Chapter 10
BARRY STARED down the long upstairs hall of the Norton home. For a long time he had been standing in shadow, watching, listening. Dusk had fallen. The old house was still as death. At last a faint sound came from a far bedroom and, like a cat, he stealthily crept toward it. He knew his mother was wandering aimlessly in the grove back of the house. She often did this but could never give a coherent reason. She just liked to wander in the grove, especially after having eaten. Later she would come in and soak up whiskey and make it to her room where she would fall across the bed and sleep.
Barry approached the bedroom of his father and peeped cautiously around the doorframe. Sometimes the son would get this impulse to spy on the old man and always yielded to it if certain he would not be detected. Once or twice he had been caught at it, and the drunken parent had beaten his son unmercifully. Barry had never been able to stand up to the man in any physical contest.
Alex Norton was lying supine on the bed, eyes closed, snoring, a straight razor held in the quivering fingers of his right hand. Apparently he had been trying to shave but alcoholic stupor had overcome him and he had fallen to the bedclothes. He had cut himself badly on the left cheek. Blood was oozing over the wrinkled skin and staining the pillows. Bloody though he was, there seemed a curious, settled relaxation about his body and his expression was peaceful. When enough liquor was in him, at least he was free of the terrible storms that otherwise tore at his mind.
Barry stood motionless, staring down at his thin but hulking father. The son felt a cold, wild void within him. Nothing else. Then a faint thread of reason touched him. Blood. All that blood. Maybe the old man would bleed to death. The typical half-smile quirking his lips, Barry backed out of the room and pulled the door shut. The redness of blood formed a film before his eyes as he retreated to his own room. He sat down in a chair and lived that morning over again. Since quite a while ago he had been wanting to try to paint with blood. After the furious interlude with Nola he had thought of it briefly. Now the sight of his father's blood had reminded him of his longing.
He had been obliged to flee Nola's house lest he be caught by Bridge. Too bad. Nola's blood especially should make a wonderful pigment if only there were some way to prevent it darkening. Animal blood he had used before but it had always turned too dark. Maybe human blood wouldn't. Yes it would, too. He had saved a quantity of the Delery girl's blood, he remembered. That had dried and darkened. He thought of his father's blood, how brilliant red it had been. He even thought of going back to the bedroom and getting a supply of it. No. He hated his father's blood. What other blood was there? His mother's? Who wanted that poison? Melody's, then? Ah, Melody's blood! It might be even better than Nola's. How exhilarating, how satisfying, to beat her and conquer her that night when he had come on her naked in the wind and rain.
The recollection sent Barry into a fever. He rushed out of his room, climbed to the attic. There he went to work on a fresh piece of canvas with furious energy.
Always a fast painter, he was twice as fast tonight. The cotton-room in the barn swiftly took form. Spread-eagled on the soft white surface in lush beauty was the ravishing figure of Melody. Anatomical detail took a little time but the result was worth it. Nothing was omitted. Then with speed but great care he painted himself superimposed upon her, again faithful to anatomical detail.
Finished, he stepped back, dripping with the sweat of his labor, and triumphantly surveyed the painting. It was shocking in its message.
On the canvas, Melody was not being raped. He had caught her at the very height of consummation. She was giving herself with an unholy frenzy. Every line of her fabulous body, every contorted muscle and writhing sinew, the crazed glee on her face, spoke of the stark surrender of orgasmic convulsion.
Barry opened the cabinet, hid the still wet picture among the others. Then he left the studio, locked the door. He slipped down the stairs, got into his Jeep and drove off.
Rodney Barrett was driving a car, too. The Packard. And he was having his troubles with it. At first, every time he engaged the clutch, he stalled the gigantic engine. Shifting without benefit of syncromesh caused him to all but strip the gears. As for the steering, when he moved the wheel the locomotive under him seemed to dart about like a drunken dinosaur.
But after a couple of miles he began to get the hang of it and actually began to enjoy the antique juggernaut. He relaxed, confident now that he would not pile up auto and passengers against a tree, and devoted some attention to the girl beside him.
