April North (13 page)

“Now just relax,” Margo was saying. “Just relax, honey. This will feel fine.”

Margo began to massage her back and April felt the tension draining from her body. Her eyes were closed and her muscles began to relax, to lose the feeling of insufferable tightness that had plagued her ever since she had seen Craig leaving the bedroom with Sue Maynor. She felt nothing but the terrycloth beneath her and Margo’s hands on her, on her back, rubbing her neck, stroking, touching, helping her to feel better.

“Got to make you feel good,” Margo said. “You’re so beautiful, April. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

Hands that did wonderful things to her naked flesh. Hands that rubbed her back, pressed the small of her back, came around the sides to massage her ribs. Gentle hands yet strong hands, almost masculine hands, yet so soft—

“Craig Jeffers is an ass,” Margo said. “Any man who could pass up something like you for a slut like Maynor isn’t worth the powder to blow him to hell. You’ve got a nice behind, honey. Did anyone ever tell you what a sweet little rump you’ve got?”

Hands that touched her buttocks now, patting and caressing, touching bare flesh. Hands that stroked her thighs, squeezing and patting the tired muscles and making her feel much better, much looser, much happier.

“So beautiful—”

She felt Margo’s lips at the back of her neck, kissing her. Now why on earth would Margo want to kiss her? Yet it felt nice. Margo nibbled at the nape of her neck, spread a row of glowing kisses down the center of her back. She felt Margo lower herself upon her, felt the weight of the woman, felt two firm peaks of flesh that were Margo’s breasts pressing against her back.

Margo’s breasts were so warm.

Margo lay upon her, holding her, touching her, massaging her. And kissing her. And the whole world was light and airy, light and dreamy, light and lovely, and she was floating high in the sky on a terrycloth cloud.

“April.”

She sighed softly, happily.

“Roll over, April.”

“Why?”

“So I can do you in front.”

The explanation was a fine one. She rolled over, her eyes still closed, and she heard the sudden and worshipful intake of breath as Margo saw the full beauty of her naked body. Margo’s hands touched her now, holding her at the waist, massaging her flat stomach and stroking her hips.

Then, suddenly, Margo was holding her breasts.

The contact was electrifying. All at once the edge of the drunkenness was broken and all at once reality returned. She knew, now. She knew that this was not a massage, that it was not friendship, that it was in fact nothing more or less than lesbian love.

And she didn’t care.

Margo’s voice: “April, they’re awful. Men are awful. They take a girl and they ruin her. They make a slave out of her. But I won’t ruin you, honey. I’ll be good to you, honey.”

Margo kissed her. Margo’s mouth was soft, incredibly soft, and kissing Margo was not at all like kissing a man. Her mouth opened to admit Margo’s tongue, and then she felt Margo’s good woman’s body coming down on top of her own body, breasts against breasts, belly against belly, loins against loins. She put her arms around Margo, holding her close, and with her mouth she accepted the full intensity of Margo’s kiss.

The world was swimming now. No, not swimming-floating, floating on its back with its eyes closed, floating in a blue-green sea of cool molten lead. April North was drunk. April North was naked as a jaybird in the great outdoors, with the air cool on her warm bare skin. April North was lying under a lesbian, was kissing and being kissed by a heavy-breasted sweet-mouthed woman. April North was enjoying all of this.

Margo’s lips: leaving hers now, moving to kiss her cheek, to drop kisses on her tightly shut eyelids, to drink at her throat and move gently downward.

Margo’s hands: on her breasts again, flexing the taut flesh, tugging hungrily at the firm nipples, cupping the mounds of female softness and teasing April into a desperate response.

Margo’s mouth: Moving downward into the valley between those breasts, and now she could feel Margo’s cheeks between her own breasts, soft and cool, and then she could feel Margo kissing her breasts, kissing the flesh, kissing the nipples, kissing and kissing and kissing with lips and tongue and

and

and

and

now the world was inverted, and Margo was inverted, over her, holding her. And now April was caught up in passion, alive with passion, thrilled by a passion unlike anything she had ever known before. Now the world was rocking in a motion older than Adam and Eve…

Faster.

