Chapter 9
Post hadn't realized he'd walked so far. But when he saw the park, he knew he'd come at least two miles. He whistled in admiration. Imagine walking two miles and not being aware of it, he thought.
But June had come up with an idea about Ethel Prantis that needed mulling over. And there had been a newer, subtle pressure between June and him. The reason, obvious enough, Post thought. June's emotional ice cubes were beginning to melt. And with it came a lot of pressure.
It was as though June had just become aware of the fact that theirs was, in spite of its limitations, a very intimate relationship.
He moved on, past the two flagstone cairns that held up the large plank of redwood with the letters burned into it: Cabrillo Park, Los Angeles County Dept. of Parks and Recreation. He found a bench just past the courts where two young girls were playing tennis. He sat down and lit a cigarette. In the waning summer evening, a game of softball was going on at the far diamond.
But his thoughts returned to June. Pressure, he thought. Little things. Little things that start arguments. Little things like June suddenly becoming jealous of Ethel Prantis for something that hadn't happened yet, something that might not come off at all.
Post told himself he was finally getting a true picture of marriage. This flare-up was unique, though, when he thought about it. It was the sort of thing that would happen between two people who were having a complete relationship.
He'd walked out rather than lose his temper. But now, puffing on a cigarette, he realized he'd traveled over two miles without being aware of it. All right, so he'd actually lost his temper, so what? He threw the cigarette away violently and immediately lit another. Then he heard the noises.
At first, it sounded like some animal, caught in a trap. But as it grew louder, he realized it wasn't an animal, it was a human, probably a small boy.
Post moved through a patch of tall grass, toward a thick clump of trees and shrubs. The voice was even more distinct now. It was a boy, all right and he was speaking in an audible moan. "Please," the voice said, "oh please, please. There was more of his moaning.
"Quiet, you little fool. Do you want someone to hear?"
"Please. Let me. Just once, Joan. Please."
"Can't you be quiet, you little fool?"
Post froze when he recognized the voice. It was Joan Hart. Mike Regan's story had been accurate.
"Just once, Joan, please."
"If you don't shut up...."
Post moved stealthily forward, freezing again when he heard a twig crack. He waited for a reaction, but heard nothing except a slight rustling of leaves. "Isn't what we're doing enough for you?" Joan Hart asked.
"You don't know what it's like feeling this way. I love you, Joan, honestly I do. Please let me ... please!"
"Do you, sweetheart? Do you really?"
"Yes, yes. Honestly. I've never felt this way before about a person."
"You poor thing, you've never been with a girl, have you?"
"Only the way we do it. Please, Joan. I love you."
"You're a sweet boy, Tim. Really you are. I'm going to do something nice for you. You'll see."
The boy began moaning excitedly, while Joan spoke. "Calmly, Tim. Just be calm."
"Oh, how can I be calm? Please, Joan, won't you let me?"
"You don't understand, sweetheart. If I let you, nothing will ever be the same for you. You'll always want a woman that way, and at your age, it isn't so easy to get women. I'm doing you a favor, Tim. Honestly. You've been very nice to me. I'm making it so easy for you, Timmy, really.' "Oh, please, Joan."
Post decided he'd had enough. Regan had been right in his description. It was rough. He didn't even have the curiosity to look, or to imagine the poor, frustrated kid, gripping at Joan's long legs and begging for the very thing she would never give him.
He started away, feeling disgusted. And then he heard her voice, louder and with a note of alarm. "Tim! What are you doing Tim! Tim! Stop that! Don't, Tim! Don't Tim! Oh, please, no. NO!" There was genuine fear in her voice. Post started back.
"No, Tim, you don't know what you're doing. Stop, Tim, you're hurting me."
Post heard a loud moan from the boy. He fought his way through the shubbery and then he found them. Joan's tennis shorts and pink, scalloped panties had been torn away. Her blouse was open-unbuttoned, Post noticed. Her brassiere lying on a mound of cut grass was next to her tennis sweater.
The boy was about sixteen. He had Joan pinned by the shoulders to the ground, one hand clutching tightly at her firm white breast. He had just insinuated himself on top of her, between her legs, beginning the motion that caused him to sigh from the unknown pleasure.
