Community of Women

15

That morning, as she kissed Howard good-bye at the station, Nan Haskell watched Elly Carr kiss Ted goodbye and send him off to the wars of Madison Avenue. Then, driving home in the Chevvie station wagon, she thought how thoroughly inconceivable it all was. Ted was Elly’s husband and Howard was her husband, and it was absolutely out of the question that she would consider giving herself to Ted Carr.

It was all a dream, she decided. All a dream, or all a fantasy, or something of the sort. He had said — Friday, on the telephone — that he would see her Monday or Tuesday. But he had gone off on the 8:03 to New York and he would not be back until dinner time. He was not going to see her at all, was not going to make love to her, was not going to alter the overpowering boredom which was her life.

Maybe he just liked to talk. Maybe he got his kicks saying dirty words to women, grabbing hold of them and propositioning them. Maybe the years on Madison Avenue had made him far more concerned with advertising and promotion than with reality, far more with selling a girl on the idea of sex than with sex itself.

She was surprised, at twelve-thirty in the afternoon, to answer the door and find him on the steps.

“Hello, Nan-O.”

“What are you—”

But he was pushing past her, stepping into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him. She looked up, bewildered, and his smile leered back at her.

“You took the train—”

He reached out a hand and chucked her under the chin. “The trains,” he said, “run both ways. Trains go to New York, and trains return from New York. Science is wonderful, Nan-O.”

“But—”

“I took a train to New York. I took another train back from New York. Get your clothes off, dear heart. I want to go to bed with you.”

“But—”

“Now.”

It would not have happened like this with Howard. They would have embraced and she would have washed her face and brushed her teeth, and then he would have done the same. And she would have looked in on the children, making sure they were sleeping soundly, while he checked his attaché case to make sure all his paperwork was ready for the next morning. Then, clock set and lights out, they would go to bed.

But this was different. Fast directions, blind impulses. Nan was not excited now, not sexually aroused in the least, and yet she knew she had not the remotest chance of refusing to do whatever Ted Carr asked her to do. The boredom was over. Perhaps boredom was preferable to what was going to come next, perhaps monotony was a better alternative than misery. It made little difference. He would command and she would follow orders, and, to mix a metaphor hopelessly, the chips could fall as they might. Or may. Or something like that—

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

“Not here, Ted. Somebody might see. We could go to the bedroom. We could—”

“No one can see in, Nan-O. Get nude, and fast.”

She knew better than to argue. She stood there, feeling half like a fool and half like a goddess of love. She was wearing an ugly housedress that had a row of silly buttons from the neckline to the hem. There must have been two dozen of the buttons, and she opened them one at a time, her fingers quick but deliberate. She stepped out of the dress, finally, smiling a smile of self-satisfaction, standing before him in bra and panties and house slippers. Her eyes were shining. She tossed her shoulders back, thrusting her big breasts at him, and suddenly, all at once, the passion began to reach her, to flood her system.

It was uncanny. She had begun stripping, feeling not at all sexy, feeling not remotely passionate. But the simple act of removing the dress, of submitting to this sandy-haired man’s strong will, had an aphrodisiacal effect upon her. Her whole body was tingling with sexual excitement now. She was in her own living room, standing near-nude before another woman’s husband, about to commit the first act of infidelity of her life. And she was not scared, was not guilt-ridden, was not disturbed.

She was excited.

“More,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse. “God, you’ve got big ones, Nan-O. Take the bra off.

She took the bra off. Her breasts sprang out, free and unbound, and his eyes feasted upon them. He walked toward her, eyes bright, and reached out a hand. He flicked the nipple of one proud breast with his forefinger and she drew in her breath sharply.

“Nice, Nan-O. Let’s see what else you got. Get your pants off. I want to see all of you.”

She stepped out of her panties. He came still closer and caressed her momentarily again. She quivered with intense excitement. Howard hadn’t made her feel like this in years. She’d had sex and had enjoyed it, had achieved content time and time again. But now the half-caresses Ted was giving her were working her to peaks of pleasure she’d never known.

“You’d better take your shoes off,” he said. “You look funny as hell.”

She kicked off the house slippers. He was still fully dressed, wearing a foulard tie and a brown herringbone tweed suit, and the incongruity of standing stark naked in front of this fully dressed man should have been something to laugh at. With the proper caption, the tableau of which she was a part could have appeared as a cartoon in Playboy, maybe in the New Yorker. And yet she found nothing to laugh at.

He took off his clothes, hanging tie and jacket over a doorknob, folding his trousers very neatly and placing them on a chair, putting his cashmere-and-nylon socks in his brown pebble-grain loafers. Now he, too, was naked. He placed his hands on his hips and leered at her. His eyes traveled from her face to her feet, making a slow journey with several side trips along the way. His glance set her on fire. She could feel his eyes on her skin and they made her tingle.

“Let your hair down, Nan-O.”

It was in a bun. “Don’t you like it this way?”

“One bun is enough. Let it down, Nan-O.”

She let her hair down. It came cascading over her bare shoulders, soft and golden, framing her flushed face. He moved closer to her now and she could feel body heat. He reached out, touched her face.

“You want it,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You want it badly.”

“Yes!”

“Tell me about it. Tell me how much you want it, Nan-O. Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

She told him.

He reached for her breasts and gripped firmly. “Not like that,” he said. “Get down on your knees. And tell me dirty, Nan-O. Use nasty words.”

She sank to her knees and looked up at him. She told him the things he wanted to hear and used the words he wanted her to use. She watched the visible evidence of his passion mount with lust. Then his hands were on her shoulders, shoving her backwards. She fell down on the floor and he was advancing on her, his eyes wild.

