Carla

Chapter Seven

Carla relaxed as she drove the MG home. She held the steering wheel in one hand, letting the other arm rest on the back of the seat. The air was cool and fragrant with the smell of morning, and little currents of wind toyed with her hair. She liked the wind in her hair — it made her feel free, and she always enjoyed the feeling.

Freedom was a remarkable state, a state she wanted and at the same time rebelled against. While she had spent all her life escaping such rule as her mother’s hairbrush, she still felt the overwhelming need for someone strong. Sometimes she felt free and powerful, but there were other times when her spine turned to jelly and she felt weak as a kitten.

This morning she felt half-free and half-bound. She could still feel Charles holding her and hear him whispering in her ear, and the clean smell of him lingered in her nostrils. She had spent the night — and what a wonderful night! — in bed with another man.

But she was not entirely free. If she were, she wouldn’t be racing back home at this hour to meet her husband. If she were free, she wouldn’t need Charles as desperately as she did. Her plan of getting a strong hold over him by making him need her physically wasn’t working at all. As a matter of complete fact, it was backfiring. She knew that she had no hold whatsoever on Charles, that he could do without her with ease. No matter how desperately she gave herself to him, there were times when she felt like a toy, a plaything he used for his own amusement and nothing more.

To be sure, he treated her like a woman. But each day she sensed something beneath his outward display of affection — a deep reserve that would keep her from ever possessing him fully.

Carla, however, was falling more and more deeply in love. Not love, exactly; she was ceasing to believe in love as such. Rather, the hold she was trying to gain over Charles was one which he was gaining over her. And she didn’t like this at all.

She felt as though she was becoming a slave, and that wasn’t the role she wanted to play. Oh, she didn’t mind being a slave, dependent upon her man — but she wanted a relationship in which her master would be equally dependent upon her. She wanted to possess while she was possessed; she wanted to be needed as well as to need.

As she parked the MG in front of her house, she noticed a car across the street. Somehow it didn’t look as though it belonged on Nottingham Terrace. It wasn’t a rich man’s car. Then, paying no more attention to it, she walked to the door and entered the house.

“Mrs. Macon?”

The sound made her jump. She turned, startled, and walked into the living-room. There was a man seated there, looking directly at her with a strange expression in his eyes. She noticed the plaid shirt and dark gabardine pants almost without seeing them. The strong face with its prominent features seemed vaguely familiar to her, but she hadn’t the slightest idea where she had seen the man before. For several seconds he regarded her silently and she was unable to speak.

“What do you want?” she stammered finally. “Who are you?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t. But I’d like to know what you think you’re doing in my living-room. What do you want?”

“Wait a minute. You remember me, don’t you?”

“I may have met you but I’m sure I don’t remember when. And I don’t have any time to play guessing games. Now who are you?” She could feel her temper rising at the way he sat in the chair watching her, his face almost empty of expression.

“Try again,” he said. “You should remember me.”

“I don’t.”

“You should. Or do you let everybody keep the change from a twenty-dollar bill?”

Her mouth fell open. At first she couldn’t believe it; then, studying the face and eyes she remembered him all at once, remembered his arms around her and the smell of grease and the pavement under her bare skin. At first her pulse raced at the animalism of the memory. Then she realized fully just who he was.

“You—”

“Remember? I thought you would. But we never got to the introduction stage before, did we? My name’s Danny Rand, and I guess you’re Carla Macon.”

“Danny Rand,” she repeated half to herself. “I— How did you find me?”

He shrugged. “I just ran around ringing doorbells. How else would I do it?”

“How?” She felt her knees going weak and fought to control herself. This couldn’t be happening, she told herself. She was dreaming, and any moment she would wake up and Charles would run his hands over her body and then she would—

“It was easy,” he said. “I got your license number, honey. You never even thought of that. My brother-in-law’s a cop, and when I gave him your number he ran it through the license bureau and got me your name and address.”

