Chapter 6
Sophia stiffened.
"Mr. McClure," she declared, "I think you've made one large mistake."
"I don't think so, Sophia," he contradicted. "Here. Give me your coat."
So his interest in her was no different from that of any of the others. She waited impatiently to evaluate her first reaction: insult or pleasure or anger or fright. As she helplessly allowed him to take her coat, she found she had a mixture of all four of these instincts.
Falling again, something hissed at her: You're getting watery legs. You hate it all and you'll put up your polite struggle and you may even claw at his cheek, but you're too weak to do the only civilized thing: take your coat and leave. You thought you'd broken from it all. But your helplessness now betrays you. You're falling again....
"Why did you give me that phony story?" she asked with a stunning lack of emotion in her voice. Her shoulders sagged but she was not weary.
He dropped her coat on a hall chair and led her through the hall. The sumptuousness of the hall alone was dazzling. The walls were nearly covered with autographed photographs of celebrities from all the arts. The furnishings-evidently not his own selections (they had the feminine touch)-were in rich but quiet taste. It was the beginning of a home that spelled out wealth acquired long ago.
"It wasn't a phony story," he defended with a mild laugh. "At least not altogether. I sort of really expected a few others to drop up-for a while, anyway. But they called to say they couldn't make it."
The sunken living room was much too vast to be taken in all at once. Only after she'd entered it and was able to take her attention away from the imposing fish pond in the center of the room, the huge wall paintings and the countless objects d'art, did she see another man, at the far end of the room. He wore a valet's white jacket and he was lighting dinner candles at a set table on the terrace.
"Sophia," she heard. "Are you listening?" He was patting the sleeve of her dress.
Coming out of a momentary daze, she smiled. "This is quite an establishment."
McClure shrugged. "Serviceable."
"Is this where they store the bison during the winter months? Or where they play hockey?"
"No. In December I have the floor reconverted and I have people in for ice skating. A dollar an hour."
His hand was still on her arm, he was guiding her to the terrace, and soon she didn't feel quite so helpless. She had thought, the moment she'd stepped through the door, that he was planning a seedy hour of wrestling and nothing more, that he'd put her in a cab later and have her carted off. But there was a valet and a table prepared with care. She was almost ready to forgive him for his ruse.
On the terrace, the valet politely mumbled, "Good evening," and drew a chair back for her.
"Let's try the Pernod, Stephen," McClure instructed.
"Yes, sir," Stephen nodded and moved away.
The view of the city from the terrace was compelling. Golden pinpricks of light from faraway buildings brightened the night, and the air was wondrously clean and fresh, following the rain. Sophia, looking from the city's view to the elegant table before her, couldn't help thinking of George. It was a little past eleven. If she had stayed in Willetsville she would have been Mrs. George March now, sharing a stuffy upper berth on a dingy train with a man whose appreciation of the gracious things of life ended with meat-cutting machines and the warbling of Tennessee Ernie.
Keith McClure, who had impressed her as rather brash and emotionally ungiving this afternoon, now represented comfort and success and roughhewn charm to her. He lit her cigarette and settled back admiringly, showing her that she was not just another girl, but someone distinct.
His acceptance didn't embarrass her. She felt human and genuinely wanted.
Stephen returned with wine. McClure dismissed him and filled her wine glass.
"What're you thinking?" he inquired.
"Too many things, all at once. This is a lovely view," she remarked, spreading her fingers over the quiet city. "Do you-ah-look at it much?"
"When there's time. I used to be a great one for communing with nature-you know, feeling holy by watching sunsets and sunrises. But it's not an easy thing to do when your life consists of work and more work. Crazy hour, six o'clock. I don't know who's right, the average white-collar man or the maniac television people. But them's the conditions which prevails. Seeing that skyline is about the only reminder I have that there's something in this world besides my Hooper rating."
He was playing it smooth. Changing completely from his somewhat offensive manner at the T.V. Grille to his mild aura of humored sadness now, he was still not to be trusted, Sophia thought. But she didn't know why. He filled his own glass. It occurred to Sophia that the majority of his television audience would be just a little startled if they could see him now, off-camera. When he came into the living rooms of nearly ten million American homes each Friday evening, he was the lovable, bumptious M.C. of a seemingly ad-libbed comedy-variety show (thanks went here to Larry Barker for directing The Keith McClure Party to give the effect of an unrehearsed, spontaneous show). T.V. critics wrote rhapsodically of McClure, the genius of timing. When he told his opening gags, when he danced with the chorus of girls, when he exchanged patter with Margo, he was not McClure, the lord of an estate-like apartment, but McClure the country hick, wide-eyed at all the doin's of the city folk.
