The Woman Aroused

by Ed Lacy

  On the slow record, a waltz, she merely walked around the room with slow, even strides, while I glided around and around her. On the fast, hot jazz numbers we both danced like mad—and I mean mad. Except for a break when I put on a new stack of records, we danced for nearly an hour, and I was the exhausted one. I was impressed with her stamina, and mad or not, it was delightful to dance with some one. I never had the nerve to show any girl—or male—my dancing. Not even Flo. I suppose this was partly modesty, plus the fact that I hate to make a spectacle of myself and my dancing was my own, meant to please only myself. And now I had a dance partner, a silent one, whose dance interpretations were also strictly her own. Lee danced with no special expression on her face, and I could never tell if she was enjoying it or considered it all a form of exercise. I suppose the fact that I danced before her was an acceptance on my part that she was backward—her opinions didn't matter. Whatever the reasoning, I was happy to have her dance with me.

  When we went upstairs she headed directly for bed—wet with sweat. Like taking a kid's hand, I had to lead her to the bathroom, put her under the shower. When I turned on the sun-lamp, motioned for her to lie under it as we dried off, she shook her head violently, ran to the bedroom. I turned off the lamp and found her cowering under the sheets. “What's the matter?” I asked.

  She merely turned her back to me, fear on her face.

  When I got into bed, she turned so she was facing me. She lay there for a while, to see if I wanted her then, like an animal, turned over and fell sound asleep.

  I was pleasantly tired and as I went into the luxurious state of contentment we call “dozing off,” I lazily wondered what Lee's mental age was, where in God's name Hank had found her, and why he had ever married her. I knew I was letting myself in for something, that I should get out from under now, fast... but I could only think how clever I was, getting Lee as a bed and dancing partner, and all on the cuff—her cuff.

  I awoke at seven, feeling very rested. Lee had a sheet carelessly over her, was staring at the ceiling again. I showered and shaved. As I dressed I told her to clean up the house, that there was sufficient food in the refrigerator for supper and she might make an attempt at cooking... and while I was talking she closed her eyes and went to sleep!

  As I walked to the newsstand for my paper, I met Mr. Henderson coming back with his papers. I asked him what he was doing up so early and he said, “Too muggy to sleep. George, you know I'm not a busybody, but this is really troubling me. Is there a woman in your place?”

  “I don't see what business....”

  He put a wrinkled hand on my arm. “Come George, you know I don't mean it that way. It's merely... well, like the man downstairs, in the old joke, who's waiting for the other shoe to drop... you know how I like watching the street from my window. I saw you come in with her, but I'll be damned if she's left.”

  I laughed. “To ease your mind, she's still there. Keeps to the house, shy type.”

  “A remarkable girl, strapping... eh... piece. This will be in the nature of a great surprise to Flo.”

  “I imagine it will. Truth is I haven't thought much about Flo's reactions. Well, have to be on my way to the office.”

  “Poker this Saturday? Haven't had a game in some time—I miss Joe's money.”

  “Maybe. I'll see what Joe says,” I said, waving and walking on.

  There was a horse in the seventh race called Hill Gal, and since I was convinced Lee was from some wide-spot in the road, I played the nag across the board. It was a wrong hunch—the horse ran out of the money. I skipped my pre-supper cocktail and when I came home at about six, I found Lee sitting in a chair—in the nude-r-staring at the rug as if in deep thought—or in a trance. The bed was unmade and judging from the kitchen, she had eaten some milk and cake during the day. Slob was back in the house, sitting on the rug not far from Lee, watching her.

  At lunch-time I'd drawn some money from “her” account. I'd meant to take out only the fifty dollars I'd promised her, but took out a hundred. I decided then and there that I'd dip into the money whenever I felt like it. Of course I rationalized things by calling it “our” money. I gave her five tens and counted the money slowly, didn't say a word. I told her, “Why don't you get dressed? It doesn't look right... sitting around like this.”

  She didn't answer me and I got her dress and threw it at her, then went into the kitchen and made a simple supper. When it was ready, I called her, and she came in, the dress on. She didn't have the money in her hands, and since the dress had no pockets and she hadn't moved from the chair, I wondered what she had done with the five tens, but I didn't ask her. We ate in silence, smoked several cigarettes, and the only interest she showed was when I got out my pipe and my blending bowl, mixed some tobacco. She ran her fingers through the tobacco in the open cans, said, “Plenty tabek.”

  Cigarettes, tobacco, seemed to be a big deal in her life. Lighting my pipe, I washed the dishes, gave her a towel, and she dried. She moved very slowly, mechanically, and I took another towel and we finished the few dishes.

  I turned on the radio and she sat on the couch, lost in thought or whatever strange world she was lost in. I read my Times, then finished the evening paper, thought about my horses for the morning, and finally—at eleven—we went to bed.

  A quiet and peaceful evening in the new life of George Jackson.

