by Ann Bannon
"I won't argue,” she said, her voice high and shaky. “I won't argue with you. You don't understand anything about me. You never have understood me!"
He looked into her flushed face and answered coolly, “You never have understood yourself, Beth. If you knew who you really were it wouldn't be so hard for me to know you. Or anybody else."
That infuriated her. She hated to be told that she didn't know herself and it was one of the things Charlie always told her when he was mad at her. She hated it the worse because it was true.
"You lie!” she cried. “You bastard!"
Charlie pushed her back against the wall, so hard that her head snapped and hit the plaster with a stuffy thump. He kissed her. He was not very nice about it.
"If you think you're going to make love to me, tonight, after the way you've just been acting—” she panted furiously at him, struggling to free herself—"if you think I've come two thousand miles just to let you rape me—"
"You shut up,” he said harshly, and kissed her again. He nearly crushed her mouth and she would have screamed again if she had been able. When he released her she slashed at him with her nails and he pulled her by her wrists back into the bedroom.
Beth tried all the old favored tricks of crossed women. She kicked, and flailed with her dangerous nails; she tried to bite him; she whacked him with a knife-heeled pump, thrilled to see a slightly bloody scratch bloom on his shoulder.
But Charlie smothered her with his big body. He just rolled on top of her and told her, “Shut up. You're noisier than those poor kids you complain about all the time.” The sheer weight of him overwhelmed her. Struggle was futile, arguments were useless.
While he fumbled with her underthings she said, “You're a brute. You bring me home to this miserable little cracker-box, you drag me all the way to California for this. This!” She tried to gesture at the four walls, to make him feel her disdain. “At least in Chicago I'm treated like a human being."
He kissed her angrily.
"I am a human being, in case you didn't know."
He kissed her again, and his hands found her breasts.
"If you touch me I'll be sick. I'll throw up every goddamn thing I ate on that plane. Including the biscuits."
But he touched her. He touched her all over, shivering all through his large frame and groaning. Beth began to sob, with hurt and confusion and rebellion. And most dreadful of all, most humiliating, with desire. She wanted him. He was wonderful like this, the live weight of him on her yielding flesh, the thrust, the warmth, the sweat, the sweet moaning. When he took her like this, like a master claiming a right, she submitted, and she experienced relief. She did not know who she was, but for a little while he made her think she knew. He made her feel her womanhood.
And when he had forced her to surrender once, she gave in again without fighting. He kept her busy for a long time. If the kids kept up the noise their parents didn't know it and didn't care. Charlie wouldn't let her out of his arms. He wanted her there where he could fill his nostrils with the scent of her, his arms with the smooth round feel of her. Four months is a damn long time for a husband in love with his wife to make love to a pillow.
It had not been quite like that between them since their college days and it was not like that again very often.
Chapter Three
THEY FELL INTO THE routine then which became so dull and empty to Beth over the next few years. At first she was too busy getting settled in her new home to be bored. She inspected the holly, the palms, the poppies, the bamboo that grew, rare and exotic, in her own back yard. She breathed in the mountains in back and the sparkling valley in front. But little by little she grew used to them. You can't live with the marvelous every day and keep your marvel quotient very high.
Charlie and Cleve worked hard on the toys, and Charlie loved it. He liked keeping his own hours, being the boss, running the show. Almost imperceptibly he began to take on the lion's share of the work and, with it, the lion's share of the decisions. He was willing to spend nights in the office working out new plans or briefing new men. It made Beth cranky with him. And the crankier she got the more he stayed away. It was the start of a vicious circle.
"It must be my fault. I must bore you to death!” she cried. “No, Beth, you don't bore me,” he said, climbing into his pajamas while she watched him from her place in the bed. “You scare me a little, but you don't bore me."
