Case of Lucy Bending (14 page)

⁴⁴
Close your eyes," she said.
⁴⁴
Don't open them. Okay?"

He shut his eyes. He lay slackly, arms at his sides.

Her fingertips touched his brow, stroking. Traced his face, pressed tenderly against his closed eyes. His jawline. Beneath his chin. A light touch. A butterfly touch. Behind his ears. His neck.

He heard a slight creak of the bedsprings. Then a wet, warm tongue was in his ear, squirming. He clenched his fists to keep from moving. Cat's teeth bit gently at the lobe, lips sucked greedily.

Cool fingers drifted down over shoulders and chest, tugging gently at his thick hair. Cool fingers fluttered across his stomach, pried into his navel. Cool fingers caressed his hips, slithered down to his heavy thighs.

And all so slowly, slowly and lovingly, that he thought it a dream, and he was really asleep. He willed the dream to last forever.

Lips and a loving tongue followed the fingers, and he felt himself begin to harden and lift. A soft hand was between his legs, a hot mouth was about him, wet and sleek.

He kept his eyes resolutely closed. He felt the heat withdrawn, momentarily, as hair as light as feathers swept back and forth over his face, nipples, torso, groin, legs. He felt himself straining up into the air.

Then the seeking mouth was back, tongue busy. He didn't touch her. Never once did he touch her. He heard her gasps, heard his own stertorous breathing. He felt the speeding rhythm of his own heart, felt the deep demand grow and grow and grow.

She was so slow, so deliberate. It was a sweet punishment not to be endured. And when he could no longer endure it, and spurted, she devoured him, gulping noisily, sobbing, wailing, and he could not believe this was a whore's feigned passion. Then:

"I swallowed every drop!" she cried triumphantly.

Later, moving as if drugged, they washed again. They dressed slowly without speaking, but smiling timidly at each other.

When they were back in the white Cadillac, he asked where he could drop her.

"Where we met?"

"Oh no," she said. "I'd like to go home. Please? It isn't far."

It was east of Federal, a few blocks north of Atlantic Boulevard. There was a huge supermarket and, behind it, blocks of small, neat homes, some with boats on trailers parked in the driveways. June's place had a lime tree in front and a border of dwarf palms.

"I don't have the whole house, of course," she explained. "But I have my own little apartment. Really just a sort of bed-sitting room, with my own bathroom. Best of all, I have my own entrance around at the side, so I can come and go as I please."

"What about cooking?" he asked her.

"Mostly I eat out," she said, and he figured that meant McDonald's, Burger King, Lum's, and Long John Silver.

He had parked on the verge, killed his lights. They sat in the darkness while she told him all this. She hugged his arm to her small breasts.

"Will I see you again?" she asked.

"Sure. Why not?"

"I have my own telephone," she said brightly. "Will you take my number?"

"Of course."

He searched in the glove compartment, and wrote her number on the edge of a Mobil roadmap.

"You'll call?" she said. "Please?"

"Sure."

"I want to thank you," she said primly, "for a lovely evening. I enjoyed it."

A nut, he thought again. A sweet nut. Now he was bringing her home from the prom. He rolled onto one hip, dug his wallet from the opposite pocket, fished out the third twenty of the night.

"Here," he said, thrusting the bill into her hand. "Get yourself something pretty."

"Thank you, sir," she said gaily. "I do appreciate that."

Just as his initial decision to go with her had been unthinking, so now did he bend forward suddenly to kiss her whore's lips. And what kind of an idiot did that?

"Oh!" she cried. "Oh Bill!"

Then she had her arms about his neck, was pulling his head close, her mouth glued to his. He resisted a moment, then surrendered. He held her tightly. He strained to her, tasting her soft, yielding child's mouth.

She pulled away, stared at him in the gloom. "You'll call?"

He nodded dumbly. Then she was out of the car. She shut the door gently. She bent down to look through the open window. She kissed her palm, then blew it at him. He waved. She limped slowly around to the side of the house. Then she was gone.

He drove home at two in the morning with a dull, brooding hurt, like a hound puzzling over a kick from a stranger. Those luminous eyes—he couldn't understand what had happened, was happening to him.

Nothing in his varied experience with brash creamers had prepared him for this. She might be twenty-three next month, but she was a child, a child-whore. And she was, he thought mournfully, a year younger than his oldest daughter.

A whack, no doubt of that. Something wrong there. Her gears had slipped. Not a lot, but some. She had a breathy, gee-whiz way of talking. She called him "Sir" and said, "Please." And he loved it. Why not admit it—he loved it.

Well . . . maybe not
loved
it, but it stirred him. She stirred him. She excited him. A gimp. He was hooked on a gimp. What the hell was going on?

He could understand weakness that masqueraded as strength, and take advantage of it. But here was a frank, abject vulnerability, the soft-boned pup turned belly-up, begging a caress. It made him shiver to remember that tender white back bowed before him as if she were praying, worshiping.

He shook his big head angrily. There was nothing she wouldn't do; he was convinced of that. Suck my toes, lick my ass, and all the rest. And if he brought a bunch of guys over for a round of corn-on-the-cob, she'd do that, too.

He never would, of course. Still . . .

He had never articulated the principle of money as power, though he sensed it. But now, struggling with thoughts and emotions too complex to comprehend, he glimpsed that more than money was involved here. A link of sorts had been forged. She had grabbed him by the
cojones
and wouldn't let

go-

He resolved to forget it, let it end. It was, as he had anticipated, a laugh, something different, a story to tell in the locker room of the club. A wild night. A funny memory. Let it go at that.

He had to get out of his car to open those stupid wrought-iron gates leading to his place. He saw there was a single dim light burning in a downstairs room. He parked the Cadillac in the big carport next to Teresa's black LTD. He locked up and started for the house.

