Twilight Girl (16 page)

"It was late, baby. You see, it was late."

"That wasn't it and you know it I hate her for that. Christopher, I wish she wasn't my mother."

"Oh, now, don't go Uncle Tom on me, baby. I'm not my preachin' daddy's girl. Man, I don't expect thing number one from people."

"You're my girl," Lon said huskily. "That's all I've been thinking, all night. No matter what happens, you're my girl."

"Begins to shape up that way," Mavis said. And it was, Lon knew, the closest Mavis could come to saying "I love you."

Lon's arms circled the night-hidden loveliness beside her. Her hands found the softness under the shapeless dress, caressing the velvety body and pressing forward to kiss the cool lips with something akin to reverence. A gentleness fell over Lon's spirit, yet never in the most sensual exchange of kisses with Violet had she been stabbed with this implacable longing to have, to own, to possess. She fumbled to gain more access from the loosely draped fabric, fingers trembling. And a sudden, unfounded belligerence burned through her mind.
God help anyone who tries to stop me now.
Irritably, she said, "I want to see you. I want to touch you—all over.'' Tugging at the sack's neckline. "How do you get out of this dumb thing?"

"Too dark to see me," Mavis muttered.

"I'll be able to. I can't kiss you this way—enough of you." Shaking then, palsied with the truth of her statement. "I'm crazy, Mavis. Every time I think about you, I go crazy."

"Crazy little butch kid. Won't buy no for an answer." The quick, deprecating laughter darted upward and withered there. Mavis began a solemn ritual then, her movements slow and graceful yet efficient, until the limp dress and whatever she had worn beneath it were carefully laid across the back seat of the car.

Lon's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness now, so that she could wonder at the beauty of the exquisite breasts. Her hands followed her own fascinated gaze, cautiously tracing the delicate curve, moving shyly to become inflamed by the incredible smoothness of the thighs. "Do you want me to, Mavis? Do you really?"

Mavis slid downward on the seat until her head rested against the door—her legs curled, cramped against Lon's knees. "Nobody ask me what I want. Nobody could ever dig what I want, baby—never." Still, a sudden exultation caught Lon, hearing the subtle acceleration of Mavis's breath. It was an almost imperceptible change, expected in anyone else, but something of a miracle in the girl who would not, could not, let herself care. This was Mavis, who had steeled herself against emotion, had said love was slow death. "Mavis!" Lon cried out the name and buried her face between breasts cooled by the night air, realizing a dream that had crowded even the Island into hidden recesses of her mind.
I
love you, love you... Love me, too.
Burrowing into the unresisting flesh, her lips said it in a hundred inarticulate ways. And knew from the tremor of the lithe brown body, knew from the wordless sounds that broke the stillness, that she had touched upon a buried ember that was Mavis. An ember that had slept so long under the sand, now breathed upon and ignited, so that its dormant fire might leap high and consume them both.

* * *

"You don't have to come up hill with me," Mavis told her a long while later. "I've walked from here before."

Lon would have welcomed sleep then. But the grain of protective instinct had been magnified inside her now. "Didn't you say you were moving out? All right, I'll wait outside while you pick up your clothes. Then I'll drop you wherever you're going."

"Not much to pick up," Mavis said, though not apologetically. She was dressed once more, but the dampness had crept into the car and she shivered. "And you don't want to see Sassy again. Not when I tell her I'm cutting out for keeps."

"What will she do when you tell her?"

Mavis shrugged. And shivered again. "Hard telling."

"She might get rough," Lon ventured solemnly. "If she does, this time I'll..."

"Nobody's home up there. Any other time, Sassy would be out somewhere. Or asleep. This time... hard telling." A somberness had fallen over Mavis.

"You aren't sorry?" Lon asked. "You aren't thinking about her and wishing you hadn't let me—"

"You think about somebody like Sassy," Mavis said, ignoring the more pointed question. She seemed absorbed in exclusive musings, disturbing insights. "The way I left her— who knows?" But in an unexpected gesture of aggressive intimacy, she patted Lon's knee. "You come along, baby. You wait outside. Then, you want to drop me off, there's this cat I know over in Benedict Canyon. Blows alto. He and his chick used to ask me out They have all kinds of room. You know? And Wish can steer me to the right job, now I'm ready."

'Will I be able to see you there?"

"Wish's place? Oh, man, everybody comes and goes. In and out that pad, day or night."

