(1961) The Chapman Report

by Irving Wallace

  Going back to The Briars, she tried to remember where she had stored the George Sand costume, and then remembered. She found it in the large bottom drawer built into the bedroom wall. The out-fit, inspired by Delacroix’s portrait of Sand done in 1830, consisted of a top hat, now somewhat bent, a dark stock, loose coat, and men’s slacks, all badly creased. She telephoned Mr. Jefferson, who was out on his day job, and left word with his landlady that he remember to bring ice cubes and one cigar; yes, one, no particular brand. She braved the suffocating heat again to drive to a cleaning shop in The Village Green, and there deposit her Sand costume to be brushed and pressed. She then steered her car eastward, past the atrocious Villa Neapolis, past the university, through Beverly Hills, into Hollywood, where she turned north on Cahuenga. She fought the freeway traffic, feeling the wheel flaming under

  her tight grip, until she reached Studio City, where she made the turn-off to the bakery. The eighteen-inch ham in bread, still warm, was ready. She wrote a check for twenty dollars, carefully placed the | box in her luggage compartment, and then completed the circle by driving on Ventura to Sepulveda Boulevard, and thence to Sunset and The Briars. She double-parked at the cleaners, where the Sand costume waited, neatly pressed, and then hastened back to the house, where Mrs. Symonds, mopping her chins with a white handkerchief, impatiently waited in her vintage coupe.

  In the kitchen, Teresa briskly reviewed the hors d’oeuvre list and dinner menu with Mrs. Symonds, then got out the good silver, dishes, and platters, finished the floral arrangement for the buffet (green Bells of Ireland and white Agapanthus resting on a glass-covered Miro collage), rearranged the seating in the studio modern living room, and then retired to the master bedroom.

  She removed five outfits from her closet, hung them in a row, and stepped back to study them for utility as well as beauty. At last, she selected the Parma-blue silk dress, because it did wonders for her bosom and hips, and because the long zipper in back made it easy to put on and remove. She examined her underwear with care, settling finally on the sheer black brassiere and nylon crepe panties; then returned the brassiere to the drawer, settling for the black panties and a half-slip. She considered stockings, but the necessity of a garter belt was a nuisance, and she decided that she would remain provocatively bare-legged, and wear the high-heeled blue leather pumps that complemented the dress. She opened the Jewel box, removed her wedding band and deposited it, leaving only the diamond engagement ring on her finger. She poked through her accessories, held up the fragile necklace with the small gold cross. and liked it.

  She filled the tub, added several drops of a French bath oil, and then immersed herself in the fragrant water and soaked. She thought about the last year in Vassar, and the Greenwich Village period with the poet who never bathed (what had happened to him?), and she tried to picture Ed’s apartment overlooking the ocean. She thought about the interview with Dr. Chapman, and all she could remember of it were those questions about the exhibits. She had, she remembered, given her reactions to a half-dozen photographs, and to a passage from Casanova, and then she had been offered the option to read or refuse to read a passage from Fanny Hill. She had read the passage, of course. “My bosom was now bare and rising in the warmest throbs, presented to his sight and feeling the firm hard swell of a pair of young breasts… .” What had she answered? Yes, somewhat aroused. Perhaps she should have answered strongly aroused. No, somewhat was more accurate. She tried to picture Ed’s apartment again. At last, an eye on the clock, she stepped out of the tub, dried herself, touched up her well-formed figure with cologne, inserted the diaphragm, and then slowly garmented herself with the attire selected. At ten minutes to five, she wrote the note to Geoffrey about go-ing to pick up the ham in bread, and reminded Mrs. Symonds to be sure to see that Mr. Hamish received the note so that he would not be concerned with her absence. At five o’clock, precisely, she settled behind the wheel of the convertible and prepared to leave for the beach. The address that Ed Krasowski had given her, she was surprised to learn, was not in Malibu as she had expected, but much before Malibu and closer to the widely patronized Santa Monica pier, There was a large dirt parking area, and the soiled gray wood building a dozen units perhaps, was of indifferent clapboard construction, and rose in humpty-dumpty fashion above a cliff that hung over the beach. It was flanked by a cheap hotel and a hamburger shanty. Teresa told herself that this was Bohemia, such as she had left behind in Greenwich Village, but this was better, and it was good to be back among teeming and vital life. Ed’s apartment proved to be on the second floor. Carrying pad and charcoal and her white summer purse, Teresa climbed the slippery, creaking steps to the outer veranda above. Two dirty, tanned, sopping children, possibly female, brushed past her, one chasing the other down the stairs, and Teresa saw that her dress was only slightly spotted. She continued along the veranda, sidestepping several pools of water and a hole where the planks had broken or rotted apart, and at lasted she reached the sanctuary of Ed’s apartment.

