Chapter 5
Joe lazed in the hot Sunday afternoon sun. He lay in swimming trunks on a blanket in his backyard patio. The only sounds reaching his ears were occasional bird chrips that sounded as drugged as he felt, by the heat and brilliance of the sun. He lifted his beer can to his lips once again and drank deeply. The cool brew felt good swirling over his innards, and soothing to his troubled mind.
Renting this house had been a good idea. It put a strain on his budget, but provided a healthy change of scene from his downtown day-and-night life. A good, peaceful place to sort things out. He especially liked the privacy of his redwood-fenced backyard on a hot Sunday afternoon.
Maybe Annie should be here. Maybe they could talk it all out. He thought not, though. What could he say that would make any sense, when he couldn't figure out his emotions himself? He thought lovingly, albeit sadly, of his sweet Texas girl. He hoped she was enjoying her zoo outing with her cousin this afternoon.
She was a bright little thing. You couldn't fool her. Last night after the Goslins' party, when they'd stopped at a couple of joints on the Square, she'd sensed intuitively that something was wrong. Maybe she didn't know exactly what-did he, for that matter?-but her perception of it was there in the big, blue eyes when he'd kissed her goodnight. No word, no acknowledgement of the new wall between them had been spoken, but Annie had known.
He tilted the can again. Empty. Rising with a sigh, he padded into the kitchen to fetch another. There were spots before his eyes, and a dizzy sensation, after the sun. Probably have holes in my head too, he mused disgustedly as he cracked the fresh can of beer. He returned to his blanket in the sun and to his troubled thoughts.
The haunting, golden apparition took center stage of his mind again. She really hadn't been completely out of his thoughts, waking or sleeping, since yesterday. He'd dreamt about her last night, and it was the first one of those dreams he'd had in a long long time. Carla. The hauntingly beauteous, maddeningly desirable, enchantingly wicked ... Carla. His hips writhed on the blanket from the sheer wanting of her. Face it, Joe, you want her. You want her so bad you can taste it. She's no good, certainly no good for you, but you're going out of your head with yearning for her. There isn't the least shred of logic involved, but there it is.
Was she really such a witch though? Had their split-up been all her fault? That time in Wichita, that was the turning point. For both of them. If he had behaved better, been more of a man, maybe ... Who knows, they might still be together today.
He knew he'd yearned secretly for her ever since he could remember, before, during, and after her marriage to Mickey. But with no real hope of possessing her, no idea she regarded him as anything other than a platonic friend, the role he'd always played.
Then came Wichita, when he'd been on the road for the show promotion company, and his bold invitation to her to join him there for a short vacation. Even then, even when a mix-up in the reservations at his motel had forced them to share the same room, he hadn't realized he was about to possess her. He had to smile into the sun now, at his naivete of the time. He'd been younger then, in more ways than years.
That first night, she'd practically had to lead him by the hand to the altar of her lush treasures of love. He'd lain there in the dark room on his twin bed, in sleepless misery, wanting her, but had made no move. Finally, wondrously, she had come to him.
The gift she'd given him there in the darkness, the gift of her soft body, the loving words, the tender caresses-was one of such consummate glory that, he'd realized long ago, the memory of it would haunt him the rest of his years.
She'd revoked his license to the gates of heaven soon enough, he recollected sadly. There'd been the boozy, bottle-club-hopping party with a group of his friends in Wichita. Carla had disappeared with one of them, a swinger named Richard, and hadn't shown up at the motel until dawn. During his lonely night of hell, he'd come to his cruel decision. Trashing out from his hurt, he'd decided to kiss her off, send her home, kill it dead. Though she and Richard had solemnly sworn that nothing improper had happened, he'd refused to hear or believe. He'd practically kicked her out bodily.
Back in St. Louis, they'd made up briefly, abortively. Their passion was now an angry thing. There was a wall that no words or makings of love seemed able to dissolve. It was as if he had hurt her terribly, beyond repair, although they never spoke of Wichita.