  I was becoming tired of my own cooking and the next afternoon I stopped at the cleaners, took out her dresses and things. When I came home she was in bed, but smiled when I hung up her clothes in my closet. I ran her bath, practically guided her into the tub, made her comb her hair. I actually rouged her lips, then picked out a dress and underthings, and watched as she dressed. I said, “You ought to go to a beauty parlor. There's one around the corner on Lexington Avenue. Shall I make an appointment for you?”

  She didn't answer.

  Dressed, she looked passable enough to get by in a restaurant. I went to the Campfire Inn on the corner, and we both had a heavy Hungarian meal... in silence. I ordered for both of us, and Lee seemed to enjoy the meal, although she enjoyed anything she could eat. We walked up Lexington Avenue and when we passed a beauty parlor I asked, “Would you like to go in and make an appointment for your hair and nails?”

  She looked puzzled, so I pointed to her hair then to one of the horrible wax mannikins in the window. She still didn't understand, and we went inside. A woman was having her nails done and Lee seemed interested in that. Several other women were sitting under hair dryers, idly looking at us. Women seem to have an absolutely useless look when sitting under hair dryers, all trussed up like vain hens. The elderly blonde who managed the place came forward, said, “Yes?”

  “My... wife would like to get her hair and nails done,” I said, realizing how odd it must seem that I did the talking.

  “Tuesday afternoon is the first open date I have.”

  “How about Tuesday evening, about this time?”

  “Why, yes. I can take her at seven.”

  “Will that be all right, Lee?” I asked, turning to find her gone. I looked around, saw her standing outside. I walked out and I could hear the women tittering.

  “What's the matter?” I asked, angry.

  “Machine on head, no. No! But I like red on nails.”

  “The machine only dries your hair after they wash...”

  There wasn't any point in talking, Lee had walked on. It was a mild night and we walked over to 5th Avenue and sat in the park. I put my arm around her and she leaned against me, and I suppose we looked like any other couple.

  When we came home, I asked if she wanted to dance, but she merely undressed, letting her clothes stay where they fell, and went to bed. I went downstairs and danced through a few records, expecting Lee to come down as soon as she heard the music. But she didn't and I used the sun-lamp for a while, took a shower, and went to bed. She seemed to be sleeping but as soon as I touched her, she put her arms around me like a robot, pulled me to her.


  On Friday I decided to take Lee shopping the next day. I made out a check for two hundred, changed it to five hundred—to really feel the power of money. (Or, that's what I told myself.) For the hell of it I played three horses across the board and one of them came in, making me only a dollar or two loser. Then before I went home I ordered two custom-made shirts, bought a pair of twenty-five dollar shoes, and a couple of Barzoni ties. As an afterthought I got her a bottle of blood red nail polish.

  The next morning I cooked breakfast, made her bathe and dress in her best, I painted her nails—which seemed to please her very much—and left her practically propped up in a chair like a big doll, while I bathed and shaved. It was a hot, end-of-August day, and we took a cab down to Saks Fifth Avenue, the first store that came to my mind. I was a bit nervous, wondering how she would react in the store, but it came off quite well.

  Lee was impressed by seeing so many things, and her eyes lit up, but she didn't say a word. I did all the talking and choosing, and if the sales girls thought it was odd, they didn't show it. One girl looked a little bug-eyed when Lee was trying on a blouse and her tattoo came to light. We bought two light suits, several dresses, underwear, stockings, blouses, and two skirts... all in the latest style. I was rather pleased with my knowledge of style—thanks to Flo. I insisted the clothes be sent by special messenger late in the afternoon. Aside from feeling the material now and then, Lee was the perfect clothes horse, waiting patiently as I picked her clothes. We took a cab down to Slater's for shoes, stopped for lunch, bought some perfume, and finally went to Barney's over on 8th Avenue (not the calling-all-men place) where I bought her ballet slippers and a couple of rehearsal outfits.

  I'd spent all “my” cash, so I stopped at my bookie's and had him cash a $100 check—which he did nervously.

  It was pathetic the way Lee followed me around like an obedient child, and since it was still early in the afternoon, I walked her down Broadway and into the Paramount. The stage show was the usual corn, but she enjoyed it, hunching forward in her seat, at least showing interest. The picture had a Paris background and I was astonished to see her mumbling in French.

  When we were in a cab going home, I asked, “Do you speak French?”

  “Oui.”

  “You speak some German, too. Where did you learn languages, in school?”

  She didn't answer. Jokingly, for I don't speak anything except American—and that not too well—I asked, “Fraulein, where did you learn?”

  The words had a magic effect on her: she turned quickly, almost in fear, gave me a long look, and to my amazement broke into tears. I held her tightly, wondering what it was all about.

  By the time we reached the house, her mood had changed, and she was a blank again. The packages began arriving and I hung the clothes away while she sat in a chair, playing with Slob, who didn't seem too happy to be within her powerful hands.

  I undressed her, put on the blue rehearsal shorts, a white silk T-shirt that showed off her firm breasts, and ballet shoes. As she stood there dumbly, I walked around her and she looked so much like a dancer I was fit to burst with pride. I stripped and got into my sweat suit, said, “Come, darling, we'll dance,” and covered her face with kisses.

