by Orrie Hitt
Pretty soon she came toward the car, wearing black shorts and halter, black as her hair. The halter was modest enough, but her shorts were brief and very tight, pulling up high on her thighs and swinging from left to right as she walked.
“Nice day,” she said as she got in. “You want me to drive?”
“I thought there was something wrong with your arm.”
“There isn’t anything wrong with my arm. I just wanted to get away from here for a little while, and I wanted to talk to you.” She smiled and stretched her legs. “I haven’t been seeing much of you lately, Eddie.”
He started the car and guided it out the drive.
“You’ve been seeing Carole,” Kitty said as they reached the main road.
“Well, it’s pretty hard to live on the grounds and not see her.”
“No, I mean the other day. I thought she was up to something and I followed her. She met you at Goose Lake.”
“An accident,” Eddie said.
“Was the kiss an accident?”
“You took it all in, didn’t you?”
“Well, I’m fighting for what’s mine, Eddie. I know she wants me out of Frank’s life and I don’t want out. I don’t want out until — ”
“He’s in the ground?”
“You said that. I didn’t.”
“But I’m reading your mind.”
“I don’t believe you can. Sometimes I can’t even read it myself. You don’t know what it’s like being married to a cripple, to a man who can’t be a husband. You pray that something will happen, that something will make him a man again, but it never happens. You go from day to day, doing the same things, seeing the same things, living each day as though it’s only a repeat of the day before. For him it’s fine. He gets himself slopped up and then Wilson pushes him down into the woods and he bangs away with his gun. Yesterday he killed a robin, a poor damned robin, and you’d have thought he had shot a lion in the jungle.”
“If he wasn’t the way he is I wouldn’t have a job,” Eddie pointed out.
“No, I guess not.”
“But I don’t agree with him. I don’t think what we’re doing makes any sense at all. He’s got two lakes and some streams and two thousand acres of land, and if he used his head he’d have the finest estate for game in the county.”
“He doesn’t want that,” Kitty said. “He even shoots deer if he sees them. You have to be mighty heartless to kill such a pretty animal. Sometimes — well, sometimes I think he’d like to kill me, too, if he had a chance of getting away with it. He doesn’t say so, but I know that he holds me responsible for his fall. It wasn’t my fault at all. He told me he wanted the wildest horse they had in the stable, drunk as he was, but when it came time to mount I changed with him and he didn’t know the difference. His horse was gentle, real gentle, but he was too drunk to sit in the saddle. I begged him not to try it, to wait until the next day, but I could have talked to the horse for all the good it did.”
Eddie remembered what Carole had told him and he didn’t know whether or not he should believe Kitty. It hardly mattered. Jennings was in a wheel chair and that couldn’t be changed now.
“He’s dreamed up a new gimmick last night,” Kitty went on. “He says as long as I’m not doing anything in the afternoons I can go down there in the woods and flush game for him.”
“Why doesn’t he get a dog for that?”
“He won’t have one around. You know how he hates animals. It’s — well, it’s got me worried. Mr. Wilson won’t move away from him while he’s down there, saying that Frank shoots at anything that moves, and I keep thinking that he might shoot me. Accidents like that have happened before.”
Eddie burned inside about Jennings. Jennings might be rich but he was carrying things too far.
“I wouldn’t do it,” Eddie said, shaking his head.
“You don’t know Frank. Nobody tells Frank no. You do as he says or he’s finished with you, like some old shoe that he’s worn out.”
“Nothing is worth risking your life for, Kitty. Booze and a gun are as bad a mixture as booze and gasoline.”
She was silent for a moment.
“I guess I’ll have to do it,” she said.
“That’s up to you.”
“But I wanted you to know in case anything happened. I wanted somebody to know. How can I tell what Carole has been saying to him about me? Maybe she’s turned his love for me to hate and I’m not even aware of it.”
Eddie didn’t know what Carole had been saying to her father, but it was a cinch she wasn’t doing a public-relations job for kids. Carole had made it clear that she didn’t intend to share the Jennings estate with anybody else, especially a step-mother whom she hated.
“I can’t help you,” Eddie said, finally swinging around the truck. “I’m just a guy who works for three hundred a month and my keep, and I’m lucky to have that.”
Without having realized it she had moved closer to him and her bare thigh brushed against his leg, moving away once and then coming back again, the pressure there, stirring him.
“How would you like to be rich?” she asked.
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“But wouldn’t it be nice?”
“It would be nice not to have to worry about money. On the other hand your husband is rich, and he isn’t happy. He’s a bitter old man and I’d never want to be that way.”
“No one in his right mind would. He’s disgusted with the world and everything in it. We had a long talk last night. I tried to tell him that what we needed was a family, maybe just one baby, that it would give him a different outlook on life. But that started him raving about his injury and how he couldn’t enjoy living the way other men did. Then he made me undress and parade around the room for him. I felt like a common whore with a dirty old man’s eyes on me. He just sat there in bed, staring at me, propped up with pillows. It gave me the creeps.”
