Carla (11 page)

But she couldn't go out of the house looking like that, no matter how much she wanted to show herself off to Charles. Fortunately she got an assist from nature. It began to rain, and a shapeless raincoat quickly camouflaged the dress. While it forced her to put up the top of the MG, it made matters infinitely easier. Then the rain miraculously stopped by the time she reached the Tiffany, so she was able to leave the raincoat in the car and walk into the lobby in full glory.

The imperturbable doorman didn't so much as raise an eyebrow.

Charles, on the contrary, raised both eyebrows. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “Carla, you're magnificent!”

She grinned. “I'm glad you approve.”

“Approve? God, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!” He ushered her into the apartment, closing the door behind her. Carla walked to the sofa and sat down, tucking her long legs beneath her. She stretched like a kitten, enjoying the way her breasts pressed against the front of the jersey dress, and pulled a cigarette from her purse. Charles held the light for her and she drew deeply on the cigarette, not speaking until she had filled her lungs with smoke and blown a thin column of smoke at the ceiling.

“If I'm that pretty,” she said carefully, “why won't you marry me?”

Charles sat down and shook his head. “Are you going to start that again?”

“Why not?”

“What's the matter, Carla? Aren't you satisfied with things as they are?”

“No, I'm not.”

He lit a cigarette of his own and extinguished the match with a flick of his wrist. “Why not? Things are good the way they are. You're married to Ronald and you have the security of the Macon name. We meet every afternoon and we have the pleasure which we give each other. Our lovemaking is a beautiful and rhythmic thing. What more do you want.”

Carla closed her eyes. “That's easy for you to say,” she said after a moment. “You're a man, and so it's an easy way for you to look at things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I'm a woman and you're a man. You can't look at things from a woman's point of view. A woman wants more than beauty, Charles. Oh, I get as much pleasure from our love as you do. I won't argue with you on that score. But a woman needs security—not just the security of a rich husband. A woman wants her husband and her lover to be the same person.”

“Why?”

“I'm not sure,” she answered honestly. “It's hard to explain to a man. I know you love me, Charles, but I need a more tangible proof of your love. Marriage give a woman that sort of proof. Do you understand?”

He nodded slowly. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I know what you mean, but I'm not going to marry you.”

“Why not?”

He flicked his cigarette in a heavy copper ashtray and studied the glowing tip thoughtfully. “Perhaps it's because I'm a man,” he replied. “Perhaps it's because I'm Ronald's friend, and I know how much he wants and needs you. But neither of those things are the main reason.

“The big thing is the value I place on my freedom. Carla, I don't want to be responsible for anything, and definitely not for another person's happiness. Look at the world we live in. Our every action is in the shadow of the bomb. For God's sake, this is the first generation which can't expect the world to outlast its own lifetime. Any day some madman might drop a bomb and blow the world to hell.”

“I know that,” she said.

“Of course,” he said. “Everybody knows that. But you have to realize how it affects our lives. Do you think it makes sense to plan for eternity, or even for ten or twenty years? I don't. I think a person ought to live for the moment—because the sun may
not
rise tomorrow, and tomorrow it's entirely possible that we'll all be dead. Very possible. And for that reason, and for some other reasons that are imbedded in my particular personality, I believe that a person should have as much fun as he can out of life. Why worry about the future when there may not be one? Why bother with marriage?”

Carla sank into her seat. She understood what Charles was saying, and she could appreciate his philosophy. But this didn't alter her own situation. She didn't want to think about living for the moment. She wanted to worry about the future, about tomorrow and the next day and the one after that. If you couldn't plan ahead, there didn't appear to be much sense in anything.

“Charles,” she said finally, “don't you love me?”

He sighed. “The eternal feminine question,” he said. “The question women have asked ever since Adam berated Eve for eating the damned apple. Of course I love you.”

“Then—”

“Then what?”

“Then,” she said triumphantly, “why won't you let me divorce Ronald and marry you?”

He waited before replying, and the only sound in the plush apartment was the rhythmic ticking of the clock. “I love you,” he said at last, “but you're not the first woman I've ever loved.”

“So what? I hardly came to you a virgin.”

He held up a hand. “Wait a minute; let me finish. I've loved women before, and I expect to love women after you. I expect to keep on loving women until I die, or at least until I become too old to participate in active love sessions.”

Carla's cigarette had burned down, and she put it out in the ashtray. “Every man says that,” she said shortly. “Every man thinks one woman isn't enough for him. But do you think you can handle more loving than I can give you? I'm a fairly passionate woman, Charles.”

At any other time, Carla would have blushed upon uttering such a statement. But she was caught up in the argument now. She realized that tonight was the night, that it would end in either a proposal or a break-up, and it was no time for modesty.

“Carla,” he said softly, “you are as passionate a woman as I have ever met.”

“So?”

He shook his head slowly and there was sadness in his eyes. “I don't know how to tell you this,” he said. “You're enough woman for me, as far as that goes, but I need more than one woman. There's something wrong with me, Carla. Maybe it's because I've never had to work for anything, because I've always been able to get whatever I wanted. But one single woman can never satisfy me.”

“You're just talking through your hat,” she snapped. “You don't want anybody else after we've been together.”

“Carla—”

“Well? Do you?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I didn't want to tell you this,” he began. “I didn't want to say anything about it, but I suppose it's the only way to convince you. Please listen carefully, and please forgive me in advance if I hurt you.

“I told you not to come last night. I told you that I was busy. Right?”

She nodded.

“That wasn't altogether true. I
was
busy, but I was busy with another woman. I had another woman spend the night here.”

“What?”