“Not here,” she whispered. “Upstairs, in bed. Not here—”

He took her there, on the living room floor. He surged into her like waves piling up on a rocky coast, plummeted into her, stabbed wildly at her. He hurt her but she did not mind the pain, and he made her feel like a woman being taken, made her feel fully alive for the first time in far too long.

The peak, when she reached it, was strange and wonderful. At apex she shrieked loud and long, squealing like a virgin impaled upon a fiery sword.

And then it was over.

He left her without a word. He stood up and got dressed while she lay upon the floor, eyes closed, breathing shallow. He walked out and she remained there, alone in space and time. She was an adulteress now. She had sinned. She had betrayed her husband.

She felt wonderful.

“I’ve got some eggs for you,” Roz Barclay said. “Scrambled, the way you like them. And crisp bacon, and more coffee. And toast with jam. You must be starving.”

Linc looked up from the typewriter, smiled. “You’re an angel,” he said. “And your halo makes a lovely symbol.”

“Save the line,” she suggested.

“I used it in the last chapter. Pass the food, angel.”

He attacked the eggs and bacon almost viciously, shoveling food into his mouth and down his throat. “I’m really cooking now,” he said between bites. “Thirty-five pages already. The book is rolling along and gathering no moss.”

“And you’re enjoying it?”

“I always enjoy it when it goes like this. Hell, I’ve got to make up for lost time.”

“I know.”

“And I just got a hell of a notion,” he went on, pausing to sip coffee from the cap of the thermos jug. “Make a good slick yarn, probably go to the Post or McCall’s. As soon as I get this damn book out of the way I’ll run it through the typewriter and see what comes out. I’m glad you brought me a plate of food, honey. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a long siege. I may be going all night.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Well,” he said, “maybe not all night.”

She grinned.

“Because,” he said, “when I’m in a slump, I’m in all the way. And when I come out of a slump—”

Her grin widened. “I’ll get back to the house now, Linc. I’m keeping you from your work. When should I... expect you?”

“Any time.”

“No idea when?”

“No idea,” he said. “But don’t wear anything under your dress. That way we’ll save a little time.”

Elly and Maggie ate lunch at the top of the Tishman Building, the glass and steel skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue.

They had dinner in a cellar restaurant on Bleecker Street.

The decision to stay for dinner had been a pleasant one, suggested by Maggie and agreed to readily enough by Elly. They had had lunch, had shopped for awhile on Fifth Avenue without buying anything, then headed west to Broadway. A Sound Of Distant Drums, the hit drama based on the Westlake kidnaping, was playing at the Cort; for the hell of it, Maggie went to the box office to see if any tickets were available for that evening. There was a pair on hand, front and center in the orchestra.

“Let’s take them,” Maggie said.

“But—”

“Dave won’t mind if I stay in town. Neither will Ted — just give him a ring and ask him to take Pam out for dinner. It’ll be a treat for the kid and a treat for us.”

Ted wasn’t there, which made it that much simpler. She left a message with his secretary, then waited while Maggie put a call through to Dave Whitcomb. Then more shopping, and a stop for drinks, and a cab down to the simply wonderful little Italian restaurant that Maggie liked, and plates of lasagna with icy chianti. Elly couldn’t remember feeling so completely at ease. Yes, she thought, Maggie’s friendship was going to prove valuable. If anything would ever control her sexual excesses, Maggie would. Now, with Maggie, she felt no need for a phantom lover, no need for a deliveryman or a door-to-door salesman. She was at ease, relaxed, completely at peace with the world and with herself.

They caught a cab and rode to the Cort. “This is funny,” Elly said. “It feels like... like a date. Do you know what I mean?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course we’re hardly dressed for the occasion.”

“You look fine, Ell.”

“Thanks. But I look fine for a shopping splurge at Saks, not for an evening on the town. Everybody will stare at us.”

“They won’t,” Maggie said. “They may think we’re tourists from Peoria, but they won’t stare at us. Besides, who cares if they do?”

“Not I,” Elly said gaily. “They can stare until their eyes bulge. Whee! We’re on a date, Mag.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe we should neck in the back seat of the cab.”

“Wonderful,” Elly said. “After the show we’ll have our cabby drive through Central Park. And we’ll neck like high school kids. Okay?”

“Fine with me.”

A Sound Of Distant Drums turned out to be all the critics had said it was. Elly let herself get lost in the play, let herself become absorbed by characters and dialogue. When the final curtain fell she had to shake herself in order to remind herself that she was in a theatre, that the action which had transpired was action on a stage and not the real thing.

Then they were outside, in the middle of after-the-theatre pedestrian traffic on Broadway. They ducked into a bar for drinks and had two each, enough to get Elly a little bit high again.

“This is fun,” she said earnestly. “So much fun.”

“I know it is.”

“You want to know something? I don’t even want to go home. I want to stay here in Manhattan until hell freezes. Maybe even longer.”

“That’s a long time.”

“I know it. Maggie, I don’t even want to call Ted. I just want to stay.”

“We could stay the night, you know. We could go to a hotel.”

“Let’s! Oh, it’s an adventure, Mag. I need an adventure.”

“Well have one,” Maggie promised, her eyes gleaming strangely. “But first call Ted so he doesn’t worry. Then we’ll have our adventure. We’ll go to a night club or two and get stinking drunk and stay over at a hotel. Sound like fun?”

“Sounds heavenly,” Elly said. “Whee! An adventure!”