“Chère,” he said, and his voice was compressed, thickened. She felt the firmness against her lower belly and realized what was happening.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, trying to pull away.
“Oh, chère.” He whispered the words as he bent his head and brushed her lips with his own.
His kiss was gentle, almost diffident, as if he were afraid she would protest. It never occurred to her. He had been so good to her, and she owed him so much. More, she loved him with a quiet affection totally unlike the brief infatuation she had felt for Edison. And there was inside her a need to be wanted that was like an ache.
She led him into the bedroom. There in the darkness that was cut by an oblong shaft of light from the other room, they breathed each other’s breaths and tasted each other’s skin. He cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips to her eyes, the hollows under them, the bridge of her nose, the points of her cheekbones and of her chin. He smoothed his palms over her shoulders and drew her arms around him, rocking her in soothing joy.
She clutched the firm muscles of his back and inhaled the scent of his body at the curve of his neck, tasting the salt secretion of it. With trembling fingers, she drew the T-shirt he wore from his jeans, sliding her hands upward to brush his chest with her thumbs.
Together they subsided onto the sagging mattress and creaking springs of the bed. He fumbled a little as he opened the buttons of her dress, then drew in his breath with an audible gasp as he rubbed the soft curves of her breasts with his closed eyelids and the planes of his face. She felt the hot, wet flick of his tongue on first one nipple and then the other. He spread his fingers over the flat, almost hollow surface of her abdomen, sliding downward until he touched the warm, gentle rise of her pubic mound.
He went still.
She felt him shudder. He caught her close, rocking her, burying his face in her neck. After a moment, she felt the hot seep of his tears.
“What is it?” she whispered in alarm. She moved her hands over him in distress, as if she could search out the injury that pained him.
“I can’t. Oh, God, chère, I can’t.”
“But…why? Don’t you want me?” Her voice was tight, almost choked. She ran her fingers quickly, lightly down his body, but the firmness was gone.
“More than life, more than life.” He stopped for a moment, and she felt his teeth clench and his lips draw back in a grimace as he struggled with his grief.
Her voice rising in distress, she said, “What’s wrong? Dante, please.”
“Hush, hush,” he said, his voice thick. “It’s not your fault, it’s mine.”
“I don’t understand!”
“It’s how I see you. I—I see you as the Madonna with her child, a sacred lady, our little mother, too holy to be touched. I see you covered with blood and refusing to cry with the pain of birthing a baby. I see you as Mary, mother of God, who forgives the sins of men against her.” His voice broke. “I see you so far above me.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not like that!”
He swallowed with a convulsive movement of his throat. “You are to me.”
“Mary was pure and she didn’t make mistakes, not like me. She didn’t desert her mother and her sister. She didn’t give up her child. She didn’t dance naked in front of…in front of men.”
The tears welled up as if from a deep wound. She didn’t know they were coming; they simply poured from her as if they would never end, tears of loss and guilt and sorrow. Mingled with them was despair that she and Dante could never have each other, be with each other. She had somehow expected they would be, always. She hadn’t known how much she had wanted that, needed it, until she felt the hope fading away.
“Nor do you, in my mind. You…I don’t know if I can explain. What I feel for you is so precious to me that it scares me. I worship you so that touching you seems wrong, like touching the Madonna. I don’t think—I’m not sure I can ever love you.”
“I don’t want you to feel like that. I don’t want to be like that to you!” Her body shook against his with her silent, gasping breaths.
“I can’t help it. God knows I would if I could.”
“I’m me,” she cried in low tones. “I’m only me.”
“Shh,” he said, “I’m sorry, so sorry.”
She tried to stop crying, scrubbing at her face as she sniffled. “It isn’t your fault; it’s mine.”
“Don’t say that. It’s really nobody’s fault, I guess.” He wiped her face with the heel of his hand, then gathered her close with the breath of his sigh warm and moist in her hair. “It’s just the way things are.”
It was nearly dawn before he finally brushed his lips across her forehead and slid from the bed. She might have dozed a little lying in his arms, but she was not asleep. She watched him cross to the door, saw him pause there a long moment, staring back at her. There was such bleakness in his face that she wanted to cry again, but there were no tears left.
Finally he turned and went through the living room, letting himself out the door to the back stairs. It closed quietly behind him.
Rebecca didn’t see Dante the next day. He didn’t come to her rooms, nor did she seek him out. They needed some time before they met, at least a few hours. He would come, surely, before it was time for her to go to work. They were going to have to talk about her job at least, since he seemed to think he could find something else for her.
Then that afternoon a young stock boy came at a run from the grocery store down the street. There was a call, an emergency, or else the grocer would never have agreed to pass on the message.
It was Margaret who had called. Rebecca must come home. Her mother was dead, Margaret said, and it would look strange if she didn’t attend the funeral.
Rebecca had been wrong, there were tears left. Still, she was grateful then to the old man who had given her so much money in tips. She used it for the bus fare and also for a decent dress to wear to the funeral.
