Carla (5 page)

She had just finished lunch and returned to her room again when the telephone rang and Lizzie announced that it was for her. She jumped up from the bed, wondering who in the world it would be. It would have to be Ronald, she decided, but he rarely called in the afternoon unless he was going to be home late, and he had said last night that he definitely wouldn't be working late. She hurried to the phone and held the receiver to her ear.

“Carla?”

“Yes—who is this?”

“This is Charles.”

Charles! Then he
did
want her, but how come he was calling so soon?

“Charles?”

“That's right,” he went on, his voice as smooth as silk. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why, Ronald isn't home now—”

“I know. It's you I want to see.”

“Why?”

“I think you know why, don't you?”

She didn't answer. She felt herself going all weak inside and the right words wouldn't come to her.

“Why don't you come up to my place, Carla? I'd like to see you this afternoon.”

“I—I couldn't,” she stammered.

“Of course you could. I'm in Room 715 at the Tiffany, and I'll be waiting for you. I'd really like very much to see you, dear.”

The last word sounded like a caress. She tried desperately to think of a reply, realizing seconds later that he had hung up and she would be talking to an empty phone. Dimly, she replaced the receiver on the hook and tried to concentrate.

Room 715, Hotel Tiffany. The number stayed with her, something numbers rarely did. She was the type of woman who had to look up phone numbers and addresses again and again. But she knew at once that she wouldn't forget Charles' address.

Oh, what was wrong with her? She stormed into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror, trying to find some hint of her inner turmoil by staring at the mirror image. She simply couldn't go to Charles, not today.

Suppose Ronald found out? And he would find out, in fact he couldn't help it if she played around so close to home. She remembered the time when she was a little girl and a man across the street came home early and surprised his wife in bed with a delivery boy. He almost murdered them both, she recalled, beating the boy with his fists hard enough to send him to the hospital and striking his wife all over her face and body.

Ronald wouldn't do anything like that. Ronald would never be violent with her, but she could imagine the look of sadness and anger that would come over his face, the tone of his voice when he spoke to her. He would divorce her, of course, and she would be right back where she started from, a little Polish blonde from the East Side with nothing to show for her life but a body for men to amuse themselves with.

All the arguments told her to stay home, to let Charles wait in his room forever. But the arguments weren't enough. Even as she told herself how wrong the course of action would be, she felt her will power weakening rapidly. She returned to her bedroom and changed her clothes again, dressing in a skirt-and-sweater combination that showed off her figure and made her look girlish and desirable, the skirt clinging to her long legs and the sweater showing off her breasts perfectly.

It was good to feel that there was a purpose in dressing. She liked to put on clothes with the knowledge that a man would appreciate them. Oh, why couldn't she be a stronger person! She needed somebody to make the decisions for her, somebody who could tell her what to do and keep her from situations like this one. Maybe Charles would be strong. Maybe he would tell her to divorce Ronald and marry him, and after they were married she wouldn't have to go through hell like this again.

The guidance of a genuinely strong man would make a tremendous amount of difference to her. Even talking with Lizzie was a help to her, but someone who could come right out and say: “This is right” and “This is wrong,” that was the real thing she needed.

Maybe she could find it in Charles.

She told Lizzie she would be back for dinner, noting the expression in the girl's eyes. Did she know? At least Lizzie would never tell Ronald. Of that she was quite certain. Still, it would be much better if no one knew, if she could keep everything to herself. She climbed behind the wheel of the MG and turned the key in the ignition, racing the little car down Delaware Avenue toward the Tiffany.

“Ah!” Charles said. “I hoped you would come see me. Come right in.”

She followed him into the room, impressed by the furnishing of his apartment. The furniture was all quite modernistic without being too extreme, a blend which seemed to indicate a combination of daring and taste. A pair of Modigliani prints “were hung on the far wall in simple black frames. Charles fit the room perfectly, wearing a pair of gray flannel trousers and an elegant plaid smoking jacket. He led her easily to the couch and sat down next to her.

“May I offer you a drink?”

“No,” she began, then changed her mind. “On second thought, that might be a good idea.”

“Martini all right? I have a shaker mixed.”

“That'll be fine.”

He rose and disappeared from the room, and she waited nervously on the couch. When he returned with the drinks she sipped hers quickly, hardly listening to what he was saying. On the way down she had toyed with the idea of seeing him without letting him make love to her, but now she knew how impossible that would be. She felt too weak to make even token resistance.

She finished her drink and he set the glasses on the coffee-table. “Carla,” he said, turning to her, “I don't want to waste either time or words. I think you know why I asked you here, and I think I know why you came. I could proceed more slowly, but that would only be a sham.

“You're a beautiful woman and one of the most thoroughly attractive ones I've ever met. I would like to make love to you.”

She began to breath heavily.

“Carla?”

She looked into his eyes, her own eyes going soft and her lips parting automatically. Her breasts rose and fell with her uneven breathing. For a long moment neither of them moved.

Then he took her in his arms.

His lips on hers were a new experience, half full of fire and half full of ice. There was a passion to his kiss that she had never experienced before, a passion blended with the skill and artistry of the lover to whom love was a true art. Every movement of his mouth on hers and his hands on her back sent little fires coursing through her whole being, burning her up with their feverish intensity. She could think of nothing but the overwhelming desire to merge herself with him, to immerse her whole being in the intensity of his love.

“Come this way,” he said. He took her hand and led her from the living-room through a hallway to the bedroom. The covers were drawn back, waiting for her. She stood like a person in a trance while his deft fingers lifted her sweater over her head and dropped her skirt to the floor. Then, almost without touching her, his hands removed the flimsy bra and slipped the panties over her thighs. His hands brushed her body so gently in the act that she barely felt them. Finally, she stood before him naked.

