Chapter 5
It became difficult for Amy to maintain her privacy in that place for any length of time. Most soldiers who spotted her assumed she was waiting for someone. But after several drinks and close to an hour had gone by and she remained alone, they decided she was fair game and began drifting over to her booth. She did her best to get rid of them, but it began to be a game with them, a joke about who had the best technique to break down the "dame in the booth."
The parade became constant and Amy was subjected to every variety of "line" she could possibly have heard in a lifetime. If Bull had come in he would have had difficulty spotting her because of the group of GIs bantering about her. At another time Amy might have found several of the soldiers nice, but right now her anger at the situation in which she had unwittingly placed herself turned on the GIs. She began to develop a thorough dislike for all soldiers.
She had to have several drinks in order to keep her place at the table and her waitress, a tall loose-limbed girl with a lackluster complexion and a perpetual sneer on her thin lips, had to shoulder aside a cluster of soldiers to get to the table.
"You really waiting for somebody or you just trying to collect a crowd, honey?" she inquired with studied insolence. "The boss don't like no competition from free lancers."
Amy didn't answer her, but when the waitress had left her drink and gone, she looked around her with a more discerning eye to see what the girl had meant by her remark about competition. It did not take her long to find out. In her intentness on Bull she had not bothered to notice the place. Now she saw that it was not only a tavern, but that it had other features as well. In the back, though she could not see, she could tell by the sounds that some kind of games were in progress. There was a steady stream of soldiers and girls going in and out and she could hear the sounds of occasional loud voices. She guessed that it was a gambling room although she'd never been in one, and for a moment she had a strong desire to find out.
The girls lounging either at the bar or in booths with soldiers, were of a varying degree of attractiveness. Several were young, full-bodied and gay, wearing low-cut gowns with slit skirts. There were older women also, women whose full bodies pushed fleshily against gowns that were tight for them, whose faces were expressionless behind the layers of makeup and fatigue that concealed their true selves.
Amy was still engrosed in watching the hostesses when a tall slim young man, flashily dressed in sports clothes, came up to her table, elbowed aside several soldiers and sat down opposite her.
"These fellows bothering you, Miss?"
Amy looked at him, startled. He had black hair, parted on the left side and smoothed down, grey eyes which were cold and bright, a nose that was small and pinched, thin lips and a firm chin. Not particularly handsome, but not bad-looking either. He did not seem particularly robust, but Amy got the feeling that his slimness had a strength far greater than it seemed to have.
Her reaction to his sudden appearance was one of hostility, which was reinforced by his manner of studied disdain. She could think of no reason why this stranger should adopt this attitude toward her and she stared at him coldly for a few moments before replying.
"Not nearly so much as you are," she said at last. The man studied her, his eyes taking in the cut of her gown and then coming back to her face. "You waiting for someone?" he asked. She got angry.
"I don't see that it's any of your business," she snapped.
"Look," he said wearily, "I'm Earl. Earl Rommel. It's my business because it's my place. If you're waiting for somebody, then okay, forget I ever said anything. But if you're not...."
Amy bridled.
"Do you insult all the girls who come in here, Mr. Rommel?" she demanded.
He grinned suddenly with a boyishness that took Amy by surprise.
"No," he said, still grinning. "I don't know enough words to insult most of the dames that come in here. And if I did, I still don't know if they'd be insulted. Anyway, I apologize. I see I made a mistake about you, Miss...."
He paused, obviously waiting for Amy to supply her name. But she didn't, still angered that he had mistaken her for a different kind of a girl.
"I'm glad you've got the decency to apologize," she said stiffly.
He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.
"Well, to tell you the truth, we don't get many girls like you coming in here. At least, not alone. How'd you happen to come?"
She hesitated, not wanting to betray herself or appear ridiculous in his eyes.
"I-I was waiting for someone." As she said it her shyness return and she blushed.
The last trace of hostility and doubt vanished from Rommel's eyes and he smiled at her in a friendly way.