She stayed with Margaret and Boots in the house where she had been born and grew up. She was there for one day before the funeral and three days afterward. Margaret hardly allowed her to hold little Erin at all during that time. It would not do for her to get too fond of the child, her sister said, not if she was going away again.
It was possible Margaret was right. The feel of the baby, the sweet scent and warm weight of her in her arms, made Rebecca want to cry again. Sometimes she sat stroking the fine hair on top of the small head as Erin slept while she thought wild thoughts. She pictured herself bundling the baby up and taking her away in the night, or driving with her into town and walking up and down the streets and in and out of the post office and grocery store saying, “This is my baby. She grew inside me. This is my baby.”
She couldn’t do it. She had nothing to give Erin except love, no way to take care of her. Who would keep her while Rebecca worked at night, and what kind of life would it be for her with a mother who danced topless on the tables in a Bourbon Street bar?
Besides, everyone thought the baby was her sister’s child, born of Margaret’s body. To tell them different now would not only brand Margaret a liar but would take away her very life. Margaret was crazy about Erin, dwelling minutely on every little thing she did, every smile and every sound. She fretted and scolded and warned Rebecca about the way she held the baby and the way she changed her, and all the while she watched Rebecca with anxious, frightened eyes.
Rebecca didn’t tell Margaret where she was working or what she was doing. Margaret didn’t ask, nor did she ask after Dante or if Rebecca had heard from Edison. It was as if she preferred not to hear about Rebecca’s life in New Orleans, as if she were afraid to hear. And she spoke so often of Rebecca’s returning that even Rebecca began to take it for granted that she would go back. It was only after she was on the bus heading south again that she realized there was no reason for her to go. Her mother was dead, the baby she had borne was safely registered as Margaret’s child. What was there to make her go?
The truth was, she couldn’t stay. It would be better for Erin if she grew up with Margaret for her mother and good old Boots for her father in a happy, normal family. Rebecca was not sure she could allow that, could watch it without interfering, if she lived in the same house. Besides, the house where she had been born had seemed tinier, the town shabbier, and the people there more narrow-minded since she went away. Margaret’s voice had become more grating and Boots more stolid. She had grown away from them. She didn’t belong anymore. Besides, she wanted to see Dante.
The last few yards to the apartment house on its back street were incredibly long. She walked faster and faster, then trotted across the courtyard behind the house, which was quiet and still in the warmth of the afternoon. She dropped her suitcase at the foot of her own outside stairs and ran the last few steps to Dante’s front door.
The door was open, the screen unlatched. She snatched the wire-covered door open, calling out above the screech of its hinges as she stepped inside. “Dante! It’s me. I’m back!”
They were on the couch, a man and a woman with bodies gleaming with sweat from their exertions, pale in their nakedness. Dante was on top, striving with piston blows, pressing in and out of the woman who had her head thrown back and her legs flung wide as she writhed and moaned. The muscles of his back and hips bunched with effort; his male member was turgid and engorged and slickly wet as he rammed it deep once, twice.
Then Dante turned his head. He cursed. The woman under him, her face caked with makeup and her nails painted blood red, cursed also.
Rebecca whirled and ran. She didn’t stop for her suitcase but heaved herself up the outside stairs as if the hounds of hell were after her. Her hands were shaking so that she could hardly get her key into the lock. Then it opened suddenly and she stumbled inside. Swinging around, she slammed and locked the door.
Dante came knocking at her door five minutes later. He called out to her when she didn’t answer, but she was lying in bed huddled around a pillow and she didn’t move or make a sound. He came back in an hour, and again an hour later.
“Let me in chère,” he called, knocking softly with his knuckles. “Let me explain. It had nothing to do with you, what you saw; I promise it didn’t. Let me in!”
She didn’t open the door. She couldn’t open the door. An hour after the last time, when he didn’t come back again, she began to cry.
She went to work at the bar that evening and the next and the next. Dante was never anywhere in sight; she thought he must be leaving early for the restaurant. She was relieved that she didn’t have to face him, though she was also sorry she had not let him in, that she had refused to talk to him. It was wrong of her to judge him; after all, he hadn’t judged her that way about her dancing topless. The more time that passed before they spoke, the harder it was going to be. Once at work, however, there was no time to think about it.
The old man who had kissed her hand was there every night. He helped her up onto his table with a gallant air and sat very still, smiling faintly in appreciation, while he watched. There was such tolerance, such kindness, in his gray eyes. She could not help but be curious about him. He was not so old as she had thought, perhaps in his forties, though there was silver in his black hair. His clothes were different from those of the other customers, of better quality, more refined. In fact, he looked out of place as he rubbed elbows with oilfield workers and football players, frat men and furtive husbands, and the occasional embarrassed woman tourist. What he was doing there, she could not imagine. After she finished her dance each time, he was generous and never failed to thank her. Once he even said, “I’m glad you’re back. I missed you and was worried about you.”
It was a week after she had returned, and late in the night, toward the two o’clock closing time, when the fat owner of the bar sent for her. There was someone with him in his office, a dark, plump man with hair that shone with oil and an accent she thought was South American when he spoke in greeting, though she couldn’t be sure.