Suddenly she was too weak to stand. She groped her way to a chair and fell into it, powerless to remove her eyes from his piercing gaze. He was talking, saying more about how he had found out who she was, but she half-heard him as if he was talking through a wall.

“What... What do you want?”

“What do you think I want?”

She breathed deeply. “How much?” she asked.

“What?”

“How much money do you want?” Her voice rose and she fought to control it, hoping that Lizzie couldn’t overhear the conversation. Why had the girl let him in, she wondered. Why had he noticed the license number, and why was he here now, and what did he want from her.

“Money?”

“Money,” she repeated. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want to blackmail me. Well? How much do I have to pay?”

He looked at her in amazement, and for a moment neither of them spoke. She saw the muscles in his jaw go tight, then relax slightly. When he spoke the words came out clearly and distinctly.

“I don’t want money.”

At first she felt an irrational swell of relief. Then, “What do you want?”

“You.”

“What!!”

“You,” he repeated levelly. “Carla, you’re like no woman I’ve ever had. You’re fire and ice and everything, and no matter how much I try to forget you I can’t get you out of my mind. I think if I go without you much longer I’ll go crazy. I want you and I’m going to have you.”

“Go crazy? You’re crazy already.”

“Carla—”

“You must be crazy,” she went on, the words flowing freely from her lips. “You must be out of your damned mind. I don’t love you and I don’t want you and I couldn’t care less if you dropped dead tomorrow. I don’t want to see you or look at you or have you anywhere near me. Why can’t you get out and leave me alone?”

“Because I love you,” The words were almost savage.

“You are crazy. Well, I don’t love you.”

“You did.”

She sighed. “You fool. I wanted a man and you were there so I let you have me. That’s all. Period. If you think—”

His jaw was stubborn. “Not the way it happened. There was more than just wanting a man. It was us, Carla. Us. I’ve been around, baby. You’re not the first woman I’ve had. And you wanted more than a man. You wanted me.”

“Oh, Christ!” She shook her head fiercely and drew a cigarette from the pack in her purse, lighting it and drawing deeply on it.

“Do you really think it was you that I wanted?” she demanded. “Is that what you think?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

She nodded. “You’re completely wrong. Take a look around you, you blockhead. You think I want to give this place up for a stinking gas-pump jockey? You think I want to trade this place for a stinking flat and a houseful of brats? You think I want a man who comes home reeking of grease and gasoline?”

“I—”

She drew again on the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “You fool,” she said again. “Just what do you think you want? You want me, do you? What do you mean? You want me to roll around on the floor with you? You want to take me on the floor whenever I get a tankful of gas?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“I want to marry you.”

Carla felt numb all over. What did this idiot think he was saying? She couldn’t even begin to think what it would mean to be married to a man like Danny Rand, to trade Nottingham Terrace for a cold-water flat. The idea of going back to the same kind of slum she worked so desperately to escape made her sick to her stomach. She wanted to scream for help, to shout for somebody, anybody, to come and get him away from her. She couldn’t even answer him, could not even start to tell him how insane he was and how much she loathed him. Her mouth opened and shut involuntarily as she watched him stand up from his chair and take a step toward her. A muscular hand reached out for her and she shrank back against her chair to escape his touch.

“Get away,” she said, her voice taut.

“Carla—”

“And don’t call me Carla. Just get out and don’t ever come here again.”

“I—”

“Get out,” she snapped, feeling a sensation of power returning to her. “My husband is coming home any minute and if he sees you here he’ll kill you.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“You should be,” she said, realizing at the same time that she was talking to a man who would not be afraid of anybody. “You should be afraid of him. He could buy you and sell you a dozen times over. “But that’s not all. If you don’t get out at once I’ll scream. I’ll tell the police that you came in here and tried to rape me, and whose word do you think they’ll take? Mrs. Ronald Macon’s or a gas-pump punk’s?” He was silent.