"Soldier?" he asked. She nodded.
"He's not coming any more tonight," he said.
"I-I wasn't sure, that is, he wasn't sure if he could get a pass," she lied. "He said for me to wait for him here."
"Boy friend?"
She shook her head.
"No." Her answer surprised her. "Just a friend of a friend."
"Well, he won't come any more tonight," Rommel said. "If he got his pass, he would be here by now if he was coming."
"I suppose you're right," she said, a little sadly.
"I feel a little foolish about it."
"Mind dancing with the boss?"
She seemed greatly surprised. Why not? she thought. At least he wasn't another soldier. And if Bull should happen to come in, well it would be just fine if he saw her dancing.
"Mind? Not at all, I'd love to." She smiled brightly at him.
He was a good dancer and she was pleased to see that he did not hold her tightly as it seemed to be the style in his place. The floor was crowded, however, and already several of the soldiers were drunk and reeling around, bumping into the dancers and it turned out to be not much fun. Rommel stopped in the middle of the dance.
"I guess we haven't had enough to drink to enjoy it," he smiled.
He guided her back to the booth, but Amy decided that she would not stay any longer since Bull wasn't coming.
"I think I'll be going now," she said.
"Have another drink," he urged. "It's . all on the house. Please, wait a few minutes. I'll be right back."
He walked away quickly and signaled the waitress to come to her table. Undecided, Amy sat down and waited. The waitress was there, looking at her with a pained expression.
"Wouldn't you tell me you was waiting for the boss?" she demanded in a whining voice. "You want to get me in trouble with the boss?"
"I didn't tell him anything," Amy protested.
The girl winked at her and smiled.
"Thanks," she said. "Lots of girls like to see another girl get in trouble. But not me. If a girl gets a break, that's okay with Mamie. I'm Mamie. I figure it's a help to the rest of us."
Mamie caught sight of Rommel returning and hurried away.
"Have that drink yet?" he asked. "I'm going into town. Can I give you a lift?"
"Oh, I don't want to be any trouble to you, Mr. Rommel."
"No trouble. A pleasure. And call me Earl."
Earl's car was a convertible and as she went out with him to the parking lot the memory of her embrace with Bull suddenly swept over Amy, causing her to shudder. He noticed it and asked her if she were cold and she shook her head. She didn't want to talk now, recalling her ardor and the extent of her deception with renewed pain.
Earl was holding the door of his car open for her and she slid in, not even noticing him. Her mind was on Bull now, a mixture of poignant hope and slowly bubbling anger that gave promise of turning into hate. He had to pay, she thought fiercely, he had to pay for the hurt he had given her. But when she thought of hurting him she grew weak and could not even carry the thought through to conclusion, let alone actually do it.
"Where to?" Earl cut in on her thoughts.
"To town, of course," she said.
"Which town?"
She stared at him.
"Millersville, of course."
"We got other towns around here," he smiled. "Just here on a trip?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I might stay," she said with pretended casualness. He looked interested at that. "Any special reason?" She knew what he meant.
"No," she lied again. "It seems sort of nice out here, that's all."
He looked at her again and Amy was suddenly fearful that he didn't believe her. Then she pushed away her nervousness, reminding herself that she had nothing to worry about, even if he did. Earl was nothing to her and she had no cause to concern herself with what he thought of her.
"Then why don't you stay?" he said after a pause.
"I'd have to get a job," she said. "And, anyway, I'm not sure."
"A girl with your looks," he said, "a job wouldn't be much of a problem."
Was he hinting? Amy thought with quick excitement. Then she shrivelled at the thought of working there. A hostess! She remembered what's he had been noticing when first he had approached, how a regular parade of men and women, in pairs, had slipped away from the bar and gone off, not to the gambling room, but up a flight of stairs in the back. It suddenly occurred to her that this was the reason that Bull had accepted her leaving with such composure.
"Thanks," she said dryly, "I don't think I'm suited for that kind of work."