The fat man tilted his head at her. “This the one?”
“That is her,” the other man said in careful English.
“Come here,” the fat man said to her with a smile that held relish but no amusement whatever.
Rebecca moved forward a step or two.
“Closer.”
She bit the inside of her lip, but moved again until she was in front of his desk with the foreigner a foot away.
“Turn around and face the door,” he said.
She looked from one man to the other. The music from the barroom, usually so loud, sounded faint with distance. The room was close, for it was a warm and humid night and there was only a small oscillating fan to stir the air. She could smell the oil the foreigner used on his hair. Suddenly, she felt more naked in her heels and G-string standing there in front of them than she had ever felt on top of a table.
She moistened her lips. “Why?”
“Do as I say,” the fat man said, spacing the words with a hard deliberateness that made the hair rise on the back of her neck.
Slowly she turned.
“Bend over.”
“But, no,” the foreigner said, “is not necessary.”
She felt his hand slide over the curve of her hip, his fingers slipping under the G-string. She gave a startled cry and swung around, backing away.
The foreigner laughed. He snapped his fingers as he turned back to the fat man. “Very nice,” he said. “I will take her.”
TWELVE
EDISON GALLANT WAS SHAVING WHEN THE knock came on the door. He cursed. Why the devil did somebody always have to come banging on the door when he was in the bathroom and there was nobody else to answer? A few minutes earlier and Anne could have got it. But, hell, no. It had to be now.
Grabbing a towel, he swabbed it across his face, then slung it over his shoulder. Wearing nothing except his pajamas bottoms, he stalked to the door and put his eye to the peephole.
There was a woman outside. She wasn’t young and wasn’t old, wasn’t ugly but wasn’t exactly a raving beauty. She was looking up and down the hall like a whore watching for the hotel detective while she patted her hair and rubbed her lips together to smooth her lipstick. The dress she had on was an expensive model, some kind of soft, flower-printed material, but it would have been better if it had been a size larger. The scarf she wore with it was cream silk, but she could not quite carry off the careless way she had it twisted around her plump shoulders.
He knew her. A second more and he had the name. A grim smile curved his mouth, then died away. He reached out and yanked the door open.
The woman gasped and put her hand to her chest. Her voice breathless, she said, “Hello.”
Great. He liked them a little nervous. He scowled. “What do you want?”
“Don’t—don’t you know me?”
“Is there any reason I should?” He made the words cold, insulting, as he ran his gaze up and down her.
“I thought you might since I saw you just two nights ago.”
She was actually pouting. God, what a ninny. “I don’t have time for games. If you want something, spit it out.”
She flushed. “I would like to talk to you. I—I’m Margaret, Riva’s sister, your cousin Boots’s wife?”
Of course he knew. However, it paid to keep people who wanted something on the defensive, and he’d bet his ass Margaret wanted something. That was all right. Could be he wanted something, too.
“You’d better come in,” he said, and stepped back to let her cross in front of him before closing the door.
He watched her. He’d seen a lot of women step into hotel rooms, women of all kinds. This one wasn’t used to it. She was nervous but getting a thrill out of it at the same time. She was looking around the suite as if she had never been in one, which, come to think of it, she probably hadn’t. Old Boots had certainly never had the money to take his wife to anything so fancy, and she didn’t look the type to find somebody else who could.
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br /> The thought drifted through his mind of his old bet with himself that he could have all three sisters. This was the last one. He felt a stirring in his groin at the idea. He was susceptible to hotel rooms.
Margaret turned to face him. “I won’t stay long. I know you probably have appointments.”
“I usually do.”
“I just wanted to talk a minute, and I saw in the paper where your wife would be cutting the ribbon for a neonatal unit at some hospital this morning.”
“Yeah.” Old Boots’s wife must have stood around downstairs until she saw Anne leave. He got a kick out of that, thinking of her sneaking around, watching the elevator. He’d lay odds she’d gotten the same kick, as if this was some big clandestine meeting.
There was a flush on her cheeks as she looked at him, then away again. “It’s been a long time since the summer we all met.”
“Has it?” He removed farther into the room, slowly wiping the water droplets on his chest with the end of his towel.
“More than twenty-five years. I used to think you might come back to town for holidays or family reunions, but you never did.”
“That kind of thing doesn’t appeal to me.” Nothing about that town or the people who lived there appealed to him. He had made it a point never to go there again after that summer, not even on campaign, but there was no point in saying so.
She moved one shoulder in a quick gesture, her gaze on his chest and what he was doing with the towel. “I guess there’s not much to bring you since your uncle and aunt died.”
“There was never very much.”
“No, not for someone like you.”
He liked the appreciation in her voice. He’d had little enough of it lately from women. Regardless, he had a bankers’ luncheon in a little over two hours, and he hadn’t even looked at the speech his staff had written for it. Rubbing his towel over his neck, he said, “What’s on your mind?”
Crimes of Passion Page 123