Chapter 8
BETH spent a tortured, sleepless night and was so morose at the breakfast table that even Charlie became conscious of the fact that something was amiss.
"Are you sick?" he asked, peering at her over the top of his newspaper.
She shook her head.
"You've never been a cheerful little sunbeam in the mornings, but you're acting as though you've lost your best friend. Not your husband. I think you'd celebrate for a solid month if I conveniently dropped dead and made you a widow."
Beth ignored his sarcasm. "I'm worried about money," she said at last.
"You haven't overspent your household allowance, I hope."
"No."
He was relieved. "That's good. It must be that knucklehead, Phil Bates. You haven't been bleating about him lately, so I assumed he had gone bankrupt, which is what he deserves."
"I don't intend to argue with you about the merits of Phil's business," Beth said with a trace of dignity. "I'm not burdening you with my troubles. So just leave me alone."
"With pleasure." Charlie retreated behind his newspaper again, and the conversation came to an abrupt end.
The morning that followed seemed endless, and Beth felt a dread she could not dissipate. She tried to put off making a decision but realized at the back of her mind that Sandra had already made it for her. Finally, after her bath, Beth forced herself to face the issue squarely.
"If I've got to be a whore," she said aloud, "I might as well be a good one."
Going to her dressing table, she opened a new bottle of polish, a wild yellow she had bought one day on a sudden whim, and applied several coats to her fingers and toenails. Then she chose the most extreme outfit in her wardrobe. Deliberately abstaining from wearing a bra, she slipped into her most wicked panties of translucent lace and then pulled on a pair of black stockings with a diamond pattern.
For a dress she chose a bright yellow cotton knit sheath a size too small for her. The frock revealed far more than it concealed of her figure, and she smiled at her reflection with savage irony before slipping into a pair of open-sided pumps with heels so high that she found it difficult to walk. Then she made up, exaggerating each step. She used too much shadow, made her eye line too thick and added some false lashes to complete the extravagant effect. She applied several layers of her glossiest lipstick, then brushed her near-platinum hair forward over one side of her face. A pair of dangling yellow earrings and a mammoth, matching costume ring, almost the size of a half-dollar, added the final, bizarre touches.
A few minutes before Sandra was due, Beth made a last inspection, and her smile of irony broadened. Now I look like a stage version of a whore, she thought. I might as well be wearing a neon sign telling people to gape at a practitioner of the world's oldest and grubbiest profession.
Sandra made no attempt to conceal her pleasure when Beth emerged from the house. "Now you're being sensible, sweetie," Sandra said. "You won't regret it."
"You like?" Beth asked.
"A trifle too gaudy for my personal taste," Sandra replied, starting off down the street, "but I'm sure you'll have Dave dancing around a maypole, and that's what matters."
"Sure," Beth said bitterly. "That's all that matters."
"A word of advice," Sandra said. "Take a corner table, sweetie. And when you walk through the bar, don't linger. We've been very lucky that nobody has caught on to the way we use the Stamen. But it just could be that if the law happens to drop in for an off-duty beer, he'd get ideas after taking one look at you."
Beth laughed harshly.
They did not speak again on the ride, and Beth knew that their friendship was ended. Sandra's insistence that Beth stay in the game, combined with the threat of exposure, had made it impossible for them to have anything but a business relationship in the future.
They reached the motel in a few minutes, and when Beth stood framed in the barroom entrance, she created a sensation. Women as well as men ogled her as she walked to a small table in the far corner. The same perverse streak that had caused her to overdress compelled her to play her part now with the zest of an amateur actress.
Dave loomed over her, beaming. "You look like a million today, baby," he said as he took a seat beside her on the banquette that lined the wall.
Beth forced herself to smile at him. "I'm glad you approve," she said, inwardly condemning him for his lack of taste. "I did it for you." To that extent, at least, she was being truthful.
She could almost see him swell with pride. "I've had you on my mind ever since yesterday afternoon," he told her.
"I've been thinking a great deal about you, too." Beth took what crumbs of consolation she could from her double-talk. She had been thinking of Dave, all right, but he would be anything but flattered if he could read her mind.
His eyes bulged when he saw how high her skirt was riding and, as soon as he gave the waiter the order, Dave dropped a pudgy hand onto her thigh.
