Chapter 6
On Friday afternoon he drove to the address which Yvette had written on the scrap and given him. He was astounded by the size of the apartment house. Reaching up toward the clouds, it was a genuine skyscraper-built by some Italian immigrant who had started with a shoestring and become a construction czar. Maurice admired the plush carpeting and tile work as he entered the lobby.
He rode the elevator upward until it reached the nineteenth floor and deposited him automatically at a hallway. He knocked bravely upon Yvette's door.
A wad of saliva caught in his throat and stuck at the larynx as he watched the girl appear in front of him. The robe which she wore had a fuzzy texture to it but otherwise could best be described as transparent.
"Hi, there," he rasped.
"Hell-Jo!"
Yvette had the maddening habit of lengthening her words in a blatant, seductive manner. He ran a finger along his already-sweaty shirt collar. "At least you've got some underwear on, I notice." After hesitating for an awful moment during which his every impulse told him to flee, Maurice -edged toward the door jamb. "We could catch cold standing out in the draft."
"Excuse me, prof. Come on in and have a gander at my interior decoration."
He gawked at the outline of her bikini panties behind the robe. "Oh, you mean the wallpaper and so on. Of course." He closed the door behind him as they sauntered into the confines of her flat.
"Do you live alone?" he said.
"Your fangs are showing, Maurie. During the summer Korin and I shared the rent. Now we occasionally use the place as a team on week-ends. She's out, and I don't expect her back for a while-so just be yourself without any worrying. Or inhibitions."
He heard the modest hi-fi droning in a corner, near the purple pole lamp. The ceiling was a dark violet cloak above them.
Yvette said, "Take that jacket off and let your hair down."
"Let's talk about love," he smiled as he removed the coat and threw it on a sofa. "I imagine you expect to get married some fine day. Husbands are handy things around the house."
"Not the ones in my family. Both uncles and my father were birds of the identical feather. Just drifting bums."
"I'm afraid you sound anti-male, dear child."
"Who's to blame if I want to wait around for a rich sucker?"
She winked and sat beside him on the large couch. The rug under his feet was a downy rag type which felt as smooth as female flesh when he reached down to touch it. "You're very well equipped," he said.
"And how." She slid the cord away from her waist and peeled her gossamer, celluloid-thin robe off. It crumpled in a pile at her feet. Hefting the twin breasts in her palms, she shook them up and down. "You'd have to go pretty far to top this equipment."
The odor of perfume assailed him until his eyes watered with desire for Yvette's superb chassis. He draped one arm around her. "Instead of talking about love, I suggest we change the topic. Sex holds interest, too. Unless you feel that modern over-use has dulled sex in the art of conversation."
"You've got the right idea. Less chin music and more action!"
"I assume you don't wish to debate the difference between-"
"Knock off that literary crap. We're in a cozy room ... not your English 105 cell."
She unbuttoned his shirt and continued with his trousers. He listened to the Mantovani music on the record player. Incensed with passion at her bold touch, he got out of the pants and then hurled his shoes away and sat beside her, wearing only his shorts. He felt the cool air hit his masculinity.
She stared in fascination, her eyes a pair of shiny marbles that took in the sight of his climbing physical need.
Then Maurice was upon her. Like a pulsating electric wire, his mouth scorched the tawny flesh of her shoulders and stomach and hips. He kissed the sleek thighs and knees with fervent adoration. Yvette was laughing in joy as she tumbled backward to accommodate his supple hands. She showed the greatest cooperation, like a savage African beauty on the altar of sacrifice as the aged priest descends upon her and demands the apex in thrills.
But today, of course, there would be no gore. Her skin tasted salty-damp on Maurice's tongue and he shifted from her face to the waiting breasts.
His fingers taloned their way into the cushions of marshmallow loveliness. The mounds grew large and he knew the veins were athrob with blood and heat and female hunger. He kissed her until she quivered like a fish out of water. He drew the rigid dark ends one after another into his mouth and gagged on their swelling depth like a man gorging himself with candy.