"I scare you! Ha!” She said it acidly, but only to cover her chagrin. She didn't dare to ask exactly what he meant, and he didn't bother to tell her. But her fits with the children, her depressions, her lack of interest in the love that should have sparked between them, had something to do with it Charlie reached the point where he couldn't tell if Beth ever wanted him or not. She got him, because he didn't have the strength or the patience to turn monk. But there was none of the old smoldering response that had used to thrill his senses and reassure him of her answering passion. She was quiet and she made the minimum gestures mechanically. As he had blurted unintentionally, it scared him. Dismayed, he had tried once or twice to talk to her about it. Not knowing how to be subtle, he simply exclaimed that something was wrong and she had damn well better tell him what it was before it got worse. But Beth had given him a smirk of half amusement and half contempt that had withered his pride and driven him to silence.
So things rolled along. The business was never quite good enough to get them a bigger house or the flashy sportscar Beth wanted. Cleve was never quite drunk enough to botch his job. Beth didn't have enough love and Charlie didn't have enough insight. And that was their life.
For Beth it was dismal. She yearned for a diversion, an escape hatch, anything. Travel, a new car, an affair even. But all she had were her boisterous children, her irate husband, and bowling twice a week with Jean Purvis. Her mood was desperate.
Things took an odd turn finally, one night when Jean and Cleve invited Beth and Charlie to a birthday party. It was for Cleve's sister, Vega Purvis. Beth remembered Vega very well. She had met her shortly after she arrived in California, and though she had never gotten to know Vega well, she was interested in her.
Vega was a model. She was a very tall girl, at least as tall as Beth herself, and excruciatingly thin. Throughout her twenties she had worked at modeling in Chicago and then suddenly came down deathly sick with tuberculosis, ulcers, and Beth had never known what else. Everything. It had meant the temporary finish to her working days and a long trip to the West Coast, where she went directly to the City of Hope for help. She was there for over two years.
Vega had sacrificed a lung to her tuberculosis, a part of her stomach to her ulcer, and perhaps more of herself to other plagues. And still she was stunningly beautiful. Still she smoked two or three packs of cigarettes a day—something that struck Beth as insane but rather wonderful, as if Vega had taken a bead on Death and spat in his eye. Nobody else would have gotten away with it. Vega brushed it off, laughing. The first thing I asked for when I came out of the anesthetic,” she said, “was a cigarette. The doctor gave me one of his. Tasted marvelous."
Vega had deep-set eyes, almost black, and fine handsome features, and she was witty and interesting. She was running her own model agency now on Pasadena's fashionable South Lake Street—mostly teen-age girls, with one or two older women who took the course for “self-improvement.” Or, perhaps, self-admiration.
Beth recalled the night she had first met Vega. They waited for her, Cleve and Jean and Beth and Charlie, in a small restaurant near her studio. Vega came late. It was necessary to her sense of well-being that she arrive late wherever she went. So Charlie and Beth and the Purvises waited for her in a small booth in the Everglades, where everything was chic and expensive.
Vega swept in at last, forty minutes late, wrapped in a red velvet cloak, and she was so striking that Beth had stared a little at her. She sat down and ordered a Martini—double, dry, twist of lemon—before she greeted anybody.
She had a lovely face but it wa
s, like the rest of her, painfully thin, with the fine bones sharply outlined. It soon became apparent why she didn't put on weight. Vega rarely ate anything. She drank her dinner, though they had ordered her a steak. She seemed to depend on booze for most of her calories. Cleve persuaded her to take one bite, which she did, promising to finish the rest later—but of course she never did. Charlie and Cleve finally split the meat and ate it, but the rest was wasted.
Charlie was interested in her too. Beautiful women interest almost any man without making much of an effort.
"What do you do here, Vega?” he asked her. “Cleve said something about modeling."
"I teach modeling,” she said, accepting a fourth drink daintily from the waiter. “Women are my business. Men are my pleasure,” she added, smiling languidly.
Charlie smiled back, unaware of the silly look on his face. Beth saw it, but it didn't alarm her. It struck her funny, and before she had time to think about it, she was laughing at him. And suddenly the fun and flavor went out of the game for him, and he turned his attention to his meal. Beth saw his embarrassment and rebuked herself.