Even Daddy, Sophia thought, was taken in by him, and Daddy was not a man to give much attention to celebrities of any kind. When Keith would gawk at one of the chorus-line lovelies and say, "Gawsh, she's shore purty. Takes me tuh mind o' my first lady friend, Googie Mae Crankshaft. We wuz kids then and we both wore braces on our teeth. Gawsh, it was really somep'm when we'd set on the front porch an' kiss an' watch the sparks fly,"-Daddy would burst out laughing. Margo had once written home: "Keith is a ham and not an easy man to know, but he certainly has a remarkable talent for making something creative out of corn."
Maybe there were worse things than cultivating Mr. McClure. He was hardly the Adonis that Larry Barker was, but in his own self-absorbed way he was attractive and perhaps even desirable.
And he could doubtless help her get somewhere in the theater. The idea that she could even for a second consider using him for this purpose shocked her, but only for a second. Maybe she made too much of being timid and playing the unworthy child. Hadn't Margo used men in somewhat less than honorable ways in order to get to the top? Surely it hadn't damaged Margo. She was the most put-together young woman on earth. Yes, she drank, but that was only because of the hectic nature of her profession. There was no doubt in Sophia's mind that Margo was emotionally healthy and free of troubles, despite being enormously successful.
McClure raised his glass in a toast.
"Drink up, baby," he said with a crooked grin that was suddenly puzzling. "If we don't live it up tonight, there may not be a tomorrow."
"That's a grim toast."
"No, it isn't. It's realistic." He drank.
"I was right the first time. You're a bitter man."
"Sophia, you're much too beautiful to be a thinker. Don't think, just drink."
She did, not approving of the liberties he took in sliding his eyes from her face to her body-and letting her know that he was looking.
Through the excellent dinner, McClure asked her many questions about herself-about her ambition and her life before coming to New York. But the questions were submitted without fervor, as if he were simply marking time.
He helped himself to the Pernod, drinking steadily but not compulsively. Sophia talked about herself, unable and unwilling to confide in him anything deeper than the surface vital statistics.
They left the terrace and returned to the mammoth living room. Perhaps it was Stephen who had switched on a phonograph; a string quartette filled the living room as they approached it.
Sophia preceded him and kept walking. She hadn't felt fully at ease from the time she'd arrived, unable, as she was, to shake from her mind the suspicion that she hadn't been invited up her solely to marvel at his urban charm. He would, of course, want her-maybe during the next string quartette, maybe sooner.
Even though she expected his advance, she hadn't the vaguest idea what her response would be.
"I've got some brandy here I'm proud of," he said. She didn't look at him. She stopped walking only when she got to the colorful Gauguin framed on the east wall. She feigned concentration on it.
"Nineteen twenty-nine brandy," he continued. "Just off the boat. Maybe you'll think it was scraped off the boat, but don't say so."
She could hear him puttering at the living room bar. What tactics came next? Was it possible to use him to help her get somewhere? Or would his first advance weaken her, make her show her incapacity to cope with a man?
"I helped myself pretty liberally to the wine," she bantered, still not looking at him. "Will that mix with brandy?"
"Anything mixes with brandy. That theory about the horrors of mixing drinks has been exploded, anyway." She could hear him coming closer, but she couldn't move. "Candy is dandy but brandy's more handy...."
Then he was behind her and his hands extended to enfold her waist. Sophia tautened.
"Come here, baby," McClure rasped and pulled her around.
She couldn't control the whimper that escaped from her throat. He was holding her tightly, kissing her neck and muttering aimless endearments.
"No...." she softly protested.
Writhing in his grip, she was once more caught up in the panic. Her initial impulse was to raise her own arms, to bring them to him and cradle his masculinity to her.
But abruptly she knew she wouldn't.
His breathing was heavier, more labored ' as he kissed her and held her more intimately. He tried to guide her to the sofa. Sophia regarded him with a detachment that amazed her. He wasn't interested in her. He wanted a tall, statuesque blonde he'd wined and fed.
"You're a knockout, baby," he declared.
Sophia pushed him away with stately ease and stepped aside. McClure's eyes widened in what might have been shock. His expression conveyed, "You're saying no to McClure?"
"What's all that?" he demanded. He wasn't the suave host any more. He was tough, cautiously outraged.
"Maybe string quartettes don't suit my mood."