  She rapped. “Come in!”

  She opened the door, a chipped green, and entered. For a moment, she stood inside the door, closing it behind her and trying to accustom her eyes to the shade. Ed sat in a big overstuffed chair, one leg thrown over the side, sucking beer from a can and listening to a blaring baseball broadcast on the portable radio. He was wearing a T-shirt again emblazoned with the legend Paradise Park, and

  white shorts, wrinkled, the stripes faded along the sides. Although his face seemed puffier than she had remembered, the shirt and shorts wonderfully pointed up his bursting strength and manliness His biceps were incredible, still, and the thighs grew out of his shorts like barkless tree trunks.

  “Hiya,” he said, waving. He indicated the radio with a nod “They’re in Philly, all tied up in the third.”

  Teresa bobbed her head as if she understood. Ed finished his beer and then, remembering manners, lifted his enormous bulk to his feet. “Well, make yourself at home,” he said.

  “Yes, thank you, Ed.”

  She placed her sketch equipment on a table.

  “See you came prepared,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “What about a beer? Set you up.”

  “If you’ll have one with me.” She had never had domestic beer in her life. It was a day of adventures.

  “I’ve had three already, but I’m not the one to say no. Excuse me.

  He went into what appeared to be a kitchenette. For the first time, she surveyed their Charterhouse of Valdemosa, their Palma, their Majorca. A large oval, braided, early-American rug, its ancestry traceable to Sears, Roebuck, covered a worn floor speckled with sand. Besides the overstuffed chair and raucous radio, the remaining furniture consisted of a green divan with broken springs and several fraying rattan chairs. There were two intensely modern reflector lamps. On the walls hung a reproduction of Millet’s The Angelus probably the landlord’s, and a reproduction of Bellows’ A Night at Sharkey’s, probably inherited from a previous and more pugilistic tenant. There were three magazine pages of nude females with abnormal bosoms and buttocks, taken from a publication unknown to her-Playboy-tacked to the wall. There was an autographed photograph of someone who signed himself Harold “Red” Grand There were two photographs, happily framed, one of Ed in football togs, crouched and ferocious, and the other of the person she remembered as Jackie.

  Teresa moved to the windows-the soiled mesh drapes were parted-and regarded the rocky beach below. There was a fat woman seated cross-legged on an army blanket slicing a sausage. There was a skin diver adjusting his Martian headgear, with a thin rail of a peroxide blonde assisting him. There were armies of screaming wet children.

  Discreetly, Teresa shut the open window, but still the noise came through the glass and thin walls. She moved on to the black hole of a bedroom, crowded with two twin beds without headboards and both halfheartedly made up, and two more rattan chairs and a secondhand peeling brown bureau, “Not bad, eh?” she heard Ed call out. She
pirouetted in time to accept her beer, which was in a glass, and to notice that he preferred his own directly from the can. If he was devoted to beer, she decided, she would surprise him with a case of imported German lager. It would make a splendid little “Well,” he said, holding up his can, “here’s to lots of famous pic-“I hope so,” she said, She swallowed a great gulp of beer, and although it was malty, she drank again, and smiled at him. “Why don’t you sit down?” he said, She nodded, then frowned at the frenzied radio. He saw her disapproval. “Bother you? Here, let me lower it.” He turned it down, and now the children’s voices, from below, were louder, He sat heavily on the divan and indicated that she could have the favored overstuffed chair. But, impetuously, she sat on the divan several feet from him. “Its not so comfortable,” he said. “The springs-” “It’s all right.”