I should have been quiet, damn it, she thought. I should have let him have his fling. Such an innocent little fling. What's wrong with me? But it was too late. Charlie was carefully casual with Vega the rest of the evening. It didn't console him much, when he got home that night, to check his muscles in front of the mirror or stretch to his full six feet two. He was baffled and shamed by his wife, who laughed at even his normal masculine reactions. He was almost defeated by his inability to make Beth's life mean something.
On Vega's birthday night they waited, as before, at the Everglades for her entrance, drinking whiskey and waters, and talking. Beth felt warm and relaxed after the first two drinks and she squeezed Charlie's arm. It caused him some concern, instead of reassuring him, because it was unexpected.
"Good whiskey?” he asked, nodding at her glass. That must be the source of her pleasant mood.
"The best,” she said and smiled. “Why aren't you nice like this all the time?” she teased clumsily.
"I'm only nice when you're a little tight,” he said. “The rest of the time I'm a damn bore."
It was so short and sad and true that it almost knocked the breath out of her. She looked at her lap, despising herself for the moment, feeling the tears collect in the front of her eyes. When she had to reach for a piece of tissue to stem the flood he murmured, “I'm sorry. God, don't do that in here.” He had a masculine horror of scenes, especially in front of Cleve and Jean. Jean had noticed the little exchange between them and her smile—her permanent smile—wavered, but Cleve was talking to her and didn't see.
"Come on, honey, this is a birthday party,” Charlie whispered urgently in Beth's ear, exasperated and helpless like all men before a woman's public tears.
Beth pulled herself together. She would save her bad feeling for later. Now she wanted to enjoy herself, to let the liquor take over, and the muted lights and the piped music. She wanted to forget her kids, forget she was married. Charlie lighted a cigarette for her.
"Peace pipe,” he said. And when he snapped out the match he saw Vega coming and added, relieved, “Here comes the guest of honor.” He got up as she approached the table and took her coat for her.
"Thank you, Charlie Ayers,” Vega said with a smile. She had a habit of calling a man by his whole name, as if it made him completely special, unique, valuable—and perhaps a little bit labeled. But the men loved it. It sounded foolish when you tried to explain it to somebody else, because it was impossible to imitate Vega's intonation, her peculiar lilting voice in its contralto register; but when she said your name, your whole name soft and low and very distinct, the whole company reacted. You were looked at, and the beautiful woman who had spoken to you was looked at, and it was a wonderful, slightly silly, but charming, ceremony.
Vega sat down between Cleve and Beth, and the waiter, who was an old buddy of hers, came up, as soon as she had adjusted herself, with her usual order: a Martini, double, dry, with a twist of lemon. The waiter went up to the bar as soon as she had thanked him for it and began mixing the next. She always took the first three or four on the run. It amazed Beth to watch her. Oddly, Vega never seemed drunk.
Vega was all in black with a single small diamond clip at her throat and diamond earrings. On her they looked real, whether they were or not. Vega looked very very expensive, though she was quick to tell you the price of anything she was wearing. Her clothes were usually bargains picked up at sales in the better shops. Some of the shops gave her discounts, in return for which she told people she bought her clothes exclusively from them. She had this arrangement with at least five shops, all of them unaware of the others, and she lied to them all with charm and grace.
Beth watched her with an interest that intensified as the total of highballs went up. There were two gifts in the center of the table, one from the Ayerses and one from the Purvises. Vega ignored them.
"I've been teaching my girls how to walk,” she told them. “To rock and roll records. Are you familiar with Elvis Presley?"
"Polly's got a crush on him,” Beth said. “I think he's godawful myself."
"You're wrong,” Vega said. “He's very useful. Especially with a gang of teen-age girls. You put one of his records on and suddenly you've got—cooperation.” She emphasized the word and smiled. “They walk around the studio like so many duchesses—just what I want. I used to play Bing Crosby for them but all it got me was a slouch and a lot of behind-the-hands giggling. Now I play crap and suddenly they're ladies.” She turned to Cleve. “Explain that to me, brother,” she said. “You know all about ladies."
