Chris (2 page)

Chris carried the girl to the bed and put her down gently on the sheet. She bent across her and met the girl's hungry lips with her own. "Baby, I can't," she whispered. "I've got to leave. Now."

Dizz will be waiting. Dizz will be waiting.

But Chris felt the flame of desire quiver up her spine. Her hand moved over the girl's flesh and she heard the moan of mounting ecstasy. Her ears were pounding and her heart. Her mouth closed on Carol's and her tongue dug deep.

Dizz is waiting. Dizz is waiting.

"I love you. I love you," Carol crooned. "Darling, take me. Please take me."

All sense of time and of guilt faded before that plea. Chris could not stop now. She was caught in the web of her passion and she took the girl eagerly. She wanted her, wanted her as she had never wanted anything.

Carol sighed and leaned back against the pillows. Her eyes were soft with fulfillment. "Ill take that cigarette now," she said.

Chris lit one and handed it to her. "I've got to go, honey. But I'll be back. We've got a lot of things to talk about."

She left then. Quickly. It was late. Dizz would be waiting. Time enough later to think about Carol. And Chris knew Carol would take thinking about.

Chris paid the cabbie at the corner of Second Avenue and Fiftieth and turned east toward Beekman Place. She needed the block and a half walk to calm down, to get her head in order before she faced Dizz. For a reason she didn't dare comprehend, she had the shakes.

She dug out the cigarettes and pulled one from the pack. Her hands were trembling. She'd lit cigarettes by now everywhere but underwater, but this one took three tries. When it was lit she didn't want it and threw it into the gutter.

She pressed the buzzer for 1R, waited a long minute and got no answer. Her watch showed three-fifteen. Dizz came through that door every Sunday at two, give or take a couple of minutes.

Maybe she's in the John taking a shower or something. Or something. She could be polluted and out cold. No novelty that.

She pulled the keys from the pocket of her slacks and aimed one in the direction of the lock. It connected and turned. She made the hall in three strides and on the fourth got the door of the apartment open and was inside.

The curtains were drawn. It was dark. It was cold and unfriendly.

"Dizz?" The word croaked out and fell flat. She knew Dizz would not answer. Dizz was not there.

She reached a hand over her shoulder and flicked on the kitchen light. She walked into the living room, through to the bedrooms and to the bath beyond, out

onto the terrace. She turned on every light in the house. Then she lit a cigarette.

Frightened now, she crept into the living room and sank ponderously down on the couch. She felt herself turning pea green and the alcohol and the girl and the fear choked and burned in her throat. She wanted to throw up but she could not move.

"She left me," she said to herself. "Just like that. Not a word. She left me, just like that. She left me." Round and round, without sense or meaning, round and round.

Chris did not move or breathe until the cigarette had burned down to her fingers. She moved then, and breathed. She got up and walked to the kitchen and turned on the spigot and doused the cigarette. She let the cold water run on the burn and slapped some of it on her face. She turned off the water and walked back to the couch. Then she began to think.

By some devious means, Chris arrived at the inevitable conclusion—the only love of her life, the only good and perfect thing she had ever known had run out on her. She'd picked up and left her, without a word, without waiting for an explanation.

No good bitch. No good goddamn slut. No good-Chris realized that she was crying. Sniveling. Her nose, her eyes, her mouth, all of her was crying. And the awareness of this final indignity did not stop the flow. She let loose with all the misery in her and some that she didn't know she had.

The buzzer rang. She heard it, she imagined it. She

dreamed it.

Suddenly there was Dizz. Her perfume, her golden hair, her ice blue eyes, her pussy cat smile. Dizz who had left her. And she was laughing and talking. Some thing about her brother, Roger, and a train. Something about a party. Something about—

"Chris, what's the matter with you? Darling, are you drunk? Why didn't you answer the door? Come meet George. He and Roger went to school together. He drove me home. Have you been crying? Here, blow your nose." She stopped long enough to open her bag and take out a handkerchief. She handed it to Chris, frowning on her the while with stern disapproval.