"Oh, I get it. The lady's playing coy."
"The lady isn't playing."
"Look, baby-"
Sophia held firm to her unannounced strength. She wheeled around and her spontaneously angry eyes seared into him.
"No, you look, baby," she snapped. "If you thought a glass of brandy and a few gags and your famous name were going to be all you'd need to get to home base, you should've let me know sooner and I could've told you not to bother with all the frills of dinner and music."
"Quit the act," he rumbled and took a few steps forward.
Fright seized Sophia as she moved back. This was the first time she'd ever played this role, and she feared she was playing it foolishly.
"It's no act. Now do you intend to overpower me or may I leave without all these speeches?"
"We don't need speeches. We'll have that brandy and you'll calm down."
"Will you get my coat?"
"No. I know you, baby," he exclaimed, still advancing. "You and your sister are cut from the same cloth."
"Shut up."
"Just like Margo. She put up a howl from here to Canarsie, but she caught on after a few minutes."
"What do you mean, 'caught on'?"
"Tell the truth now-do you really think Margo's where she is today because she's got a good voice and a million bucks' worth of talent? Or could it be because she was bright enough to know I could help her where all the agents and talent and that other nonsense couldn't?"
Sophia crossed the room, still avoiding him. She felt strange, as if she were not wholly here, as if everything going on was unreal.
"Marg knew enough to be a pal. Wise up, baby. Keith isn't going to hurt you. You'll get to know Keith in a little while and-"
His hand caught her arm, harshly. The viciousness in his grasp rocked her. But she had crossed too much of the bridge to retreat.
With all the force in her, she slapped McClure's face.
Crying out, he drew back. Sophia stood terrified. "Why, you lousy, rotten, ungrateful-" he sputtered, lifting his own hand, making ready to return the slap.
Swiftly Sophia ran out of the room, to the foyer. She grabbed her coat from the chair and hastened to the door.
He was right behind her.
"Okay, beat it," he thundered.
Her fingers were useless at the lock.
"Just remember one thing, though," he added. "You're going to be sorry you acted the cornball, baby. I'm not without influence in television."
The threat infuriated her. She stood erect and looked squarely at him.
"Did I hear you right?" she stated composedly. "Are you saying that the only way I'll ever be successful in show business is to let a fatuous, greasy oaf named Keith McClure paw me? Is that the way it's done?"
McClure's fury matched hers. He stormed to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open. For one fleeting moment, as she watched the unbridled hatred form in his face, she was convinced he was going to strike her.
Instead, he bellowed, "Get the hell out of here! Nobody talks that way to McClure! Get the hell out back to your job of second-from-the-left in the chorus!" Savagely his hand slapped against her shoulder and he pushed her into the vestible. "Beat it, you bum! And see how far you get?"
He withdrew, cursing, and slammed the door.
Sophia pressed the elevator buzzer. The humiliation was oppressive. But it would wear off.
She heard voices just before the elevator door slid back. A handsome, familiarlooking woman stepped out, saying, "Good night, Frank. Thank you," in an equally familiar voice.
The operator said, "You're welcome, Miss Lawson. Nice to see you back. Night."
Jacqueline Lawson. McClure's wife.
The woman saw Sophia as she emerged. There was an instant of natural surprise at seeing anyone in this small vestible. This was followed by a sardonic, knowing gaze. She cocked an eyebrow at Sophia, smiled, nodded good evening and pressed the bell at the front door.
"Going down?" asked the operator.
Sophia forced her guilty eyes away from the still-smiling woman. She murmured, "Yes," and stepped into the elevator.
Nothing was said during the descent to the ground floor. But the humiliation remained and she was sure that it showed on her face.
She was sure, too, that the operator suspected, as McClure's wife must certainly have suspected, that this was just one more slut trying to make her way to success by late-at-night visits to a celebrity's apartment.
Sophia walked home.
Perhaps she was becoming brazen, callous, she reflected. But one thing was evident: there was almost no more humiliation in her. Nor did she have the slightest sign of depression.
Every other time she'd left a man, she had known the intolerable burden of guilt. But now, as she walked rapidly through the lit avenues of the city, she felt wondrously cleansed.
She hadn't let McClure bully her. She had been tough as nails in her talk and action up there-something she'd never been before. The, "No, you look, baby," brand of response was not an instinctive one for her. But she'd used it-and she'd used the slap, too-with soul-cleansing results.