  “That’s the way it was when Jackie and I moved in. The landlord’s strictly do-nothing.” “Where’s your roommate?” “I kicked him out for now.” Her heart hammered. Had there ever been a greater show of love? He was trying to demonstrate that he had need to be alone with her. “I ain’t letting that bench jockey heckle me,” he went on, “while I’m being painted.”

  Somewhat taken aback, she finished the horrid beer. “You like the beach, don’t you, Ed?”

  “Sure do. Nothing like doing a workout in the sand every morning to build those leg muscles. And I like the surfing. Besides, it’s the only place where a man can live like a millionaire at these prices.”

  “I can understand that. I suppose, in your profession, you must take care of your body.”

  “Like a baby,” said Ed solemnly. Then he shook the can, and his Slavic face broke into a grin. ” ‘Course, man’s got to have one vice.” He brought the can to his mouth and drank.

  “You mean to tell me that’s your only vice?”

  “Depends what you call vice.”

  “Well, female companionship-“

  “That’s more necessity. If you’ll pardon the expression-a man’s got to have an outlet.”

  “Oh, I agree with you,” she said quickly. “It’s a part of normal good health.”

  He grinned at some remembrance. ” ‘Course, you wouldn’t think that if you met some of the flipperoos that come around.”

  “Women, you mean?”

  “It takes all kinds to make a world, and all kinds sort of wash up on the beach.”

  The thought struck her: Could Isadora’s Essinine be a puritan at heart? She dismissed it: Aren’t all men?

  “I suppose you’re popular,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said modestly.

  “I don’t mind confessing that it was seeing you on the beach, in your natural element, observing your bodily grace, the freedom of your limbs, that first attracted me to you.” She watched him. “You have a perfectly symmetrical body,” she added.

  He did not disagree. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “Like I said before, I baby it. I got good development-smooth, no knots, I don’t go for that weight-lifter bit-you know, over development. It’s no good, ties you up. I like to keep it well proportioned.” He spoke of his body as if it were an entity apart from himself.

  She was intrigued. She had discovered a subject that interests both of them.

  “I think you’re far better looking than most of the motion-picture stars. You look more manly.”

  “That doesn’t take much doing,” he said. “Those queers-if you’ll pardon me.”

  “I think that’s why I wanted to sketch you first as a Grecian Olympic hero-to contrast your basic virility with the pallid men who surround us today.” The points of her breasts, her legs, ached with desire. “Have you ever seen the classical statue of the discus thrower?” “No.”

  “Inspired by your body, I feel I can surpass Myron the Greek. He did the discus thrower. He also did Lais, the courtesan. I’d. like to do you in exactly the same way. In fact, I’d like to start right now.”

  “Sure. What do I do?”

  “Well, the discus thrower was nude, of course, like all Greek Olympians. I would want you to pose that way.”

  He straightened his bulk on the sofa. “With nothing on?”

  She tried to assume an unemotional, businesslike tone.

  ‘Yes, in the classical tradition. If you’ll just disrobe while I get-“

  “Hey, wait a minute, lady. You don’t expect me to take off all my clothes in front of a woman?”

  “Why not? Do you suffer false modesty? I’m sure you’ve done it a hundred times before-in front of women.”

  “But not to be looked at. When I strip down, it’s for different reasons. And then, the dame’s always naked, too.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you, Ed? That I’ll be dressed, and you won’t? Very well. I’ll gladly take off my clothes, too.” He was certain that he had not heard her right. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me correctly, Ed. If it’ll make you happier, I’ll undress right now.”

  His face was all confusion. “Just to paint me?” She heard her heart, and wanted to be buried in his arms forever. Her voice, when she found it, was foreign to her ears. “Of course not, silly boy. I can paint the next time. I want you to do to me what you do to those other girls.”