Chris looked helplessly into the icy eyes, then turned her head away and blew furiously. She looked back. Dizz was studying her disgustedly, as though she were a cockroach in somebody else's apartment.

Chris sighed and relaxed against the cushion. How could she tell Dizz? How could she tell her she loved her? That she cried because she loved her? You just didn't tell Dizz things like that.

The deep, beautiful beautiful voice went on as though it had never stopped. "Darling, for heaven's sake, pull yourself together. We've got company."

Of this fact Chris had already become aware. Her eyes had traced a slow straight line from the polished tip of a shoe up to the thin dark face of a handsome young man. The eyes were laughing at her. They meant to be friendly.

Chris did not like this young man. She had never met one she did like, in fact. She sometimes dreamed of finding a cure for them, like for polio. But most especially she did not like this one. She knew instinctively that a mother would simper and pat her hair and consider him an ideal catch for a daughter. His nails were clean and his clothes were tailored to fit. He would have money and a car.

She looked from the young man back to Dizz. With discomfort so terrible that she could grab it in her hands. Chris watched her beloved turn to the young man, smile and reach up to smoothe back her hair.

"Darling," Dizz breathed, "this is George Randolph." She said it like he was one of the Elgin marbles. She said it like there'd never been anybody around before he happened.

Then she turned to Chris. "Christopher Hamilton," she said crisply.

Dizz was at her best like this. The nerve center of a social situation, enthralling the mob. Arid in essence apologizing for the existence of Chris, her idiot child.

Chris did what was expected of her. She rose pointedly to the peak of her five-ten and extended her hand. George took it and shook vigorously, the way Chris hated.

"This is a real pleasure," he said. He beamed at her like he almost meant it.

"I'm glad to know you," Chris answered. She wasn't, but obviously Dizz wanted her to be.

"George is a lawyer," Dizz said. "A highly successful one, I hear."

George remained modestly silent.

Chris just remained silent.

"Would you like a drink, George?" Dizz asked. "Or maybe some coffee?"

"I can't, Sheila," he said. "Much as I'd like to. I promised Mother I'd take her out to dinner tonight" He adjusted his tie. "I try to see her at least once a week," he grinned. "I'm the baby, you know, and she misses me."

"I'm sorry you have to go," Chris said, relieved and all of a sudden amiable. "I hope we'll be seeing you again." Some day she'd have her tongue cut out for lies like that.

"Oh, yes. You will," he replied. "I promise to make a nuisance of myself. Sheila's a delight and from what she's told me of you, I expect I'll find you the same."

Chris stole a quick look at Dizz. Dizz was paying her no heed at all. She was absorbed in enchanting this creature.

Together they walked with George to the door. Together they said their goodbyes.

Dizz closed the door and turned on her.

"Would you mind, darling, explaining the little performance you put on for us?" Her voice was cold, her eyes bright with contempt.

Chris sighed and walked back to the living room. She stood looking through the French doors to the terrace. The late afternoon sun threw long shadows across the bricks. It was getting chilly with the oncoming of evening. She remembered that September was already half over. She should be getting out in the garden and bedding it down for the winter.

"Chris, don't stand there like a fool. I asked you a question."

"I heard you," Chris said. She walked across to the French doors and pulled them closed. She tugged the cord on the drapes, then reached down to unfasten one where it had caught against a stool.

"Well?" Dizz was becoming overtly impatient. In a minute she would be angry. Then she would take a drink.

Chris moved to a leather sling and sat into it. She took out a cigarette and sat turning it end over end in her fingers. She did not look at Dizz.

"Will he?" she said.

"Will he what?" Dizz answered.

"Make a nuisance of himself?"

"Chris," Dizz began, "I want you to understand something. I like George. I like him very much. And if he wants to see me, I'm going to see him." She crossed to the chair and stood glaring down at Chris. "You know how bored I am here. You're always busy writing or something. We hardly ever go out. I need somebody who's fun for a change."

"Dizz," Chris said, "you know you're free to do as you please. You told me that four years ago."

"Then what's the matter with you?"

"I just like to know where I stand. I don't feel that George is vital to my happiness. But I occasionally suffer the delusion that you are." She still did not look at Dizz.

