Chapter 3
Carol came out of the shower finally, still feeling dirty. But she told herself that as soon as Mort was out of the house, she could forget.
Laura and her mother came home.
Ada was so tired that Carol wanted to delay telling her until after dinner; but Carol was so unusually quiet and uncommunicative that Ada noticed at once. "Are you all right, Carol?"
Carol drew a deep breath. She wanted to tell her, and somehow she knew that this was the ideal moment, none other would ever be so good, and when this one passed, perhaps it would be too late. How could her mother doubt that the boarder had attacked her if she came to her with it at once?
"I don't know," she temporized. "I don't feel very good."
"Have you started?" her mother asked. "What?"
"Menstruation, dear," her mother explained. "I know how upsetting this can be the first time it happens."
Laura laughed. "Heavens, mother, Carol is only eleven."
"I know how old she is," Ada said. "But she is maturing early. You did, and so did I. It must run in our family. Is that what's the matter, dear?"
"No," Carol said, "No. I "
"I hope you're not getting sick," Ada said. "You look pale. One more doctor bill! That's all I need."
Carol closed her mouth, drawing a deep breath. If she told her mother what Mr. Engler had done, her mother would be raging mad, and she would either call the police or send Mr. Engler away. Either way, they would lose the money that he paid every week for that rear bedroom. "I don't know what we'd do without the money we'd get from renting those two rooms." How many times had she heard her mother say that? And that room had stood vacant for a long time before Mr. Engler moved in. It might be even longer the next time.
But she couldn't keep silent, could she? She couldn't let that dirty old man stay in the house! She had to tell the truth, didn't she?
She trembled visibly.
"You are sick, Carol!" Ada said. "We'll have dinner and you'll go to bed right afterward. Can't afford to have you getting sick now."
They went in to dinner. Carol stared at her plate, unable to eat. She felt the beginnings of panic tying her stomach muscles in knots.
She pressed her hands against her eyes, knowing that time was running out for her. Her mother would believe only the best about her and every whisper Carol had heard until this moment had strengthened her belief that there was something shameful and forbidden about sex but her mother would believe that old Mr. Engler had attacked her, if she told it now.
She had to tell it now!
Putting it off would not make it any easier. It would make it worse, more difficult to do, and yet Carol kept seeing new reasons why she should not tell: because Mort would lie about her; because Mort would leave and they desperately needed his rent money. No, she thought, these were not good enough reasons for not telling. She had to do it now, at once, and without thinking any more.
She drew a deep breath, and Ada looked up, watching her, her eyes troubled.
At that moment Mort Engler entered the dining room. He did not eat with them; getting meals for the three of them was enough trouble for Ada after working in the bakery all day.
He smiled at Ada and at Laura. He gave Carol the same kind of smile, but only she saw something else in it she saw the challenge.
Mort was daring her to tell on him!
"How is everybody?" he said.
Ada smiled. "Pretty well. Won't you have a cup of coffee with us, Mr. Engler?"
"Might do that," he said. "I'm on my way out to eat now. But thought I ought to stop in and look at the three prettiest girls ever collected under one roof."
"Why, Mr. Engler, how nice," Ada said, getting coffee for him.
"It's a fact. Why you're the mother of lovely Laura and pretty little Carol here, and you don't look much older than they do. You look more like a sister, yourself."
"Thank you, Mr. Engler," Ada said. "Isn't that nice, Carol?"
Carol did not speak.
"Cat got your tongue, honey?" Mort said. He reached out and patted her head.
She lunged away, revolted, shaken. Her face turned gray. "Why, what's the matter, kitten?" Mort said, gazing at her with a strange smile on his face.
"Carol hasn't been feeling well," Ada said. "I'm putting her to bed right after supper."
"Yes," Mort said. "Might be a good idea. Probably she was playing too hard this afternoon."
"I hope it's nothing serious," Ada said. "Tight as money is, a doctor is one thing we don't need around here right now."
"I'm sure it's nothing serious," Mort said. "Why, I'll bet she'll be as bright and new and pretty as ever tomorrow."