“He’s a hard one to figure,” Eddie said.
“We talked for a long time, Eddie, about me trying an artificial insemination. Maybe it was the booze and maybe it was the real Frank, the Frank that’s buried underneath, but he finally saw things my way. He said I could if I wanted to, if it would make me feel better, but there’s no telling if he’ll stick to that.”
Eddie could see that a child would give her a stronger hold on Jennings and that after Jennings died, when he did die, she would share in a larger portion of the estate.
“I think you married him for his money,” Eddie said suddenly.
She moved her leg up and down and yawned.
“You’re wrong, Eddie. I loved him then. He was a different Frank when I met him, and he was normal enough. Oh, I know why he dated me in that club. He thought he could have a little fun and that that would be the end of it. But the only way he could get me was to marry me and we were happy enough at the start — for those few short days. Then when he had that horse shot for something the poor animal couldn’t help I saw the brute in him. It’s no wonder that he was able to start out with nothing and end up with millions. I often think of the people he must have ruined along the way.”
They reached town and Eddie parked the Bentley near the bus station. The heat of the morning pushed into the car and he thought about how good it would be to be swimming in one of the lakes, to soak up the water and then relax in the shade with an interesting book.
He reached into his pocket with his right hand for his cigarettes and his elbow brushed against her left breast. She didn’t move or comment, accepting it for the accident it had been.
“You got cheated last night,” she said, taking one of the cigarettes. This surprised him because she had always refused his brand before. “Didn’t you, Eddie?”
He held a match for them.
“What do you mean?” he asked, puzzled.
“Joan spent the night in town.”
“Isn’t that rather personal?”
“It wouldn’t be if Frank knew about it. He’d most
likely run you off the place on a rail. Or maybe he’d run her off. You’re doing one hell of a fine job and he knows it. Last night he said you were the best trapper that ever worked for him.”
“I thought Jim was the only other.”
“No, there were others — two or three — but they lied to get the job and they couldn’t keep it. He’s only satisfied as long as you keep killing for him. He gets a cheap thrill out of seeing a dead animal.”
She was wearing some kind of perfume that smelled like a woman’s boudoir and it gave him ideas, ideas that belonged in a bedroom. When he moved his leg away from her, her own leg followed, the shorts pulling up even farther on her thigh.
“What’s the matter?” she inquired. “Don’t you like my leg?”
He examined it carefully, the full thigh, the rounded calf and the knee with the hint of a dimple in it.
“You’ve got very good legs,” he declared.
“But not as good as Carole’s?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Or Joan?”
“Better than Joan’s.”
The bus came in just then but the only passenger who got off was an old woman. Kitty swore softly.
“Wouldn’t you know it?” she snapped. “That Roger is never on time. I certainly hope he’s on time for his funeral.”
“When is the next bus?”
“Two hours.”
“We might as well go back. I can check some traps in the meantime.”
“What do you do?” she demanded. “Breathe and eat and sleep work?”
“It isn’t that. I feel sorry for anything in the traps. If the animals have to die why not kill them fast? If somebody was going to shoot me I’d want him to do it and get it over with.”
“Let me drive,” she said.
“Whatever you say.”
They didn’t get out of the car to change places but they simply slid over on the wide seat and she lifted herself to crawl across him. She was on his lap momentarily in the process, and for just a second she took his hands and pressed them to her breasts. He could feel the warmth of her flesh underneath, the rising swells and the hint of large centers that were now sleeping.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said as she got behind the wheel.
She laughed at him.
“Excite you, Eddie?”
“Well, I’m human.”
Her face became instantly grave.
“And so am I. I’m as human as any woman in the world. I take care of a cripple day and night and all I want is a man. Haven’t you ever felt that way about a girl? Wanting her? Wanting her so much that you feel like you’ve got vinegar in your mouth and your jaw clamps shut?”
He could understand that she was ready, willing and terribly desperate to be taken and the blood thundered through his body, the gathering hollow in his stomach like a furnace. She was one hell of a woman, make no mistake about that. And she was worth five thousand dollars to him if he wanted to go along with Carole. If he didn’t, little harm could be done. He would be making Kitty and himself happy at the same time, and he would find out if she was as good as she looked.
“Where’s Tremper Park?” she asked. “I’ve heard about it.”
“Next left and then straight ahead.”
“Ever been there, Eddie?”
“Sure.”
“With girls?”
“You think I would go to some park alone? Yeah, with girls. Almost everybody goes there. Nobody bothers you.”
They were silent during the drive and he supposed that he shouldn’t be doing this. Only once, not counting Joan, had he ever been with a married woman. It hadn’t been any good — she’d had guilt feelings or something — and the whole thing had ended in frustration for both of them.
Tremper Park wasn’t big, but it was away from Twenty Mile River, on top of a hill. The roads in and around the park were gutted with chuck holes and the town wouldn’t fix them, saying that it was county work. And the county officials just sat on their hands, ignoring every petition sent to the board of supervisors. As a result, the only people who went there were couples seeking privacy.
