hold still, please."

He spoke as though he'd found some rare treasure that would vanish if she moved. Her whole body trembled as she tried to obey. When she spoke again there was mixture of ecstasy and fear in her voice.

'Why are we so good together?"

He continued to love her, not answering, and her knees weakened as she clung to him. And even as she surrendered to his magic, there was protest.

"Here on the walk! like animals!" An acceptance of shame.

Then, with a growl deep in his throat, he seized her around the waist and carried her off the walk into an even darker area of the park.

She was whimpering as he pushed her down to the grass. They pawed at each other in an eagerness that was a .fumbling hunger, struggling together until a pattern formed in what each was attempting.

Their twisting struggles continued for a time, but with clearer purpose now because they helped each other. When they were positioned for the act of love they both desired, Laurel's whimper of eagerness was heightened by the' anticipation, and she reached out to find his head and his face and run feverish fingers along the lips that would bring her the ecstasy she sought from him.

His hands reached also and for a few moments, they fondled each other's faces and lips and mouths. Then they again melted to a single shadow.

And there was silence because there could not be any other room for endearments or for love in this intoxicating fling.

Laurel's legs and torso strained to meet and increase the inexpressible bliss that was rising. She wanted to tell him how wonderful he was, but her attempts to do this were only chokings deep in her throat, as passion blocked the words she tried to form.

Then she was suddenly fighting because she could do nothing else. The pleasure had become a choking and a fright as, wildly incongruously, she remembered a line from a poem:

Each man kills the thing he loves. . .

Lee was killing her. How long could she live in the his passion?

As though from far away, she could hear the rhythmic grunts of his passionate effort. How much could she take?

Her struggles became frantic. She clawed? at him but he was not aware of her nails desperately cutting his back and buttocks.

Then Laurel's explosion of ecstasy mingled with the fear and panic that blocked her vocal protests as Lee strove in sudden frenzy to achieve his own explosion.

Her fighting availed nothing. He was not aware of that.

Hurry, darling--oh, please hurry.

This silent prayer went out to him. Laurel, her lungs bursting, arched her body in a double frenzy of both pleasure and agony.

Then he, too, achieved. One final, frantic rush toward delight and Laurel knew that he had been hurled over the precipice of passion.

He weakened and collapsed. She was able to struggle from the helpless position in which she had been placed.

She rolled over to her side, doubled into a pathetic ball, and began to cough. The coughs wracked her, accompanied by great convulsive gasps.

Aghast at what he had done, he turned until they were again head to head and he took her into his arms.

"I'm sorry, darling. I'm sorry."

She answered him between spasms. "It's all right, darling."

She was able to laugh weakly.

"I'll bet a girl never knew a man so so completely."

"I can't trust myself," he said bitterly. "I don't know; I don't know."

She clung to him and buried her face against his chest. "Can there be any doubt now?"

"Doubt?"

"That we could ever get along without each other?"

"Nothing is clear when I'm with you. Nothing else seems important."

"If you left me, I'd follow you. I'd find you no matter where you went."

"I wouldn't be able to leave you."

"I wouldn't care whether you had another woman or not. There would be no shame in me."

"I'd never want another woman."

Then her mood changed because the mood they'd both been in was supercharged with tension that had to give. She giggled with overtones of hysteria.

"Do you know where we are?"

"In the park."

"On the grass. We got the idea and just dropped where we were. Naked in the park."

"Not quite naked."

"Why are we so good this way just loving, not making plans?"

"I don't know."

She laughed. "You won't catch me that way again. You almost had a corpse on your hands."

He drew her closer. "Don't say that!'

"We've got to get up. We've got to leave here. Suppose someone came along?"

"No one did."

'I wouldn't care," Laurel said. "I'd invite them to watch. I'd say, 'Look what we have! Look what we do for each other. Aren't you jealous?' That's what I'd say to them."

His fingers were caressing her face. "You have changed."

"How?"

"When we met you were hard, somehow, brittle. like a shell you broke out of. What came from the shell is a different person."

She again buried her face against his chest with what might have been a sob.

"I'm afraid."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid of what's in my mind. The things I want from you."

"What do you want?"