Lon nodded and started the motor. Before she began the curving climb to the hilltop, there was one final satisfaction to be extracted from Mavis. "You loved me tonight. You didn't say it, but that's true, isn't it?" Mavis stared at the floorboards. "Why can't you say it? You love me."

"Don't count on anything lasting," Mavis said. Why was she so cynical and evasive?

"All right, but I'd like to hear you say it!"

"Baby, I do and somebody's going to hurt. You or me. But somebody for sure. Love your mama. Drop me off, and love her."

Disappointed, Lon gunned the motor and wound the jalopy past the scrub brush, upward to where the road was lined on either side by young date palms and masses of earth-hugging ice plant. "Maybe you'd like it better if I didn't show up at Wish's."

"Wrong, baby. But only come see me after a good while. When you're sure I've waited"—and Mavis finished her sentence in a throaty whisper—"like I waited this time. Too long."

CHAPTER 13

Lon rested her head on the steering wheel, waiting. Numb from lack of sleep, muscles aching with fatigue. Yet, she wondered, how would she ever be able to sleep with this persistent, half-conscious memory to be relished? Why relinquish even for one moment the knowledge that something dynamic and wonderful had taken possession of her life? Nothing had happened before tonight. Nothing had touched her with meaning before tonight

And then she remembered that she was waiting for Mavis and that Mavis had been inside the house for ages. Impatiently, she lifted her head to look out again at the unfamiliar and luxurious surroundings. Even with a home like this, a car like the one near the mammoth garage, and a pool like a country lake, Sassy had been unable to hold Mavis. A patronizing pity for the big blonde came over Lon then, tempering the need for revenge that still rankled behind the newborn joy.

There was a third car in the circular driveway,—a new Buick sedan, and she speculated vaguely about its owner. The glass-walled house beyond the Buick seemed deserted. How long had Mavis been in there? Lon thought of Sassy's violent temper—of her explosiveness with Betty, the way she had shaken Mavis outside the club, the manner in which she had beaten Lon to the ground.
I
shouldn't have let her go inside alone.
Propelled by some warning reflex, Lon got out of the car, cut across the closely matted dichondra ground cover, and peered into an enormous room. A rumpus room, she decided. There was no one in sight. Lon hesitated, then tried the sliding panel. It opened easily and she moved through the opening.

Faint conversational sounds drifted upward from a stairway to her left. Cautiously, acutely aware of intrusion, Lon followed the twisting, suspended steps. At the bottom, she stopped to listen. Mavis. Yes, and the other voice was Sassy's. Subdued, but Sassy's, all right And another sound—a loud, rhythmic snoring.

Lon followed the noises, sensing relief. Yet not positive yet that all was well with Mavis. Near the end of the thickly carpeted hallway, Lon caught sight of them through an open door. Mavis stuffing underclothing into a small valise, Sassy in turquoise-colored Oriental pajama tops, nothing more, sitting on the edge of a bed, watching the process without animation. The rumbling sounds came from a curled-up heap under the rumpled covers. Male sounds. An empty bottle on top of the bookcase headboard indicated that the guy was sleeping off a drunken jag. The girls, backs turned to the door, were unaware of Lon's presence.

They were speaking quietly now, and somehow the deadly calm was more frightening than the dissension she had expected—the violence she had feared.

"By the way, I saw your old boss last night, Mavis." Sassy drew the words out in a blurred, lazy intonation. "Thought you'd like to know I saw old Ruggio."

"You made your connection," Mavis said glumly. "Got yourself a whole new rig. Okay, Sassy. Okay, if that's the way it's got to be. I tried."

"I was sick. I was very sick, Mavis. I had to borrow money from Dur. I had to shoot that spoon in Ruggio's washroom."

"I had it figured you'd have to call a doctor, Sass. Figured wrong."

Sassy giggled. "Didn't think I could do it did you? Underestimated me. Well, it wasn't easy. No, it wasn't. And I wish somebody would explain to me what's happening."

"I'm buggin' out, Sass. I've packed everything. This does it."

"Oh, I know that. But give me a literal explanation." Sassy's voice rose. Drunk, Lon decided. To sound that bewildered and unnatural, Sassy had to be drunk. The bottle, the man in the bed—it added up.
Almost.

"Quiet, baby," Mavis cautioned. "You'll wake your lover-boy."