“You're incredibly beautiful,” he said in a whisper. “I didn't realize you were this beautiful.”

He kissed her then, running his tongue tenderly over her lower lip. She responded eagerly to his kiss and pressed her body against his. Then he stepped back once again, taking her arm and leading her to the bed.

“Lie down,” he said. “Lie down and don't move.”

She obeyed his command.

“Now close your eyes.”

The next thing she knew, his lips were travelling all over her, planting little kisses of fire wherever they stopped.

She moaned his name. His mouth found hers and her arms tightened around him, pressing him to her.

Then there was nothing but her body and his and the clean fresh beauty of the world.

Chapter Five

CARLA'S HANDS WERE SHAKING
slightly as she alighted from the MG and walked to her door. The whole world seemed imperceptibly different. Charles was so skillful, so perfect and sure of every gesture. She felt whole and complete, and at the same time she couldn't shake of an irrational feeling of guilt over the whole affair. She had made a cuckold of Ronald with a friend of his, and this fact disturbed her so deeply that the fulfillment of the afternoon could not totally counteract the sense of guilt and betrayal.

She opened the door and entered her house, hoping desperately that Lizzie wouldn't see the satisfaction in her eyes or hear it in her speech. She had heard or read somewhere that it showed in a woman's eyes, that a person who knew what to look for could see that a woman was or was not sexually satisfied. Lizzie was sharp. Would she be sharp enough to notice?

If Lizzie did notice anything, she was clever enough to keep herself inscrutable. She only smiled a hello and told Carla that there had been a call for her.

“Who was it?”

“A man, Mrs. Macon,” Lizzie replied. “He wouldn't tell me his name, but he said he'd call later.”

Carla walked into the living-room and sat down in a soft armchair, wondering who in the world the caller could be. It certainly wasn't Charles; they had already decided that he would never call her again, but that she would be the one to phone him. But who could have called this afternoon?

She pushed the incident out of her mind, and in a few moments it was forgotten. Ronald was home for dinner and took her out for the evening to a Broadway show on tour. All through dinner and at the show afterwards she was especially careful to act the same as ever toward her husband.

At first she tended to be more affectionate than usual, to let her lips linger on his when he kissed her hello at the door. But she quickly realized that this would serve to arouse suspicion if anything. The best course of action was perfectly natural behavior, so that Ronald would have no cause to suspect she was deviating in any form from her normal activity.

That night she slept more perfectly than she had since she was married.

Ronald had told her about his latest case, one which promised to lead to a genuine courtroom battle. His client was involved in some charge of fraud in government contracts and the case looked like it would turn out to be one of Ronald's biggest and most crucial. He emphasized that any one of a group of minor factors could be enough to sway the jury either way. A scandal involving any party would turn the trick.

Carla had listened eagerly as usual. Ronald's cases always fascinated her, since his keen mind and quick wit was well shown off in his business activities, and because she knew how much he appreciated her interest in his work. But it was not until the following morning that she realized the full implications of what he had told her.

She realized later what this signified. If a scandal would sway the jury, she had to be more careful than ever to keep anyone from uncovering the affair she was having with Charles. If Ronald's opponents discovered and let the news leak out, the case would be lost—and so would her marriage. In addition, she gathered that a good deal of Ronald's capital was invested with his client—and the loss of the case would greatly cut down his fortune.

Besides all this, another of her hopes was dashed. She had thought from the beginning of the possibility of divorcing Ronald and marrying Charles. Ronald would give her a divorce; of that she was relatively certain. And, if she knew anything about men, Charles would marry her. But now a divorce was out of the question for the time being. It would ruin Ronald, and that was not her intention at all.

However, these facts didn't worry her to any great extent. She had enjoyed her interlude with Charles tremendously and planned to repeat it regularly, but she could go on without marrying him.

At least that was what she thought.

That afternoon, however, she wasn't so sure. She had expected to be more accustomed to Charles' lovemaking and less moved by it the second time, but quite the reverse was true. Every touch, every measured caress was even newer and more thrilling than before. Her passion mounted to a new peak and the fulfillment came to her with an almost audible explosion, moving and shaking her and bringing her an overpowering sense of relaxation and joy.

Afterwards, she lay in the bed holding him to her breast. Suddenly struck with the desire to unburden herself, she found herself telling him everything about her. She talked of her slum childhood and of the first time she gave herself to a boy, and she spoke of every important event in her life from that time until they had met. All that she omitted was the one incident with the garage attendant. It seemed too trivial to mention, and the memory of it stirred her a little and frightened her.

Charles listened to it all without commenting. Then, when she had finished, he began to tell her about himself. The difference in their backgrounds was astounding. While she had been continually deprived, he had enjoyed an abundance of everything.

“How many women have you made love to?” she asked suddenly.

“I don't know,” he said. “Too many, perhaps.”

“Tell me about the first time.”

“Well, I was terrible young at the time. Just 14. We had a frightfully attractive serving-girl, a brunette with sulky eyes and huge hips and breasts. I was just starting to think rather deeply about sex, and I suppose she noticed the way I kept looking at her from time to time.

“At any rate, she came to my room one evening when the rest of the family was sleeping. I was half asleep myself and I thought I was dreaming. God knows I dreamed enough about her! She walked right over to my bed, slipped off her robe, and climbed into bed with me. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”

“Was it … good?”

He kissed her breast tenderly. “It was wonderful, Carla. She was much better than I was—I shudder to think how gauche and inept I must have been. But she was back the next night and the night after that, and I suppose I must have learned rather rapidly.”