Earl laughed.
"I didn't mean that," he said. "But if you need a job, that's as good as any. You don't have to go all the way. Those that want to can, the others don't. It's just business."
Her face reflected her shocked reaction and they laughed again. They were on Main St. now and she gave him the directions to Mrs. Cartison's.
"That dame! How'd you happen to pick out her place?"
She told him.
"He was just enjoying himself at your expense. That dame is always poking her nose into everybody's business."
When he was talking like this Earl looked like a mean and vicious little boy, though Amy guessed he must have been about thirty. The car pulled up outside the house and she started to get out. Earl got out with her.
"How about a date?" he said.
She looked uncertain and he went on.
"Tomorrow," he said. "After all, I don't get many chances at meeting a girl like you."
She made up her mind quickly. After all, she had no reason to wait for Bull and she had no money of her own. It meant that all she would have to spend the next day was money for lunch. Besides, it might even turn out to be fun.
"All right, Earl," she said. "Tomorrow."
"Pick you up at eight."
She heard the car pull away as she mounted the stairs. There was no sign of Mrs. Cartison. She went into her room and leaned against the door, listening for evidence of her landlady's prying. Sure enough she heard her footsteps prowling through the lower part of the house. Amy smiled to herself.
The encounter with Earl, her observations of the hostesses at his place and his remark about her looks, caused Amy to examine herself in a different way. He was a new kind of man to her, older than any she had ever known, a man who took for granted the more devious ways of the world, who laughed at moral strictures and did not consider them at all important. Girls were the same to him, but divided into two categories, attractive and unattractive. Rather shrewdly she guessed that willingness to meet Earl Rommel's demands might form a decisive part of what he considered attractive.
Yet he himself did not strike her as a man of whom she had to be afraid. Before her experience with Bull Amy knew that she would never have felt this way about a man like Rommel. But now she felt that she could handle him. And she was proud of her new maturity.
Her body too came in for a new kind of examination. Before Amy had always been somewhat ashamed of it, had considered nakedness a state that one never even thought about. Yet now as she undressed she saw it as she thought Earl would see it. What had set her in motion had been Earl's remark about the girls who worked for him.
All along she had known she was a pretty girl with a good figure. Now, however, for the first time the general description had narrowed itself down in her mind, had become something that applied only to her, to the exact proportions of her round breasts, to the tapering of her waist, to the fullness of her hips and the fleshed shapeliness of her legs. This was she, Amy, a girl with a body that men wanted, desirable, lovely, yes, even beautiful. It was with regret that she finally turned off the light and went to bed.
She would have liked to have had another dress to wear for her date with Earl, but there was nothing she could do about that. Since she could not change her dress, Amy decided that she would change her hairdo. She spent the whole afternoon before the mirror until she worked out one that she felt suited her. When she surveyed the result in the mirror she felt a thrill of satisfaction. She looked like an entirely different girl from the Amy who had arrived in Millersville less than two weeks before.
Earl arrived promptly at eight and honked his horn. Amy guessed that he didn't want to come in because of Mrs. Cartison and on her way down she saw the older woman peering through the window. It occurred to her that Mrs. Cartison would surely disapprove of Earl, but now she didn't care.
As she had hoped it was the new hairdo that Earl noticed and Amy was pleased with his reaction and with her own foresight.
"That's a little too good for the GIs," he laughed. "We'll take a busman's holiday tonight and go to the Country Club for dinner. I'll have to check in at the place later though."
The Country Club was hardly as crowded as Earl's Tavern and Amy remarked on it. This pleased Earl no end.
"You got an eye for the important thing, Amy," he said. "They got class here, but they ain't got no customers. Leave it to Earl. You saw my place. Well, two years ago it was a rundown joint for truck drivers. I got it for almost nothing. Now look at it. There's money rolling in seven nights a week. I take in more in one night than this joint does in a week. And I charge less than half. Maybe they got an orchestra, but I got the best bands working for me right in the old jukebox."