Faster.

Faster—

Then, at last, peace.

Dawn awoke her, sending shivers of light beating against her closed eyelids, and April opened her eyes to blink and shuddered violently. There was a moment during which she was quite uncertain where she was or how she had gotten there. Then memory came in a flash, and she recalled everything, and she sat up shaking.

She was still naked. She was still on the terry cloth-covered chaise in Craig’s garden.

Margo was gone.

Well, she thought, thank God for that. Waking up alone under this particular set of circumstances was impossible enough. Margo’s presence would have made the morning even harder to take.

She stood up, and then all the drinking and all the everything else caught up with her. Knees buckled. She fell to the grass and heaved. She lay there and retched uncontrollably for several minutes.

This time she was even weaker when she stood up, but the nausea had vanished at least for the time being. Outdoor nudity was far less romantic when you were sober and when the sun was shining. She fumbled around for her dress, got into it, and slipped her shoes on. The dress was slightly damp from the dew. She wished she had been a little less dramatic and a little less sexy and a little more practical. Bra and panties would have helped now, and she should have worn them in the first place.

She needed a cigarette.

The back door of Craig’s house was open and she went inside, taking a cigarette from a crumpled pack in the living room. She found a match, lit it, and took a deep drag. The living room was a shambles with empty glasses, empty bottles and overflowing ash trays scattered throughout the large room. The smell of dissipation, compounded of alcohol and vomit and sex, pervaded the atmosphere.

A wall clock indicated quarter to seven. In the morning. And she had still not come home.

God, she thought.

What explanation would satisfy her mother? None, probably. She was up the well-known creek in a lead canoe, and she didn’t even have a paddle. No lie she could possibly dream up would work this time. She had gone to a party after dinner Saturday night and she was coming home on Sunday morning, and that had a funny smell to it no matter how you embellished it.

Then she realized something, and she laughed. The full humor of it hit her and she rolled around on the floor, laughing like a lunatic, holding her sides to keep them from splitting.

This was Sunday morning.

She had to hurry home to go to church with the family.

She took a last drag on her cigarette and ground it out in a copper ash tray already overflowing. She found another cigarette in the crumpled pack and got it going. She sat down—because it was hard to stand up now, hard to keep on her feet—and she tried to make out just what had happened to her. Everything had happened to her.

Everything, starting with an evening of heavy drinking and sophisticated small talk. Then Craig playing orgy-master with that redheaded Maynor bitch. Then throwing up in the john, going to bed with Craig, getting drunk as a skunk and playing lesbian games with Margo Long on the chaise in the back yard. And waking up.

And now she was sitting alone in the living room and wanting only to go home, where she belonged. She ground out the second cigarette and walked through the house looking for Craig. She tried one room, and there were two sleeping bodies on the bed, but Craig was not one of them. Frank Evans was, and so was Sue Maynor. She had to laugh—suave and polished Frank, the deep-talking pipe-smoker, was just as human as anyone else. He had taken his turn with Slutty Sue like every other man at the party.

She left the room quietly, closing the door. She tried another room, the bedroom where she and Craig had made love so many times. And this time she found him. He was lying on his back, mouth open, eyes closed. He was snoring, and all at once he did not look romantic or debonair at all. He looked like a bum, a drunken bum sleeping off a wine binge in a pig sty. For there was a pig with him.

A blonde pig with big breasts and smeared lipstick. April glanced from one to the other. I loved him, she thought. I actually loved the rotten son of a bitch. And she wondered what he and the blonde pig had done, and how many times, and—

She left the room.

She could not talk to Craig, obviously. Not now and not ever, as far as she was concerned. He was rotten and filthy and she would be damned a dozen times before she would try to wake him from his sleep with the blonde bitch to take her home.

But she could not walk, either. Home was too far away. So just what could she do, damn it?

Cars were parked in front. She went from one to the other and finally found a blue Pontiac with Dayton plates and keys in the ignition. She wondered who had been dumb enough to leave the keys, and silently thanked whoever it was for his or her stupidity. She climbed into the car, got behind the wheel, and sat.

