Butterfly (26 page)

Highland Avenue and Beverly Canyon Road. Pretty hifalutin names, she thought, for

such a seedy district.

She watched the prostitutes, the men driving slowly by in cars, shopping.

It was a story as old as the rocks in the hills: women sold it and men bought it. Why

was it never the other way around?

BUTTERFLY

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Maybe it was because of lack of opportunity, Rachel decided. And social stigma. Girls

were brought up differently from boys. Girls were supposed to go to their marriage beds

as virgins, boys were expected to be experienced. And then for how many centuries had

girls been taught that “good” girls didn’t actively seek sex, that it was more “feminine” to

wait and be pursued. Promiscuity, it seemed to sixteen-year-old Rachel, was the jealously

guarded privilege of men. She thought of women down through the centuries, oppressed

by men. From novels she had learned that her sisters in previous generations had been

kept subjugated by constant pregnancy. Supposedly, a woman burdened with babies and

a belly had no interest in sex. And therefore would not “stray.”

But what if, Rachel found herself wondering now, women could be as free as men to

enjoy sex? What if the fear of pregnancy was removed? Would they become sexual aggres-

sors? Would they go out and seek it? And if men had it for sale, would women buy it?

Rachel noticed that there were young male prostitutes on the street as well, but they,

too, she knew, were for the men.

She turned and looked up at the sign over the window of an unremarkable little diner.

TONY’S ROYAL BURGERS, it said in rather grandiose characters. She looked inside. Three

people sat at the counter. The booths were empty.

There wasn’t a hope, she knew, that they would hire her—they didn’t even look as if

they could afford to pay their electric bill—but she had to keep trying, keep going.
Danny

Mackay, Danny Mackay…

There was a tired-looking blonde at the cash register, filing her nails. She didn’t look

up when Rachel said, “I’d like to see the owner, please.”

A jerked thumb in the direction of what was probably the kitchen sent Rachel walking

down the length of the little diner. This time she wouldn’t lie about her age, Rachel

decided, feeling as tired as the blonde. Lying didn’t seem to pay.

She pushed through the door into the tiniest kitchen she had ever seen. A short, bald-

ing man in a greasy white apron stood at a table making hamburger patties. Rachel

cleared her throat. He looked up. “Yeah? Whaddya want?”

“Are you Tony?”

“Naw. Tony died four years ago. I couldn’t afford to have the sign repainted. What can

I do for you?”

“I need a job.”

He looked at her. The simplicity of her words, the way she had spoken them, made

him put down the hamburger meat and wipe his hands on his apron. “What kind of job?”

“Anything.”

“You ever done waitressing?”

“No.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

He looked her up and down. God, but she was skinny. And those clothes! The

Salvation Army would reject them. Pathetic little kid. “Where do you live, honey?”

“At the Wheel-in Motel.”

He made a face. “That rat bag. Hey, it’s two miles from here. You walk it?”

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Kathryn Harvey

She held up one of her feet. There was a hole filled with cardboard in the center of her

shoe.

He shook his head. “Listen, honey. You’re too young. I can’t hire you. I’d get in trou-

ble with the law. You should be in school, you know?”

“I’m hungry,” she said quietly. “And I have no money.”

“Where’s your folks?”

“I don’t have any.”

“No family at all?”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrows. Fleetingly, a vision of the girls in the street went through his

mind. How many similar stories were out there?

“You can’t work the front,” he said thoughtfully. “Cops come in here at lunchtime.

Can you do dishes?”

“Yes,” she said so quickly, so hopefully, that it stung his cynical heart.

“Listen, honey,” he said, coming up to her and glancing through the round window in

the door that led to the restaurant. “Me ’n’ my wife own and operate this place. That’s her

at the cash register. We don’t got but two waitresses. And I do all the cooking. But…” He

rubbed his chin. “Sometimes we get a rush on—”

“Please.”

“I’ll give you the job as long as you stay back here and keep outa trouble—”

“I promise,” she said softly.

Eddie noticed that there was a strange sort of intensity about her. She looked as if she

had never smiled. He also saw, close up, an alarmingly adult look in her eyes—it was

more than adult, it was like an aged wisdom, as if a very old and traveled soul had come

to rest in this thin young body.

“Now, the pay ain’t much,” he said slowly, marveling at his sudden fit of generosity.

Eddie hadn’t had a moment of weakness like this in twenty years of struggling to make a

go of it. “But it’ll buy you something a little cleaner than the Wheel-in. I got a sister who

runs a decent boardinghouse on Cherokee, other side of Sunset.”

“I’ll work hard for you,” she said quietly. “And I’ll never give you any trouble.”

Eddie looked into the intense brown eyes and saw something that almost frightened

him. Whatever had happened to this girl, whatever scars or nightmares held her together

so tightly, he decided he would never want to be her enemy.

“We gotta deal, then,” he said and stuck out his greasy hand. “I’m Eddie. That’s

Laverne, my wife.”