"Maurie!" she wailed in ecstasy. "Straddle me close, darling! You have so much to give and I've got to see if-if I can hold it!"
"First I'll tell you the story of Jack and the Beanstalk," he prodded.
"You do and I'll call the FBI!"
"Honey, I hope you're not squeamish. This is going to come as a shock."
"I'm AC or DC. Hook up the current already and stop with the jokes. Ah! That feels so marvelous!"
He knew she was at the verge of blast-off like a Titan missile on the pad. Chortling, he removed his face from the essence of her being and felt his own sweet victory as their frames were united. It felt perfect ... a torpedo entering its chamber with exquisite smoothness. A long moan escaped from Yvette's throat as he fired one and two and three and scored direct hits upon her ship of war.
Eerie sounds filled his brain during the ebbtide of aftermath. They were demon voices calling him and warning him not to linger too late.
He got dressed and then reached down toward the girl. The black hair was vivid against her pulsing nakedness. "Are you happy, Eve?"
"You win top prize in my book. The other kids who had me before seem like amateurs. You're not leaving?"
"Have to."
"I'm pooped right down to the toes, or else I'd walk you to the elevator."
He kissed her swiftly and eased toward the quiet door. It gave him a start when he saw Korin standing inside the apse, grinning mischievously. She was a junior business administration major and Yvette's roommate.
"I must say, prof-you do put on quite a show."
"Korin! You weren't-"
"Watching? Put your ulcer back to sleep and forget it. My lips are sealed as far as this afternoon is concerned." She nudged him slyly with her elbow. "Besides, I can't blame anyone for being conquered at the shrine of Eve's beauty."
"It was still rather naughty of you. Sex should have a sacred privacy-"
"Stop the lecture. I'm no babe in the woods and neither is my dear roomie. We do more than study in here, you know. Thanks for warming her up."
Korin's frankness appalled him. He gulped his embarrassment away and rushed out to the elevator shaft. He had heard about lesbians on campus. No one could pinpoint their identity, but now he was acquainted with two of them. The notion brought a shudder of disgust, mixed with fascination, to his battered loins.
He tossed about in bed that night and counted at least a thousand sheep. When slumber finally did balm his worried mind, he was ravaged by nightmares which repeated a scene of satanic orgy-featuring himself and Ida, Yvette and Korin, all nude as they went at each other bestially.
Then it was daylight ... he could understand the shame that made him feel like the lowest kind of heel known to man. Shame for exploiting the innocent.
Ellen moped around the house with her face as long and brooding as his. He poured two coffees and tried to socialize with her at the kitchen table. "Ellen, I've raked the leaves from the yard. There must be something in need of paint or varnish."
"Go and find it, then."
"Nothing like enthusiasm to bring a couple closer together." He bit his lin, in search of a conversation piece which might spark her affection. She had grown listless as hell. "You haven't told me about church lately. Hearing you repeat the minister's latest jokes used to break me up."
"Religion means nothing to you. Why should we bother about the minister?"
Maurice twisted the napkin into a ball in his fist. No, it wouldn't help any if he got her started on the materialism which governed his philosophy of life. They had already shouted their way through several arguments on that score.
He picked up the newspaper and scanned the front page ... a big article on the national housing shortage. "I see where they're ready to build another project for low-income people in New Haven. Too bad."
"Yes it is, Maurie."
"You'd think that our country, with all her riches since the war, could at least-"
"Please!" Ellen snapped, sliding her cup and saucer away as she stood up from the chair. "I agree that inadequate housing is a real scandal in America. If you don't mind, I have a headache. Save the town forum for next week."
He shrugged in despair and propped his elbows on the table. His wife's footsteps waned in the distance, sort of like a cow-girl fading with the sunset. She did a lot of walking out nowadays. She was sullen, sad, resentful-he could name many adjectives to describe her attitude and they were all no good in his quest for harmony. Maybe she still thought he was laying coeds.
