Chapter 15
Out of long habit, she reached for Gil when she awoke. The bed was empty. The shades were drawn, but even the dim light caused her to close her eyes quickly.
There was a vile taste in her mouth. Her tongue was furry. Her throat was sore from cigarettes. Her stomach was fluttery, her head a solid furnace of pain.
"I'm dying," she said. "Hey, Gil! I'm dying. Wanta come to my funeral?"
She had had hangovers before, but never like this! This was a beast which seemed bent on destroying her. She moaned and closed her eyes. She hurt all over.
The knowledge of why, the sudden remembering, was worse than the pain in her head.
She moaned in anguish. She had done it all! The good little girl had really torn it! There was her pre-marital roll in the hay with Gil. There was the velvet trap she had fallen into with Lucia. But this!
She wished fervently that she was like some people who claim they don't remember anything when they're drunk. She remembered everything. She remembered vividly and wasn't sure she could endure the thundering remorse which filled her.
She couldn't stand it. She would never be able to face Gil, or Paul, or Una. She wasn't even sure she could face herself.
She staggered out of bed and into the bathroom, still half-drunk. She put her finger down her throat and retched violently. Nothing happened. The huge meal of the evening before, the drinks, had all been processed by her healthy body and she suffered agonizing dry heaves.
She leaned weakly against the wash-basin and ran cold water, sloshed it against her face. She drank greedily from her cupped hands. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw dark circled eyes, messy hair. Slut! She was afraid, then, that she was going to live.
She found the note from Paul on the bedside table.
My lovely playmate, So sorry to leave without seeing you again, but
we must start back for Miami now. I'll be looking forward to the
next time. Take good care of that wonderful body of yours. I'll be
spending my hours thinking of ways to make the next time even
better.
I awoke wanting you, lovely Susan. Too bad you missed the last
performance, but I enjoyed it!
Paul
She gagged, threw the note onto the floor and fell back across the bed. He had taken her that morning! She hadn't even known!
Much later, she gathered enough strength to shower. Cold water made her feel a little better physically. She decided it was time to face Gil. She found him in the kitchen with the Sunday paper. He didn't hear her come in.
He was fully dressed and looked a little the worse for wear. His hand shook when he lifted his coffee.
She braced herself, threw back her shoulders. She ran one hand through her hair and walked in. She felt silly in the sexy, black sheath which was the only cover she had with her.
"Hi, Gil."
He looked up, his face expressionless.
She sat down, holding her neck stiff. Any movement of her head started the waves of sickness and the pain.
"Got plenty of coffee?" she asked.
He poured her a cup. She laced it liberally with cream to cool it and sipped slowly.
"Gil," she said, after a long silence.
"Yeah." He didn't lift his eyes from the paper.
"I went a little ape last night." It was the understatement of the year.
"I guess we both did."
"Oh, Gil!" She wailed all the anguish she felt. She felt the dirt and the evil in her. "I'm sorry, Gil. I'm so very, very sorry."
"So what's to be sorry?" he asked, still unsmiling. "We had a ball. It's over."
"Is it? Is is over?"
"It is unless we start looking under that dead dog's tail to see what made it die," Gil said.
So, he, too, was upset. She hoped he was as sick as she was. She hoped it would haunt him the rest of his life. He had promised her faithfully that nothing would happen, and he had made the first move.
She couldn't stop the sobs. They burst from her. She ran into the bedroom and fell across the mussed bed. She was scared. The intensity of her reaction was frightening. She didn't know what was happening to her.
She didn't realize that her sobs soon became screams. She did realize vaguely that Gil was in the room.
"Susan!"
She could hear her name. His hand touched her, and she screamed again, high and shrill. He was dirt, and she was dirt, and she couldn't bear the thought of his touching her. She didn't want any man to touch her, ever again.
There was a sudden loud sound, a shock, dull pain. He had hit her. Her sobs quieted.
She didn't feel like talking on the drive home. He tried once or twice to get her to speak. She drew into herself, trying to be numb, trying to stop the memories.
'I'll be spending my hours thinking of ways to make the next time better," Paul Radford had written.
What had happened to her? Where were her dreams? Was she to go through life looking forward to the next time, to bigger and better lust? She had proven to herself and to the world what she was. Slut! Whore! Pervert!