Of course she hadn't believed his filthy lie about Margo. She knew that Margo wasn't an innocent country girl, but Margo had character, integrity. There wasn't any indication that she had ever permitted herself to be a party to the McClure type of love, or that she ever would. And pride could be taken in the same way.
Sophia knew pride now, too, and it made her want to dance down Fifty-ninth Street with uninhibited joy.
She hadn't knuckled under.
"I'm not lost!" she wanted to shout. Here's one little girl who isn't going to go down the drain, by damn!
As she turned the corner, a sports car pulled up to the curb and a grinning man stuck his head out the window.
"Hiya, honey," he called. "Goin' my way?"
"No," Sophia replied joyfully. "I'm going my way!"
She got a cab about half-a-block down the street and relaxed in the back seat after giving the cabbie Margo's address.
There was something about being in a cab that brought back memories of Rick Warren. She shivered. Rick was the guy she was thinking of more and more as this day in New York gave her a perspective on her own life.
It was Rick she had to thank for saving her from a loveless marraige she was about to enter of her own free will. If it hadn't been for Rick, she'd be married to George and already miserable.
But it wasn't merely gratitude she felt for Rick. No man had ever turned her on the way that Rick did. He didn't have anything special-wasn't a celebrity or anything else-but he sure had a way with Sophia.
As the cab inched along in heavy midtown traffic Sophia remembered one sunny afternoon when Rick picked her up outside her uncle's hardware store and drove her out into the country.
It was a perfect day, sunny and bright with everything in bloom. Rick had chatted about this and that as they drove, and Sophia had gazed outside through misty eyes. It was so beautiful that she was crying, and when Rick finally noticed he pulled over quickly and asked what was wrong.
"Wrong? Nothing's wrong," Sophia said. "It's just that everything's suddenly so right!"
Rick grinned. "Oh," he said. "One of those days, is it?" He started up the car, drove about two miles more and then pulled off the highway down a dirt road. "Wait till you see this," he said.
They drove for about three miles and then Rick stopped and parked underneath a big tree. He got out, walked around to the trunk and took out a blanket. "Come on," he said.
Sophia was still sitting in the car. She got out and followed Rick as he walked across a grassy field, through a stand of trees to a lake front, deserted, quiet and lovely.
He spread out the blanket, flopped down on it and said, "Well? What do you think?"
Sophia looked around her. "I've lived here all my life," she said, "and I didn't even know that this place existed."
Rick laughed. "Get down here," he said, tugging her arm.
She collapsed willingly to the blanket. Just like Rick to think of everything!
Then she was in his arms and his mouth was pressed to hers, searching, demanding. She could feel her body responding and she marveled how her body could be aroused while her mind was distant and removed from the action.
But then she decided not to fight it at all and she cleared her inner self and gave it all to Rick.
He struggled with her bra and then the snaps came free in his hands. He tossed it onto the brass and seized each of her breasts in a hand.
"You've got some set," he said softly. "Never seen a prettier set of tits."
She moaned. Sophia liked that kind of talk, and she encouraged Rick to do more of it. He chuckled softly. "Want me to suck 'em?" he asked.
Sophia nodded dumbly.
First one, then the other. Her nipples peaked quickly, raw spots of pleasure for his teeth and tongue and lips. He worked her to a frazzle, and when she was finally wet and lathered between the legs he took his oral pleasures down there, nestling between her thighs, leading her quickly to a wonderfully wet orgasm.
And then he was stripping off his clothing and she was helping him, eager for it now.
Sophia's hands were trembling with desire, something that Rick noted and then said, "You're the hottest girl in the county. And I'm sure glad I know you!"
Then she was reclining on the blanket, the blue sky above, the fresh smell of the earth all around her. Rick was standing up, gazing down at her lush nakedness.
How wonderful he looked, she thought. His stiff and throbbing manhood arched gracefully from his flat muscular stomach.
His swollen testicles looked large and jam-packed with juice-juice that would soon be hers!
Then he knelt and let her take him in her mouth and she did so almost gratefully, aware that it was a favor she was allowed and nothing more.
She loved the stiff, salty taste of him, and when he suddenly withdrew it a look of disappointment marred her features. But then he settled between her legs and she forgot everything except the maddening pleasure that started immediately, the burning wetness that always made her cry out in joy.
He worked quickly, knowing that Sophia didn't need much in the way of stimulation. She was on the edge, and when he pushed in she had an orgasm immediately and continued to ride it through troughs and crests until Rick caught up with her and filled her with passionate juice while she rocked her hips underneath him, demanding more and more.