"Darling, you're jealous," Dizz announced. She said it with delight, as though it offered a moment's diversion.

"I haven't decided about that yet," Chris said. "Right now I'm simply annoyed."

"Silly darling," Dizz laughed. She bent down before Chris and laid her cheek against the girl's knee. "My silly darling."

Chris did not move to lay a hand on the proferred head. She took out the lighter and lit the cigarette.

Dizz sat back on the rug and hugged her knees close to her breasts. Chris looked at her and wanted to cry. She always wanted to cry when she looked at Dizz. Dizz with her angel's face and the delicious mouth that curved up at the corners in a perpetual smile. Dizz whose eyes promised everything. Dizz who-did not know the meaning of love. "Honey," Dizz said coyly, "you know I'm yours. I'm not going to fall for George. I just want to have a little fun." She put her hands behind her on the carpet and leaned back. "Besides, he knows all about us. I told him."

"And what, precisely," Chris asked, "is there to know?"

"Darling, don't be vulgar. I told him that we've been living together and that we love each other. He understands. He's been around."

"He understands? He understands what?" Chris asked.

"That I'm not available."

"He's a whole man, complete with the usual equipment?"

"Of course."

"Then he doesn't understand," Chris said. "There's never been a man who didn't believe he could take a girl away from another woman. Why should he be different?"

Dizz picked herself up from the floor and started toward the kitchen. She turned at the door and faced Chris. "You give me a pain sometimes. Just because all you think about is sex doesn't make it universal." She went on into the kitchen. "Dinner will be ready in an hour."

Chris knew she had been dismissed. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray beside her and pulled herself out of the chair. She crossed to the bedroom on the left and went in. She shut the door quietly, then flopped down on the bed.

With her hands folded behind her head and her legs stretched up the wall, Chris found a crack in the plaster and focused her attention on it. She wanted to take an ax and hack away at it, beat at it. She wanted to hurt and destroy.

If that bastard lays a hand on Dizz–

She thought back to the night she had met Sheila Elizabeth Dizendorf. It was at a party especially arranged for the purpose by mutual friends. Somebody had decided that it was only right that these two most beautiful of God's creatures should meet. And mate. She had stood for fifteen minutes just looking at the girl, memorizing the lines. Dizz was the most everything woman she had ever seen. She still was. And Chris had been making a careful survey of the field for fifteen years.

It was not a question of falling in love. Chris had been in love with Dizz all her life. Dizz was, in one gorgeous package, all her dreams and aspirations. Dizz was it.

Chris never recovered from that initial shock. She knew only one thing: that she wanted this woman to be hers. She would love her and cherish her and slave for her.

"I'm going up to Nova Scotia for a month," Chris had said. "They're after the Oak Island treasure again and I'm out to do an article about it."

"Oh yes. That's the one where there's supposed to be a couple of million pounds under water, isn't it?"

"Right. I want to see for myself. Would you like to come along?"

"Yes, Chris. I would love to," Dizz had smiled. Chris had called her Dizz from the start. She'd thought it was cute at the time. Now it just sounded ironic.

So they went to Nova Scotia. Chris remembered with a poignant ache their first night together. She had gone to Dizz with the simplicity of an adolescent in love, wanting only to make her woman happy, not knowing that from her happiness could come misery and pain. She felt again the dizzy sweetness of the moment, the mounting desire and the headlong fury with which she sped to her doom.

And Dizz. The way she had lain unfulfilled in her arms, moaning a little in her anguish. Then turning away from her to stare blankly at the wall.

Chris recalled vividly her own horror, her feeling of impotence and shame. She had lain there trembling in the dark, very alone. She had failed as a lover, she had failed Dizz.

It wasn't till a month later that she found out she'd had lots of company at failing Dizz. After a half dozen abortive attempts she had wept and confessed her shame.

"Don't be foolish, Chris. You're better than anyone I've ever had," she'd said. "I just can't, darling. I never could."

Looking at it objectively, Chris knew she'd been a fool not to walk out then. But it was already too late. You couldn't call Dizz a habit. She was more like an addiction.