She'd seemed fundamentally changed, somehow. Wilder, with a strain of desperation in her search for fun and success in her modelling career. He remembered it was about that time she'd seen the movie "Breakfast At Tiffany's". Immediately, she'd taken on the airs of a midwestern Holly Golightly, complete with long cigarette holder. Her apartment had started to be always crowded with people, mostly well-healed looking men, and there'd been lots of continuous drinking and partying. The men were business associates, she'd said.
Then, as their affair had gradually petered into near nothingness, she'd begun making "business" trips with these sleek men, to New York, California, even the Caribbean a time or two. Ugly rumors reached his ears, to the effect that Carla had become merely a high-priced traveling companion for her business associates. Some definitions of her activities had been even less kind.
Finally, the night on Gaslight had ended even the pretense they'd been keeping up. He'd brought along another couple for an evening out. Arriving at Carla's apartment, they'd found her tipsy, and clad only in the tiniest of leopard-skin bikinis. Before slipping a dress over the bikini, she'd given a suggestive and curiously pathetic dancing show which had offended his friend's wife.
Nonetheless, they had ventured out onto the Square, the four of them. At the Brantly-A-Go-Go, Carla had excused herself to go to the ladies room and emerged wearing only the leopard bikini. Without returning to their table, she'd bounced onto the dance floor, nearly nude in the bikini and gripping the long cigarette holder in her teeth, there to be pawed by one turtle-necked young punk after another, to the driving beat of the rock music. Wordlessly, fighting back the nausea in his throat, he had left, and it had been officially over between them.
Or so he'd made himself believe all these years. He was gripped now with the familiar yearning, redoubled if anything, and he realized the old, fatal thing had never really died at all. It had just been forced underground by a defense mechanism of his rftind. Yesterday, the close-up sight of her had blasted down his defense mechanisms as if they'd been made of tissue paper.
"You ought to lock your doors", she said teasingly.
At first he thought he hadn't really heard the lightly spoken words. It was her voice. The sun must be making him punchy. It couldn't be her. Then why was his heart pounding like a triphammer? He rolled over.
"Carla!"
"Hi, Joe. Can I come in? Or should I say 'out'?"
She was a dazzling sensation to him, standing there in the sun in a cool, pink, clinging cotton outfit trimmed in white with white heels. Her tall, sensuous femininity seemed to fill the whole yard. Presently, Joe regained his powers of speech.
"Why, Carla, what the hell. Talk about surprises. Sit down." He rose, feeling awkward, all hands and feet. For want of something better to say, he blurted, "Let me get you a beer," knowing full well she didn't drink beer. Didn't used to at least.
He strode nervously to the kitchen while she seated herself in one of the deck chairs. Excitedly, he wondered what could have occasioned this completely unexpected visit, un-dreamed-of visit would be a better word. Get a hold on yourself now, he cautioned silently as he turned to rejoin her.
By the time he had placed pilseners of beer on the small table between them, and seated himself opposite her, he had regained at least his outward composure.
"Well, Carla, what brings you out to the wilds of Clayton?", he asked with bland friendliness, although he was well-nigh faint at her sudden, dazzling appearance in his ward.
"Oh, I was just out driving and happened to be passing by", she said, seeming to try to match his casualness. Suddenly her lovely face changed, the impersonal smile disappeared, and she lowered her eyes for a moment. In a subdued tone, she continued: "I guess you know better than that, don't you, Joe?"
"Uh-huh." He didn't know better, but what else could he say?
She met his eyes again and her face was troubled. "Joe, I've got a problem. I've been up all night without a wink of sleep. I....", she shook her head defeatedly, her blonde tresses glinting in the sun, " ... I simply don't know where to turn. I ... I thought of you." Her voice rose in pitch as though she were near tears.
"Well, what's the matter?", Joe asked, concerned. "I'm glad you came and if I can do anything ... Do you need money or anything like that?"