Then he went back and took the Mobil roadmap from the glove compartment.

Teresa Empt and Grace Bending were both homemakers—but in different ways.

Teresa saw her home as a showplace, a brilliant stage set. Having created it, brought her vision to reality, she was content to delegate the maintenance to employees. She was more curator than housewife.

To Grace, her home was an environment, castle of the family, school for her three children. It was a sanctuary. Almost a church. Domestic chores were a comforting duty. There was an element of expiation she did not recognize.

Early in October, Grace and a maid hired by the hour from a temporary employment service went through the Bending home like a typhoon. Broom and mop, vacuum and dusting cloths, soap and cleansers, waxes, polishes, disinfectants, and room deodorizers.

When they finished shortly before 2:00
P.M
., the house shone, freshly linened, smelling like an apple orchard. Grace showered, changed her underclothing, donned a newly laundered white polyester pantsuit. She sat down to relax for an hour. Then it would be necessary to fetch Harry and Lucy from school. Wayne would get out later and take the school bus.

The Bending home was neither as luxurious as the Empts' nor as flamboyant as the Holloways', but Grace believed it to be decorated in better taste than both. It was—well . . . more traditional perhaps, but it was quiet, dignified, and everything matched.

For instance, the couch on which she sat was covered with a toile de Jouy print on an off-white muslin. The same fabric covered an armchair and was used in the long drapes at the picture window and glass doors to the terrace.

The remainder of the living room was vaguely 18th century

French, with touches of gilt, cherubima and floral reproductions everywhere. Even the television set was in a white cabinet that Grace had decoupaged herself with vines, cabbage roses, and butterflies.

Sitting quietly in this artificial conservatory, blond hair tied back with a pert bow of blue yarn, Grace Bending welcomed the moment of silent reflection when she might ponder her children's problems and her problems with her husband.

She was convinced that Ronald didn't have any problems; he rode the crests like a triumphant surfer.

When the front doorbell rang, she made a small moue of discontent. Not because of the interruption of her gloom, but because of the chimes themselves. They sounded "Shave and a haircut, two-bits." Ronald had insisted on installing that vulgar signal.

Looking through the judas of the oak door, she saw a completely bald, giant colored man, light-colored, no more than beige, but undeniably Negro, standing straight, sparkling cordovan attache case at his feet. He wore a suit of black alpaca that shone in the sun, clean white shirt, black tie narrow as a ribbon.

She opened the door to the length of the restraining chain.

"Yes?"

"Ma'am," he said, the voice a deep, thrilling diapason, "I surely do apologize for disturbing you. I would like to speak to you regarding the health and well-being of you and your loved ones."

"About what?" she asked suspiciously, talking through the gap in the chained door.

"Vitamins," the giant said, showing a mouthful of thirty-two white teeth. "Food supplements. The road to regenerative good health, to a happier and, yes, a more rewarding life."

"Sorry," she said. "We already take vitamins. All of us. All we need."

"No, ma'am," he said gently. "Not all you need. Are you totally aware of the demands of nutrition? Alfalfa pills? Soya? Folic acid? Essential additions to today's energy-deficient diet. May I have a moment of your valuable time, ma'am? Please keep the chain on your door. I wish only to leave with you a few brochures in four-color on glossy paper which you may study at your leisure."

When she didn't answer, he stooped swiftly, opened that gleaming attache case and withdrew a bundle of pamphlets which he poked through the door gap, and which she took.

"Yours to study at your leisure, ma'am," he repeated in that resonating voice. "And if they are of nominal interest, may I request you to hand them on to others? Ma'am, I represent Good Life, Incorporated, a nonprofit organization devoted to improving the eating habits, life-style, and nutritional morality, you might say, of all living Americans. To further these aims, we—"

As he rumbled on about vitamin deficiency, the impossibility of achieving a balanced diet with processed foods, and the absolute necessity for supplements to prevent frambesia, bilharzia, and the fantods, Grace observed him closely.

He was a comfortably plump man, about fifty, she guessed. He had an eggish head, a body with a pear's outline, and a belly like a sweet, round muskmelon. But despite these disconcerting resemblances, there was no denying his dignity.

He boomed the glories of alfalfa pills, and her eyes fell to the opened attache case. There, nestled amongst packets of four-color, glossy paper brochures, was a black, leatherbound volume, the cover bearing a gold cross and the legend: Holy Bible.

"What is your name?" she said sharply, interrupting his monologue.

"Osborn T. Fitch, ma'am," he said softly.

She slipped off the chain and held the door open for him.

"I am Mrs. Grace Bending," she said severely.

He bowed his bald head gravely.

In the living room, holding his unlatched attache case in both arms, he looked about with admiring eyes.

"A splendid home, Mrs. Bending," he caroled. "Just splendid. I see love everywhere."

She glowed.

He was seated, and accepted a glass of cold water, though she had offered a cola. "No dope, thank you, ma'am," he said.

He started again on the alfalfa pills, and again she interrupted him.

"Why do you carry a bible in your case, Mr. Fitch?" she demanded.

He looked at her with a small smile.

"Have you been born again?" he asked.

"No. I'm not sure what that means. I'm a churchgoer. Presbyterian. I've heard of born-again Christians, of course. But I don't know exactly . . ."

"Discovering the Lord Jesus Christ," he cried. "To re-dedicate your life to Him, and to find therein riches you have never known, dreams you have never dared, a new life of humility, happiness, and glory."

It wasn't the words so much as that plummy voice . . .

"Are you a preacher?" she said.

"Not ordained," he said humbly. "No, Mrs. Bending, I am not. I have no official position, as you might say. I do conduct a very informal, ah, group. I hesitate to use the word 'church.'"