Chapter 7
"Well, boy," she said, "aren't you the brave little one." She lifted one foot, held her shoe rigid, and then ran the sharp point of her spike heel up and down Jim's white skin. Where it touched his back, it left a faint red line.
Jim tensed, and Maria thought he would at least grab Arlene and jerk her off her feet. But he didn't. He rolled over on his stomach like a white soft slug, and the raw violence she had felt mere minutes before, had faded out of his face and eyes. Arlene stood over him and kept running her heel up and down his back, while Maria watched with sick fascination.
"Nice boy," Arlene whispered, "Nice boy. Down... Down now! Little boy, must obey his mother. Down, boy, down!"
Arlene murmured the words as if soothing a sick child, and then she started to laugh. Maria felt the laugh might explode into the same wild uncontrolled sound of the morning, and she forced herself up. She couldn't stand this lesbian hysteria, she didn't even think about her nakedness as she got to her feet.
"How did you get in here?"
"I have ways, my dear."
"Yeah, like a snake!" "
"Hah! He had to follow you back to your dirty little apartment, didn't he? He's my husband, isn't he? What can you say about that?"
Maria stared full into the awful beauty of Arlene's twisted face. "You've destroyed him, ruined him!"
Arlene's lips made soft fluttering movements. "Don't be silly, Maria. He had to do it here, didn't he? Why didn't he play it smart and take you someplace else? Why did he bring you here and then leave the door open? Tell me!"
Maria forced herself to take a step forward, but she couldn't speak.
"Why didn't he catch a plane with you? Take you a thousand miles from here. Hell! He's gutless. He could have taken you away with him, but not my Jim. He's nothing. Don't you understand that?"
Maria found herself raising her hand, jabbing it towards Arlene. "Get out of here."
"Why?"
"Get out before I kill you!"
As if soothed by the threat, Arlene let her face assume its marble tranquility. "Not just yet, my dear. I want to show you something."
Arlene swung away and moved even closer to Jim. Maria watched her step over him, and she watched Arlene place her feet so they were loosely separated on both sides of his neck. Jim lay flat under her, his face pressed into the carpet, not moving.
"Come on, Jim, boy. Turn over. Nice and slow now. And look up at what Mommy's got for you."
Maria shoved her hands against her mouth. She had to jam her lips tight against her teeth to keep from screaming. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She wanted Jim to fight, to struggle against Arlene, but Jim turned over slowly. He moved so carefully that no part of his face or head touched Arlene's feet or ankles. When he was all the way over, he was looking straight up under Arlene's skirt.
Arlene pointed at him, and gestured quickly. "See what I mean, Maria. He's not a man. Soft like that. Is he, Maria, is he?"
All day long, Maria had struggled between nightmare and paradise. This became pure nightmare, as she watched the actions of her former husband. He seemed so weak and helpless. Tears formed lazily in the corners of his eyes, and then went dripping in snaky lines down his cheeks. Maria had never known him to be like that, but he was crying now, and he didn't make a sound.
The sight was too much for her. Maria got mad. An agony of anger erupted inside her. Raw violence earthquaked through every one of her nerves, and she wanted to take a knife and cut through Arlene's body, spilling the black blood out of it, stamping on the exposed vital organs.
She stepped over quickly to Arlene. It surprised her how fast Arlene whirled around to meet her. She almost laughed as Arlene's smug expression changed into something like fear. Taking advantage of that second, Maria lashed words at her. She wanted to learn the truth.
"Jesus, Arlene, what have you done to him? Why have you destroyed my man?"
Arlene shrugged, let her hands drop. "He likes it that way. He wants it that way. As a matter of fact, he used to come around begging me to make him that way. He didn't want to be a man." She stopped, looked directly at Maria, and her lips tensed into thin precise red lines. "Hell, Maria, he was only kidding you just now, kidding himself. He can't do it anymore. He's through!"
Maria had had enough of that talk. She wanted to control herself, but words exploded through her teeth like glass fragments. No matter what, she had to make Arlene out the liar she was. Her life, his life, the whole world depended on it.
"That's not true, Arlene. He almost did it."
Arlene shook her head scornfully. "Oh, yes, my dear. I'm sure of that. But I came didn't I? Didn't I?"
Like the forked tips of a snake's tongue, Arlene's eyes flickered down. They didn't look at Jim, they were caressing the rich mound of her own blonde hair, probing in, feeling, and Arlene's eyes made Maria tremble with shame. She felt like reaching for her dress, like picking it up out of the crumbled leaf pattern on the floor, but she didn't.
"He would have done it if you hadn't come."
"But I did come. I always come at just the right time to save him from doing something he doesn't want to do. Isn't that right, my queer little love? How many times have I saved you now, Jim? Want me to tell her? Want me to make a list of all the women you tried to make, and couldn't?"
"You know better than that, Arlene," Jim choked out. "You know the truth about those girls."
"But, Jim boy, you could have taken Maria, and you could have escaped with her-like you tried to escape once or twice before. Come on, Jim, why didn't you do that? Didn't you have guts enough to even try?"
Jim lay there staring; he didn't say anything, and Maria shivered without hope. Arlene's words cut through every inch of her. She felt like whimpering. She couldn't understand what had kept Jim and Arlene together. The sheer raw beauty of Arlene's body couldn't have done it alone. It had to be something else.
What could it be? What made up the secret power and control Arlene held over Jim, the power that made him coil up like a worm, instead of a man? Maria asked these inner questions, but she could find no answers.