Amy realized that Earl was trying to impress her, but she could not guess why. However, he told her quickly enough.
"You know," he confessed, "you're the first girl from New York I ever had on a date."
"Really," said Amy. "Well, you're the first man from Millersville I even let date me up."
They both laughed. Amy knew that Earl had set her up in his mind as a sophisticated girl from New York and she forced herself to play the role.
As they danced she asked him about himself. A picture formed in her mind of a small-town youth with no taste for work and an immense desire for an easy and quick buck. He was filled with a sense of his own importance now and readily bragged of how rich he was getting out of his roadside joint.
"Isn't gambling illegal?" she asked naively.
That gave him a big laugh.
"Yeah," he said, "it's illegal if the law says so. But if the law can't see-or don't want to see-then everything's okay."
"And all the rest of it" she continued.
He looked at her sharply and Amy guessed that this wasn't as open as he pretended it was.
"That," he said. "That's got nothing to do with me. I run a clean place. Whatever the girls want to do, that's their own business. They're over twenty-one and I can't run their lives. They get paid as hostesses and that's all."
A bold idea occurred to Amy and she smiled as if she didn't believe him. If he had that idea of her, she thought, there was no reason for her to show him otherwise.
"You don't have to convince me," she said coolly.
After a while Earl had to check in at his place and they drove there quickly. It was a warm and clear night and the stars were shining brightly. At this moment problems seemed far away to Amy who was enjoying the farce she was playing with Earl. He pulled into the parking lot and guided her into a side entrance.
"We don't have to let all those GIs give you the eye," he said.
Inside he took her to the gambling room and showed her around.
"Want to try your luck?" he asked. "Here. Use house money. If you win, it's yours. If you lose, well, you've had your fun. I got some business and this'll keep you busy."
He pushed a stack of chips into her hand and was off. The idea of gambling excited Amy and, like all novices, she chose the roulette wheel because of the glamor she attributed to it. The game fascinated her and within an hour she was winning. How much, she had no idea. Then Earl came back and grinned when he saw her stack of chips. "You won," he said.
"Isn't that supposed to happen?" She was gay and flushed with excitement.
"Just to you," he said, but he wasn't smiling. There was something in his tone that Amy recognized, a warm throb that made everything, the most trivial remark, seem personal. "Come on, let's cash in those chips."
To her amazement she had won almost a hundred dollars, which was more than she had when she arrived in Millersville. All at once Amy seemed to be sitting on top of the world. Earl liked her, she had enough money to carry her until she found a job and she would still have a chance to get Bull back.
Earl wanted to leave and she followed. As she came out of the room the first person she saw was Bull. He was at the bar very drunk with each arm around one of the hostesses. And he was singing. The words of the song were blurred but enough of them came through to make Amy recoil with shock. Bull was looking right at her, but she could tell that he did not see her. In fact, it was a question if he would have recognized her at all. Amy tried hard to blink back the tears so that Earl wouldn't see them.
"I want a drink," she said to Earl in a strained voice.
"Something the matter?" he asked quickly.
"No," she snapped irritably. "I just want a drink."
He signaled the bartender who came quickly.
So that was whom she was waiting for, Amy thought. She wanted him and all he wanted was a chippy for the night. Now she felt ten times a fool for having wanted him at all. Earl brought her the drink and she drank it very quickly.
"Another one," she said and handed him the empty glass.
Bull, she thought, Bull could have had her, but he preferred the others. And Earl too, he probably preferred the others. They were all alike. She recalled her friend Paula who had always been the one the boys went for first and now, thinking about Paula, she remembered things that she had not understood but which now pointed unmistakably to what Paula had been doing. The men had known right away. They could tell, Amy thought. And they had invariably chosen Paula. She drank the second drink Earl brought her and felt it go down hotly and then spread warmly out from her stomach.
"Let's go," she said to Earl.