They toured the area once and there were no other cars, which wasn’t at all strange. Most people were working during the day and they didn’t make love in the morning, not in a park anyway.
She parked the car under some trees, back off the road, and cut the motor. There was a breeze up on the hill and it came in through the open windows of the car, feeling cold as it hit the sweat on his forehead.
“Your husband would kill us both if he knew,” Eddie said.
“He doesn’t have to know. You aren’t going to tell him and I’m sure I’m not. What we do doesn’t concern anybody else. If I want to stop somewhere and talk to you I’m going to do it. The conversation I get from Frank I could stick in my ear. Last night is the first time we’ve really talked in months and then he had to spoil it by making me run around naked.”
“You shouldn’t mind that. He’s your husband.”
“A girl minds anything that isn’t natural. Why should he torment himself so? He can’t do anything about me.” She leaned toward him. “Not the way you can, Eddie. He’ll never be able to do for me what you can. Even on our wedding night he wasn’t much good.”
“You don’t have to talk about it, Kitty.”
“Maybe I want to.”
“And maybe I don’t want to hear. You have your problems and I have mine but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cry on your shoulder.”
“Don’t act so tough.”
“I’m not tough. I’m just saying, that’s all. You’re a married woman and I’ve got no right being here with you.”
She came across the seat to him.
“Don’t you want to be with me, Eddie?” she whispered, tossing her head so her hair fluffed out.
He looked at her legs, at the rest of her body. That big hollow returned to his belly and he sucked in his breath. Just what in hell was he waiting for?
“Damn,” he said as he bent to kiss her.
She was ready for him, her lips red and wet, her tongue a thing of raging desire. He felt her arms come around his neck, crushing him closer, heard the strangled sob that rose and died in her throat. With numb, shaking hands he fumbled for the tie on her halter. And then, suddenly, her breasts were free. They were ripe and swollen, the nipples hard and red.
He swallowed a couple of times.
She laughed at him, her face flushed.
“I think they like you, Eddie.”
There wasn’t enough room in front with the steering wheel, so they moved to the back seat. She lost no time, fiercely pulling him down to her.
He almost died in the wonders of her kiss, of her surging body, and as he came to her she let out a long, contented cry, rising to him in the fury of her passion.
“Make me happy,” she pleaded, clinging to him.
And he made her happy, time after time. Each time better than the time before, each experience a plunge into untold beauty.
They missed the next bus.
8
EVERYTHING WORKED out all right. Roger Swingle never did arrive that day, and the next day Jennings was still swearing.
“Let the crumb walk from town,” he stormed. “If he was going to get married he’d have to start a week early to get to the wedding on time. Probably he was a ten-month baby and he’s been a month late ever since.”
Eddie checked his traps and he had a very big day, not having visited them the day before. He felt badly about that. In one of the traps he found a mangled foot of a raccoon. The trap had been too strong, had broken the leg bone and the animal had twisted loose, limping off to live the rest of its life on three feet. That made him feel even worse.
He was in a daze most of the time he was working. The memory of the day before still hung heavy over him, the memory of her wonderful love and the final, raging climax.
“I don’t know how we’re going to get together again,” she had s
aid. “But we will. We’ll find a way. Now that we’ve had each other I can’t let you go, Eddie.”
Joan had stayed away from him that night, too, and he had been glad of that. He’d had a lot to think about, but so far he hadn’t decided anything. He had five thousand bucks in his hands if he wanted to take it, if he wanted to make a statement against her morals, but he wasn’t sure that he could do such a thing. There in her arms he had found something that he had never known before, the male lust mixed with the feeling of tenderness.
“I meant for it to happen,” she had said on the drive back. “Sooner or later I knew I had to sleep with you, that I’d give you more than you could ever hope to get from Joan.”
“The same as you gave to Jim?”
That had hurt her.
“I never did anything with Jim, Eddie. I give you my word about that. He certainly wanted to but I couldn’t see him that way. You have to feel something for somebody to give yourself away. I didn’t feel that way about Jim. Jim was a funny guy, a quiet one, and you couldn’t get close to him. There were times when he was nice but most of the time he wasn’t. He lived alone and he read those dirty magazines and I think he got most of his sex down at The Ferns.”
On the way back to the house they had stopped again, far off the road behind a pile of crushed stone, and it had been just as good then as before, their mutual wildness mounting with each touch, every kiss a searing lash of tormented fire.
“I hope I get that way,” she had said.
“Your husband might not like it.”
“I’d tell him I got the baby from a doctor. I’d tell him I didn’t know who the father was.”
He was hot when he returned from his traps, showing his catch to Jennings on the lawn, then burying the animals and the turtles. It felt fine to get upstairs and step in under the cold shower, to soap his body until the floor of the shower turned white, and then to feel the needle spray as he rinsed off the soap.
Back in his room he stretched out on the bed and decided that he wouldn’t go to supper. Mary had told him that morning there would be roast beef, and while he liked roast beef he wasn’t hungry. That is, except for one thing.