Cleve ran a finger over his moustache in the wrong direction. “Simple,” he said. “You have one rule: treat a bitch like a duchess and a duchess like a bitch. Never fails."
"What has that got to do with Elvis Presley?"
"You didn't ask me about Elvis Presley."
"Cleve, are you drunk?” Vega said. “It's against the family rules. You can't be. We never get drunk,” she explained to Beth and Charlie. “Limber, but never drunk."
"You're right.” Cleve ordered another round and when the drinks came he stood up and Beth saw that he really was pretty high. “A toast,” he remarked, “to my charming sister, who is thirty-nine years old today. For the fifth time.” He glanced down at her and Vega smiled seraphically at the ceiling. “Her company is charming,” Cleve went on, while heads turned to grin at him from across the room, “her face is beautiful, her manners are perfect. Thank God I don't have to live with her. Vega, darling, stand up and take a bow."
Vega stood up with a lovely smile and told him tenderly, “Go to hell.” They both sat down and drank to that while Jean laughed anxiously.
'They're always like that,” Jean said. “It strikes me so funny."
Beth wanted to put a gag on her. Jean only wanted to make it seem friendly, teasing. Everybody in the Everglades had heard her husband and his sister. She wanted them all to know it wasn't serious.
But Beth liked to think they really hated each other, for some weird romantic reason. It gave an edge to the scene that excited her.
They ordered their meal and Vega, as always, ordered with them. Beth wondered why she bothered. Maybe it was just to give the men an extra helping. Maybe it was to ease her conscience about her drinking. At least if she had a plate of food in front of her she could always eat; she had a choice. If she didn't order anything her only choice would be to drink, and the people with her would take it for granted she was a lush. That would never do, even when she was with her own friends, her own family, who knew the truth anyway. It just didn't go well with her elegant exterior, her control.
So she ordered food, and ate one bite. It was a sort of ritual that comforted her and shut up the worriers in the party who tried to force French fries or buttered squash down her. When they had all finished she could divide her meal among the men unobtrusively.
Beth yearned t
o ask Vega how old she really was, but she didn't dare. She wondered at her own curiosity. Everything about Vega seemed valuable and interesting that evening. The glamorous clothes, the strange feud with Cleve, the dramatic entrance, the illnesses, the modeling.
I wonder how she'd like being a suburban housewife, she mused, and almost laughed aloud. Vega, with kids. Vega, doing dishes. Vega, with—God forbid—a husband! On some women all the feminine ornaments and virtues only look out of place. Those women seem complete in themselves, and so it was with Vega. Beth couldn't imagine her, sleek and tall and with a hint of ferocity beneath her civilized veneer, being domesticated by any man. There was something icily virginal beneath her sophistication that made Beth doubt whether Vega had ever given herself to a man.
Vega opened Beth's birthday gift to her while the rest of them ate. “How did you know?” she said, so quietly that Beth almost missed it.
"It's only a book,” Beth murmured.
"You picked it out yourself. I've been wanting to read it, too."
It was such a personal exchange, almost intimate, that Beth was taken aback. Vega treated the book like a private present from Beth—as if Charlie, who after all paid for it and wrote his name on the card with his wife's, had nothing whatever to do with it.
Beth found herself oddly drawn to this lovely, rather secretive woman; to the warmth of her voice and the way she spoke. Vega articulated carefully, conserving the small quota of air in her one remaining lung. And yet her voice carried. She had turned the handicap into an asset, learning to develop and project her voice with the skill of a musician. It was pleasant to hear her talk, and she arranged her breathing so artfully that one was never aware that it was a chore, or that her very life's breath came to her in half doses.
At the end of the evening the three women went to the powder room together. Beth found herself impatient with Jean, wanting her out of the way.