She stayed in bed for two days. Gil left her there. He, too, was silent. The house was quiet, devoid of life, empty of meaning.
On the morning of the third day she packed her things. She threw the sexy, breast-exposing black dress into the waste can. She wrote a check for $100 and cashed it at the supermarket.
She rented a one-room efficiency apartment far across town, not using her right name. She spent the days and nights there, numb, making only necessary movements. Her shocked system seemed to allow a great blankness in her mind and it was only occasionally that she revived enough to see, once again, the events of the night in Tampa.
When there was no money left to buy even the small amounts of food she had been taking, she found a job in a department store. The days passed. She worked and sat quietly in the apartment. She began to live again, slowly. She went to the movies alone. She ate her meals alone. She lost five pounds, all from her hips and her waist. Her clothes were loose on her. She spent long evenings taking them in.
When she thought of Gil it was with a dull sense of loss. Where there had been love there was nothing more than numbness. Men tried to make her acquaintance, but it was as if all her interest in life had been burned out of her. She ignored the men. She wouldn't even talk with them.
There came a day when she was recovered enough to know that she had been slightly crazy. The baths, for example. At first, she took long, steaming baths and scrubbed herself until her skin hurt. She was, had been, slightly insane. She realized she was better when she moderated the baths, knowing instinctively that water and soap would not cleanse her, that only time could do the job.
Susan walked the streets on a Sunday afternoon, and felt a stir of renewed interest in things around her. She took her time and studied dresses in store windows. She walked idly, letting her thoughts stray. She basked in the warm sun and enjoyed the fresh smells of a bakery.
There was a man waiting in front of her apartment. He was dressed in a well worn suit and he flicked a cigarette away as she walked slowly toward him.
"Susan Emory?" he asked in a heavy voice as she neared. It was the first time anyone had called her that since she left her home. She was Susan Stevens.
"I'm Baker, Orlando Police. Are you Susan Emory?"
She sighed. She nodded.
"Your husband is very worried about you," the policeman said.
She felt an urge to turn and run, but she knew she couldn't run forever. She let the policeman take her to Gil. They met in a bare little room at the police station.
"Hello, Gil," she said.
"Susan!" he said.
"How have you been, Gil?"
"I've been almost out of my mind," he said.
"How's your mother?"
"She's okay now."
"Now?"
"She broke her hip," Gil said.
"Oh?" She was being polite to a stranger. "How did it happen?"
"She was dusting the stairs. She fell. She lay at the foot of the stairs for hours. It was pretty bad."
"I'm sorry," Susan said.
"She's fine now. She'll be coming home from the hospital soon. She's going to move in with me for a while."
A small spark of bitterness stirred the deadness in her. So Mrs. Emory was going to move in now that it didn't matter?
"I'm going to have to hire a nurse for a while," Gil said.
There was coldness between them. She wondered why he had gone to the trouble to find her. "You can't really afford that, can you?"
"Someone has to be with her. She won't be able to get out of bed for a long time." He coughed. "I'm going to insist that she sell the house. It's too much. After the hospital bills, which the insurance didn't cover, and the nurse-"
"I think that's a wise decision," she said.
"She doesn't like it, but we're going to sell and that's that."
She felt very strange. There was that little feeling of loss. "Why didn't you do it years ago, Gil?"
His mouth formed unspoken words. He swallowed.
"It's nice to have seen you, Gil," she said. "Do you mind if I go now?"
"Susan." It was painful. He swallowed hard. "Don't...."
"You have my address now," she said. "If you want to contact me...." She turned, was halfway out the door before he caught her, his hand on her shoulder.
"You can't do that," he said. "You can't just walk away."
"Why not?"
"It just doesn't make sense." He turned her, held her shoulders. "What's happened to us, Susan?"
"If you don't remember, you're fortunate," she said.
"I want you to come home." He spoke very softly.
"No!"
"I need you, Susan. The house is empty. It's cold."
"You'll have your mother."
"Susan, listen to me. Come back. We can work it out. Give it a chance."
"We had our chance, and blew it," she said.
"Just try it. Come back for a few days. Let's give ourselves a chance."
"Are you sure you're just not trying to get a free nurse for Mother?"