Beth steeled herself and neither asked him to remove his hand nor indicated her disgust. But she could scarcely wait until their drinks arrived, and she gulped her martini rapidly.
"I thought you told me you can't drink." Dave was perspiring, and the palm of his hand was moist on her thigh.
Beth felt like screaming but continued to smile steadily at him. "You know women," she said, trying to take a light approach. "All of us are inconsistent."
He watched her as she raised her glass again. "You look to me," he observed shrewdly, "like somebody who wants to get herself plastered in a hurry. How come?"
For a moment she was at a loss for words, then suddenly thought of an excuse. "I feel more like letting myself go when I've oiled the machinery." Again she cringed inside herself, thinking that now even her small talk was that of the professional prostitute.
"Then we'll have to buy you an oil well, huh?" He chuckled and squeezed her thigh.
"I'll take that offer." All at once the conversation became unbearable. "People are looking at us," she warned, the words popping out before she could halt them.
"They can't see under the table. So let them look."
Beth's only recourse was anesthetization, and she quickly accepted the suggestion that they have another drink. But her tension continued to increase, and she finally reached the conclusion that it was silly to drink herself into a semi-stupor. No matter how much liquor she consumed, she could not avoid Dave forever.
His hand was becoming more active. "Yesterday," he said, "I had the idea you didn't think much of me."
"That was yesterday." Squirming slightly, she realized he had become so bold that she could not remove his hand now. By allowing him to take and keep the initiative, she had lost her own ability to keep the situation under control.
"It shows you how wrong a fellow can be." He puffed hard on his cigar as Beth seemed to respond to his caresses. "What made you change your mind?"
There was only one possible answer. "You, of course." She tried to smile at him as though he were the only man in the world. As though he were Bruce. At the very thought of Bruce she became so confused and unhappy that she could not tolerate spending another minute in the bar with this gross boor. "I want to go with you-right now."
Dave was reluctant to depart so quickly. "You mean I've got what it takes?" He chuckled, highly pleased with himself.
Beth squirmed harder, principally because of embarrassment. "You've got too much," she said and meant it.
"Then I guess we'll have to do something about it."
To Beth's infinite relief, he withdrew his hand.
Dave put a five dollar bill on the table and pushed his chair back.
"Wait a second," Beth said. She struggled to haul down her skirt and, silently cursing him, wondered if the disgustingly lecherous look in his eyes was as apparent to everyone else in the room as it was to her. Although Beth tried now to assume greater dignity than she had shown on her arrival, her binding skirt and towering heels forced her to walk with a distinct wiggle. She noted out of the corner of her eye that several men at the bar were peering at her, and when she saw Dave exchange a wave with one of them, her heart sank. Goodie, she thought, there's another of the fancy money boys. I'll have him breathing down my neck in the next day or two, and I think I'll throw up. Mentally writhing, she hated Charlie for being so stingy and Phil Bates for assuming that she would find some way to meet his requests for cash. She loathed Sandra for having inveigled her into the racket and Bruce for having secuded her under false pretenses.
No, that wasn't fair, she told herself. Not once had Bruce said he loved her, not once had he indicated that he considered her anything other than a prostitute with whom he could spend a pleasant hour. But even that was finished now. He had grown tired of her and, since he had turned her over to his superior, she would be wise to forget Bruce, to put him out of her mind and keep him out.
Most of all, she despised herself. She had been stupid to dress so provocatively, flaunting her allure in an infantile gesture because of her inability to escape from the trap. If she weren't such a coward, she would tell Sandra to do her damndest. Counter-threats could be effective, and she could make it clear that she could send Bob Winterton an anonymous letter just as easily as Sandra could send one to Charlie. Unfortunately, Beth was afraid that if she tipped off Bob, Sandra wouldn't hesitate to obtain vengeance by destroying her, too.
"I wondered yesterday whether you were playing me for a sucker," Dave said as they went into the bedroom. "But you're worth a hefty fee." He ran his hands up and down her body.
Beth stood still, tolerating his caresses and trying to think of something else-anything at all, in fact, until her ordeal ended.
