Chapter 12
MONA LOOKED UP FROM HER BOOK, ACROSS the living room to where Frank sat reading the paper.
She sighed.
He hadn't spoken to her in ten days, ever since the night he had come back from the hospital to find her and Sue Ellen locked in a Lesbian lovers' embrace.
He had eaten the meals she had prepared, had slept in her bed, had come home from classes each day-but he hadn't touched her, and except for an occasional grunt of affirmation or negation in response to some question, he hadn't given her any reason to believe that he knew she was alive.
As far as Mona was concerned, she would have preferred horsewhipping to this aloofness, but Frank hadn't horsewhipped her, hadn't even yelled at her.
She still trembled with terror when she remembered his expression when their eyes first met. At that moment, she wouldn't have taken any kind of odds on her being alive the next morning.
But Frank had just stared at her venomously, not saying a word, just stared and stared as she vainly attempted to cut short her orgasm, to force her body to stop its wild, uncontrollable gyrations, Then, it was over, and he had turned to Sue Ellen.
"Get out, slut," he said, almost too softly to be heard.
But Sue Ellen heard him and Sue Ellen quickly gathered her things together and left, not even bothering to try slipping her tattered dress on until she was outside the door.
"Oh, Frank!" Mona had babbled hysterically. "I didn't mean for you to ... that is, I...."
"Make me my dinner," he had-said, just as softly.
Mona had raced to the kitchen, terrified, not even bothering to cover her nakedness.
"Joel Hankins has a brain tumor," said Frank, as they sat down to eat-and that was the last thing he had said to her since that evening.
Now she crossed her legs, trying desperately to fight back the luscious anxiety that was centered between them, but the only thing the action accomplished was to push her panties up between the soft throbbing lips it covered. She tensed her thighs, then relaxed them, marveling at the sensation of the cloth being rubbed against her eager clitoris.
Did she dare ask him? She looked at Frank, engrossed in the paper as he had been a thousand times before. But this time it was different. Very different. There was a squareness to his jaw, a rigidity to his countenance; that boded nothing but trouble, and she sighed and lowered her eyes.
No, she couldn't ask him. She knew what he thought of women who made it with women, and she could never in a thousand years convince him that she wasn't a Lesbian; that-what he had walked in on was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, a betrayal of long-aroused passions.
And yet, was it really just that? Was she sure that she wasn't a Lesbian? How often in the past ten days had she remembered Sue Ellen's eager, searching tongue and hand darting in between her legs?
With a sigh that was half a sob, she rose and walked off to the bedroom.
"She sure swallowed an awful lot of water before she drowned," said the burly, leather-coated policeman.
"That she did," agreed the balding little doctor. "You found her kind of quick. I'd say off-hand that she hasn't been dead more than-" he paused to look at the bloated corpse, then continued, "-three hours at the most. Probably closer to ninety minutes."
"I didn't find her," said the policeman. "Couple of kids saw a piece of paper floating around in the pond and when they went a little closer, they saw her."
"Must have shocked the hell out of 'em," said the doctor. "Obviously suicide. Well, we get 'em here from time to time; especially when exams are coming up. What was that you said about a piece of paper?"
"Oh, nothing," came the response. "Thought at first it might be a suicide note, but when I waded in and got my hands on it, it turned out to be blank."
He displayed the water-soaked paper to the doctor, then crumpled it up and threw it in the path of an orderly who was sweeping the floor of the emergency room.
"Dead?" Joel repeated unbelievingly.
"I'm afraid so," said the elderly man in the white doctor's jacket.
"But ... but I saw her just a little while ago!"
"I'm sorry."
And, for the first time in his memory, even including that far-gone night when Blanche and her friends mauled him, Joel Hankins wept.
He wept for a long time, and when he was through he staggered over to the closet, donned a robe, and went out of his room. He walked down the long corridor, and, when nobody stopped him, snuck out through the service entrance and walked out into the chilly spring night.
When he got to Kaye's dormitory he climbed the fire escape, almost blacking out twice from dizziness. Her room had been on the fourth floor, and when he arrived there, he found that the only way to leave the fire escape and enter the building was through the floor's lavatory.