“You can’t prove a thing,” she continued, her voice filled with self-assurance. “You can’t prove you ever met me before or anything else. You can just get out of here and go back to your rotten little gas station and stay away from me from here on in. And to think I was going to pay you blackmail money! You can’t touch me, Mr. Danny Rand. Now get out!”

“All right,” he said. “I’m going. But get this: I’m going to be back and you’re going to want me back. You think you want this house and the expensive clothes, but there are things you want more, baby.

“You’re gonna want me. Me, understand? You’re gonna come crawling to me, begging me just the way you begged me with that hot little body of yours. You’re gonna forget all about being Mrs. Ronald Macon and driving a hot little foreign job. You’re gonna crawl to me, and when you do I’ll turn you over my knee and wallop all the spoiledness out of you. I’ll beat you black and blue and you’ll love every minute of it, understand?”

She started to form a retort, started to tell him how wrong he was. But the words stuck in her throat and before she could say a thing he was out the door. He slammed it behind him, loud. She walked to the window and watched until he was inside the Ford and the car had made its way down the street and out of sight.

When he was gone at last she sank into an armchair, totally exhausted. She was too weak to move, completely shaken inside. What a vile, impossible man he was!

While she sat motionless in the armchair, every detail of that first meeting with Danny Rand went through her mind automatically. She remembered the way she threw her clothes to the floor and the way he took her — harshly, violently, almost viciously. Every detail came back to her, every crude and frightening caress, every gesture, everything that passed between them until she drove away and left him behind.

Involuntarily she found herself mentally comparing Danny to Charles. That was ridiculous, she decided at once. The two men had nothing in common. Charles was refined, sophisticated, clever and gentle — in short, the perfect lover. But Danny was rough and crude and boorish, an animal without a brain in his head or an iota of sensitivity in his whole being. She hoped that she would never see him again, but she couldn’t avoid feeling that he would be back, that there would be a scene between them once again.

Finally she pulled herself to her feet, shook her head forcefully, and walked into the hallway, calling for Lizzie. The girl appeared momentarily.

“Why did you let that man in?” Carla demanded. At the same time she fought to keep from revealing any of the situation. If she showed too much in the way of anger or irritation, the girl might guess the real situation.

“He said he knew you, Mrs. Macon.”

“And so you let him come into the house?”

Lizzie lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Macon. He said he knew you and you would be expecting him, so I guessed it was all right.”

“Never mind,” Carla said, more gently. “He was selling something and he managed to waste some of my time, but there’s no harm done. But be more careful in the future, will you? He could have been a thief, for that matter.”

Lizzie nodded. “I should have thought of that.”

Carla dismissed the girl, but she couldn’t overcome a decided feeling of nervousness. Twice she started to call Charles and each time decided against it. She played several games of solitaire and started reading a couple times but couldn’t concentrate on anything. When Ronald came home a few minutes after noon, there was nothing forced about her greeting. She was glad to see him, glad to have a man in the house with her.

Ronald told her about his trip. While she hardly listened to the details, she gathered that it had been neither wholly successful nor a total disappointment. The case was more or less the same, difficult without being impossible.

Once more she realized how disastrous scandal could be. Why, if that fool Danny came around again it could be the end of everything! That was all she needed — a juicy scandal involving her with a garage mechanic. Well, he would be afraid to show up for awhile at least. It was a good thing she had thought to threaten him with the police. The idea came to her on the spur of the moment and saved everything.

She was just beginning to understand how thoroughly the experience had shaken her. Ronald’s presence helped but wasn’t enough. She continually felt herself trembling with a mixture of fear and rage, and Ronald’s arms could not chase the fears and let her relax. If Charles were only there she could get the memory of Danny out of her system, but Charles was at his own apartment and couldn’t help her now. She remained with Ronald, listening half-heartedly to his talk and answering his questions, biding her time.

There would be time. Lizzie would be out that night and Ronald would be busy, and if she wanted to go out he wouldn’t mind. She could see Charles, and even a half-hour with him would be heaven.

She needed him. She needed someone to take the taste of Danny Rand out of her mouth.