He had been dying to do this. Nola's intent scrutiny of him on Missy's porch had not been lost on him but he had not known what to make of it. He himself had felt inexplicably drawn to Nola-well, not so inexplicably; after all, she was strikingly attractive. But the very fact that he had been drawn had rendered him wary, distrustful, and he had fought down his interest in her. Now, however, all the cuddlesome pulchritude on the seat beside him was overcoming his wariness. And the girl had shown herself, he thought, to be bright as well as beautiful. He really ought to get to know her, even if it meant fighting his distrust, fear or whatever it was.
"Ah-did you ever do any psychiatric nursing while in training?"
"A little," she responded easily. "I spent three months on the psychiatric ward in Mobile Polyclinic."
"Not that it matters particularly," he said. "About all such training does is give the office nurse an understanding of what the doctor is trying to do. Actually, we won't expect to handle psychotic cases. They're the province of institutions equipped to handle them. Of course, we might get a psychotic occasionally-"
"We? Are you telling me that I'm hired?"
"That's right. If you want the job."
"Strange. I had the feeling," she said in a low voice, "that you rather resented the way Missy shoved me on you."
"I did. I hate being pushed around. But that has nothing to do with you. You didn't do the shoving or pushing-and I'm sure you'll make a fine office nurse."
He smiled, cut his eyes toward her and tooled the big phaeton around a cow that had chosen to bed down in the middle of the road.
"Thanks, doctor," Nola said. Her heart was pounding. This Rodney Barrett was a most fetching man. It would be wonderful, she told herself, to be married to a man like that. She added silently, stop dreaming, Nola. He's a stranger. What do you know about him? What does he know about you? Anyway, his interest in you, if any, is strictly professional.
"Do you realize," Rod blurted unexpectedly, "that you're a remarkably beautiful woman?"
Nola blushed. The candid outburst nonplused her, but only for a moment. She had been admired by too many men not to be able to take a compliment gracefully. "I don't regard myself as beautiful," she said. "But I've been told that I'm not unattractive."
"Then maybe you can see that being cooped up in the same office every day might lead to complications."
"I've thought of that, too," she said, quietly. "Would that be bad?"
"I-I'm not sure." He lapsed into a short silence, during which he struggled to manhandle the Packard into second gear so he could get it up the long hill overlooking Kenton. "Before you agree to go to work for me, I guess there's something I'd better tell you. I'm allergic to beautiful women."
Nola flashed a glance at him. What did he mean? Was he trying to explain why he had avoided her eyes, avoided talking to her, avoided so much as giving her a polite smile after they had been introduced on Missy's veranda? But when that stunning young girl-what was her name -Tangi?-had served the coffee, Rod like all the others seemed to have been mesmerized. He had not reacted then like a man with a grudge against womankind.
"I don't follow you," Nola said. "You don't strike me as one of those misanthropic types. And obviously you aren't dulled to beauty-female beauty, that is."
"Certainly not. That's what I'm telling you. I'm oversensitive to it." There was a curious lack of animation in Rod's voice. "You see, I had a rather shocking experience a couple of years back and it left a mark on me. Dr. Hackthorne deliberately put me on cases rather resembling mine and this was a good cathartic for my emotional block. But I'm not cured by a long shot. I'm like a man afraid of snakes, but so fascinated by them that he exposes himself needlessly."
"You needlessly expose yourself to women?"
"Oh, hell-I didn't mean quite that. All I'm trying to say is that I was hurt by a woman-"
"And you're afraid of being hurt again?"
"That's it, I suppose. Neurotically afraid. How am I going to be able to rule it out of my thought processes? I can't live forever ducking what comes naturally."
"Why don't you just relax and enjoy it?"
He laughed. "That's very uncomplicated advice from a very uncomplicated person. I'll bet you wouldn't know a fixation if you met one face to face."
