Chapter 19
A week later Becky felt much better-about everything.
There would be no trial, at least for a long time. Irene Manning had had a nervous breakdown. She was in a sanitarium in Portland. Becky's attorney had come by her apartment to tell her there was evidence of drug addiction in Irene's past....
Experiencing a freedom she hadn't known for many long weeks Becky had found a job in an insurance company office and had taken a new apartment closer to her work.
Best of all, Zane continued to court her. She couldn't have wished for anyone more attentive and thoughtful.
Today was Saturday and he had asked to take her out. She had gladly consented. He would be at her apartment in just one hour.
Since her return to Spokane she had bought new clothes and as Zane had hinted that they might go dancing she selected a simple dark blue party frock that a clerk had told her flattered her slender leggy figure. As a matter-of-fact the same salesperson had told Becky she ought to apply for part-time work in the store as a model.
She hadn't made a decision about that. She didn't need the money. The mere idea of modeling reminded her of Hal and Pender and she wanted to forget that whole sequence. She knew, of course, that it would take time, that her subconscious would keep reminding her of the past.
She had been able to sleep better, though. Keeping busy had helped. When she was tired she didn't dream as much.
Now, tonight, she and Zane were going out on their first real date. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror doing her mouth, she had trouble keeping her hand steady. She had been in a kind of emotional deepfreeze and she realized that she needed male company. She was still young and attractive. She had been in mourning long enough.
Yet nagging doubts lingered in her mind.
Sooner or later Zane would want to possess her-it was in his eyes, in the tone of his voice. And she wanted so very much to be able to respond, to let herself go completely, when the time came.
He expects a real woman. He deserves one. He could almost have his pick of girls around town. But am I really the one? I wandered down a side-road, into lesbianism.
Had she been unduly influenced by Tina and those awful photos? Was the streak still latent within her? Would she have trouble as with Rudy on so many occasions?
She was encouraged by the memory of the earlier days with Rudy, BTH. She had been truly in love and she had known real wonder and enchantment in his arms....
Although she admired other attractive girls she felt she had no desire to go to bed with any of them.
And what about her infidelity-with Gene and Hal? Would this rise up and swamp her at the crucial moment of surrender?
Many single girls had affairs, she knew that. They usually married, sooner or later, and generally lived normal happy lives.
She had thrown out the suggestion that she had been a party wife because Rudy had wanted her to or that she had been drunk. She could have resisted, put her foot down. Had she been so starved for love that she had gone along a bit too willingly?
I'm not perfect-and I'm sure Zane isn't either. He's been in bed with other women. But I wouldn't want a man who hadn't!
Her lips finished, she rechecked her image again. Her hair shone, her eyes, although a trifle shadowed, seemed brighter. The bodice of the dress shaped her breasts forward quite adequately. She had regained the pounds lost during the worst of her nightmarish experience. Her waist still was slim, her legs shapely....
Now, if I can relax and keep on feeling as feminine as I do now, maybe Zane will want me-tonight....
She trembled, remembering her fantasy of him, the feverish joy she had experienced with his image in her mind. She felt a stirring of dormant desire. Whole weeks had passed since she had known any kind of emotional uplift, because the shock of Rudy's murder had left her numb.
Was it wrong to dream of Zane again? Hardly. She and Rudy had reached an impasse. Only her wifely obligation to him as a career man in the Crest chain had kept her in the same house ... along with a vague hope that somehow they could find togetherness again. She realized now that her love had died. Whether it could ever have been rekindled she would never know.
She tried not to think harshly of Tina. Unable to have children of her own, Tina spent her time seeking pleasure. Even in that she had not entirely succeeded. Sending out suggestive photos had evidently been a desperation attempt to woo Becky further into a morass of unnatural relations....
I can't tell Zane about that, she thought. I just hope what I did won't keep me from being totally all-girl when Zane wants me. And he does ... I can tell.
She left the bathroom quickly, realizing she might be assuming too much. At least she knew she could act naturally. He was so easy to talk to. He was a true gentleman in the finest sense of the word.
I don't deserve a man like that, I really don't, she thought. But I'm not going to fight him off....
"How do you like it here, Becky?"
"It's wonderful," she answered, smiling.
He had driven out on the eastern rim of the city to a long low night club called the Log Cabin. The appointments were rustic but the music was very modern, supplied by an electric organ, drums and clarinet. They had dined earlier downtown and Becky's nervousness was leaving.