Her eyes distended, Carol gazed at this hated man, seeing the duplicity that must be part of every man.
She found it impossible to believe that Mort could do what he had done to her this afternoon and then come sit calmly and chat with her mother and sister as if nothing had happened.
She felt her stomach roiling, and she was afraid she was going to be ill.
She let her gaze strike against Mort's for a moment, hating him. But she saw that he was daring her to speak against him. It was as if he felt confidently that he held all the aces. She saw that he was so sure of what he could say to her mother about her that what she had done would be considered infinitely worse by Ada than what Mort had done to her.
She shuddered, swallowing back the sickness. She even saw in his face that he would say that she had come to him naked, begging for it. He was a monster I There was no lie that he was incapable of! He would turn everything against her. He would make her mother hate her! Laura would despise her. None of them would believe her, and he would use her as he wanted to!
Daring her to speak when he had attacked her.
She heard him saying brightly, "Maybe you'd like me to come in and read to you after you're in bed, Carol?"
"No!" She wailed. "I don't want you near me! Stay away from me! Leave me alone!"
She leaped up from the table, upsetting her chair. Her face was pallid, her cheek muscles rigid. She was shaking all over.
She ran from the room.
Ada jumped up, calling after her, angrily, "Carol, you come right back here and apologize to Mr. Engler.
Now, young lady, do you hear me?"
"It's all right," Carol heard Mort's soothing, lying tone. "She's just upset, ill. I understand. Why would she want an old fellow like me around? It's the young boys she's wild for at her time of life, eh?"
So the chance to tell the truth about what Mort had done to her passed, and Carol said nothing.
She lived in fear after that day.
It seemed that everything she considered was filled with terror for her. The very fact of being alone in this house with Mort was more than she could endure.
She was afraid of Mort, afraid of seeing those eyes wild with that unreasoning lust again. She was afraid of all adult men, trembled when they came near her, even the male teachers at her school, and she ran from them when they spoke to her, even old acquaintances of her family. These men she feared as much as she did the strangers. Men were all evil and vicious, and the closer they were to the bosom of your family, the more reason you had to fear them. And she did fear them all of them with an unreasoning fear that made her ill.
But she had to hide her illness from her mother because Ada would force her to tell her what was behind it.
Now she was not only afraid to tell, she began to be afraid that her mother might find out the truth about what had happened to her.
As the days passed, it became a more and more shameful and secret thing something that she had partaken of and had remained silent about.
She saw now that this had been part of Mort's strategy that first night when he came in while they were eating, when there was still a chance that she might blurt out her accusations against him. He wanted to delay her. Time worked for him. And time was her enemy.
Mort was experienced, and Mort knew that the moment would come when it would be too late, and Carol could never tell on him!
This moment had passed now, and Mort had won that battle. If Ada heard about that afternoon now, she would believe him, because otherwise Carol would have spoken out at once against her attacker, wouldn't she? That is, if he had really attacked her, and not been offered her nakedness by an incensed and excited young mind, anxious to wallow in depravity.
That's what they would believe, that's what Mort would make them believe. He was too clever for her.
He taught her fear. Fear of himself, fear of the truth, fear of all men, fear of trusting any male.
But he never was able to get her alone again. She did not once come home again in the afternoon until her mother was there. Dishes stayed stacked in the sink, beds remained unmade, dusting was undone.
"Why?" Ada wailed at her. "Why are you suddenly refusing to do your share, Carol?"
"I won't come in this house alone in the afternoon!" This was all Carol would say. But she would become ill, even vomiting, when Ada pressed her too hard about it.
She did not say any more, but there was always the threat that she would, and this began to eat at
Mort Engler.
Now he was afraid of her. She grew thin and pale and taut, and her nerves remained finely drawn. She seemed ready to erupt, and he saw it, and he knew why. And he was smart enough to know that her outrage, when it finally did erupt, would undermine any clever lies he might have plotted to discredit her.