He scowled. "I'll hire a nurse. Please, come back."
"It won't do any good."
"We can make it work."
She studied him, noted the darkness under his eyes. She wondered if he were working too hard, if he remembered to send out for his lunch. She steeled herself against such thoughts. That was no longer her concern. But she had wasted five years worrying about him.
"Does it mean that much to you?" she asked.
"It means everything to me."
"All right," she said. She would show him. She would show him that there was nothing there any more, and perhaps that would make it easier for him.
She moved into the small bedroom. Mrs. Emory came home from the hospital and was installed in the guest room. Susan spent the first days caring for the invalid. Mrs. Emory tried to question Susan. Susan told her to mind her own business. There was a bit of tension after that, but Mrs. Emory settled into the routine of the days. If the elder woman noticed the coldness which persisted between Susan and Gil she didn't mention it.
It was an unreal situation. To Susan, it seemed as if she were still divorced from reality. She held to herself by falling back into the daily routine of housework. She was efficient. Not even the extra work of caring for Mrs. Emory prevented her from having a spotless house. When Gil came home, his dinner was ready. They would sit at the table, mostly in silence, sometimes talking about neutral things.
Gil could see the deadness was still in Susan. He did not push. He made no attempt to touch her, not after the first night she was at home. Then he had put his hand on her arm.
"Don't," she said, and the deadness in her voice stopped him. He sensed her sickness and was patient.
After Susan had been home just over a week, Gil tried once again to break through her wall of silence. They were at the table. The meal was a good one, pork chops, potatoes, green beans, salad.
"Don't you think it's time we started talking to each other, really talking?" Gil asked carefully.
"If you like," Susan said.
"Well...." He paused. She was not really with him.
"How long are we going to go on like this?" he asked, not unkindly. She looked at him calmly.
"I'm worried about you," he said. "You act as if you're dead or something."
He reached for her hand. She did not break the touch. "I want you back, Susan. I want all of you back with me. I've thought about all this. I've thought about it until I felt sure my brain was going to pop out of my head. I want to say this. If you're blaming yourself for anything that happened, don't. It was my fault, all of it."
Susan shook her head. She didn't like being reminded.
"I've kicked myself, Suze. I've cursed myself as seven kinds of a fool."
She looked at him curiously. It took a long time for her to understand that the shiny things on his cheeks were tears. Tears-real tears! Something moved deep inside her. She took her hand from under his and reached across the table to touch one of the tears with her finger.
"I love you, Susan. I've always loved you and I always will. Can you believe that? I'd like us to forget what's happened. Can you?"
She shook her head slowly. He bit his hp and looked down at his plate. Suddenly he leaped up and started to flee from the kitchen. His face!
She caught his arm as he passed. A man shouldn't cry. She didn't want him to cry.
"Gil," she said. "It's all right, Gil."
He turned to her, his eyes wet.
"It's all right," she repeated.
He took her into his arms. She relaxed against him. He felt warm. The deadness was still in her. She didn't want him, not as a man. She only wanted to help him, to help ease his pain. She would help him, live with him, be a good wife to him, for, after all, he was all she had. There was nothing else for her in the world.
Part of her was dead, killed in Tampa, burned away, destroyed. All the loveliness of a physical relationship with her husband was gone, and it would never return. But she could take care of him.
They sat in the living room. Gil whispered to her. She told him briefly what she had done during the weeks she had been away. Some of it was a blank, but she told him all she could remember.
When, finally, he took her hand and led her to the bedroom, she went. She would endure it, that was all. It was something she would have to accept in exchange for his protection, his companionship, his love. She removed her clothing and got into bed and he touched her tentatively. He lay on his side and pulled her against him. He held her there for a long, quiet time. His lips pressed the throbbing vein in her neck.
"It's been a long time," he whispered.
"Yes, it has."
"Is it all right?" he asked. "I mean...." His hand closed over her breast and squeezed. She gave him her lips. She felt nothing. She went through the motions from memory.
"You're all the woman I'll ever need," he said. He found her, probed deep. "If only I'd realized that long ago."
"Hush!" she said. She acted it out for him.