A drink before and after dinner had helped her frame of mind. Zane's nearness already was filling the void of her recent loneliness. It was good to be out of the apartment at last. The long evenings alone, when she had had too much time to think, had eroded her self-confidence.
Tonight I feel like living!
They sat in a booth near the dance floor, which was conveniently shadowy and tempting. The first highball had barely arrived when he asked her to dance.
Other couples were already on the floor and she didn't feel conspicuous. His arm about her waist seemed manfully possessive and comforting. This was their first dance together.
She squeezed her fingers in his and nestled tremblingly closer in his embrace.
"Damn, you're lovely!" he breathed in her ear.
"I'm glad you think so Zane."
She didn't feel she was being too bold. She had gained something from experience. A man liked to know where he stood. She was twenty-five and a widow. No need to be little-girlish and naive. She didn't want to put on any kind of an act for his benefit.
"Am I rushing things, Becky?" he said, his arm tightening. "Is it too soon after all that happened?"
"No. I've been lonely-and afraid...."
"I know. You've been hurt."
His strength communicated to her warmly. The tremulous responses within her, hinted at before his arrival at the apartment, grew and expanded throughout her being.
She remembered vividly the first time she had seen him and her telltale reactions then were as nothing compared to now. She began to tingle all over. She was lightheaded with mounting admiration. She had dared to hope something like this would happen-and it was happening....
But this emotion was so different from anything she had known since those first months with Rudy-she didn't have to tell herself that she cared for Zane. She knew it! Pressing herself even closer was the most natural thing in the world. I seem to belong here, in his arms!
"Becky, I'm crazy about you," he whispered, dancing her into the darkest section of the floor. "That day there in Pender, when we first got acquainted, I thought Rudy was the luckiest man alive. I had to tell you. I feel even more so-now."
A tide of reawakening need possessed her. The quick urgency almost took her breath away. Her breasts swelled inside her bra and her thighs began to burn with a fierce fire.
It was as though a dam had broken within her-releasing all her pent-up need to be held and loved and comforted. It was more than mere physical attraction. She had known that at the switching parties. She had become used to shallow expressions of her basic urges.
She had even flung herself at Rudy, trying to recapture something they had known before, and she had begun to think that this was the lot of a girl who had been married a while and who had to put up with a changing sense of values. If she couldn't have a whole cake, she at least had tasted a few sweet slices....
She had loved truly once before-and had been deeply cut by Rudy's altered attitudes, his flashy manners, his obsession to succeed at any cost, even to letting his wife "please" a few neighbors and friends....
She knew now she could love truly and sincerely again-if only her past, her memories, wouldn't rise up to haunt her and destroy this most profound of human emotions.
"Oh, Zane!" she cried softly. "Help me wipe away all the badness...."
He clasped her gently, yet with intensity. They stopped dancing. His lips burned a pathway along her cheek and she opened her mouth for his even before he reached it. She felt him quake as his mouth claimed hers and could not check the answering tremor that shook her from her heels to the top of her head.
Her whole being ached for him ... she had never been so overcome with love in all her life!
Tempestuous excitement, head whirling and fizzy with promise, seized her. A fierce tide of longing gripped her. His tongue was a wand, testing her need and finding it burning brightly.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave generously of her mouth, her own tongue now sliding out to meet his searing drives, sparking new thrills....
His lips lifted, at last. She was weak-kneed with the wonder of her sensual intoxication.
"I need you, darling," he whispered.
"Ohhh-I need you, too."
His arms loosened and he smiled. "The music stopped. People are staring at us...."
"I don't care."
He laughed, guiding her back to their table. She heard chuckles of appreciation from other patrons. She didn't mind them at all. She was proud of Zane. He could kiss her right out in the middle of any street at high noon if he wanted to.
She felt suffused with love.
They finished their drinks and she couldn't keep her eyes off him. She hung onto his arm when they went to the check booth to get her coat.
The girl attendant smiled at Becky and winked. "I don't blame you one bit, honey."
Zane gave her a large tip.
They went out into the crisp night air, smelling of the fall season, now. She kept her hands on his arm and she walked so close to him their hips touched. Cars whipped by on the freeway.
He opened his car door for her and held her tight for a long wonderful moment. He breathed into her hair.
"My place, darling?" he murmured.
"Yes, Zane. Yes!"