Almost unconscious from the pain at the base of his skull, he forced a window open and entered.
A girl was just entering. Their eyes met for an instant, and Joel, with a speed and agility he didn't know he possessed in his weakened state, grabbed a water glass from the sink, broke it on the steel faucet, and confronted her.
"I don't want to hurt you," he mumbled groggily. "I don't want to hurt anybody, but if you scream or try to stop me, I'll slit your throat before anyone can prevent it."
She just stared, wild-eyed and terrified, at the broken glass in his hand. Blood was beginning to ooze out of the deep gash in his palm, but he wasn't aware of any pain there.
"Do you know where Kaye's room is?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Take me there."
"But there are other girls there," she said, finally finding her voice. "They'll see you."
"But they won't stop me," he said, blinking and reeling. He leaned a hand against the wall to steady himself. "They won't stop me," he repeated slowly, "or I'll kill you."
Trembling with terror, the girl led him down the hallway. A few girls saw him, but no one tried to stop him.
"Thanks," he said groggily. "Now get the hell out of here."
She backed slowly out of the room. When she saw that he didn't intend to stop her, she slammed the door behind her and ran, screaming, down the corridor, begging for help and yelling for the police.
Joel turned on a light and went to Kaye's desk. He didn't know what he was looking for, but there had to be a reason-and that reason would be here.
The dizziness was back, and he had to sit down for a moment. As he did so, he noticed the marks of a fire within her waste-basket.
She had burned something-but what?
And, according to the doctor who had broken the news to him, she may have written a note-but it was on blank paper.
What didn't she want anyone to see-or was there anything at all? Had she just gone off the deep end?
There was an answer here somewhere, a logic to it all, but his head was aching terribly. He couldn't think, couldn't reason, could barely keep his eyes open. Grudgingly, fighting the urge every second, he lowered his aching, throbbing head to the desk. If he could close his eyes, for just a second....
And then he saw it.
A torn manila envelope, taped onto wrapping paper. It had been a package. With a final effort of will power, he reached out and pulled the envelope over.
It was ripped, and there were stains on it, possible tear stains-but he could make out the return address.
Timothy Corwith!
Then it was blackmail! Tim was in the club, and he had something on Kay. He may have found some way to get rid of the letter and the pictures, or whatever it was he had sent, but he had neglected to do the same thing to the envelope. And of course he had to put on a return address: if it fell into anyone's hands but Kaye's, whatever he had sent her might ruin him.
He heard the sounds of running feet in the corridor. That would be the police coming to get him, he knew. But somehow it seemed unimportant to him now. All he needed was sleep.
His head began nodding again, but before he yielded to the impulse he found a letter opener. With his last ounce of strength, he plunged it through the envelope, sticking it to the desk.
Let them come now, he thought dreamily as he heard hands fumbling with the doorknob. They'd find the envelope, and when he woke up in the hospital and they questioned him about it, he'd begin settling his little score with the Dean of Men.
But first, he thought, as his head touched the table, I have to sleep....
The phone rang again.
"I'll get it," Mona said, walking over hesitantly and making sure Frank's back was turned before answering it.
"Hello?"
"Howdy, stranger!" boomed Travis Bland. "You folks ever coming around again?"
"I don't know," said Mona, aware of Frank's intense stare.
"Why don't you know?" asked Travis.
"It all depends on my husband," she said.
"Won't he let you come?" asked Travis, then chuckled at his own inadvertent pun.
"Yes, he'll let me come," she answered, looking straight into Frank's eyes.
"Then what's the problem?"
"I'm hoping that he'll make me stay here," she said. "I'm hoping he'll carry me off to the bedroom right now, before I even hang up the phone, and I'm hoping he'll make me forget that you and every other man in the world exists."
Frank stared at her for a moment, as Travis babbled into the other end of the phone. Then, with an air of great determination, he got up, slowly walked across the room, took the phone from her hand, and hung it up.
Then he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, depositing her gently on the bed.
"God, how I've been praying for you to do this!"
"It's all over?" he asked. "The club, Sue Ellen, all of it?"
"I'll never go back unless you want to," she said, pulling him down to her.