Suddenly Dave reached into his pocket, counted out two hundred and fifty dollars and handed it to her without comment.By accepting the money and putting it away in her handbag, Beth signified her willingness to do whatever he wanted. It would be so simple, she thought, to tell him to go to hell and walk out. But she lacked the courage.
Dave made her earn the money. He toyed with her high, heavy breasts, then insisted that he be allowed to undress her. He turned on the radio and, at his request, she danced for him in the nude until she was weary. Then he hauled her on his lap and pawed her for another quarter of an hour before taking her to the bed.
Beth was sufficiently sober to be acutely conscious of every move he made and was not surprised when his love-making left her completely cold. She felt no reaction when he achieved union with her, and had to simulate passion in order to prevent him from guessing the truth, She felt only infinite relief when he finally rose from the bed. Then a numbing weariness took possesion of her, and she was too tired to move.
Apparently she was a better actress than she had thought, and it was fortunate that Dave misinterpreted her exhaustion.
"I wore you out, huh?" he asked.
"I've never felt so drained," she replied honestly.
"You were terrific, baby."
"I've never known anyone quite like you, either," Beth said and turned away so he could not see the contempt that, she knew, was stamped on her face.
At last he was gone, and she bathed and dressed slowly. A reluctance filled her at the idea of returning to the house she shared with Charlie, and on sudden impulse she took a taxi to the Owendale shopping and business district. There the perverse streak that had caused Beth to dress so flamboyantly reasserted itself, and she went first into a shoe store, then into a dress and accessory shop. Phil needed the money she had earned today, she knew, but she recklessly spent every cent of it on clothes that she did not actually require. She made purchases extravagantly, recklessly, and felt only a slight twinge when she spent ninety dollars on a simple cotton dress with a bolero jacket that was, at the most, worth half of what she paid.
The money shrank rapidly, and she realized the clerks, aware of her bizarre appearance, were watching her curiously. So Beth fled, found another taxi and at last returned home. By the time she paid the driver, she had less than two dollars left in her purse.
Taking her new things upstairs, she spread them out on her bed but found no pleasure in them and hastily put them away in closets and drawers. I must be cracking up, she thought. I earned the money for Phil, but I deliberately spent it. Now I have more clothes than I need. I have so many that I'll have to be careful wearing the clothes or even Charlie will begin to suspect that something unusual is happening.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and her sense of disgust, compounded with horror, became greater. I've been punishing myself all day, she thought. First I made myself dress like a whore. Then I threw away the money I needed.
She tore off the false eyelashes, then quickly changed into a pair of shorts and a loose T-shirt. For a few moments she stared at the too-tight dress she had worn, hating it as a symbol of the degrading day she had spent. Unable to stand the sight of it for another minute, she dashed into the bathroom for Charlie's razor and then slashed the dress to ribbons. She ran down to the garbage with the rags and raced back into the house as though pursued by demons.
Panting for breath, she wiped a film of perspiration from her forehead and upper lip. Her panic was worse, even though the offending dress was gone, and she slumped into a chair until the feeling subsided. Her restlessness still pervaded her, however, so she went down to the playroom, fished through the bottles of liquor in the bar and finally found what she was seeking, an unopened quart of one hundred-proof bourbon.
Breaking the seal with fingers that trembled, Beth poured herself a stiff shot she drank in a single gulp. She gasped, tears came to her eyes and the liquor burned fiercely as it slid down, but she refused to allow herself even a swallow of water as a chaser. I'm still punishing myself, she told herself, but felt no relief. Too confused and upset to think coherently, she poured herself a second shot, then a third and a fourth.
Not until she had consumed the better part of a pint did she replace the stopper, put away the bottle and stagger upstairs again. Her head was spinning, she was unable to focus her eyes and realized she was intoxicated. "Whores," she muttered aloud, "drink themselves to death. It serves them right."
A wave of nausea alarmed her, and she reached the bathroom just in time. She was violently sick, but eventually she was able to make her way into the bedroom, stumbling over furniture as she groped her way toward the bed. She threw herself onto it, and all at once burst into tears. Her pillow was soaked before her hysteria subsided, and even in her liquor-fogged, miserable state, she knew that she had found no relief.
"I wish to God I were dead," she said, addressing the four walls.
That was the last she remembered, and when Charlie returned home after his day in Boston, he found her stretched out unconscious on the bed.