It wasn't bad. She had feared it would rouse bitterness in her, but it was only Gil and he was liking it. He was taking his pleasure from the body of his wife and that was as it should be. She gave of herself unselfishly.
It was when he came driving into her, when it was too late to stop him, when he was making his swift, climactic lunges, that she remembered.
She had not taken her pills with her when she left home. She hadn't had a pill since the Saturday morning, weeks ago, when they went to Tampa. She was completely unprotected. The realization came as a shock, a burst of something she had thought dead.
In one flaming instant she was alive again, knowing a delicious intimacy she had known only once before in her life. Her innermost self was free!
She pulled him close, moved against him, and the feeling completed itself in pulsing throbs from deep within her. She savored the knowledge that she could take from him and build life. It was true fulfillment. She was a woman!
"Good?" Gil asked.
"You'll never know," Susan said, laughing a smug, happy laugh.
"I'm glad."
"Maybe," she said. "But I've got a surprise for you, buster."
Gil smiled to himself. That was his old Susan. "I haven't taken a pill in weeks," Susan said. "Whoops!" Gil said.
Susan lay there, soaking in the pleasant knowledge. "I might be able to do something," she offered. "It might not be too late." She pushed at him, trying to get up. For a moment it seemed that he would let her go, then he clasped her tightly in his arms.
"Hey, Gil?"
"You've always wanted a baby," he said tenderly-
"Oh, yes!" she said.
"Then let's make a baby."
"Do you want a baby?" She began to live again, fully, totally. He was relaxing inside her but he was there and his seed was in her. She might be, at that very moment, completing the first step in the miraculous generating machine within her. She might be making a baby!
She began to live again. His waning virility aroused the slumbering passion in her, and it was good and clean because they were doing what nature wanted. She was thrilled.
"I've always wanted a baby," Gil said.
"Oh, Gil!" She stirred beneath him, wanting to rouse it, wanting it all now, wanting the whole bit. "Let's make sure," she said. "It might take more than once."
"I'm willing!" he said, "but weak."
"Can't you? Please?"
It was lovely. It was more than lovely. It was deep, demanding, as he regained his rhythmic pace and lifted her into the voluptuous exaltation of bliss.
When it was over they lay quietly. "I wonder if mother heard us," Gil said. "She'll think you were beating me or something. I'm a noisy lover, aren't I?"
"The best in the world," Gil said, nuzzling her. "Really?"
"Can I say something about-about Tampa?"
"We're going to have to talk about it sometime."
"Una was lousy," Gil said. "Really. She was too much for herself, grabbing, tearing. Not nearly as nice as you."
"Thank you."
Later she said, "Gil, since we've brought up the subject, I want to say that Tampa wasn't all your fault. I could have stopped it. I could have dragged you out of that apartment. I could have refused to go in the first place. I guess I secretly wanted to go. I think I've discovered something about myself. I've got some slut in me. I guess every woman has."
She was thinking clearly for the first time in a long while.
"It might even be good in the long run, what we did with the Radfords. It showed us what we might have become."
"Yes," Gil said.
"You're going to ask me sooner or later if I enjoyed it with Paul, aren't you?"
"No, I-"
"You will," said Susan. "So let's get it over with. Truthfully. I don't remember too much about that night. But I do remember this-the slut in me was working full time. It was grand. It was exciting. There's no use lying about it. I was a slut, a shameless, wanton slut. And I loved every minute of it."
She had to put her hand over his mouth to keep him from talking. "But that was one particular night and one particular set of circumstances. It showed me that I like bed a little too well."
"I love a sexy woman," Gil said, feeling uncomfortable, wanting to stop her.
"I like bed so well that I'm going to make it rough on you, boy. You've just showed me how wonderful sex can really be when it's complete. I feel like a woman for the first time in my life, darling. You've made me feel that way and, having felt that way once, I know now that what I felt with Paul was nothing in comparison. I'm going to make you the finest baby in the world. If tonight didn't do it, then you can set aside tomorrow night, and the next night, and the night after that to complete the job. Do you understand?"
"I hear and obey." He kissed her. "Are you finished?"
"I'm finished."
"Then shut up and go to sleep. You're going to need your strength."
"I hear and obey," said Susan, closing her eyes, reaching for Gil's hand. He placed it, warm, natural, protective on her stomach.