She didn’t give him her hand. She didn’t want to touch anyone. But she managed a

small smile and said, “Hello, Eddie.”

“What’s your name, kid?”

She started to say “Rachel Dwyer,” but stopped herself. Tonight she was starting on a

new road to a new life. It called for a new name. Suddenly, the two street signs on the cor-

ner outside sprang into her mind. “Beverly,” she said. “My name is Beverly Highland…”

15

Although a darkness darker than night surrounded her, Alexis knew where she was.

In a bedroom. In Butterfly.

And she was in bed, lying naked between cool satin sheets. They felt like water on her

bare skin, as if she were floating in a pool of delicious sensation; they were creamy and

silky, like solid opalescence. She thought of mother-of-pearl. If she turned on the light,

she knew what color the sheets would be: a liquid green shimmering into shades of aqua-

marine, with oily illusions of rose and violet, changing with each movement of her body.

And there was a faint perfume in the air—the fragrance of freshly cut gardenias. She

pictured the white blossoms that drifted in water in a silver bowl across the room, delicate

and white-petaled, like softened stars in the black night. Their aroma swirled around her

and filled her lungs, making her feel giddy and light-headed as if she were inhaling some

exotic forbidden opium.

And there was a kind of perfume in her ears as well, the soft notes of a harp, barely

heard, coming from hidden speakers but sounding as if clouds had produced it.

She felt languid, carefree. Timeless.

When someone entered the bedroom, she sensed it only. No light spilled in as the

door opened briefly and then closed. Whoever was invading her banquet of sensations

had stepped from darkness to darkness. She sensed the presence of the intruder in the

room. The perfumed air seemed slightly displaced. She thought she heard the kiss of bare

feet on the plush carpet. And then she felt the invading presence come near to the bed

and stand over her, softly breathing.

She knew who it was. It was
he.

She lay perfectly still. Her heart speeded its rhythm; her flesh shivered as her senses

became suddenly heightened. She could almost smell him. The scent reminded her of

almonds.

When the sheet was drawn slowly away from her body, she closed her eyes. She felt

cool air whisper across her naked breasts. And then a hand, warm and tentative, fluttered

over her skin, like a butterfly exploring a flower. He felt her breasts, touched her nipples,

made her moan.

He sat on the bed. She felt his nearness. His hands slid up behind her back as he

brought his mouth down on her breasts. He made exquisite love to her there, for what

seemed an eternity, until she drove her fingers into his hair and brought his face up to

hers.

His kiss made her dizzy.

He was bearded. It excited her all the more.

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Kathryn Harvey

God, could he kiss.

She wanted to stay there forever, feasting on his mouth, his tongue, but when he laid

his firm body alongside hers, then she wanted other things, urgent things. She took his

erection into her hands. His breathing grew rapid. She moved on the bed, gliding on the

satin as if swimming, changing direction. And she feasted on him down there as well,

while he continued his delicious kisses on her belly and inside her thighs.

Suddenly he drew back and pulled her up to him. They kissed sitting up, face-to-face

in the darkness, his one hand twisted into her hair, the other feeling her breast. She still

had hold of him, but gently now, so as not to bring him to completion too soon. She let

him withhold himself so that their lovemaking could go on and on.

He gently turned her over onto her stomach and lay on top of her, entering her that

way, slowly, agonizingly slowly, with his hands up under her breasts.

She came almost immediately.

Then he turned her onto her back and began kissing her anew. She wrapped her arms

around his neck and clung to him. He coaxed her legs apart and teased her with his fin-

gers, exploring. She didn’t speak—they never spoke; but she told him with her body what

she wanted. She put her hand over his and guided his finger inside her. He was kissing her

almost into madness, holding her so tightly to his hard, sweating body that she could

barely breathe.

And then he took his hand away, lay on top of her, and was inside her again, vigor-

ously this time. She clutched the sheets at her sides. She arched her neck, pressed her head

back into the pillow. He was so hard….

When she came a second time her heart felt as if it had almost stopped.

And then he withdrew from her, took his chest away from her breast, and, for a

moment, she floated all alone in space. But then he had hold of her again, his strong

hands on her thighs while he resumed his kissing, his exploration with his tongue. She

curled her legs around his neck and felt herself drown in a sea of hot sensation.

She shuddered and cried out.

Then she reached for him and took command. No more holding back, her body said

to him. Do it now, hard, quickly,
quickly…
.

But even then, when it was for him, he didn’t forget her. As his body rocked in the

ancient rhythm, he brought his hand down and touched the small place that, for now,

was her core. His finger moved in cadence with his body, until he finally came, and she

came with him, at the same time.

When Alexis awoke a little while later, he was gone, the smell of him in the sheets, the

lingering warmth and dampness of his lovemaking the only evidence that he had been

there at all.

16

San Antonio, Texas: 1955