"Violence. I remember being whipped naked through the woods, and the memory thrills me. What you did just now. I get excited thinking about your violence. I don't think that's good. Where will that lead us?"

"Into each other's arms again and again."

"But love should be tenderness."

"Not necessarily. Love is violence, too. Tender for tender people. Violent for our kind."

"Lee, Lee! What if the love wore off? I'd die. You've spoiled me for any other man."

"I'm glad."

Suddenly Laurel shivered. "Are you cold?"

"No. I'm not cold at all. There was just something else."

"What?"

"I don't know. I can't really say. As though death just walked by."

"You're becoming too imaginative. We must go."

He lifted her to her feet and they dressed in the darkness, helping each other, and then they went back as they'd come.

He stopped a block from her house and looked at her in the light of a street lamp.

"You're very beautiful."

"You're leaving me now. Where will you go."

"Back to my room."

"You can leave that place now, can't you."

"Pretty soon."

"I don't like to think of you in that old shabby room."

"I have another place here in town."

"I'd like to see it."

"There's no point. We could never live there."

"I suppose not. Where will we live."

"Some place where it's beautiful. You should live only in beautiful places."

Her face clouded. "Every time you leave me I'm afraid I'll never see you again."

"You'll see me again."

"Can I meet you tomorrow?"

"Doesn't your husband wonder about these night trips?"

"That doesn't matter."

"The same place, then. The same time."

She stepped unusually close to him. "The same thing?"

"Let's hope not."

"Good night, darling."

He kissed her quickly and strode away

"Where have you been?"

Jim was reading his paper. He was in his easy chair with his slippers on.

Laurel stared at him. "You've changed considerably too."

His scowl was a look of self-righteousness. "What do you mean too? Who else has changed."

"I think I have."

He surveyed her critically. "You're getting a little careless about your appearance. Your hair is mussed and your dress is wrinkled. You look as though you'd been sleeping in the park."

"Thanks."

"Where have you been?"

Laurel did not answer. She crossed the room and poured herself a drink and came back. "It doesn't matter."

His harshness faded. "Laurel, it does matter. I care where you've been. You mentioned a change, and you're right."

"It's too late."

"It's never too late when two people care for each other."

"Perhaps you're right, at that, but it's got to be two people."

"You mean--. "

"I want a divorce."

"Laurel! That's ridiculous. What's wrong with you?"

"I want a divorce, Jim."

"Is there another man?"

"That's none of your business."

"Are you kidding? Don't forget, I happen to be your husband."

"But you won't contest a divorce."

"What makes you think I won't?"

"A little brunette. I believe you call her your secretary. She makes me think you won't."

"There's nothing between us. Not any more. In fact, you have no definite proof that there ever was anything."

"Is that what she'd say on the witness stand?"

"There'll be no divorce. If you'll just cool down and. think this over awhile, you'll realize how stupid it would be breaking our lives up."

"We'll talk about it later," Laurel said. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

"I'll be along in a little while..."

Jim Payne wanted the time to think. He'd done a good job of covering his emotions with Laurel in the room, but it had been difficult.

He was no fool, and he realized now that it had all been his own fault; he'd messed up the marriage cheated on Laurel; because he'd known she hadn't cheated on him. This made it one-sided enough to be satisfactory.

But now things were different. He was sick of Linda Vale. There had been tearful scenes at the office because deposing her as a mistress made her a lousy secretary also.

As soon as he could think of a way to handle it, he was going to fire her.

And he wasn't interested in any more mistresses. His whole emotional capacity was filled with jealousy. Laurel obviously had found a man. Some louse had moved in on him, and he wasn't going to get away with that. He would deal with the rat in due time, and now it was necessary to keep Laurel from making any rash moves until this other stinking matter was cleared up. A man couldn't occupy his mind with two major projects at one time and do justice to either.

They were going to have another meeting as soon as possible and get a report from Frank Lovell on private detective agencies.

Once they'd located Lee Windsor--

The phone rang. Jim glared at it angrily. Linda again? If she was on the line, it would be the third time and he'd told her not to bother him at home told her in no uncertain terms.

But it wasn't Linda. It was Frank Lovell. "Jim! There's hell to pay."

"Who got raped this time."

"Tom Weathers lost his nerve. He went to the cops. He spilled the whole story I"