Mort became nervous and taut then, too. He walked wide around her, stayed away from the dining room for any of his little informal visits. And then one Saturday he moved out, regretfully. He was giving up his job, moving to another town, he said.
He told them all good-bye, smiling warmly, but he did not attempt to touch Carol.
Suddenly he was as afraid of her as he would have been of a lynx.
Then he was gone, and gradually the agony subsided, the fears diminished; but they never completely disappeared. Her mind put Mort away, deep in the dark crannies where the unpleasant bits of life were stored and forgotten.
Much happened during the next few years, and Carol was able to tell herself she had forgotten Mort, what he had done, the way his eyes had burned into her, the things he had said. She even forgot his name.
She got an afternoon job as a typist, working in a steno pool for a mortgage corporation. They liked her and promised her a job when she finished high school. She dated a few boys, but she was afraid of them. She could not relax, and only a very small minority ever came back a second time.
Few teen-age boys cared anything about dating a chick, no matter how pretty, who couldn't even give them a goodnight kiss without getting the jitters.
Her mother died while she was in her senior year at high school. She and Laura sold the old house, and the money was divided in a trust fund for them both. After her graduation, Carol continued working for the mortgage company as a stenographer. She lived in a small apartment, a room really, with kitchen, living room and bed in one. But she did very little entertaining, and none at home.
Laura married a handsome ex-Marine named Herbert Dearing, and Carol thought she had never seen anyone as lovely as Laura, or as happy.
Laura and Herb made such a good-looking couple. People always turned to look when they entered a hotel or restaurant.
One afternoon when Carol came home to her one-room apartment Laura was there waiting for her.
Carol laughed, "You look absolutely indecent. You positively radiate with happiness."
"I am happy," Laura said. "Or I would be, if I didn't worry about you."
"Me?"
"Yes. Living in this tiny little place . "
"It's all I need."
"You need to be in a place where you can have friends come in, entertain, and meet new people."
"I couldn't afford anything like that. And this place is fine with me."
"I don't believe you," Laura said. "And before you say anything, let me tell you about my idea. It's really Herb's and mine. We were talking about you we talk about you a lot, and worry about you, living by yourself like this. Herb and I want you to come and live with us, Carol."
"I couldn't! Two are enough in any newlyweds' house."
"It's not going to be two of us much longer, Carol," Laura said. "I'm pregnant. Well along. Herb and I didn't waste any time. Herb never does, I can tell you. He's wild about sex."
"He ought to be, having a wife as beautiful as you!"
"He's pretty good-looking himself."
"I suppose so."
"Carol! I'm worried about you. You really don't like men at all, do you?"
"Don't start that," Carol said. "I don't like those women with butch haircuts, either."
Laura laughed. "Oh, we're getting miles from the subject. Herb and I want you to come stay with us. And we won't take no for an answer. Look, Carol. Whatever you pay here, you can pay us ten dollars a month less. Wouldn't that be a help? And what you pay would really be a help to us with the baby on the way, and me having to quit my job. Herb is handsome and wonderful, but let's face it, he's no J. Paul Getty. We could use the extra money. You'd have a room of your own, and you could entertain as though the whole house were yours. Please, Carol, it would be perfect. Herb wants you there, too. And you could be such a help to me before the baby is born, and after, too!"
Carol sighed heavily and nodded. It was all agreed so easily, so smoothly with no promise of anything buy joy ahead and suddenly now it was not Mort Engler violating her, it was her brother-in-law. It was Laura's husband. It was Herb.
"Oh, Herb! Please stop! I'm a virgin, Herb! Honest I am!"
"Honest you were! Baby, I know that. I really know that! I got that sweet thing first, didn't I!"
"Please you're hurting me!"
He moved on her, building himself upward again to another climax, the sight of her nude loveliness exciting him anew. He sucked in his breath at the sight of her full-brimmed young body spread out helpless beneath him.
"You been begging for it around here."
"No! No!"
"Oh, yes you have." Letting me touch you, urging me on, then stopping me because Laura was around. Well, big sister is not here tonight, baby. Nobody here but us chickens and here's one rooster that's going to crow tonight!"