Her first sob broke forth, shaking her luscious torso, and she buried her face in her hands. Peal after peal of bitter weeping tore from her shuddering bosom, as Joe sat, feeling useless, nonplussed by the turn of events. He rose and put his palm gently upon her back, patting her soothingly. Even in this situation, he was aware, the mere touch of her excited him wildly. She was so lovely. The years seemed to disappear as though they had never been. It was as if she had always been here, as if they had always been together.
"Oh, Joe I've been such a fool", she wailed bitterly into her cupped hands. "Such a bloody, stupid, damned fool!"
"Take it easy, honey", he soothed, patting her. "Cry it out and then tell me about it." He sat down again, pulling his chair closer to her. Presently, her grief-stricken spasms seemed to dimish.
She dabbed at her moist eyes with a hanky and sniffled: "Oh, Joe, I've gotten myself into an impossible marriage!" This revelation brought on fresh tears which took several more moments to subside. "I'm soooo unhappy", she blubbered pitiably.
"Come on, Carla, it can't be as bad as all that", Joe placated. "All marriages have their rough spots at first. Burt's a good, decent guy basically, now isn't he?" And what does that make you, buddy, sitting around wishing you could get into the pants of the good, decent guy's wife?, he thought miserably.
"He's not decent. He's a beast!", Carla shrilled. "Oh, Joe you don't know how awful he can be. He's forever drunk and he ... he gets violent sometimes." Her precious head dropped and she blank-stared her misery into her lap. Then she fixed him again with frightened blue eyes and her soft hand crept to cover his on the table. She might have been applying an electric terminal to his hand, for the shock that coursed through his body at her touch. She said: "And, Joe, he's not ... a man."
He knew now why she had come and his heart sang. It was wrong, it would surely be the worst thing he had ever done, but that seemed of the most minute insignificance at this moment. He wasn't really thinking, he knew, only giddily sensing as he stood up. Her blondeness and pinkness and enchanting fragrance filled his being. They were his being, suddenly. Nothing else exsited. She was the flowering focus of the need which filled his consciousness. His strong hands, immeasurably strengthened by the simple fact of her presence, went under her arms. She couldn't possibly have resisted his strength, nor did she try, as he lifted her against him. Their bodies welded in a throbbing, magnetic seeking. Their wide open mouths met in violent union.
Her hunger, he discovered, was as ravenously insatiable as his. The salt taste of her tears lubricated the searing kiss as their mouths sought to devour each other. The hot sweetness of her frantic tongue and nipping teeth lashed his surging passions.
Achingly, his arms encompassed her clinging lushness, his hands tremblingly rediscovering her-the ripe roundness of her buttocks, the flowing smoothness of her thighs and back. He hefted her against him, knowing the ache in his arms was caused by a yearning of too-long standing. She seemed at once exquisitely and thrillingly new, and yet infinitely more precious than any mere aspect of newness could lend, better for having been cherished before, finer for having been desired for so long.
Their scalding kiss broke at last and he looked into her lovely face. Her wet lips, the lipstick smeared wantonly, were open and trembling as she returned his gaze with tear-filled eyes.
"Oh, Joe", she murmured, snuggling her golden head into the hollow of his neck. "I'd forgotten how it could be with us. I thought I remembered, but no ... I'd forgotten it could be like this."
"Are you sure you know what you're getting into, Carla?", he croaked. Holding her close, knowing her like this again, he realized his question was pointless. If she were to try and stop him now, he knew, he'd tear her clothes off and take her by force, so great was his need.
"I can't help myself, Joe." She strained her hips against him with tantalizing friction. "I need you. That's all that matters now. Nothing else is important", she breathed shudderingly.
His fingers funmbled ineffectively at the zipper of her dress. "I can't get it open, Carla", he muttered, darting his tongue into her ear. "Hurry, or I'm liable to rip it off."