The next events came quickly, so quickly that when Post thought back on them, he could not be sure of his suspicions, in spite of what he'd heard.
But standing there for a brief moment, he could have sworn he saw Joan surrender herself to what was happening. Her legs actually moved to accommodate the boy, her hands gripped the back of his shoulders.
And then she saw him.
She kicked at the boy and raked his back with her fingernails. "Help me, Stu. For God's sake, help me. Don't you see what he's trying to do?"
The boy was dumbfounded.
Post grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled sharply, threw him off balance. He landed in a heap, a sigh of frustration and bewilderment escaping him.
"Oh, thank God, Stu. Thank God you came. You saw. You saw what he was trying to do. The little begger tried to rape me."
"I didn't," the boy cried. "It wasn't like that."
"He did. You saw, Stu. You saw what he was trying to do to me."
"Oh, God," the boy said. He looked like a cornered young animal. He peered nervously about him and bolted past Stu.
"Wait," Stu shouted.
"Let him go," Joan said. "You scared him away, that's all that matters."
Post looked at her, bewildered. "Are you all right?" He wasn't sure at the moment, how much force the boy had used. He knew that somewhere along the line, the kid had become excited enough to try.
"He ... didn't ... well, nothing happened. You got here just in time. In another moment, it would have been too late. I know it, Stu." She began crying, her body shaking, her thin shoulders moving in spasms.
Post gave her his handkerchief. He dropped to his haunches beside her and held her hand. The crying, he decided immediately, was no act. Joan was genuinely frightened.
Post brushed some of the leaves and flecks of the grass from her hair. She let herself lean against him, still racking with sobs. He took the handkerchief from her and daubbed carefully at the corners of her eyes, then swabbed at the patches of grass stain on her hips.
Her elbows were bruised, but not bleeding. Leaves and more of the dry, cut grass had worked their way inside her sweat sox. He brushed as much of it as he could.
Surveying her torn shorts and panties, he decided they were beyond repair. Carefully, he put her brassiere in his coat pocket, then tied her sweater about her waist, tight enough to hold the torn pants in place.
"Come on," he said. "Did you bring your car?"
She told him it was in the parking lot.
With his arms about her narrow shoulders, Post led her to her white Mercury coupe. He opened the door for her, then moved around to the driver's side. The keys were still in the car.
So was her tennis gear. He helped her place her brown camel's hair coat over her shoulders, then she began crying again.
"There's an Emergency Hospital in Reseda," he said. "We can make it in a few minutes."
"No," she said, tugging at his arm. "Please, it's all right."
The entire weight of her body was leaning against him. "You've got to promise me you won't tell anyone about this. Not even June. Please. I couldn't stand it."
"You're the boss," Post said, "but I still think I ought to insist."
"Promise me, Stu. Please promise me you won't tell anyone, not even June."
Post started the Mercury. "I will," he said, "but only on one condition."
"I'll promise not to say a word to anyone about what happened today, but you've got to promise me you'll see a psychiatrist-soon."
Joan gave a light, airy chorus of laughter and squeezed his hand. "Oh, Stu, you're precious. You think he might have caused me some traumatic shock." You know, fcr a minute I thought you were going to propose something else."
"What?"
Joan Hart tilted her chin and enjoyed more laughter. Post had to admire the performance she was putting on. "I thought you were going to proposition me, promise not to tell if I'd let you finish what that little beggar started."
"Okay, Joan. Let's skip the act. I know why you were there with the kid."
Her face became more determined. "Of course, you do, Stu. He was trying to rape me."
"Joan, I heard what was going on a few minutes before he tried to rape you. I'll grant you that's what he was trying to do, but only because you deliberately got him so excited he didn't know what he was doing. Can I make it much clearer than that, Joan? To put the clincher on matters, I still have your brassiere in my pocket. Why is it that it was lying there next to your sweater, folded very neatly, while your shorts were being ripped off?
"Okay," she said quietly. "You know. Now what?"
"I'll forget the whole thing if you'll go to psychiatrist."
"Just like that, Stu?"
"Just like that. No strings attached."
"But why?"
"Believe it or not, Joan, I sort of like you. Not the way you think but as a person. If it's any consolation to you, I'd keep my word. But there's no guarantee that Mike Began will keep quiet."