"You're wrong. I have a terrible one, and I recognize it as such. I had it, rather. Past tense. You see, doctor, it happens that you cured the fixation."
"Me?" His eyebrows lifted.
"That's right. You're a better healer than you know. But not even you can take away the memory and stain of it."
Once more his laugh bubbled. "I can't forget what happened to me. You can't forget what happened to you. Two of a kind, are we?"
"Maybe together we would do better at forgetting. So shall I report for work Monday morning?"
"If there's any work to report for. Dr. Fontenot says he's arranged for me to look at a suite in the Dunphy Building."
She smiled. "That's our one and only skyscraper. Nine stories. When my brother drove me into town to show me around, we ate lunch on the roof."
"You brought sandwiches?"
"Don't be silly! They have a delightful bar and restaurant up there."
This time she laughed as well as he, the mutual guffawing rising blithely above the guttural commotion being kicked up by the Packard's gigantic cylinders.
"Seriously, Nurse Nola. Even in the Dunphy Building with a bar on top-who, at a guess, would come to see me?"
"Oh, psychiatry isn't the forbidding mystery it once was. I'd say every neurotic who hears of you will come. Think how they'll be able to brag to their neighbors and friends."
He decided suddenly that he was certainly feeling a lot better than he usually did. Strangely all loads seemed light. "Let's aim this iron monster at a drive-in and find us a couple of drinks."
She shoved her arm through his. "Dr. Rod, I never was thirstier!"
They drove through Kenton to the outskirts where a garish burst of neon announced Jason's Hop Inn.
Rod bought a bottle of Bradsher's and setups from a girl whose shorts were so short a slice of peach-colored panty peeped out a quarter of an inch. Both shorts and panty were full of tender young flesh and Rod immediately concluded that it was because of her and her colleagues that Jason's establishment was a success. Twenty or thirty other cars were parked around. Some were loaded with youngsters, some with mature couples.
They had slow, delightful highballs, Rod discovering that when alone with Nola, conversation was not something one had to battle to maintain. For the most part talk came easy and when it didn't, the pause was not uncomfortable.
"Ummm," she said, parking her glass on the tray. She looked out at the brilliant orb of the moon hanging over the horizon.
"Something?" he asked.
"I feel so-so-well, full of something. I feel magic. As if I could point a finger and a star would slide down it and... "
"And take a good look at your eyes, get its feelings hurt by the comparison, and scoot for home to sulk and plot."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "My, how bold. Still scared of me?"
"At least I've squelched my urge to run."
"That's good. I, too, have an urge to run but I won't. I'll just walk. To the ladies' room."
She got out before he could help her and walked across the hard surface of the parking lot, her softly rounded figure swaying with natural and seductive grace. He watched, admiring her, until she passed out of sight beyond the cars and shade trees.
Barry Norton, from his hiding place in the shadows of an ornamental cedar, also watched-and gloated.
He watched Nola's swaying hips and recalled how compliant they had been to his manly stimulation, how soft and eager, how resilient under his touch. Sometimes Barry came here and parked the Jeep in an obscure corner, then hid in the shadows to watch the parade of young flesh with drooling avidity. That was what he had been doing tonight For some reason he never considered asking one of the cute young car-hops for a date. His big hope was to catch one of them alone in a dark spot. This was not likely to happen. The girls knew very well that the unlit, isolated margins of the place were to be avoided.
When Barry had caught sight of Nola, he had been overwhelmed by his luck. Why, if he could get hold of her, she would not even fight him. He might have followed her into the women's retreat, except that lights flooded the path. The incongruity of the act the possibility that others might be in there and raise a hue and cry, were not what had deterred him. Just the light. But she had been hidden momentarily in the darkness of a sort of cul-de-sac formed by an L in the conformation of the service building. He slunk around the border of cedars, protected from sight until he was close to the rest-room. There he waited.
Nola emerged after a time, and to avoid the dark patch in the L of the building she swerved. In so doing, she came close to the cedar that concealed Barry.