Herb held her down and drove himself upon her again, fiercely, uncaring.
"Oh!" she cried out, recoiling at the brutal way he used her.
He kissed her mouth until she whipped her head away from his roughness. Then he pushed his tongue along her cheek and down her neck to the full rise of her breasts. He took a nipple in his teeth, biting her, wanting to hear her cry with pain.
"Get it over with!" she wailed at him. "Take me!" Hurt me! Have what you want. I hate you! No one on earth ever hated as I hate you, and I'll see to it that you'll regret this. I'll make you sorry for this if it's all I ever do!"
There was a hollow clap as he brought his hand down resoundingly on her breast.
"Hurt me! That's what you really want, isn't it?"
"Hell, yes!" He gasped for breath, moving upon her, driven wild by his unnatural need to inflict pain upon her. He slammed himself at her, faster and faster, and all the time he was striking her with his hands, hitting her face, her breasts, her buttocks.
She cried, and then she stopped crying, hating him and hating what he was doing to her, but no longer feeling the pain of his raping her. She had no room for anything except the outrage, her savage hatred of him. Everything else was blanked from her mind as if covered by an occluding cloud.
"You love it!" Herb was shouting at her. "You know you do! You'll be following me around, begging for it! You love it. You love every minute of it."
She did not answer because it was as if he were receding from her, away beyond this thick, impenetrable cloud in her mind. Where she was now, he could not hurt her any more, he could not even reach her.
The storm raged beyond the windows, and Herb was like a wild animal, sating himself upon her body.
At last she tried to move away from him.
"Don't move until I tell you!" he warned her.
Carol caught her breath, but she lay still beneath him.
He gazed down into her eyes, bating her now because she no longer showed hatred or fear or pain. Her eyes were dulled, empty, fixed on him, as if she only waited now for when he would be through with her body.
Glaring at her, he shook his head. It was as if suddenly he hated her more because, no matter what he did, he could not rouse any efforts from her.
"You liked that, didn't you?" he yelled at her.
She shook her head, moving it back and forth.
This enraged him more. He clenched his fingers, clutching her tighter against him, redoubling his efforts to ignite her with the flames that consumed him.
He spoke breathlessly. "Say you like that! You do like it! Stop lying to me! Tell me! Tell me you like it!"
She only gazed at him with her eyes void of light. Her whole body was empty of everything except the crawling slime of her hatred for him, the need to be avenged upon him.
"Say it!" His voice rose quivering. "Say you like it! What's the matter, aren't you even a woman?"
"I hate you." She whispered it softly.
It inflamed him. He shook with the rage of it, and sobbing, he struck her across the face.
"You'll like it, you hear me? Before I'm through with you, you'll tell me how much you love it!"
"You can kill me," she answered in that same dead whisper, "and I'll never say it. I hate you. That's all you'll ever hear from me!"
He struck her across the face again. "We'll see about that, you little witch. We'll see."
He held his breath, concentrating on using her, on doing all the things that had made him so successful with all other women, the experienced ones, the kids like Carol, the girls like Laura. They all had loved him, they all wanted it at least, after they had him once, they were wild for him. What was the matter with this one?
He could not stand it because it was as if she ripped away the mask and exposed him to himself for what he was.
But he could not endure the thought of failure, of rejection, of hatred that lasted beyond the moment of his giving a girl what every woman truly wanted, in his mind, no matter what she pretended.
He closed his eyes, dragging her body up under him and flailing with his hips, rougher, harder, faster. More and more, whispering foul words in her ear, kissing her throat, holding her breasts. She felt him going beyond the point of control, and she thought that this could be ecstasy with any man except him with a man she loved not the husband of her hospitalized sister. How she hated him!
She held herself rigid and tense until he was through with her, and then he fell away, cursing her because he had not got any response from her except that with which they had started her cold hatred for him.
She pressed her fist over her mouth, biting back a sob. She hated him now as she had not known anyone could hate another, so that her whole mind was obsessed with her hatred.