She had been a fool. It ran through her mind over and over again, superimposed on the picture of Bull drunkenly pawing the two girls and singing the bawdy ditty. It was a picture that made her writhe at having ever loved Bull, at having wanted him to have her again, at having ever had a moment's misery because of him. He was just a man, she told herself, who wanted what all men wanted.
But even as she thought it the memory of his great body pushed its way into her consciousness and momentarily obliterated her anger. It was a shocking thing that happened to Amy at this point and it was possibly helped by the two stiff drinks of whiskey she had downed. She had wanted from Bull what he had wanted from her!
It had nothing to do with love at all. She had been old enough, her body had been ready for it and she had gone out after it. All the stuff about love had been something she had made up to fool herself so that she would go ahead with what she wanted and not draw back in fear. Bull had seen in her an attractive girl and she had seen in him an attractive man and nature had done the rest-with a little assist from Amy's naivete.
The car came to a halt and Amy snapped out of it. She had forgotten all about Earl and she was afraid that he might have caught on, but there was nothing to indicate it. He had pulled up alongside the road at the top of a hill that commanded an immense view. The dark valley spread before their eyes for miles and miles. Far off Amy could see lights shining brightly. Earl slipped his arm around her shoulder and Amy slid a little closer to him. The drinks had command of her now and she was a little dizzy and her legs felt weak. She was glad that she did not have to do any talking now.
Earl kissed her. She didn't stop him and he kissed her again. The kiss began to work through to her, to reach the dormant desire that was waiting to be roused again. Her mouth opened and her tongue met his in a little darting lick of fire. The kiss became a long hard embrace, body crushed against body.
"Amy, I love you," Earl breathed huskily.
Amy pushed him away roughly.
"Don't talk about love," she said viciously. "Let's go."
He looked at her in amazement and reached for her again. She tried to hold him off, but he was insistent and she finally allowed him, but without responding.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
She looked at him and didn't know herself why she acted the way she did. What was the matter with her? Why not talk about love? Just because of Bull? Was Bull the only one to have pleasure?
"Kiss me again," she told him.
Now she didn't hold back and she let her desires have their way. Each second of the kiss was a promise of pleasure to come and they prolonged it as long as they could. Finally, they broke it off.
"I'm nuts about you, Amy," he breathed.
"Don't talk," she said huskily. "Let's go quickly."
She sat pressed against him as he drove rapidly over the nearly empty highway, their headlights searching the trees and the fields around curves. Neither spoke, their bodies conversing for them. The car hurtled ahead, impelled by their desire for haste. He pulled up with a screech of brakes and tires before a darkened house. It reminded Amy of the cottage she had gone to with Bull and she shuddered. Then she followed him in.
His arms went around her and she thrust herself hard against him, rapturing in the hardness of his body and the soft yielding of her own. Their embrace was one of fire, engulfing them in a universe of their own.
Then he lifted her and carried her into the house. She squirmed around so that she could kiss him and embrace him again. Amy did not want to know or think, but only act. All her frustrations of the present merged in the mighty current of passion that caught her up.
His hands raced over her body, peeling back her blouse, opening her bra. She felt cool air suddenly on her breasts as he bared them, and her nipples began to grow stiff and to throb as his fingers gently caressed them. He slipped away the rest of her clothing and stroked her skin lightly, in a way that sent tingling delight through her.
She caught him to her with a wild moan. Everything, the anguish and the frustration, the hurt and the hunger, united into a surging wave that engulfed her. Their bodies joined; her mouth opened to his, and she became dizzy with ecstasy as his grip tightened on her bosom.
Now there was the wondrous thing she had known before, the pinnacle that was anguish and ecstasy in one, bathing her in pleasure and leaving her limp and spent in the darkness. Amy let it ebb, holding close to Earl so that it would not depart too quickly.
But then it was gone; he was Earl again and she was Amy. But gone also was the torment about Bull. Not that she thought of it because she did not. Instead there was peace and contentment inside her. Then she fell asleep.