Sassy gurgled—a sound like humorless laughter. "Oh, no. No, he's way out there. We're here, you see, but Durham is way, w-a-ay out." The hushed, floating quality of Sassy's speech was disturbing. Lon stood transfixed, wishing she had waited in the car. Feeling let down, yet fascinated by the trance-like voice. "Well, we came back here and had a wild night. I think. You can't ever be sure about these things. And now you're going somewhere, but I don't actually understand any part of it. It's extremely deep." Sassy turned then, slowly. There would have been time to run, to dart up the stairway. But Lon hovered like an entranced squirrel in an automobile headlight, until she knew it was too late to escape detection—until there was nothing left but to wait until Sassy's eyes locked with hers.

Lon could only return the gaze, feel the strange eyes boring through her with neither surprise nor disapproval. In that uncertain light, the normally grayish blue eyes looked weirdly dark, as though the pupils had dilated to cover the whole eyeballs. Yet this was only an eerie illusion of the light, Lon knew. And she stood, hearing the audible thumping of her heart, waiting for Sassy to cry out her recognition, to shriek out her demand to know what Lon was doing in the house, spying.

Still Sassy said nothing, did nothing. Only stared, with apparently a faint amusement lighting those birdlike eyes, and even that could have been imagination. At last the queasy silence became unbearable and Lon turned to hurry up the curved stairway, taking two steps at a time, feeling a terror that had no relation to physical fear.

And then Lon found herself at the pool's edge, her legs quivering under her.
Why did I run?
It had been embarrassing, of course, being caught like the intruder she was, eavesdropping. But she could have made some excuse—could have asked if Mavis needed help with the luggage—could have manufactured some subterfuge, any subterfuge, rather than flee like a discovered thief.
Why did I turn and run?
Nerves, she told herself. Big night. No sleep. Nerves. And as far as Lon knew, Mavis hadn't even been aware that Lon was there. But why hadn't Sassy said anything?

Lon did not know how long she had been staring into the slate-dull water before she became aware of someone's presence. Perhaps it was a footstep that had warned her. But it seemed more like an intuitive knowledge—that instinctive feeling of being watched. Closely watched, from behind. Lon whirled around, arms jerking upward protectively. And Sassy stood there, no more than inches away. So that she could only have approached stealthily, Indian fashion, not wishing to be seen. But the attack against which Lon's clenched fists had been raised did not come. Sassy's expression was almost benign. At their first meeting, Lon had been impressed by the clean, economical lines, the strong masculinity of the other's face. Now it looked bedraggled, like the rumpled bed on which Sassy had been sitting moments before. And the eyes! The glazed, cynical, yet conversely contented eyes! On close inspection, they showed less sign of the dark pupils than when Lon had been shocked by them earlier. Sassy had to be drunk. So hung up that she hadn't bothered with pajama bottoms. Lon tensed, speechless, waiting for the towering blonde's next move.

Senselessly, Sassy droned, "Sex. Who needs it?"

She swayed closer to Lon.
Thinking she'll surprise me,
Lon warned herself.
Pretending she's forgotten about the other time. But I'll be ready—I've got to be ready!
Lon's fingers curled, clipped nails digging into her palms.

"Mavis is packing, you know. She's going somewhere with you, of course, but I wish you would make a few points clear. I keep getting this ridiculous double-talk... and I know I hate you... well, that's obvious, but you understand I haven't been well at all... this situation has an element of confusion... you understand... literally confused." The low-spoken, monotonous babble seemed to fall from Sassy's mouth like a stream of spewed vitriol. "Not that I care, but sometimes I like things explained to me—"

She's planning something... It's got to be something ugly. Ready—be ready!
And the readiness tightened up inside Lon like a third fist, her muscles taut and aching from the tenseness. Regretfully Lon remembered that she had not eaten dinner the night before, had not eaten any of Violet's party fare—had not tasted food for so many hours that maybe it accounted for the headache, the cold feeling in her stomach, the tremors of weakness.

"Now I simply want you to clarify this—!" Sassy raised her arms in a sweeping, hypnotic motion. She lurched forward. And it was all the warning Lon could wait for. She brought her cocked fist upward, smashing it hard into Sassy's midriff, hearing in the same instant the loud grunt of expelled breath. And danced aside with an agile step, prepared to avert the return blow, remembering the other girl's savage speed. But there was no return blow. Sassy only shuddered, mouth dropping open, eyelids fluttering grotesquely. Then with a long, deep groan, like a burlesqued imitation of a steamboat whistle, she folded, pitching forward into Lon's boxer-poised arms. Lon staggered under the weight, Sassy's wet, open mouth limp and heavy on her shoulder.