She studied Arlene and read nothing but destruction. Arlene destroyed things. Instead of using her body to create, to build, to make love with if nothing else, she used it to destroy. Arlene had perverted her female being into an engine of destruction.
With that cynical smile on her lips, she was working hard toward Jim's ultimate end. She played with him, toyed with him, smashed him as a wilful child might smash a favorite doll. The child picked it up, strained to lift it high, then smashed it on a concrete sidewalk, secretly glad to get rid of it.
"Get out, you bitch," Maria said, "Get out!"
Arlene smiled back at her, and then Maria felt her anger get boiling hot. She tried to imagine what might hurt that woman, and she had one weapon-herself. She finally realized that, for Arlene, it was her body which was all important, and she had to use it to strike and kill.
She raised her hands, cupped them under her own breasts. She did it violently. She fingered her nipples once, made them jut out, and then she thrust her chest at Arlene.
"Look, you damn lesbian, this is what you've always wanted. You tried to destroy Jim, because I wouldn't stay with you, because I hated you. You wanted my body-my tits, didn't you?"
Maria's violence transformed her. She was twisting her breasts, almost yanking them from her own body, and Arlene's face turned pale. The green-steel eyes glazed with longing, with anger, and Arlene's lips went loose.
"Maria, don't-please!"
But Maria thrust herself close to Arlene. She shoved her breasts against the other woman's hands, and then she spit full into Arlene's face. Her action, even as it was done, surprised her. She could never have imagined doing such a thing, but seeing the spittle drip down off that incredibly beautiful, wicked face, transfixed her, and she stood there, still holding her breasts.
Arlene shook her head violently as if she were trying to get rid of something red hot. Her lips curled angrily. "God damn you, Maria!"
Arlene shook her head one last time, and then Maria felt Arlene's hand whip across her cheek. The blow came like the flash of a snapping spring, and it burned hot and startling, and Maria jumped back letting go of her breasts as she waited for another show of violence.
It didn't come. Instead, Arlene stepped back, and stood there, staring at the floor. Her hands hung emptily at her sides, and she seemed to be struggling with words.
"Maria, I'm sorry."
Arlene seemed to be forcing herself, forcing her spit-upon-body back under control, but the control would not come easily. The conflict had been too great. Spittle dripped off her chin, and she didn't move. She didn't even try to wipe it off. Maria took one last look and walked to the phone. She picked it up, dialed the cab-company number, asked for Ken.
She had finally made the right move. If Ken had gotten rid of Arlene before, she knew he could do it again. She held the smooth black receiver and, after seeing Arlene's cruel domination over Jim, she felt strong again.
Ken answered, and she told him quickly what she wanted. His answer was simple: "Okay, Sue, I'll be right over."
She put down the receiver slowly, then looked at Arlene. "He's coming over, and you'd better be gone before he gets here."
During this time, with Maria at the phone, Arlene had simply stood there. It seemed to Maria that the other woman would finally get control of herself and shake off the dull look on her face. But Maria's comment changed that.
Fury flared up inside Arlene and brought Arlene close to explosion. The tense pressure in her eyes threatened to burst into flames, to whirl into a whirlpool of destruction. Arlene moved her right foot, seeking balance, and anger grew in her cheeks, and it took her some time to speak.
Maria had to strain to hear her choked-out words.
"You mean you'd let that dirty little bastard see you stark naked like this?"
"Why not? Who knows, maybe he's seen me this way often enough. Maybe he even likes me, Arlene. Maybe he likes to feel me here, here, and here. Who knows?"
Her pointing finger jabbed at her own body, and she watched the effect in Arlene's face. Arlene struggled hard with her anger and could not control it.
"Like hell he does!"
"Just think. Maybe it feels as good to him as it did to you."
"Damn you!"
"The door's right there. You can get out anytime. It's you who are fouled up in everything. You don't know anything decent anymore."
"Damn you!"
Maria heard the swift curse and thought Arlene might finally detonate and do something drastic. Maria was prepared to duck, but her enemy swung away and walked slowly towards the door. With fearful fascination, Maria watched her reach for the knob.
Arlene stopped, looked back at her. "You think you've won,. don't you?" Arlene's face glowed with all its hellish beauty, and a strange joy shone in her eyes. "But you haven't, Maria. I'm going, and I'm not even going to take little Jim-boy with me. He can stay here, Maria. You can keep him all night if you want. Why not?"
Arlene's hand closed slowly over the doorknob, and for a second, she seemed to caress it lovingly. "Just to prove to you that he can't do anything, you're welcome to try anything you like. In fact, I suggest you do that. Try any little sex tricks you can dream up. Go ahead, for all I care. He won't-"
"Get out!"
Maria moved toward the door, drawn by something stronger than herself, but Arlene threw the door open, let it bang against the wall. "Don't worry, Maria, I'm going. But Jim will never come through for you. He's had it for today. Haven't you, lover?"
"Please, Arlene...!"
Jim's voice sounded weak, lost, like the whine of some lost puppy. Maria looked at him, wondering. His body seemed drawn out into a long white bony shape, and he lay dead on her blue rug. Arlene spoke to him again, saying obscene things, but he didn't look up.
Maria grabbed an ashtray from the coffee table and moved to throw it. Arlene only smiled politely and stepped through the doorway. Her voice trailed off down the stairs, descending faster, it seemed, than her body. "Poor, Jim... Poor, poor, Jim!"