Though her hands were trembling too, he saw, she had better success with the zipper. In a second she stood before him, encumbered only by the maddening white silk of her gauzy bra and laced bikini panties. He held her at arms lenghth and allowed himself a long, hungry look.
Her tall, lithe, perfectly turned figure had, if anything improved, become firmer, riper, an even more desirable receptacle for love. The smooth, rolling reaches of her curving flesh were tanned a golden-brown hue which contrasted deliriously with the silk whiteness of panties and bra.
"You look like a man who likes what he sees", she cooed softly, gently freeing her shoulders from his grip. "Let's give you an even better look, shall we?"
An almost inaudible groan of appreciation grumbled in his throat as she quickly and gracefully moved to complete her radiant nudity. Joe dizzied with delight and need as she posed for him there in the brilliant sunlight. Every pore of her creamy flesh seemed to shimmer and open to him as he devoured her nakedness with his eyes. She turned, then turned again, giving him a choice of several tantalizing angles during this delicious moment before love.
The whiteness of her lower tummy, where it had been covered against the sun, began to twitch and tremble. A perceptible beat throbbed just under its incredible smoothness. Her swelling breasts too, reacted to his ardent gaze, tightening in flesh-crawling waves and bluging forward. Their broad, red caps bunched and puckered, squeezing forth the sensational tips he remembered so fondly. As he watched the spiking antennae, they seemed to circle and beckon to him. So be it. Wordlessly, he slid his trunks down and placed his hard-muscled, spread-stanced masculinity in virile juxtaposition to her soft, yielding femininity.
Then, at the same instant, neither could prolong restraint. They rushed into each other's arms.
Her lush nakedness spread the length of his body, wiggling and undulating. Joe felt his passion rise to the bursting point at the rubbing, straining contact.
"Carla ... darling. It's just like it was before ... Nothing has changed for me", he murmured brokenly into her ear as he held her close.
She ground herself wetly against his thigh and gurgled: "It's not like before, Joe. It's better. Let's make it even better shall we?"
She framed his big head with her hands and captured his mouth in a tonguing, deep-sucking kiss. The kiss held as he sank slowly to the blanket. He lay on his back and she looked tenderly down at him from her hands and knees. With the sun behind her head forming a glowing halo around her golden curls, he believed he had never seen a face so lovely. Her springly breasts dangled just above his chest. When she dipped to brush their throbbing red nipples back and forth across him, he knew he must have her. Now.
Suddenly, imbued with a fierce strength, he grasped her firmly about the hips and rolled with her, covering her tummy, hips, and thighs with many hot, biting kisses. He heard her moan of shocked delight as he joined her lubriously with a last, long, writhing kiss.
Her body squirmed in his clutches now, and he had difficulty holding her still enough to prolong his intimate kissing. She wiggled and shuddered, as if suffering intense pain, while he listened to her grasping moans. They became higher and higher pitched and turned at last into a succession of loud, agonized whimpers.
"Please, Joe, please", she gasped. "I can't stand it any more!"
He went to her then, thrusting his hardness liquidly into her hot, yearning softness. "Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe", she breathed rapturously as they settled into their long-practiced and easy rhythms of love. Could it have been so long? He wondered in disbelief. How could it be so perfect, so right as it was now. They hadn't danced this wondrous dance together for so long a time! Perhaps in both their dreams they had always been together like this.
Compulsively, as he neared his brusting pinnacle, his thrusts became deeper, faster, more ferocious. Carla dug sharp nails into his back and cried her strangling torment into the face of the sun. Together they crashed skyward, catapulted to the very surface of the blazing white-hot ball. Here they remained for a long, terrible, wonderful moment. Finally, mercifully, they floated slowly earthward. Together.
Later, lying peacefully together in the sun, hands joined, Carla sighed contentedly and said: "It's good to be back, my darling."
"I want it to work this time, Carla. Somehow there's got to be a way." Was there a way? He honestly didn't know. All he knew was that he was no longer a man on a brink. He'd taken his leap and, right now, was deliriously glad of it.