  The kisses must have confused her, for she took my hand and led me to the bedroom. She looked so healthy and strangely beautiful that in my mind I was going to bed with a young ballerina, and we forgot about dancing.

  After supper we listened to the radio, and at nine I told her I was going out for a while. She didn't react to this, one way or another, and I kissed her, told her not to wait up for me, and to turn the radio off when she went to bed. She mechanically stroked my head as I bent over to kiss her. I went upstairs and played stud poker wildly, staying every hand. I lost about fifty dollars to Joe, Henderson, and some loud-mouthed friends of Joe's. I returned to my place at two in the morning: the radio was on and Lee was sitting in the exact position I'd left her. We washed up and went to bed. In a sense it was a relief to have a girl who didn't talk or demand explanations.

  On Sunday, after a leisurely breakfast, I dressed Lee in her new clothes, asked if she wanted to go to church. She said no, and we walked along 5th Avenue, and Lee looked like any of the other tall, smartly dressed women strolling along—showing off their clothes.

  The new clothes made things work out smoothly. Every night I'd rush home, have Lee bathe and dress, and then we'd go out on the town. We went to the different restaurants about New York—the Jewish ones on the lower East Side, ate Italian food in little Italy, Spanish dishes in Lower Harlem, Swedish, East Indian, Russian, and French food. I bought her several evening gowns and long gloves—to cover the tattoo on her arm—and we made the rounds of the night clubs. Lee held her liquor well, even though I tried several times to get her drunk, and her dancing had improved to the point where I enjoyed dancing with her. Since money wasn't any object, we were a perfect couple: rarely talking, never arguing about price, and having a good time. At least I did.

  The one odd experience was the time I took her to a German restaurant in Yorkville. She became very nervous as we entered, kept watching everybody in the place, and was so upset she refused to eat. Muttering something to herself in German, she rushed out of the place. I threw some money on the table, ran after her. Of course it was useless to ask her what was wrong, she sat in the cab in stony silence, ignoring me. Time and again I'd plead with her, tried to be tender and endearing, asked to be a part of her life, attempted to dig beneath her surface of absolute indifference to everything. I told her I loved her, begged her to talk, tell me about herself. All I ever got was either silence or her tiny odd smile as she said, “Lee is not bright.”

  In my own way I tried playing detective. I took her to every foreign movie in town, and while she never talked, I knew she understood German, Italian, and French. For a time I thought she must have had more of an education than I imagined. Then one day I realized what a fool I'd been: Hank had taken her overseas with him, and of course that was where she had picked up the languages.

  Aside from trying to get her real drunk, without success, I set all sorts of absurd traps for her: I put thread across the door, arranged my shoes around the bed—to see if she ever moved from her bed, or went out of the house while I was at the office. She never left the house and on most days never got out of bed it seemed—not even to go to the bathroom. Also, from Henderson's questions now and then, I knew he'd only seen her with me, for being such a busybody he would have rushed to tell me if she had any visitors.

  She was an absolute slob, yet once I returned to find the place spotless, she had moved everything, cleaned, dusted, and waxed the floors. When I asked her why, she said, “Lee work.”

  Another puzzling feature was the money. Every Tuesday I gave her a hundred dollars. (It had started out as fifty, but I doubled it once to see her face light up, and it had remained a hundred a week after that. I was extremely generous—with her money), but what she did with the money was a mystery. Once I gave her the money I never saw it again, although she never carried any money—even change—on her. The pocket-book she had taken from her 29th Street place was also hidden. Somewheres around the house she was hiding the money, like an animal storing up food.

  September was a cool month and I found she loved heat. I kept the oil burner up, for she wanted the house warm enough to walk about in the nude. At night when I insisted on keeping the windows open, she piled blankets on the bed till it was uncomfortably warm, and I'd have to fold the blankets so they were only on her.

  Living with Lee was dull, crazy, comfortable, and sometimes wildly ethereal. Sometimes I had a sense of esoteric power that bordered on the insane—it seemed to me Lee's sole purpose on earth was for my pleasure, a kind of sex machine I owned outright. I admit such thoughts frightened me—later—but they also gave me a queer sort of satisfaction.

  On the first of September when Henderson paid his rent, I sent the money to Flo without a note. We hadn't seen each other
since Southampton, and I suppose Flo was getting a bit frantic. The possibility of her coming to the house, using her key, slipped my mind—in fact I had hardly thought about her. One night as I was coming home from the office, thinking I'd take Lee to the Petitpas on 29th Street for a good French supper, Henderson called out from his window that I'd better come upstairs.

  I thought Lee had either raised some kind of hell, or even blown her top, and I ran up the stairs, brushed past Henderson as he opened the door. Flo was sitting there, crying hysterically.

  She had on a very colorful strapless summer dress that looked like an evening gown, and the contrast was something—for her nose was bloody and she had the damnedest black eyes I've ever seen. Both her eyes were actually swollen and turning blue and purple. Her lipstick was a red smudge against her pale face.

  I didn't have to ask what had happened. I put my hand on her shoulder, said, “Flo—I'm sorry.”