He closed his eyes, and she could see that it was hurting him to tell her. “Yes,” he said thinly. “I was spending the night with another woman.”

“I don't believe it.”

“It's the truth.”

“You're just making it up,” she said. “You're just looking for an excuse, but I don't believe it for a minute. Who was this ‘other woman?'”

“I'd rather not say.”

“Because she doesn't exist?”

“No—she exists.”

“Then who was she?”

He swallowed. “Miss Lizzie Barkin,” he said. Lizzie—the girl who works for you.”

Carla was too stunned to speak.

“I called her on the phone,” he went on. “She remembered me from the time I had dinner at your house, and fortunately it was her night off. She came up here and we made love in the same bed where I've made love to you so many times. She—”

“You're lying.”

“No,” he said. “I'm telling the truth.”

For a moment she was unable to reply. Charles wasn't lying, she knew. Much as she wished he were, it was obvious that his words were true.

“Why?” she demanded at last, her voice little more than a whisper. “Why?”

“Because I wanted her.”

“You—”

“I wanted her,” he continued. “I wanted her the moment I saw her, just as I wanted you. I wanted her in my bed with the covers pulled over us, and I got her there, just as I got you there. I—”

“You son of a bitch!”

“Don't talk like that. It's the way I am, Carla, and I can't help it. I told you all along that our affair was just that, an affair and nothing more. But—”

“You rotten son of a bitch!”

“Carla—”

There was a note of anger in his voice, but she ignored it. “You rotten bastard,” she said. “You miserable bastard. You let me fall in love with you and then threw me over for a cheap little—”

He slapped her across the face and his fingers left red marks on her cheeks.

“A cheap little slut. You have to go cheat on me with a little tramp of a—”

He slapped her again, harder this time, and she clutched her hand to her cheek.

“Don't talk about her that way,” he commanded. “She's as much of a woman as you are.”

“She's a tramp,” Carla said. And he slapped her again, harder still, almost knocking her from her feet. It hurt and her eyes began welling up with tears.

“You bastard.
I love you, you bastard.”

She went to him with her cheek still smarting from the slaps. Her arms went around him, around the maroon dressing gown, and her mouth sought his feverishly. He kissed her back and her teeth sank hungrily into his lower lip. He bent down and lifted her in his arms, lifting her easily with a strength that surprised her, and carrying her into the bedroom. While he removed the dressing gown and tossed it casually onto a chair, she slipped the jersey dress over her head and dropped it on the floor. His eyes widened in surprise at seeing that she was wearing nothing under the dress.

“Bastard,” she said.

He slapped her again. She repeated the word and he began slapping her again and again, slowly and methodically, slapping her and hitting harder with each slap. She wanted him to hurt her, wanted him to slap her again and again, wanted to force this man to master her completely. Each slap increased her passion until it welled up in her and overflowed.

With a little cry she fell against him. It was all over and she knew it was all over, but now and only for now he was right and only the moment mattered. Tomorrow everything would be past and no longer important, but now all that was important was his hands encircling her breasts and his fingers making music against her thighs.

She whispered his name over and over, the whispers rising in intensity until she was fairly screaming in his ear. Her passion mounted like a house of cards, rising higher and higher until at the final beautiful instant it collapsed and she drifted into a whirlpool of ecstatic and desperate fulfillment.

She could hear nothing, not even the solemn ticking of the clock.

Chapter Eleven

IT WAS ALL OVER.
She knew this the next day, knew it the moment she woke up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes and headed for the shower. It was over and she would never sleep with Charles again, and it was over despite the perfection of their lovemaking, despite even the final beauty of yesterday afternoon.

It was a time to be sad. But, strangely, she felt no sadness. Outside of a vague emptiness and a sense of finality she felt nothing at all.

It seemed wrong. She told herself she ought to be properly grief-stricken, but there was no grief present whatsoever. And she realized that this was due to the fact that she and Charles had never really loved each other. She had needed Charles, needed him as surely as she needed a cup of black coffee in the morning, but in the final analysis he was no more irreplaceable than that cup of coffee. In fact, the coffee was undoubtedly a good deal more habit-forming.

But she couldn't eliminate the lump that came to her throat when she went downstairs and saw Lizzie for the first time that day. The mental picture of the girl in bed with Charles was too much for her despite the fact that she and Charles had broken up. It put Lizzie in a new light and transformed the mistress-servant relationship into one of two rivals for a man's love. It was not easy to see Lizzie in that light.

“Do you remember Mr. Butler?” she asked hesitantly.

“Mr. Butler?”

“Mr. Macon brought him to dinner a while back,” Carla prompted, marveling at the girl's poise.

“Oh, yes. I remember him.”

“I wonder if he'll be around again.” Carla realized suddenly that she was on shaky ground. If she let Lizzie know that she knew about her affair with Charles, the girl would realize that Carla had been playing around too.

“He seemed like a nice man,” Lizzie said easily. And Carla let the conversation die right there.

The day passed quickly. Carla relaxed for the first time in weeks and listened to records in the living-room, almost dozing off as she let herself become absorbed by the music. It was so peaceful with nothing to do but curl up in a chair and nothing to worry about, nothing at all. She knew that more problems would come to her when the physical need for a man returned but she was willing to wait until then before worrying about it. One record finished and another dropped into position on the turn-table, and so the afternoon went.

The doorbell jolted her out of her reverie. At first she thought it was a part of the music, but the second ring brought her back into the everyday world. With a sigh she got to her feet. Lizzie was upstairs, so she had to answer the door herself. She padded into the hallway in her stocking feet and opened the door.

It was Danny Rand.

He was inside the door before she could collect herself. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought I told you never to come here again.”