She would have to go home. She did not expect a brass band at seven in the morning, but they would have to take her in and they would have to leave her alone. She could make up some sort of story—a car accident, trouble of one sort or another, anything that would placate them for a little while.

She turned the key in the ignition, stepped on the gas and started home. She knew the route. She had driven it often enough in Craig’s Mercedes.

Craig—Craig Jeffers. She had loved him, she knew, and she did not love him any more. She could not understand it—he had always wanted her so much, had spent such a great deal of time with her, had seemed to love her so deeply. And yet he had been able to toss her over and go to bed with other girls. With Sue Maynor, and with the blonde tramp, and with God knew how many others.

Why?

Not because she was no good. She could not believe that. She knew that he had told her repeatedly how good she was, knew how wondrously exhausted she could make him. She remembered how he had cried out one time at the crucial instant, his nails digging into her shoulder, his face contorted in a mixed expression of pleasure and pain. There was nothing Sue Maynor could give him that she could not give him as well or better.

Why, then?

She sighed. She needed a cigarette but there was none around. She kept her mind on her driving, heading toward town and home.

They did not believe her.

When she went through the door her mother was standing with her hands on her hips and a fierce expression on her face. Her father’s face was drawn with worry and anger in more or less equal proportions.

This will have to be good, she thought.

“All right,” her mother said. “Start talking, April.”

She made up her story as she went along, an unlikely story about Craig having a malaria attack and how she had to nurse him through the night and pile him up with blankets and put hot compresses on his feverish head.

“He caught it in Italy,” she explained. “He was there one winter and he caught malaria and he still gets attacks now and then. They say you never get over it. You can be cured and still get terrible attacks years later.”

“And you couldn’t even call April?”

“Well, Mom—”

“We were up all night waiting for you,” he father cut in. “You could have called us, April.”

“Well, Dad—”

“April,” her mother said, “I don’t believe you.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t believe you. This story about malaria. I think you’ve been telling us stories all along. Why, I met Judy Liverpool’s mother the other day and mentioned how nice it was of her to have you over for dinner and she said you hadn’t been there at all. Where were you that night, April?”

“At Judy’s,” she said desperately. “Look, maybe Judy’s mother forgot. I mean, it was over a week ago, and—”

“April.” Her mother stopped, then sighed. “I don’t want to discuss it now. Not today, not on the Lord’s day. Are you coming to church with us, April?”

If you lie, she thought, you have to stick to it “I can’t,” she said angrily. “I was up all night and didn’t so much as close my eyes. The fever broke finally but it was horrible. Around three in the morning Craig was having horrible hallucinations and everything. I never saw anything like it. Now I’m exhausted. I think I’ll go to bed for awhile, if you don’t mind.”

They said they did not mind, but obviously they did mind. They did not believe her. Once their belief was shattered in one respect, they would question every single thing she told them from then on.

This was going to be bad.

They trooped off to church. April took a succession of hot baths and ate a full breakfast. When they came home she was sleeping soundly, and they let her sleep until dinner time. Dinner was an ordeal, with a good deal of cross-questioning and a generally unhappy atmosphere. The only thing to do, she decided, was to brazen it out.

“I’d better get back to him,” she said after dinner. “I’ll have to take the Pontiac. If he feels okay he can drive me back.”

Her father offered to run her over but she managed to brush the offer aside. She left the house, dressed comfortably now in jeans and a sweater, and drove the Pontiac to Craig’s home.

10

THE Pontiac was big and bulky. Cars, she thought, taking the turn off onto the narrow road that led to Craig’s house. You could tell the whole story in terms of cars. A green Oldsmobile a year old, where Dan Duncan had claimed her virginity in the back seat on a Saturday night When was that? Two weeks ago. Just two weeks ago.

And the Mercedes-Benz, the sleek 300-SL that had stopped for her when she had been on her way to Xenia and from there to New York. Craig’s car. And the hot rod—Bill Piersall’s car. And now the bulky Pontiac. And she did not even know to whom it belonged.