Shame pummeled him again, for that happened to be the exact truth. What had it accomplished when he made it with Yvette? A crazy treadmill. Or escalator stairs droning down at him as he walked up, leaving him further from his target; and the steps on that escalator were teen-age girls.
If he didn't stop the whole mess, Genevieve or Korin or someone else would be next. Mass seduction wouldn't help. He had to get free of Ida by the only sane method possible, and it must be done immediately.
He paced back and forth along the fireplace. Alexander, their pet Doberman pinscher, waltzed across the parlor and nuzzled Maurice's nose. The dog whimpered as his ears were kneaded gently.
Maurice said, "You know I'm in trouble, boy. After our many years together you can tell."
Alexander bared his teeth in mock anger. He was an easy-going pinscher but he had ripped the cuffs off more than one prowler or kid cutting through the Hayko yard. His breed of canine was born for the fight-the savage duel of supremacy and viciousness under the veneer of civilized animals.
Dusk was grim on the factory roofs and housetops of the city as Maurice drove around the Cloverleaf at Empire Street. This neighborhood stood on a hill, angled westerly toward Long Island Sound and her ceaseless, pounding white-caps. He wished there could be some easier escape route. But Ellen had been hurt, and she in turn was hurting him-which meant a vicious circle wherein no one could win unless the third party suffered.
He entered the smoky, beer-scented cafe. In the bar mirror he saw the neon sign reflected, pulsing on and off, SWINGLAND-SWING-LAND.
Ida had beaten him to their rendezvous at the booth. He swung into the seat opposite her, groping mentally for the best words.
She dead-panned, "You certainly picked a romantic site. And after the way you've been avoiding me in school. Some men are just too hard to figure out, aren't they? Maurie, say something."
"Look. We hardly know each other and I'm old enough to be-"
"Age has exactly no bearing on what I feel! So you've developed hypochondria and you're beyond the forty-year barrier and you worry about every ache or pain. Let me tell you about my ache."
"I'm afraid to hear what it is."
"You don't consider me a yard of cloth, or a routine pickup. You like me. And by God I'm falling in love with you, sir, whether anyone likes it or not!"
"Oh, no!" He slammed his palm upon his forehead and sagged back against the leather support. Her strategy was obvious. She had suspected his reason for telephoning and arranging this tryst. Female tenacity clung to the smallest straw-any speck of hope.
He muttered, "You're taking a sneaky angle shot. It's too late to play on my sense of pity. We just have to split up, Ida, and call our dating a thing of the unfortunate past."
"Unfortunate? One session in bed and three dates and I'm in love. Yes, I guess you would call that laughable!"
"Ida-" He wrung his hands in frustration and watched her sobbing into the handkerchief. The tears cut him like giant razor blades.
"Be a human being!" she wept. "Give me some kind of chance."
"With your looks it'd be easy to play the field. A kid like Oscar would-"
"The fraternity boys are loyal until death do them part. They won't switch pins."
"You've got the whole world!"
"I want you. Do you think I care about guarding my honor against any wolf or marriage-happy bachelor? Retaining savoir-faire?"
"Ida, please stop crying."
"Say you don't give a hoot about me! Go ahead, tell me I was just another notch in your gun."
"You know I'm fond of you."
"Such politeness!"
He had reached tha limit of his endurance, unable to bear her emotional attack or self-pity. His fingers quaked as he lit the cigaret. The phrase stuck in his brain: Hades hath no fury like the wrath of a woman scorned. But here he was battling against Ida's very different and calculated plea for dependence, her challenge to be taken.
She sobbed, "Do you love me? If not, you could learn to do it. Admit it and be honest, prof-you're talking this out with me because you do care."
"Divorce might be an easy notion for you. But we simply must split up. You understand?"
Her eyes bored straight into Maurice's and he truly thought she would slap him. Then she said quietly, "In that case, please leave my table this very instant."