"So Mike knows, too."
"He saw you, Joan. You weren't very discreet."
"No," Joan said. "I guess not. But I can tell you one thing, Stu, it never went this far before. I never cheated."
Post felt his hackles rise. "I may sound like a damned puritan to you, but what the hell do you call what you were doing with that kid if it wasn't cheating? You're the one who used the expression."
"You have no right to play God with me, Stu. I'm a hell of a lot purer than the other women. And it isn't as if you're so lilly white, either."
Stu bristled. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that Gail Windover told me a few interesting things about you."
"Such as?"
"Don't play guessing games with me, Stu Post. We all do what we do out of our marriage because we can't find it in our marriage. Why do you think I'm seeing that kid? Because he's willing to give me something Don won't."
He'd learned quite a bit, professionally and personally in these last three minutes with Joan Hart. He'd learned that there was a minimum code the women would adhere to, without thinking it was cheating.
As for himself, well...."I'm sorry, Joan, I guess I did put myself on a pedestal."
She touched his arm. "And I was trying to take some female bitchery out on you. You see, Stu, Mike Regan has already approached me. He'd be very happy to take little Tim's place."
"The bastard," Post said. "The dirty bastard."
"Look, Stu, Humphrey seems to think he has to give me my thrice weeky duty loving. Do you think that's what I want, duty loving? The hell I do. I'm not that dumb or that hard to look at that I can't find a man who really cares. And for all my kicking up my heels, I've still never been intimate with another man the way I have with Humphrey. You still think I ought to see a psychiatrist? You still think I'm a neurotic, crazy broad?"
"I didn't say that, Joan. But maybe he can help you. I'm sure Humphrey can be approached, if you play it correctly."
"Sure. I tell him about Mike and he'll want to know everything. He'll pull the same old line and promise it won't matter, no matter how bad it is. Then, like a fool, I'll tell him and it will be held against me for years. No thanks, Stu. Maybe you can do that with June. But, not me."
"In that case," Post said, "maybe a psychiatrist is the best answer."
"All right," Joan said. "I will. That surprises you, doesn't it? But I will, damn it, I will."
"It was nine-thirty when Joan let Stu off in front of his house. He'd come to admire her deeply. And it was driven home to him, for perhaps the thousandth time, what a good, sincere woman can do for a man, any man, but especially her husband, if only he will let her.
The first and foremost thing on his mind as he fitted his key into the lock was Francesca Abblebaum. He was going to tell her. They were through. Whatever his problems were with June, he was going to face them by himself. But he was not going to be intimate with Francesca, not any more.
Opening her door, he saw June, sitting on the divan. She was dressed for bed. The moment she saw him, she flung her magazine aside.
Post was immediately smitten by her, she had a haunting aura of attractiveness. Her lovely legs, propped up by her high-heeled mules, glistened in the soft light. Her breasts were visible through the filminess of her gown. Her hair had a radiant, dark softness to it. Her face glowed with a quiet sensuality. Her womanliness prevailed and Post had the distinct flattering impression that it was because of and for him that she was like this now.
He gritted his teeth for the ironic comedy to come. What would she tell him this time? To sleep on the couch? That she cared for him even more? That she was sorry they'd quarreled?
He held onto his resolve that all was finished between himself and Francesca. He had to hang onto it tightly, because the sight of June had his juices running in him.
"I've been doing some thinking while you were gone, Stu," she said softly, patting a place next to her for him to sit.
He was tense enough to shout at her again. "Don't think so damned much if it's going to make you look this way."
He sat next to her, on the edge of the pillow. "What have you been thinking about, June?" he asked, instead of the explosive reply that had come to his lips.
"This was a crisis for us tonight. It was, in a very real sense, our first big fight. When you left, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I knew there was something I had to do. Now I know what it is."
"What?" he asked.
June tugged at the tie-string holding her robe together at the neck. "This," she said, letting the robe fall off her shoulders. Then she tugged at the ribbon that went about the neck of her filmy shortie shirt.
She deliberately lifted it over her head. Her breasts were exposed, small, firm and lovely, shimmering in the light.
"And this, too, she said, extending her hand to him.
"The rest is your job, all yours. But please," she added, touching his leg with her hand, "whatever you do, please be tender."