Silent as a commando, he leaped from the shadows and grabbed Nola. He dragged her behind the tree, slammed her against the board fence that divided the drive-in from the lot next to it.
Nola could not scream for his hand was over her mouth. But she fought and kicked.
Barry's response was to crush her so hard in his arms that she thought her bones would break. And as he hugged her that way, something happened. Those bones of hers melted. Her whole body became wax. She had thought herself cured of him, but his magnetic power and the contact of his frenzied flesh had awakened an answering madness in her.
Feeling her sag against him, and recognizing it for the surrender it was, Barry laughed softly. This was his girl, his creature-just as the other one, Melody, was his creature, he told himself. The images of Nola and Melody ran together in his mind, swam before his eyes as a single being. He took his hand from Nola-Melody's mouth but she uttered no cry. He fussed with his trousers but she did not try to twist away.
In fact, backed up against the fence, she lifted her dress, spread her thighs to receive him. His hands clutched those soft hips. He plunged himself into all that quivering womanhood. A shattering ecstasy detonated within her as Barry convulsed.
No word had passed between them. The spasm past, he let his head fall to her shoulder. But now that the damage was done, she was prey to utter disgust and tried to tear herself away from him. Still she did not scream. She did not want to call public attention to her sin, just wanted to flee it. Barry raised his head and gripped her the tighter. He wanted more of the same from this delicious girl, this Nola-Melody of his.
Meanwhile, Rod in the Packard had grown impatient, then a bit alarmed. Nola had certainly been gone an unconscionably long time. What was keeping her? He decided to take a stroll toward where he had seen her vanish, A few steps beyond, in a dark jag of the building, he halted. It seemed to him that he had heard a noise in the fringe of trees.
So it was that he came on Barry and Nola struggling.
Rod shoved her aside. He smashed a brutal right hook into the stomach of the slighter man, wringing from him a strangled bleat of pain. Then a pile-driver left ripped upward and almost tore off Barry's head. He fell to his knees. Rod seized him, dragged him erect.
"Call help. We'll turn this maniac over to the cops. Did he hurt you, Nola? If he did, I'll-"
"No, Rod. He didn't hurt me. Let him go."
"Let him go! A man attacks you and you tell me to let him go!"
"Please, Rod. I don't want to make a scene." But the young psychiatrist, unable to believe his ears, did not release Barry.
Desperately Nola said, "It wasn't all his fault. I-I encouraged him."
Astounded, Rod let go of Barry. He slunk off silently, hunched over, and disappeared among the trees.
Rod and Nola faced each other. In the darkness, neither could see the other's expression.
"You encouraged him?"
"That's right. And it's not the first time."
"Let's get back to the car," Rod said shortly.
She was expecting Rod to burst into a storm of questions, to scold her, to express loathing or shock or both. But his professional discipline had taken over.
So he led the trembling Nola to the Packard and helped her in. And all he said was, "Want a drink to steady the nerves?"
She replied shakily, "I just want to get out of here."
As soon as he had the Packard out on the road, Nola collapsed into a spell of weeping. Once he was clear of town, Rod stopped the car, caught her by the shoulders and pulled her close to him.
His heart was swelling. "Don't cry, Nola. Don't rack yourself like that-"
"I'm rotten. Don't you understand... I'm rotten, unclean... "
"You're just feeling guilty about something. You don't have to, you know."
"Take me home, please," she sobbed.
"All right." He released her. "But you'll have to show me the way."
She gave him muffled directions. He shifted into first and put the car in motion.
When they reached the fork that turned off to the Pilgrim cottage, Lora dashed out in front of the headlights.
"Missy... Missy!" She ran to the driver's side of the car as Rod braked to a stop. Seeing him, the woman was astonished.
"Thought sure you was Missy... Oh, Miss Nola, thank the Lord. Please ma'am, hurry. I think Miss Melody done cut herself to death."
"This is Dr. Barrett, Lora," snapped Nola. "Get here! hurry!"
Lora leaped over the back door without bothering to open it.