  He sat gaping. She jumped to her feet and stood before him, legs apart, her knees touching his, her hands clasped behind her back so that her breasts were distended. “Ed, don’t you even want to touch me?”

  The turn of events anchored him in bewilderment. “Sure, but-“

  “But what, Ed? You think I’m too much of a lady to behave like this? Well, I am a lady, but I’m also a woman. From the moment I first saw you on the beach, I fought the feeling inside me. I knew I was becoming enamored of you-foolishly so-but women in love are foolish, and now, all I want is your love.” She stared down at him, too aroused to smile or make light of it. “Touch me, Ed. You might enjoy it.”

  He grabbed out at her and roughly yanked her down to his lap. Her hands were in his hair, and her mouth met his, pressing so hard that her teeth hurt. Gasping, they were apart.

  “Holy geez,” he said.

  “Those others-what do you do with them?”

  “Those broads are different-run-of-the-mill snatch-but you-“

  “What about me?”

  “I should’ve known. I just didn’t figure you-like Jackie, when he brought me your message-ol’ Jackie said, ‘Ed, you should’ve seen her in that swim suit-built like a-‘ And then, he said, ‘I gotta hunch you can maybe make time there-there’s a lotta pepper in that tomato.’ But I told him he was nuts.”

  “You see, Ed? Even he could tell how I wanted you.” She placed her face against his. “Aren’t you going to undress me?”

  “You bet your life!”

  Awkwardly, he fumbled at her dress.

  “The zipper’s in back,” she whispered.

  He found it, and suddenly he remembered something. “In the bedroom,” he said. “Get in there.”

  He pushed her to her feet and stood up. She started for the bedroom, watching him as he strode to the door, locked it, then hurried to the windows and drew the drapes closed.

  In the darkened bedroom, she kicked off her pumps and felt the chill of the carpetless floor on her soles. She had released the dress to her waist when he returned, breathing audibly. She wriggled, letting it drop, then stepped out of it. She stood barefooted, very small in her half-slip, naked from the waist up, shoulders drawn back.

  “Holy geez,” he said admiringly.

  “Should I undress you?”

  “No, I’ll do it. You lie down and wait.”

  He hastened into the bathroom. She removed slip and pants, threw back the blanket, and stretched herself on the bed. She gazed into the living room, listening to the screams on the beach, the wet feet on the veranda, the humming voice on the radio. The room was close and tepid. And there was some gritty discomfort beneath her. She ran her fingers across the bed sheet: sand.

  “
You ready?” he called from the bathroom.

  “Yes, darling.”

  He appeared wearing only an elastic athletic supporter. It accentuated the muscular layers of his stomach and torso. He pulled down the supporter and kicked it away, and faced her fully. The discus thrower, she thought, and then she observed his total nudity for the first time, and for a moment she was nudged by surprise. The surprise was that he was, in one way, no more extraordinary than Geoffrey-in fact, far less so. He advanced toward her, and the surprise was forgotten. The appeal of his towering frame was Godlike. He had come to her, from Olympus, at last.

  She held out her arms. “Come to me.”

  She tingled in anticipation of the long, excruciating feast of love that would now begin. Every inch of her being waited to be brought to the peak of desire. The bed trembled as he knelt on it, and, as she waited to accept his kisses and caresses, she was suddenly shocked to find him directly atop her, pinning her shoulders, crushing her beneath his terrible weight. And then she cried out, not with pain but with outrage, when she realized that he was making love to her.

  She twisted her head aside, protesting this madness. “Ed, not yet, not yet-you haven’t-I’m not-“

  Ignoring all but her body, he went on, frenzied. She reached to push him away, but she might as well have tried to move the Empire State building. She closed her eyes and made an effort to understand: He’s treating me like one of those Japanese rubber torsos sailors buy in Kobe-he hasn’t kissed me but once, not even touched my breasts, not my body, not whispered a single endearment.